Re: Kind of off-topic but still school related

[Guest guest]

> Any suggestions would be helpful. I know I have the right to request

the testing. I'm just not sure I can trust the teacher to be honest

enough to say that there is a problem. OR I don't even know if she's

paying enough attention. had this teacher back when he was in

2nd grade. I know she's had a lot of teaching since then, but

still...... I went into the year giving her the benefit of the doubt,

but she has yet to show me any reason to not think that she isn't

seeing anything because she isn't paying attention.

Hi Melinda. There could be a lot of things wrong besides CAPD. Slow

processing speed and executive dysfunction, which most aspies have,

also have these effects, just for an example.

We had many of your problems regarding teachers wanting to take a wait

and see approach. My son with Asperger is 14 now. I don't think your

teachers are " blaming " everything on speech; I think they are hoping

the SLP can be the one to shoulder all your child's interventions.

They are trying to get out of another 504 or IEP.

And yes, you have a right to request the testing, but they don't have

to give it to you if they can come up with a reason why not. Sounds

like they have that " reason " ready. You can fight them, which will

take awhile, and maybe quite a bit of money hiring an advocate or

attorney, or you can just have the testing done yourself and present

it to them.

We had our child's evaluating done ourselves--educational,

neuropsychological, occupational therapy and speech. Our health

insurance covers all those evals except the educational, and I found a

university learning center that worked on sliding scale for that one.

I not only made sure I followed the school district's guidelines on

who is qualified to do such evals, but I used well-known, highly

regarded ones. The school accepted them without too much fuss. We

went from where you're at now with all these teachers saying my son

had something different, treating his disabilities like behaviors,

etc., to having a 504 plan fairly quickly. Now, I'm still pushing

them because the 504 is not enough, so it still isn't over.

I might add that my son didn't have serious problems in school until

the beginning of 4th grade. Problems started at that time with a

bang. Not that he didn't have problems before then, but his teachers

were flexible in their teaching style and he did fine--basically he

lucked out PK-3 in getting excellent teachers.

I wasted 2 years not knowing I needed I needed to put my requests in

writing and getting verbally blown off. Then we started our own

evaluations at the end of 5th grade, I started networking, doing

research and figured out the dx and about advocating, and he got his

first SPED eval in 6th grade (at the same time I was continuing to

scehdule our own evals). The school district personnel claimed my

son's problems were not something SPED could help with, and I decided

it was more expedient to continue to get the evaluations done

ourselves and then come back with them. Although the SPED eval did

end up in some recommendations from the school psych and diagnostician

for 504 accommodations (which the school tried to ignore).

So, I came back with our eval results at the beginning of 7th grade

and we were very shortly given a 504. It would have been very weird

and unprofessional for them to dismiss a dx from a leading children's

hospital, and they didn't. But the 504 still would never have

happened if I hadn't had my personal data together and repeatedly

spoken up against them. Like I said, I didn't think 504 would be

enough and it isn't, so I'm still pushing. They have spent the past

few weeks doing a 504 evaluation/observation to determine, yet again,

if they should be referring my son to SPED or can develop some better

accommodations within 504. My son is in 8th grade now.

I always tell people (don't know if they listen or not) to quite

messing with reluctant/clueless teachers and go talk to their boss...

Hope this helps in some way--I'm never sure. Let us all know if you

have more questions.

Ruth

[Guest guest]

I would request a full educational evaluation. Teacher subjective testing is...subjective. lol. Also, if she is not throwing chairs in class, the fact that she is struggling or experiencing problems does not probably matter as long as she gets her work done. That may be the teacher's criteria for "doing well." I would spend some time in the classroom observing as well. Take your own notes/data.

As for the teachers not admitting there is a problem, it seems like they are admitting there is a problem if they are blaming things on the speech. It must mean they do see problems. Then they attribute them all to the speech issue. Speech issues do not happen in a vacuum either. There are problems happening if she is experiencing these speech problems. The CAPD could be a cause of speech problems. I would wonder what her scores were on more specific speech tests, can she answer WH questions, etc. A good evaluation can answer these questions. Is she making progress in her speech or is she just treading water? Then maybe the standard one ST per week is not working, is not enough? Also, with her family history, it is not odd to wonder if she has an LD. So keep pushing and get that eval! Request one in writing to the director of sped. and if they say "no", be sure and get your PWN!

RoxannaYou're UniqueJust like everyone else...

