new article for discussion - what do you think?

I think that schools have long used the label of LD as an expedient way to label students for services, either because they didn’t have the expertise to diagnose ED(emotional disturbance), or because it was easier than admitting they couldn’t provide the comprehensive services that students with mental health issues need. I also think schools are VERY reluctant to label students as mentally retarded or as slow learners….leading many parents to think that LD services will allow students with these problems to learn at the same rate as students without intellectual challenges…I think that both of these lead to a lot of criticism of teachers, when the underlying issue is lack of a correct diagnosis and services.

There is still the misconception that any child that is a “slow learner” has emotional problems. There are children who are suffering academically, that as a result of this, are emotionally taxed as well leading to a whole set of problems that would not exist if proper intervention and remediation were taking place during the school day. Emotional state and behavior becomes an issue if these children are not helped appropriately.

I have read on the Reed Law website that being at grade level is an attainable goal (for average to above average IQ) and should be strived for when school feel that placing children in the inclusive classroom is the least restrictive environment. And I agree.

My LD child is held to the same curriculum and grade requirements as the non-disabled children. Therefore, I am expecting that we strive to get him to grade level. Otherwise, take him out of the classroom and provide him with the specialized services he actually needs to gain educational benefit. That is stated in the law. And yes, I will continue to hold these “professionals” accountable. I refuse to continue making excuses for educators who are not prepared to deal with my child.

My child did not start out with emotional problems, but that sure is where we are at because he has been labeled as LD but left to his own defenses in the inclusive classroom.

Just out of curiosity, is your child’s inclusive setting a co-teaching environment or how is your child’s special needs being met in the classroom by a special ed. teacher? I am a proponent of providing parents with a full spectrum of options for children in sped. However, I do know that my ideals are not of that with administrators. It is quite amazing how systems are either inclusive or not. I happen to teach in a system were some schools have both types and others have one or the other. Enough of my babbling,I do know that inclusive settings can be successful for some children but if they continue to struggle and there is little or no progress, than the inclusive setting is not working.

Laurie

Nor will it every be achieved. There are many syndromes that are brain based that are diagnosed off of behavior. ADHD is valid. There are many, many specialists and doctors who totally agree with the condition, as spelled out in the DSM IV. Our state legislatures have no business telling schools whether or not they can discuss ADHD as a POSSIBILITY. Indeed, there are professionals like Russell Barkley and many more who tell us it is UNDERDIAGNOSED. Having ADHD and having parents who refuse to consider it as a possibility can condemn a child to a living you know what, almost. It is one of the worst things I have seen. It is so much easier to deal with the issue, recognize that ADHD is NOT the fault of the child or the parent and that it IS caused by chemical imbalances in the brain that can often be corrected, sometimes through nutritional supplements if drugs are not your cup of tea.

I have had students mislabeled LD in my program that moved in with active IEPs. Some places will place any child who struggles on an IEP as LD. They simply but together some BS and off they go. Many parents want their child to have an IEP because an IEP can provide supports and services. So, parents push us to do this.

When teachers work carefully and thoroughly at K-2 to teach reading to all students, then far fewer children may need special education. LD students still fall to the low end of the class and need remediation. It is real.

Reed Martin is NOT a teacher and he oversimplifies the meaning of an IQ. He also does not appear to understand what an LD really is. He is a lawyer andhis game is suing school districts. It is possible to conceptually grasp the grade level curriculum, but never be a strong enough reader to BE on grade level with respect to reading and writing demands on a daily basis. For this student, reading closer to grade level is a goal, steady improvement is the goal, but the student may never achieve total grade level proficiency.

Researchers can still identify remediated dyslexics when they conduct studies. They do much better than nonremediated dyslexics, but they DO NOT match the performance of the never dyslexic.

From reading this board I see two things about our district. One we are not as bad as the worst but we are certainly not doing things properly either. Here’s a couple of examples:

* Our IEP meetings are stacked on top of one another. There are four days to pick from and each family has 1 hour. The IEPs are already written out before the meeting and any concerns I raise about goals, etc. are written down in a box for parental concerns. Many times my concerns have been written incorrectly and I have to submit a follow up letter with corrections.

* On our school report card (the testing scores) we report 11 children with IEPs in the school for grades 3-5, so I do not believe it is too much to ask for that the teachers be asked to read them given this number (unless the number is false). We have not had a teacher yet who has actually read his case study or IEP.

