Yukon children with learning difficulties could wait up to 3 years for publicly-funded assessment: parents

Some Yukon parents are opting for costly, private psychoeducational assessments for their children who have learning difficulties instead of waiting two to three years to have the assessments done through the Department of Education.

It's a wait the executive director of a local learning disabilities centre says is far too long to determine what learning supports children need, and one that risks leaving some children behind if their families can't afford private assessments.

"The issue around psychoeducational assessments is truly about resourcing," said a parent with a child at a Whitehorse school who needed an assessment. The CBC has agreed to omit the parent's name over concerns about her employment.

"It is about this government prioritizing our children and their ability to succeed in school."  

Psychoeducational assessments are done by specially-trained psychologists who look at how a child learns, as well as any barriers to learning the child may face. The psychologist can then provide recommendations on how a child would be best supported — a first step toward creating a specialized education plan. 

Department of Education spokesperson Julie Terry told the CBC in an email that four full-time staff psychologists completed 123 assessments last year, and that the department doesn't keep a "centralized waiting list" for assessments. Instead, "school psychologists work with school based teams to coordinate assessments as soon as practicable." 

Karen Campbell, the Yukon education department's director of student services, said in an interview that assessment wait times vary case-by-case, with priority given to students with higher needs, and that the department "strive[s] to ensure that the students receive assessments in a timely manner." 

While she'd heard of parents talking about assessment wait-times, Campbell said she'd personally not heard of a two-to-three-year wait time for an assessment.

Wait 'unacceptable,' parent says

Whitehorse parent Daniel Ashley, however, told the CBC he'd faced that wait twice — once in the '90s, when he was a child and needed an assessment, and then again six years ago, when he tried to secure an assessment for his own child entering kindergarten. 

"We thought that [wait] was unacceptable," Ashley said. "From kindergarten to Grade 3, those three years are absolutely critical for a lot of different types of learning disorders and learning deficits." 

He ultimately decided to pay for a private assessment for his child, a process that still took a year and cost about $3,000 but, based on his experience as a student, was worth it. 

"I was probably a couple of grade levels behind at the time the assessments [on me] were completed," he recalled. "And then within a year, having used that information from the assessment and the right supports being put in place, I was caught up to the grade level that I was supposed to be at and was excelling." 

He said he saw the same impact for his child, too, who, with the help of an educational assistant and other specialists, has been able to stay in a classroom. 

The parent the CBC is not naming said she tried to get an assessment for her child last year following a recommendation from a pediatrician, but was also told by the school principal there would be a two-to-three-year wait if she went through the Department of Education. 

While the principal said her child might be assessed sooner if he was deemed a higher-priority case, she said she was given "no indication" of how prioritization happened. 

Like Ashley, the parent said she couldn't wait — her son was experiencing mental health issues, including suicidal ideation, due to the challenges he had at school — and opted for a private assessment instead. 

"I acknowledge my privilege," she said of being able to afford to go private. "But the reason why I think it's so important to bring forward this issue is there are so many families that cannot afford $3,000 to go and get a psychoeducational assessment. It's not fair to families." 

'First instinct' for families now is to go private

Stephanie Hammond, the executive director of the Learning Disabilities Association of Yukon (LDAY), told the CBC the association commonly gets questions from parents about getting psychoeducational assessments for their children. 

While the "first instinct" for families with means now is to seek out a private assessment, Hammond said the cost is "challenging" for many, and that the up-to-three-year wait in the public system was "absolutely not an appropriate length of time."

"What we want is for teachers and schools to be able to be really flexible and really fast-acting when it comes to identifying and then providing supports that students need," she said. 

"If a child was in medical distress … we would address it absolutely as soon as possible, so the same thing and the same level of importance should be given to helping students succeed in schools." 

Campbell, the director of student services, said that while the department is "committed to work with our partners [on] developing plans to do things better," it currently has a "robust team of professionals that respond to schools individually on what their students' needs are."

She encouraged parents facing long waits to have their children assessed "to continue to advocate with their school around supports that may be determined to be provided to their child" and to make "the school based team [aware of] where their concerns lie for their child's learning."