Need help with NLD son's IEP

Your son sounds similar to so many that make improvements outside of school with well run 1:1 programs but then as a part of the school IEP process don’t get the progress they deserve.

I’d suggest getting your IEP goals updated to a very granular level. I’d also ask for proof the IEP team is actually working as a team modifing content and teaching approaches to better suit your son. Ask them for their meeting notes etc. and see if they are really doing the IEP process much service. FFW will enhance auditory processing but is very intense. The Listening Program is another less aggressive program that also might help and is cheaper and similar (no PC needed) to implement. Depending on what else your son is doing …FFW or TLP decision might be worth a closer look. My personal experience has been that auditory processing deficits influence so many cognitive processes that no remediation program(s) can get you to grade level in class performance in a public school cram and jam educational model with 20+ kids and one teacher. We did FFW..it helped some but did not solve a similar set of student problems.

I’d avoid the resource room unless they can show you data that proves they remediate and mainstream successfully. Make the school teach him in class the way he deserves (IDEA 1997) and let them measure his progress as compared to his peers so you and they can see if the IEP is progressing. Otherwise the school’s send the kid to a resource room where all chance of re-entry back to class or even back to standard curicullum are less likely to happen. Plus they kid can get grouped with EMI kids etc. that won’t enhance his situation.

The real question might be very few schools in the US can show you any data proving they get IEP’s to work…and get Spec Ed kids to grade level or even to graduation. A private school might be a better option with less friction for your son and the family. Glad he has such a focused Mom on the job. Lucky kid.

I’d do FFW and not switch schools. I think there’s a good chance FFW would help some of his problems, and it would do so on a more fundamental level than academic help. Some parents with autistic children use FFW to stimulate receptive and expressive language, and some parents who have had children go through FFW have reported unexpected gains in expressive language. FFW can help with following verbal directions too. There are never any guarantees, but I’d say the chances of FFW helping are fairly good.

Your son has a lot going for him at his current school. Even without NLD, switching schools once you have made some friends can be traumatic. With NLD, I just wouldn’t do it — at least, not for the reasons you mention. The extra stress of switching schools would interfere with any benefits he might (or might not) receive from resource room help.

I would just say no to switching schools, no matter what the classroom teachers are pushing for.

Mary

Thank you both for your suggestions. I’m glad to hear someone is on my side. This will give me more confidence to push for what I really want - staying in the regular classroom.
We’re going to do FFW this summer at the University here. The FFW people won’t let me do it at home since I’m not a teacher or SLP but that’s ok. We’re also going to do LMB’s V&V soon. They say I can do this at home. I hope I can do well enough to help my son make progress.
Do you know if there’s a limit to how much time they will let the SPED teacher or LD tutor spend with a child. Right now the LD tutor says she can only spend a max of 1 hour a day with him.Most of that is one-on-one for math. But this IEP was written before we had the NLD diagnosis. I would like for her to come in to the class some in the afternoon when they’re doing science or health or a project just to make sure he’s on track and answer any questions and help out some. IS that reasonable?
Thanks!!

That’s not only reasonable, it’s probably the best model for a reasonably bright NLD child. Many of them are very capable of learning in the general curriculum if they have someone there to pick up the pieces if they misunderstand something, and to help them keep organized.

My 5th grade NLD son gets 40 minutes of SPED help in the general classroom twice a day written into his service grid. At this grade level in our schools, the kids have two teachers, one for language arts, and the other for math, science and social studies. His SPED teacher goes to both classrooms with him, (and a couple of other children on ed plans) as does an aide. There is also a 2nd aide who is primarily responsible for one particular child who needs more intensive one-on-one time.

The children go to “specials” (art, music, Spanish, etc) with just the aide, and the SPED teacher uses this time to work one-on-one in the resource room with children who need it. My son goes to resource for an hour once a week, but has another block where they can take him to resource if he needs it.

We are having some trouble with one of the general ed teachers this year, but I think this model works well for an NLD child. They have someone with them most of the day to help them through the stuff that is so confusing and overwhelming to them.