* Our district is inclusive with two situations (which are not optional to parents). We have two special ed teachers (we call them the case managers). One deals with children who need help in both math and reading the other just deals with those needing reading help. Our case manager removes the children from the classroom at unscheduled times during the day. This is where I’m sure the problem lies in our case. His case manager likes to pull him out during things he enjoys, computers, science, library, recess to work on papers that he has done poorly on during regular class time or if she sees them struggling with an assignment in the classroom, she takes them to her office. Basically, there is no remediation going on, there is only second chances at making the grade better, which I feel is wrong. And their method of delivery is wrong. As you can probably imagine, taking him out of the situations that he actually enjoys drives him crazy! He becomes uncooperative and gives up.

* The second option is that these two teachers float around from classroom to classroom (15 in the school) all day long, popping in and helping where needed. My son has said he gets nervous when she comes in the classroom because he’s afraid she’s going to pull him out if she sees him struggling.

They have talked about co-teaching for the coming year, but their plan is as “half-baked” as their inclusion plan. It is basically the same thing, these two teachers moving from class to class throughout the day. There will be no full-time co-teacher within the classroom. They say that would be too expensive because our school board has decided that it is best to evenly distribute children of all abilities throughout the classrooms (except for the gifted who get to stay in clusters). Therefore, there is no one classroom that would require a full-time special ed co-teacher because the LD children have been scattered in the classrooms.

I have asked for exactly what I thought would work with my son. They said they don’t do it that way.
So we battle on, unfortunately.

Something about this really smells. I can’t put my finger on it, but it reeks of politicians seeking to undefund education budgets (again). The oversimplifications are astonishing — “well, by golly, let’s just teach these kids to read instead!” Oh, brilliant. Using phrases like “needlessly drugging children”, and bringing the likes of the two angry Columbine teenagers are sophomoric and obvious scare tactics. As a parent of an honest-to-goodness child with LDs, I don’t care what his label is, I just want him to learn what he needs to know. If it’s in special ed., fine. I’ll worry about his mental health from the “stigma”, thanks very much, but I don’t need a politician to make this blanket assessment for me or assume some false pose of concern. It makes me furious to hear learning disabilities described as a fictitious mental health disorder. The CCRH is undoubtedly a thinktank with a private agenda.

ADHD diagnosis is a gamble. There is no scientific way to determine whether it actually exists or not. Deciding to medicate based on a compilation of survey results is risky. Attention problems and all of the other symptoms related to ADHD can result from LDs as I’m sure you are aware.

I hope I am misunderstanding your post. I’m taking it as you believe that if more parents chose to admit to their child’s “ADHD” and medicate them, special education would not be having the problems it is currently experiencing?

I think we should take the approach of physicians, “do no harm” and start with the least invasion treatment first. I think creating an IEP for a questionable ADHD child is far less invasive than experiment with medication which is what you do with an ADHD child: EXPERIMENT! whether it be supplements or medication. Why would you do that to a child if there is no way to CONFIRM that a child has this problem. I’m not understanding how you can make that judgement as an educator other than it makes your job easier if a child is medicated.

Most importantly, medicating only helps the problem for a limited amount of time. It is a controlling device. Once the meds wear off, the problems are still there. Why not take the approach of teaching this child how to deal with a life-long condition without relying on medication. It may make the day harder for you but the child will benefit from your patience and diligence in the end.

I have to say something in defense of medicine for adhd kids. I have two kids that are add/in and adhd. They both take medicine during school. My hyper guy might be able to function(but not excell, he is currently an honor roll student) in school without medicine but I know for a fact that my oldest would not make it at all. He was diagnosed in 1st grade, not because he was a behavior problem but because he had an attention problem and was having a great difficulty learning to read. I contend that it was El Paso schools reading program that contributed to his reading difficulty.

Neither of my kids has ever been a behavior problem for any adult, and only the normal sibling bickering for mom. I get my hackles up when folks say stuff about ‘experimenting’ with my kids and that it is only so teachers can ‘control’ them. My guys never needed ‘controlling’. They needed something to help so that they could pay attention to their academics. Their medicine helps with that.
It isn’t for me, it isn’t for teachers, it is strictly for them. As far as long term, my oldest has been on some form of ritalin since 1st grade, he is going into 8th. He also has reaped the benefits of sp.ed (ohi) since 5th grade and has finally taken a standardized test and passed most of it instead of scoring in single digits, well below average. This while being included in all reg. classes since 6th. He made honor roll several times in 6th and 7th grades. Something I couldn’t have imagined happening when he was a non reader in 2nd grade.

