Discussion Brief | July 2026

LDAO.ca | © 2026

1. Purpose and Scope of the Brief

This discussion brief has been prepared by the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario (LDAO) to support continued exploration of learning disability identification, psychoeducational/psychological assessment access, and support pathways in Ontario. It is grounded in exploratory conversations with a small group of individuals bringing experience in psychology, school, community, and healthcare systems, assessment, research, learning disabilities, and education, and is informed by broader concerns being surfaced through LDAO’s work with chapters, families, educators, system partners, researchers, and others across Ontario and beyond.

The purpose of the brief is to summarize the key themes, questions, and emerging considerations that have surfaced through this work. The brief is not intended to argue simply for more psychoeducational assessments. Rather, it focuses on the broader question of whether students with learning disabilities (LDs), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and related learning needs are moving through a coherent, equitable, and responsive pathway from early concern to learner understanding, instructional response, assessment when needed, and ongoing support.

This is a discussion brief, not a position paper, policy report, literature review, consensus statement, or set of formal recommendations. It is intended to provide a shared reference point for LDAO and others as conversations continue about how assessment, screening, instructional response, professional expertise, family communication, student self-understanding, and ongoing supports can be better connected within a strengthened pathway. It also recognizes that assessment, diagnosis, consultation, and support planning occur across multiple settings, including schools, community agencies, hospitals, and private practice, and that stronger shared language and more aligned strategies and services across these settings may help reduce fragmentation.

2. Why This Conversation Matters Now

Several sources of concern are now converging. Through its work with chapters, families, educators, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) representatives, researchers, and system partners, LDAO continues to hear concerns about uneven access to assessment, inconsistent identification, family navigation challenges, and variability in how supports are understood and implemented. There is also concern that students with learning disabilities may become less visible when their needs are not formally assessed, identified, documented, or reflected clearly in system data. Local Learning Disabilities Association (LDA) chapters are also reporting increasingly complex needs, with families often turning to them because of gaps in available services elsewhere.

At the same time, Ontario’s education system is in a period of significant change. Recent reforms related to early reading screening and evidence-based instruction represent important progress, but they also raise new questions about how screening information, instructional response, progress monitoring, and assessment decisions are connected over time. These questions are especially important for students in later elementary and secondary grades who may have already moved through the early years without timely identification, targeted intervention, or formal assessment. LDAO’s submission to the Auditor General identified delays in assessment and identification, gaps for older students, inconsistent Individual Education Plan (IEP) implementation, limited family engagement, and educator capacity as key challenges affecting students with LDs and ADHD.

The May 2026 Auditor General’s report on special education needs adds important system-level context. In the selected boards reviewed, the report found long wait times for psychological and speech-language assessments, inconsistent IEP implementation, incomplete Identification, Placement and Review Committee (IPRC) documentation, and inequities linked to private assessment access. In two selected boards, 34% of students waiting for specialist assessments had been waiting longer than one year, while students with privately funded assessments often received supports sooner because those assessments could be reviewed more quickly than board-provided assessments could be completed.

Equity and bias also need to remain central to this conversation. LDAO’s commissioned review, Diagnosed through Bias: Unpacking the Intersection of Race, Disability, and Inclusion in Special Education in Ontario, highlights how race, disability, neurodivergence, language, socioeconomic status, family advocacy capacity, and cultural responsiveness can shape access to assessment, identification, and supports. This reinforces the need to think carefully about who is recognized, who is missed, how needs are interpreted, and whether pathways into support are equitable, transparent, and responsive.

Taken together, these converging signals suggest that assessment wait times remain a critical concern, but they are not the whole issue. The central question is whether students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and related learning needs are being noticed, understood, assessed, documented, and supported consistently enough to protect access, equity, and student rights. Without clearer pathways and sufficient capacity, students are likely to continue waiting too long, receiving supports that are too generic or ineffective, or moving through school without the formal understanding and documentation they need. This makes the current conversation timely and important.