Karen

You spoke to someone at Scientific Learning Corp? SciLearn has historically been very good about allowing a parent to train and provide FFW for a child at home. The only restriction has been that, if you don’t have a 4-year degree, you are not allowed to be a provider to children other than your own.

Also, do you mean your child will have to do all of the training at the university rather than at home? Or just that the provider will be at the university?

I don’t want to keep advising parents to train themselves in FFW if the company has changed its policy. I bought CrossTrain and trained myself for about $100 a couple of years ago.

Frankly speaking, from what I know of doing CrossTrain to become certified, the company would not know (1) whether you have a 4-year degree or not, and (2) whether you intend to provide for your own child at home. What I did was log into the company’s website as an “educator” rather than “family” (in my opinion, all good parents are educators anyway), and then order CrossTrain through their online store.

If you have the time, I’d appreciate it if you would post who you talked to and exactly what you were told. Sometimes customer service reps get it wrong. If the person was knew, they might have only known the company’s standard line and not realized they make exceptions for parents.

Mary

I definitely have the time especially with all the help and advise you’ve given to me. I did log on to Scilearn’s website and read about the program. Then I called them to ask a few questions. I asked them if I could be a provider for my son so we could do it at home. I don’t know the name of the person I talked to but she asked me if I was a teacher or a SLP. I’m not (I do have a 2 year degree) so she said they would not want me to do it. I can’t remember her exact words. But she gave me the names of other providers that do allow some offsite training at home. The University I have contacted that is a provider will want us to attend there M-F for 2 hours each day. At least it is only about 20 mins away. Maybe I should call them back and talk to someone else or just go ahead and order Crosstrain anyway?

Have you done LMB’s V&V program at home? I was planning on starting doing that at home with my son starting in a few weeks (after we get through this IEP process). Did that work out well? How long was it before you noticed improvements?

I’m not sure what would be classified as reasonably bright. On the IQ test they gave he only scored an 82. However I know he can do so much more than this says. One-on-one he does great!! It seems to me most of his problem is recpetive language and following directions and staying focused. Of course the math will always be a problem since that is a right brain function. Things have to be repeated a lot. But he is learning a lot. I feel like the teachers are looking at this score and seeing he needs extra help and don’t want to take the time.

This score was also before PACE. I know his processing has improved since we did PACE last summer. I can see when he’s doing his homework he thinks better - if that makes sense. I heard PACE is suppose to improve IQ but he won’t ahve another IQ test for about 2 more years. Anybody know anything about IQ scores?

It helps to talk to people who have been or are going through the same type of situation to get pointers of what to do.

I would call Scientific Learning again. Maybe you will get a different rep. Explain that several mothers on the internet told you that they had called and been told it was fine to become their child’s provider, and went on to do it. If the new person still says no, I’d ask when the policy changed. You can mention too that you’ve been asked to post when the policy changed and why.

Personally, if they still said no, I’d be sorely tempted to order CrossTrain anyway……

In some ways it can be easier to go through an outside provider, because your only responsibility is to drive there. However, it’s also more expensive! How much would the university charge? I have heard on-site programs charging $4,000+ for the program. Doing it at home would cost a maximum of $950 ($100 for CrossTrain and $850 for FFW) plus any equipment you might need for your computer — good quality digital sound board, good quality earphones, internet connection, etc.

I never did V&V, as my dd’s comprehension was always good. I have heard it is easy to do at home just using the book. One mother posted that she found IdeaChain (http://www.mindprime.com) a lot easier to use because of its scripted lessons. However, IdeaChain costs about $250.

Mary

My daughters school is starting FFW next week. My daughter has mild dyslexia, her main problems are with written expression, spelling and copying anything. Do you think FFW would be able to help her?

