Re: Re: New Here, need ideas

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If she is starting to struggle, definitely stand your ground and make sure she has help in place in school. She may need medication at this point, but it doesn't have to be permanent. Medication can help make the therapy effective, once some of her anxiety is reduced. But if you don't like the doctor at the children's hospital and don't feel in your heart that it is addressing your daughter's needs, keep looking.

Also, if the homework is too much for her right now, I know other people have gotten "no homework" or limited homework written into their IEPs.

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Suzanne

suzmarkwood@...

From: mimasdprofile <callis4773@...>Subject: ( ) Re: New Here, need ideas Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 7:19 AM

I think I would fight to keep the IEP and maybe get some more opinions. I think Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a good thing and fairly easy to find but I don't know much about how it works with kids. I've heard of it being used in adults. The school may have it's own definition of it and not really get what it is. How long ago did they start to discontinue certain services? It may be that she was doing so well BECAUSE of the services. I hate when they change stuff because a kid is successful. This was done to my son when we were in Texas and then when he started to have meltdowns every day they tried to blame me!Miriam>> Hi all, my name is and my daughter who is 9

has mild autism. When she was younger she struggled alot, and received PT, OT, and speech in preschool. She started elementary school w/ an IEP and was doing so much better they reduced services. She is currently in a very structured classical curriculum type school in a regular ed classroom. She gets OT consults for sensory issues, they dc'd social skills, and the speech therapist doesn't know what else to work on with her. Her grades are still ok and her test scores are great. They want to move her to a 504. These would seem like great problems to have, but we have noticed changes in the last 6 weeks. Her ability to focus is greatly diminished. She is much spacier and has to be ridden to complete self care. Homework has become a struggle w/her ability to focus at its worst being so bad she can read something out loud to me and not track enough to know what she read. She gets anxious and sad and says she can't do it. After about 45 min. its like a

switch flips and she is able to just do the work no problem. Her teacher is a saint and is currently allowing her much more movement in the classroom (doing work while standing, etc) It feels like w/ the increase in academic demands and pace she is struggling to cope. We just got back from an appointment in another state at a children's hospital behavioral unit. Previously we had a psychologist there who was very practical and really got to the heart of our daughters needs. This time, our Dr. had moved away, they lost our appointment that we drove 4 hours to attend and waited 4 months for. They found a psychologist to see her. She took our daughter in the other room and questioned her as to whether she had ever heard voices telling her to hurt herself or others. I was alarmed by this because our daughter is so suggestible and niave. She ended up diagnosing her w/ADHD and anxiety. I am struggling w/feeling like this is totally accurate. She is having

symptoms that line up w/these but a sincerely believe it because she is struggling to keep up and cope. I hate for this to go into her records if it doesn't accurately reflect what is going on w/her. They suggested Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm not sure we even have someone where we live that can do that and I question its effectiveness w/ a young child. They also want us to start medication w/her. I am hoping some of you all might have some experiences or insight to add to my thought process. Thanks so much for taking the time to read all of this.>