3. From Assessment Access to Pathway Thinking

Through the exploratory conversations, the discussion moved beyond the question of assessment access alone toward a broader consideration of the pathway students experience over time. While timely access to psychoeducational and psychological assessment remains a critical concern, the issue is not only whether a student receives an assessment. The larger question is whether there is a coherent, equitable, and responsive process that helps students move from early concern and recognition of need to learner understanding, support, assessment when needed, and ongoing planning.

This shift matters because assessment is often experienced as a delayed endpoint rather than one part of a broader support process. Students may struggle for years before formal assessment becomes available, while educators and families continue trying to understand the student’s needs and determine appropriate next steps. In a strengthened pathway, assessment would remain an important tool, but it would be better connected to earlier sources of information, including classroom observation, screening instruments and processes, instructional response, progress monitoring, consultation, and family input.

Pathway thinking also connects to tiered approaches to support. Universal Design for Learning, differentiated instruction, targeted intervention, intensive supports, consultation, and assessment should not function as separate processes. They need to be connected so that information gathered at one point in the pathway informs what happens next.

This broader frame also creates space to consider what can happen before, during, and after assessment. Early screening or an emerging concern should lead to meaningful interpretation and instructional response. Information gathered through classroom practice, intervention, and consultation should help build a clearer understanding of the learner. Where assessment is needed, it should be connected to the referral question, the student’s profile, and the decisions that need to be made. After assessment, findings should inform accommodations, interventions, IEP development, student self-understanding, family communication, and transition planning.

The purpose of this framing is not to reduce the importance of assessment or to suggest that screening can replace professional judgment. Full psychoeducational or psychological assessment remains necessary for many students, particularly where there is complexity, differential diagnosis, co-occurring needs, or a need for formal documentation. Rather, the pathway frame asks how assessment can be used at the right time, for the right purpose, and within a broader process that supports timely understanding and meaningful action.

In this sense, the conversation is not simply about increasing access to assessment, although that remains a critical concern. It is also about strengthening the connections among assessment, screening, instruction, professional expertise, family communication, student self-understanding, and ongoing support so that students are not left waiting for a single event before their needs are understood and addressed.

4. What Emerged from the Exploratory Conversations

Across the exploratory conversations, several connected themes emerged about learning disability identification, assessment access, screening, and support pathways. Taken together, these themes suggest that assessment remains essential, while the pathway before and after assessment also requires greater clarity, consistency, and coherence. The conversations also highlighted the need to think about assessment-related services more broadly, including screening, consultation, targeted or proportionate assessment, feedback and follow-up that can support learner self-understanding and inform educational planning, accommodations, intervention, and ongoing support.

Access, equity, and visibility

• Participants emphasized that assessment access is not only a matter of wait time. It is shaped by geography, local professional capacity, referral practices, family navigation, and whether alternative pathways are available.
• Where formal documentation influences access to identification, accommodations, specialized supports, transition planning, or postsecondary pathways, differences between private and publicly available assessment can create significant equity concerns.
• Students with learning disabilities may remain less visible when their needs are interpreted primarily as behaviour, lack of effort, disengagement, or general academic difficulty rather than as learning-related needs requiring targeted understanding and support.
• Gaps in formal identification and data capture can also make student needs less visible in planning, funding, research, accountability, and system-level decision-making.

Variability and fragmented pathways

• Participants described variability in how students move through the pathway from early concern to screening, instructional response, assessment referral, identification, IEP development, and ongoing support.
• The relationship between screening, instructional response, and assessment decision-making is not always clear or consistent.
• Families may receive information about concerns, supports, or accommodations without a clear understanding of what the information means, what will happen next, or whether further assessment is being considered.