The literature says take a multimodal approach, medical mgt., meds, and appropriate instruction/accommodations. We do all that. It works.

As for the article itself, I do think it sounds like folks trying to push kids like my older son back into the crack he was in up to 2nd grade. We need to fill in the cracks so no other kids fall in them, not open them wider! The things I read worry me, like the subject of another article I read which was whether or not to include adhd as ohi under the reauthorization of IDEA. This is just one example of a crack that could be reopened after it had been filled for some time.

Studies and research have shown that medicating a child with ADD/ADHD is helpful but it needs to be used in conjunction with behavior modification. Medication alone with not help with all the symptoms of ADD/ADHD. But then again this is another subject that everyone agrees to disagree. There is no one solution to this problem. However, it is interesting to note that in the article it states that the medication that Harris was on was not effective and eventually taken off the market. Couldn’t something be said for that?

I suppose given the situation that CO was placed in as a result of the Columbine massacre, it would only be inevitable that fingers would be pointed in every direction. It is a shame that CO would take the stand that they are taking based on one incident. However, I am in agreement that schools should not be diagnosising and recommending meds for students.

And the saga continues……

Laurie

Thank you for responding to my “nosey” questions. I am currently in graduate school and have been studying inclusion and other various options for placement. I don’t know what type of geographic area that you come from, however, I teach in a rural area and am pretty insulated from how other school systems work within sped.

Laurie

Nope, you pretty much read me right. Russell Barkley has acknowledged that medication MAY be the treatment of choice for ADHD. When they come to the resource room and they receive APPROPRIATE instruction an arms length from the teacher and they still CANNOT FOCUS, it’s not because of an LD.

Sorry, ADHD is real and it is more common than you realize. Yes, a doctor should check out the child to rule out more serious conditions that may need a different approach. It is different, there is not any way to teach people to control their behavior to a SIGNIFICANT extent when the very heart of the problem is CONTROLLING ones behavior. Medication administered under a doctor’s direction makes a difference and yes, it does wear off. However, behavior modification and any other program that attempts to motivate the student to do what he or she should do also wears off when the motivator is removed.

There may also be promising nutritionally based therapies that help to balance the brain chemistry through supplements for those who don’t like drugs.

ADHD is real, it is brain-based and that beats the heck out of letting someone believe they are a bad person or a lazy person, if they understand that they have a disorder that can be treated then they can let go of the guilt and the feelings of inferiority that often go with the disorder.

But, no I do not blame the denial of parents (a common enough situation) to problems special ed. has, but to problems the child whose parents are in denial may have that can last a lifetime. I can’t tell you how many parents have made weak excuses for their children when confronted with the possibility of ADHD, excuses like I just need to be more strict. Nothing changes and a sometimes bright child continues to screw up in school and life, despite every behavior plan we can contrive at school.

Children can benefit from inclusive placements for non-core subjects or even in core subjects when the classroom teacher is able to differentiate instruction so as to provide meaningful teaching for all children in the room. As I mentioned on the reading BB, some students may not feel good about receiving instruction in the regular classroom because they are shy about others observing them. Protecting student dignity is our most important job—measurable instructional results is second.

This summer I had a class of 15 students from three grade levels (5, 6, 7) for reading skills. My top reader was at a 12th grade reading level (7th grade student) and my bottom was a pre-primer (below Kindergarten) level. There’s a meaningful instructional challenge for you.

Reed Martin is not a teacher, but his wife, if my memory serves me correctly, is a school counselor. She is part of his practice. Additionally, Pete knows his brand of dyslexia very well, I’m sure.

Speaking as both a parent of a very reading-disordered child (now adult) and also as a regular and special education teacher, I see both sides of this litigious coin. School districts have big bucks with which to petition and plead parents out of their life savings. I’ve witnessed it. Most parents are lucky to have one little attorney compared to a staff of them for the school district. The one attorney is soon buried in petitions and paperwork from big, specialist firms. The hearing process is rigged in many states to the side of the school district—they select more members of the panel than parents. If the $50-70,000 legal price tag were applied to tutoring, the child would probably learn how to read.

