Assessment for Eligibility (Child Find)

Parents of Pre-K-aged children (3-5) are encouraged to complete the CDC Child Development Checklist before requesting an assessment.

If your child is not enrolled in a Denton ISD school, please visit the Denton ISD Family Resources site. If you have questions, and your child is not in school, then please email specialeducation@dentonisd.org.

To request a special education assessment, please fill out the referral form below.

Parent Request for Special Education Assessment

If your child is already enrolled in a Denton ISD campus, please speak with the campus administrator.

Students who may have a visual or auditory impairment can be referred at birth. For other suspected disabilities, any student between the ages of 3 and 21 can be referred.

Often it is a parent or family member, Pediatricians, preschool teachers, and family friends may also notice a possible disability.

A multi-disciplinary team of professionals conducts the evaluation.This may include an educational diagnostician, a speech/language pathologist, and a licensed specialist in school psychology. The parent is part of the team as is a teacher if the student is in school.

From the time the parent signs consent for evaluation, the team has 45 school days to evaluate and complete its report. Then, within the next 30 calendar days, the team will schedule a meeting to review the evaluation and make recommendations based on their findings.

A full, individual evaluation is done to identify the following areas of disability: speech impairment, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, traumatic brain injury, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, specific learning disability, visual impairment, auditory impairment, deaf-blind, and multiple disabilities.

Denton ISD offers a free appropriate public education to all students who reside in Denton ISD boundaries. However, due to an Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) ruling in July of 2005, we cannot offer services to private school students who attend private schools outside district boundaries. 

The following links provide more information and resources for students with disabilities and their families:

Child Find Pamphlet 

Legal Framework for the Child-Centered Special Education Process

Special Education Information Center