Screening as important but incomplete

• Screening was identified as an important part of the pathway, particularly in the context of recent changes related to early reading screening and evidence-based instruction, and as a way to support earlier, more purposeful decision-making.
• Participants emphasized that screening alone is not enough, but that it can help inform more precise pathway decisions rather than being reduced to a decision about whether to refer for assessment. Screening data must be interpreted and connected to instruction, intervention, progress monitoring, family communication, and assessment decisions.
• Without a clear connection to next steps, screening risks becoming a separate activity rather than part of a meaningful process for understanding and supporting the learner.
• Screening data is only useful when educators and teams have the capacity to understand what the data mean and how they should inform instruction, intervention, monitoring, and referral decisions.

Building a clearer understanding of the learner

• The conversations pointed to the importance of building a richer learner profile before moving too quickly to interpretation, referral, or support decisions.
• This includes drawing on classroom observation, educator knowledge, family input, student strengths, response to instruction, and professional consultation.
• A stronger pathway would help teams understand not only what a student is struggling with, but what information is still needed to guide support and decision-making, including possible academic, attention, language, mental health, or other co-occurring factors.

Assessment within a broader pathway

• The conversations did not diminish the importance of assessment. Assessment remains essential for diagnosis, documentation, accommodations, programming, self-understanding, transition planning, and differential considerations.
• Participants raised questions about whether assessment is sometimes treated as the first meaningful point of understanding, rather than one part of a broader pathway.
• A stronger pathway would connect assessment more clearly to earlier information, referral questions, instructional needs, family concerns, and next steps for programming, accommodations, and support.

Proportionate and purposeful assessment

• Participants raised whether some assessment processes could be more proportionate, targeted, and connected to the referral question in certain cases.
• This was not framed as a move away from comprehensive assessment or professional standards.
• Comprehensive assessment remains essential where complexity, co-occurring needs, differential diagnosis, or formal documentation require it.
• At the same time, comprehensive assessment does not necessarily require a lengthy set of tests in every case; it should be guided by the referral question, information already gathered along the pathway, professional judgment, and the selection of sensitive, relevant, and culturally responsive tools and approaches.
• Any movement toward more targeted or proportionate assessment would require clear safeguards, professional judgment, and criteria for escalation.

Professional expertise earlier in the process

• Participants discussed whether professional expertise, including psychology, is too often accessed only at the end of a long waitlist, rather than being engaged earlier in the pathway.
• Consultation should be recognized as a meaningful part of the pathway, not only as a preliminary step before assessment.
• Earlier professional involvement could include consultation, interpretation of screening or progress data, support to school teams, clarification of referral questions, and decision-making about next steps.
• Other professionals may also contribute important information, including educators, special education staff, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, social workers, and others involved with the student.

Family communication and navigation

• Families need clear information throughout the pathway, including about concerns, screening results, supports being provided, assessment decisions, and possible next steps.
• A coherent pathway should not depend on families having the time, resources, language, confidence, or system knowledge to advocate successfully.
• Family communication should be understandable, culturally responsive, and connected to meaningful participation in decisions.

Student self-understanding, advocacy, and transition

• Participants identified student self-understanding, agency, and advocacy as important parts of the pathway.
• Assessment, identification, accommodations, and support planning can help students understand their learning profiles, strengths, needs, identities, and strategies for success while supporting voice, choice, agency, and self-advocacy.
• This becomes especially important during transitions between grades, schools, secondary pathways, postsecondary education, training, employment, and community life.

Time, capacity, and system realism

• Participants repeatedly returned to the realities of time and capacity as central implementation and equity issues, including teacher time, psychologist capacity, professional shortages, board resources, family capacity, and implementation demands.
• A stronger pathway cannot simply add more tasks to educators, psychologists, families, or school teams.
• Future work will need to consider what can be clarified, simplified, better sequenced, or de-implemented so that any pathway is practical enough to support real students in real schools.