( ) Kind of off-topic but still school related

Hi all,I am in need of your opinions. My daughter, , just turned 8 in Dec. She has been in speech therapy since she was 22 months. She had a minimal vocabulary and then kind of "lost" her words. But she still managed to get what she wanted because she was independent enough or didn't ask for much that wasn't already given her. I'd been through speech therapy with , so I knew enought to try and not anticipate what she wanted before she wanted it so she'd have to ask. We had to start signing a few words for her in order for us to communicate. She started to improve once she turned 3 and started speech at the local school. Her speech didn't really start to become really conversational until Kindergarten, in which she was almost 6 because of her birthdate. Then she started to really "blossom". However, she still has major problems like word order and sometimes has the wrong word for what she is trying to say. Everyone at school just thinks, "Oh, she's in speech therapy, so she'll have to work on these issues."Starting in Kindergaren, she had a hard time hearing beginning sounds. She took a much longer time mastering that. Then she took longer than the others in mastering ending sounds. But the teacher didn't see anything wrong-because she is in speech.She has struggled to "hear" consonant blends and most vowel blends. I believe she has an auditory processing disorder. Her word order in sentences are out of order a lot. When asked to repeat what is said, she sometimes uses a different word. For example, the other night I was playing with an electronic learning thing and it says, "B SAYS "buh". When I had her repeat it back to me, she'd say, "B IS 'buh'." I would randomly pick out different letters and for each one, the electronic thing would use the word says, and she would repeat it back as "is". When I got to the "K", she kept hearing J. I would still randomly pick out letters, even the J, and when I'd get to the K, she'd hear J.We are also seeing her have major difficulty with comprehending what we say/ask. She will, at least, say, "I don't get it." She has a lot of recall issues as well. I'm sure they work on the words that they have for spelling each week and we are to give her a "quiz" on them on Thursday night. Well, this past week's words included ai blends. Pain was spelled pane. Paint she spelled pant. (She is "hearing the a in pant as a long vowel and doesn't get that she needed to add the i in order to get the sound/word she was supposed to spell.)One week she added the letter o to many of the words that didn't have an o or o sound in them.I believe there is a lower IQ issue we are dealing with as well. I know that eventually she will be "labeled"- "slow". But for now, the teacher says there isn't a problem. They are "blaming" all of her issues on her speech. AND the fact that we have a large family-they think she isn't "hearing" properly because of the chaos in the house. Okay, then why does she exibit the same issues when she is one-on-one at my mom's house? There is no one else there, and she does the same.Yes, we've had her hearing checked. Several times because of her speech. What we have been seeing was really bad over the summer. I'd ask her to look for something in the kitchen and she'd go to the piano and look for it. The other night she got up at 1am, thinking she'd heard me call her for school. She got up, got dressed, went downstairs, ate her breakfast, made her snack and packed her bookbag. She finally came up and knocked on our bedroom door and asked if I'd called her. I told her I hadn't and to go back to bed. Only when she got back up at 6:30 did she tell me that she had gotten ready for school. I asked her if she wondered where I was during the time because I'm usually up when I get her up. She just had this blank expression on her face and was like, "Ummm. No." I asked her if she thought I was in the bathroom. She replied that she didn't. I asked her if she thought I was in my room getting dressed. She said she didn't. I asked her if she thought about why I wasn't downstairs with her. She said she didn't.She doesn't know how to tell time. But even if she did, she wouldn't know what it meant. (She is in 2nd grade.) I realize that's not such a big deal for a 2nd-grader, but I know that they've had a "unit" on time.The problem I am having is that the teacher doesn't feel that there is anything wrong. When we had our parent-teacher conferences (normal before the first report cards come home), we talked about the possibility of the CAPD, and she didn't know what it was. She showed me that had passed all her testing with at age appropriate scores. She did, however, score VERY poorly on vowel blends. Even when I had her IEP in Dec., the teacher said that she didn't see anything wrong.I have started leaving notes in 's journal for her spelling words to show the teacher what she is doing. didn't understand a worksheet on greater than and less than. I explained how the wider side of the symbol "eats" the larger number. Drew the alligator and everything. She couldn't tell me which was the larger number. She had no idea. When I mentioned it to the teacher, she said, "I can't believe that! We went over all that in class!!"I tried to see about having her tested BEFORE school started this fall. However, I was told that since she was not showing any signs academically, that there was no point in having her tested. She is "passing" everything in class. During the break for Christmas, we have been really wondering, from the behavior she's exhibited, how on earth they don't see anything at school, unless she has developed coping skills to deal with things. I'm very annoyed at the school for not "seeing" what is going on. I know she has to have some comprehension issues unless she is "spoon-fed" all day long.I know the speech teacher was out on maternity leave until the Friday before the break, so she hasn't seen what has been doing. So she hasn't really had time to evaluate what has been going on.I was so convinced last week that I was going to demand they test her once they got back in school, but now I'm not sure what to do.... Any suggestions would be helpful. I know I have the right to request the testing. I'm just not sure I can trust the teacher to be honest enough to say that there is a problem. OR I don't even know if she's paying enough attention. had this teacher back when he was in 2nd grade. I know she's had a lot of teaching since then, but still...... I went into the year giving her the benefit of the doubt, but she has yet to show me any reason to not think that she isn't seeing anything because she isn't paying attention.Help....???-Melinda

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