Abstract
Children and young adults who require special education services within schools often bring with them a complex medical history. At times, student needs are visible and apparent to all who interact with them, while other times these are harder to discern. Understanding a child’s medical diagnoses, interventions and possible negative impact on a child’s academic performance is an important component of educational assessment and support. Medical professionals often have knowledge and insight that can help make the identification of needs and development of intervention more transparent. As such, the multidisciplinary education team benefits from collaboration with a child’s medical team. This paper seeks to demonstrate the tangible impact between medical factors and school challenges, methods and areas in which to work with the medical team to complete a comprehensive evaluation, and practice guidelines for how to approach this partnership.