5. Emerging Considerations for Further Discussion and Action

The themes above point to several areas that may warrant continued exploration, discussion, and action. These are not final recommendations or a proposed model. Rather, they identify areas of focus for continued dialogue, evidence gathering, capacity building, and system reflection about how assessment and support pathways might be better connected in practice.

Clarifying pathways from concern to support

• Strengthened pathways would need to make the steps from early concern and recognition of need through screening, instructional response, consultation, assessment when needed, support planning, and transition more visible and coherent.
• Further discussion is needed about what information should be gathered at each stage, who should be involved, how decisions should be made, and how next steps should be communicated.
• Pathway clarity should reduce inconsistent or unclear decision-making, while still allowing flexibility for local context, professional judgment, and individual student needs.
• Further work should consider how pathways connect with tiered approaches to support, including Universal Design for Learning, differentiated instruction, targeted intervention, intensive supports, consultation, and targeted or proportionate assessment approaches.

Making screening and instructional response consequential

• Screening should be connected to instruction, intervention, progress monitoring, family communication, and assessment decision-making, rather than treated as a standalone activity.
• Further exploration is needed about how screening data, classroom evidence, and response to instruction can help build learner profiles and inform decisions about whether further assessment is needed.
• Attention is also needed for students in later elementary and secondary grades who may not benefit directly from newer early screening reforms but who continue to require timely understanding and support.
• This requires not only collecting screening data, but building shared understanding of how to interpret the data and connect it to instructional and assessment decisions.

Positioning assessment as purposeful, proportionate, and professionally grounded

• Assessment remains essential for many students, particularly for diagnosis, formal documentation, accommodations, complex profiles, differential considerations, and transition planning.
• Further discussion is needed about whether some assessment processes for suspected learning disabilities could be more targeted, precise, referral-question-driven, and connected to instructional decision-making, while preserving comprehensive assessment when clinically indicated.
• Any movement toward more proportionate assessment would require clear safeguards, professional judgment, alignment with diagnostic standards, attention to human rights obligations, and clear criteria for when more comprehensive assessment is required.

Engaging professional expertise earlier in the pathway

• Psychologists and other professionals may have an important role earlier in the pathway, including through consultation and collaborative problem-solving before assessment becomes the only available next step.
• Earlier professional involvement could include consultation, interpretation of screening and progress data, clarification of referral questions, support for educators and school-based teams, and consideration of co-occurring or differential factors.
• Further exploration is needed about how professional expertise can be engaged in ways that are feasible, ethical, collaborative, and supportive of educators, families, and students.

Building educator and system capacity across the pathway

• Effective implementation would require educator and school-based team capacity to understand tiered approaches, interpret screening and progress data, and connect information to responsive supports.
• Further exploration is needed about how educators are supported to distinguish among Universal Design for Learning, differentiated instruction, targeted interventions, accommodations, specialized programming, and assessment referral.
• Professional learning and consultation should help educators and teams consider the whole learner, including strengths, interests, identities, learning preferences, and academic, attention, language, social-emotional, mental health, cultural, linguistic, and environmental factors.
• Future work should also consider how students can be supported to participate in identifying strategies, setting goals, communicating needs, and making decisions about supports and accommodations.

Embedding equity, family navigation, and student self-understanding

• A strengthened pathway must consider who is noticed, who is missed, how needs are interpreted, and how bias may shape access to assessment, identification, and supports.
• Families need clear, accessible, culturally responsive information about concerns, screening results, supports, assessment decisions, rights, and next steps.
• Students also need opportunities to understand their learning profiles, strengths, needs, accommodations, and advocacy strategies, and to participate in decisions that affect their learning and support, particularly as they move through key transitions.
• Equity should not be treated as an additional consideration after pathways are designed. It needs to be built into how students are understood, how decisions are made, and how supports are communicated and sustained.