I did Cross Train with my son. I never spoke to the Fast Forward folks about it—I just ordered it. Now I do have an advanced degree but can’t recall there being anything about that on the form. I think the main knowledge you need to do it is some familiarity with computers. I am not great but I figured it out. The only advantage of going somewhere is that someone else will sit with your child. However, some places will only upload the data for you–you still have to do it at home. I had a speech and language therapist who was going to charge me $2000 to do the data management for it. I would have still had to sit with my child (and count on sitting there if they are young at all—my son was 7).

My son scored 84 on IQ tests at age 3 and 5. At age 7—after FFW, and vision therapy—he scored 99. So I do think that therapy can help a child’s IQ. Back when he was 5, the testers thought he had trouble following directions. So receptive language skills would def. impact IQ scores.

the child has auditory processing problems. Some dyslexia is caused by visual processing problems. Some children have both auditory and visual processing problems.

Also, FFW simply works on training the auditory system. It does not actually teach reading or decoding skills, so you still need to have a good decoding program as a follow-up. I always recommend Phono-Graphix (you can get the book “Reading Reflex” at most bookstores for $16) because it is inexpensive, easy to do at home, and works for almost all children.

The trouble with schools who buy licenses for FFW is that they will put *all* children with reading problems through the program — whether they have auditory processing problems or not. This is a tremendous waste of the child’s time and energy, not to mention financial resources of the school. Children should at least be screened to determine that auditory processing problems are likely. (The SCAN, done by speech and language pathologists, is a screening instrument that is pretty good at separating out auditory processing problems.)

Since the school is providing FFW and you’re not paying for it directly, I guess I would just go ahead and do it. However, you may want to follow it up with “Reading Reflex”. I would also recommend that you take your daughter for a developmental vision evaluation (see http://www.children-special-needs.org for vision information and http://www.covd.org for developmental optometrists in your area).

My own dd had severe developmental vision delays and was helped by vision therapy, PACE (a cognitive training program that developed her visual processing skills, among other things), and Phono-Graphix. We did FFW, but it had no effect because she does not have auditory processing problems (passed the SCAN twice).

Mary

My daughter is going to Scottish Rites Learning Center, she is half way through the program. She is learning decoding skills there. Also she is wearing the Irlen Lens for Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome. She has allergy problems and in the past had lots of ear infections. By what I understood , is that alot of these kids benefit from FFW. So that is why I am wondering if FFW might help her and like you said the school is footing the bill and not me. She is in 5 th grade and was tested a little over a year ago., so she was in 4 th grade at the time. Her IQ was 108. Written expression 74, oral expression 92, listening comprehension 117, reading comprehension 107, spelling 89, math reasoning 102, basic reading 92 . Does this sound like FFW might help her or is this something that might add stress to her?

I would go ahead and do it, with the history of ear infections and allergies. The worst that will happen is that your daughter will waste some time. It shouldn’t stress her overly much.

My 5th grade dd has problems with spelling and punctuation because she is dysgraphic. What we have found very helpful for spelling is Sequential Spelling by Avko (http://www.avko.org). I would not start this until after FFW, so you can tell which program is or is not helping.

For grammar we have found Easy Grammar helpful (http://www.easygrammar.com) but, because of my dd’s dysgraphia, we got tired of all the worksheets and plan to do only the oral part of Shurley grammar when we start grammar again later in the year. We have heard really good things about Shurley grammar.

For a writing program, IEW is good, and WriteShop is supposed to be great for 6th grade and up. These programs teach all of the elements of writing style as well as the mechanics of organization.

If FFW doesn’t do anything for your dd, you might want to get a developmental vision evaluation. All of my own dd’s problems — reading, spelling, grammar — have been related to vision problems rather than auditory problems.

Mary

The provider here at the University said its about $1500 for 8 weeks. It would be much more convenient doing it at home but sometimes its harder having him do things for us than it is for others. I’ll have to think about which way to go. I want to do the V&V and that has to be at home since there are no LMB centers around here or anybody else I know of who offers it here.
Thanks for all your info and help. I’ll probably have more questions about things as we move along. I’ve found this board is a great place to get help.