Plain-language guides to understanding a diagnosis your report already names, for a parent or an adult.
Seeing a diagnosis in a report can land hard. It can also be a relief, or simply confusing. This section helps you understand a diagnosis your report already names, in plain language, for both a parent reading a child’s report and an adult reading their own. It will never diagnose. Only a qualified professional can do that, after weighing the whole picture. These guides are about understanding a diagnosis you have been given, not arriving at one on your own.
What You’ll Find Here
Start with the basics, then read the guide that matches your report:
- How a Diagnosis Is Made: how an evaluator reaches a diagnosis, and what one does and does not tell you. Start here.
- ADHD: a lasting pattern of inattention, or hyperactivity and impulsivity, that affects everyday functioning.
- Autism: differences in social communication and in patterns of behavior, interests, and sensory experience, across a spectrum.
- Specific Learning Disorder in Reading: an unexpected, lasting difficulty with accurate or fluent reading, sometimes called dyslexia.
- Specific Learning Disorder in Writing: difficulty with spelling, grammar, organization, or getting ideas onto the page.
- Specific Learning Disorder in Math: difficulty with number sense, math facts, or calculation, sometimes called dyscalculia.
We are continuing to add new diagnosis guides over time.
How This Connects
A diagnosis rarely stands alone. It grows out of the scores in a report, so if those still feel like a puzzle, start with understanding your assessment scores. And a diagnosis usually points toward what comes next, the support and services that can follow, which the What’s Next? section walks through. Understanding the diagnosis is the bridge between the two.