A cross-cutting issue across these considerations is capacity. Any future pathway work must be realistic within the time, staffing, professional, and implementation pressures facing schools and boards. Capacity is not only an implementation issue; it is an equity issue. Without sufficient capacity, even well-designed pathways may increase expectations without improving access, consistency, or support. This includes capacity not only at the classroom level, but also among school, board, and system leaders who are responsible for interpreting data, allocating resources, supporting implementation, and sustaining consistent pathways. Future work should therefore consider not only what might need to be added, but also what could be clarified, simplified, better sequenced, or de-implemented.

6. Research and Evidence Informing the Brief

This brief is grounded primarily in exploratory conversations and LDAO’s broader work with LDA chapters, families, educators, researchers, system partners, and others across Ontario. Research and system evidence are used to situate the discussion, support the emerging themes, and provide guardrails for further exploration. This section is not intended as a literature review.

Several sources are especially relevant. Ontario-based work on learning disability assessment and diagnosis provides important context for the professional standards, diagnostic considerations, and areas of debate that continue to shape practice. Williams et al. (2022) describe a cross-sectoral Ontario psychology process that addressed criteria for LD diagnosis, assessment steps, early assessment, cognitive and academic considerations, culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and the importance of recommendations that inform realistic supports and interventions. This work also underscores the importance of addressing recurring practice questions and misconceptions about LD diagnosis, assessment timing, culturally and linguistically responsive assessment, and the relationship between assessment findings, recommendations, and supports.

Emerging context-specific work on tiered neuropsychological service pathways also offers a useful point of reference, while requiring careful interpretation. Williams et al. (2025) describe a feasibility pilot, developed in a neonatal neuropsychology follow-up context, that illustrates how screening, consultation, caregiver input, and professional judgment can be organized into a structured pathway for determining when more intensive assessment is needed. It is not a school-based LD identification model, but it is relevant to broader thinking about precision, efficiency, consultation, and assessment pathways.

Equity-focused evidence is also central. LDAO’s commissioned review, Diagnosed through Bias, highlights how race, disability, neurodivergence, socioeconomic status, family advocacy capacity, cultural responsiveness, and systemic bias can shape access to assessment, identification, and supports (Eizadirad & Sider, 2025). This reinforces the need for any strengthened pathway to include safeguards against bias, under-identification, misidentification, and inequitable access to support.

System-level evidence further reinforces the importance of this discussion. LDAO’s submission to the Auditor General identified persistent concerns related to delays in assessment and identification, inconsistent IEP implementation, gaps for older students, limited family engagement, educator capacity, transition planning, and uneven access to supports (LDAO, 2025). The Auditor General’s 2026 report on special education needs adds further context, including findings related to specialist assessment wait times, inequities linked to private assessment access, IEP quality and implementation, IPRC documentation, and system oversight (Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, 2026).

Taken together, these sources support the central framing of the brief: the issue is not assessment access alone, although that remains a critical concern. It is also about how assessment, screening, instructional response, professional expertise, family communication, student self-understanding, and ongoing support are connected within a coherent, equitable, and practical pathway.

7. Questions for Further Discussion and Possible Next Steps

The themes and considerations in this brief suggest several questions for continued discussion and potential action. These questions are intended to support further exploration rather than prescribe a particular model or set of recommendations. They are also intended to help identify where greater clarity, capacity, evidence, collaboration, or safeguards may be needed before any future pathway work is advanced.

Questions for further discussion

• What would a coherent, consultative pathway from early concern to support look like for students with suspected or identified learning disabilities, ADHD, and related learning needs?
• How can screening, classroom observation, progress monitoring, instructional response, and family input be used more consistently to build a clearer understanding of the learner?
• What should happen while students are waiting for psychoeducational or psychological assessment, and how can supports be strengthened during that period?
• When is a comprehensive assessment clearly needed, and when might a more targeted or proportionate assessment process appropriately answer the referral question?
• What safeguards are needed to ensure that any strengthened pathway protects diagnostic rigor, professional judgment, student rights, and equity?
• How can psychologists and other professionals be engaged earlier in the pathway in ways that are feasible, ethical, and useful to school teams, students, and families?
• How can families receive clearer, more accessible information about concerns, screening results, supports, assessment decisions, rights, and next steps?
• How can students be supported to understand their learning profiles, develop self-advocacy skills, and prepare for key transitions?
• What professional learning, consultation structures, and system supports are needed so educators and school-based teams can interpret information, understand learner profiles, implement responsive supports, and support student self-understanding and self-advocacy across the pathway?
• What would need to be clarified, simplified, better sequenced, or de-implemented so that a strengthened pathway is realistic within current system capacity?

