Child Find Activities Under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act: Recent Case Law

Although child find activities has been a fundamental requirement under IDEA for decades, school personnel occasionally fail to implement this requirement despite clear signs of academic and behavioral problems exhibited by students, potentially indicative of a disability. The purpose of this legal brief is to provide highlight recent case law regarding child find activities and to discuss practice implications. Public school officials are likely to violate IDEA provisions regarding child find activities if they overlooked clear signs of a disability and were negligent ordering testing or there was no rational justification for deciding not to evaluate. In addition, we outline practical implications for adhering to child find mandates, including ways to address common errors identified by recent case law.