Hi all. For those of you who know of my struggles with my school district over my 15 year old daughter, things are moving at a snails pace and there is no news. But now I may have to gear up for a fight over my pre-schooler. Tucker (age 4years 10 months) currently qualifies for speech and language therapy with a 1.5 deficit in articulation and a 2.8 deficit in expressive language as tested in Sept. of last year. There are no receptive language issues, in fact he test above grade level in this area. I just had his conference with his Sp Ed pre-school teacher and SLP. He has met all his goals (according to SLP) for this year and although he still has articulation issues and I still need to “interpret” for family members on a regular basis and expressive language has not been addressed the SLP is recommending that he be re_evaluated to determine his need for any services. This re-evaluation is not due for another two years. Other testing, cognative, self-help, etc. are boarderline, ie: 1.48 below the mean so he recieves no real services in these areas. I have some questions for all of you. Do I have to agree to the re-evaluation before the three year time line? If I request a full evaluation before the start of kindergarten including IQ testing, how accurate will the verbal and performance IQ scores be on a 5 year old? And What test do they usually use? I strongly believe there will be a huge gap between these two scores (older brother has a 32 point spread, lower verbal and off the scale in performance) and can I use that to insist on continued services for him? Also, I have read alot about gaps in verbal and peformance IQ’s but it always seems that it the scores reflect higher verbal and lower performance.
What LD’s shpuld I be looking at when it is switched and the performanece is so much higher than the verbal, especially when there are no receptive language issues? Any help would be muchly appreciated as this little boy hasn’t even started formal schooling and they are already going out of their way not to help him……
First, the level of qualification is easier in preschool. I’m not sure of the wording, but the gist of it is that the preschooler must be able to manipulate in his environment (rather than meeting the arbitrary discreplancy guidelines in elementary school). Not being able to express himself adequately to be understood would be a factor in how he manipulates himself in his environment.
Regarding the full scale kindergarten testing, in my State (NY) the districts require full scale testing when a child is transitioning into elementary school from a special ed preschool. I would assume that if NY does it, it must be written somewhere in the law.
Sometimes a specific LD is not apparent until a child begins to really learn academics. With my son, who was in a special ed preschool since age 2, his specific LD couldn’t be identified until the end of kdgn. To that end, until age 6, a child’s label is *child with a disability* with no need to find the exact problem, just that a problem exists