Possible next steps

Possible next steps could include:

• continuing dialogue with psychologists, educators, researchers, school board leaders, families, students, chapters, SEAC representatives, and system partners;
• gathering examples of existing or emerging pathway practices across Ontario and other jurisdictions;
• identifying key decision points in the pathway where greater clarity, consistency, or guidance may be needed;
• exploring how screening, instructional response, professional consultation, assessment, family communication, and student self-understanding can be better connected;
• considering what guardrails would be required to ensure that any future pathway work supports equity, protects student rights, and maintains professional standards;
• exploring professional learning or knowledge-mobilization opportunities with relevant professional, research, education, and community partners, focused on screening data, tiered supports, learner profiles, assessment pathways, professional consultation, educator and team capacity, and student self-understanding;
• engaging perspectives across school boards, community agencies, hospitals, private practice, and other settings where assessment, diagnosis, consultation, and support planning occur;
• identifying areas where LDAO could support knowledge mobilization, resource development, advocacy, professional learning, or broader system dialogue.

The next phase of this work should remain careful, evidence-informed, and collaborative. At the same time, the need is increasingly urgent. Without clearer pathways, stronger use of available information, and sufficient professional and system capacity, students with LDs, ADHD, and related learning needs are likely to continue experiencing delayed understanding, inconsistent support, and inequitable access to assessment and documentation. The goal is not to advance a single solution prematurely, but to continue clarifying what strengthened assessment and support pathways could look like, what risks would need to be addressed, and what conditions would be needed for meaningful and equitable implementation.

8. Acknowledgement

LDAO gratefully acknowledges the thoughtful contributions of the individuals who participated in the exploratory conversations that informed this brief. Their expertise across psychology, assessment, education, research, learning disabilities, and school, community, and healthcare systems helped strengthen the framing and identify areas for continued discussion and action.

This brief was prepared by LDAO and reflects the themes and considerations that emerged through the exploratory process.

9. Selected Sources

Eizadirad, A., & Sider, S. (2025). Diagnosed through bias: Unpacking the intersection of race, disability, and inclusion in special education in Ontario. LDAO.

Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario. (2025). Submission to the Auditor General of Ontario: Special Education Policy and Program Delivery Review.

Office of the Auditor General of Ontario. (2026). Special education needs: Performance audit.

Williams, T. S., Wiener, J., Lennox, C., & Kokai, M. (2022). Lessons learned: Achieving consensus about learning disability assessment and diagnosis. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 37(3), 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/08295735221089457

Williams, T. S., Taylor, M. M., Green, R. R., Lyon, R., Bondi, B. C., & Désiré, N. (2025). Development of a neuropsychological service pathway for school-age neonatal follow up: A feasibility pilot. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 40(8), 1511–1525. https://doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acaf061

10. About the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario (LDAO)

The Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario (LDAO) is a registered charity and trusted provincial voice that has supported individuals with learning disabilities and ADHD, along with their families, educators, and communities, for more than 60 years. LDAO provides evidence-informed resources, advocates for systemic change, and promotes equity, access, and understanding in education and beyond.

LDAO’s signature initiatives include LD@school, TA@l’école, LD@home, LD@learning, and LD@work, reflecting a commitment to supporting individuals across the lifespan, from school-age years through adulthood and employment.

Learn more at LDAO.ca