However, the bottom line for parents, as you know, is still—Why doesn’t my child learn to read in school? Parents become more and more frustrated with the double-talk and bush-beating they often receive. There are fine teachers who do collaborate well with parents and get results for children, however, there are many who do not.

Finally, I would like to read the study to which you refer. Could you give me authors and years? I have not run across that information.

Most respectfully,
Susan

That it was the article in the post said. I thought it was Luvox too, however, I too haven’t heard about it being taken off the market.

I totally agree with you. I feel that the committee should discuss all options relating to LRE of a child. I have no disagreement with that, however, I do feel that schools should not limit LRE to just a few options.

I am also a special education teacher and I also have a wide range of readers. I certainly understand the challenges of instructing to each child’s level and learning style.

Laurie

Well AA, you are right. I have checked some other sites and I have found that it hasn’t been taken off the market. I quess the old addage “Don’t believe everything you read.” is appropriate in this case.

Laurie

I absolutely NEVER mind giving information to teachers (or anyone) who is interested in making the environment of education a better experience. We live in what some consider an “affluent” suburb of Chicago, yet you couldn’t gauge it by our special services. We definitely cater to and reward the gifted in our district and hide the disabled. Yet we have many physically disabled who are treated quite well. It is the LD student population that our district chooses to ignore because they bring down the scores.

Please, never be shy in asking questions of parents here on the board for the good of all children. We are happy to share our experiences.

Best of luck to you, Laurie, in graduate school and with your future in education. Please continue to share your expertise and opinion with us. It is appreciated.

Thank you for understanding that most valid point. We must maintain their dignity. My son is very upset when he is singled out in the inclusive classroom for assistance. Yet his teachers feel that this is his problem and he has to “get over it, that is how we do things in our district.”

I am glad to see that this issue is a priority somewhere in the world.

As a parent, especially one whose child is forced into the inclusive classroom, I will ALWAYS strive for this to be our goal. GRADE LEVEL PERFORMANCE. His IQ says he is capable given the proper instruction and it is the “professionals” job to figure out how he will achieve this. No more excuses.

I would like to be privy to such information and sources as well.

Whether Reed Martin and Pete Wright are popular with school districts or not, they serve the parents.

If the laws (IDEA and ADA) where being observed, they would not be so popular with parents. They are a god-send to us. Let the educators debate everything they say. It won’t hold up in court. If the administrators did what was right, they would never find themselves in the pit with either of the two reputable special education lawyers or those who follow in their footsteps. This is a good sign when educators try to argue with everything they say, they are obviously a threat to them.

By the time a case gets to due process, damage has already been done, so let justice be served.

I agree that schools can no longer offer excuses; however, it takes a team to get the learning job finished. Parents must do their part to provide a consistent schedule for sleep and meals, time and place for home reading, time/place for practicing previously taught skills in math, and time/place for completing small projects, and a peaceful environment that feels safe. Many of my easiest to teach students have these things at home. Many of my most difficult to teach do not have them. As parents we, too, must belly-up and do our share. Like good teachers, there are many good parents who do these things.

There are lots of different kinds of learning problems. I don’t know how to fix all of them. Even with reading—and I’m really good at that.

It is Pete Wright whose wife is the ex-school counselor, not Reed Martin.

In response to your justice comment: Darn few can afford justice in the due process system. Most P & A’s don’t take non-inclusion cases, either.

It doesn’t take much for school districts to prove FAPE. I hope some new cases prove me wrong. Even though I don’t especially like litigation, I want children to learn.

I am sorry that you feel this way about children. I have to disagree. I am on a board of directors for an ADD/ADHD group and I can say that although we acknowledge that it is a real condition, the decision to medicate is never taken to your extreme.

I do not believe that we know enough about this condition to make such radical comments. Everything we choose to do with these children is still in the experimental stage. The choices we make for them, since they cannot have a say of their own, must be considered seriously, and parents must understand that they take the sole responsibility in such decisions.

Parents must understand that they are administering a controlled substance to their children. I am not saying it is wrong in every case, but to shame parents into experimenting with this approach when there is no scientific guarantee is completely irresponsible.

All other options must be exercised first, in my opinion.

I am just curious. No judgement. How will you wean him from this. Will he need this medication for the rest of his life in order to perform and function in a fashion that is acceptable to our society.

That is my fear. I have noticed a pattern with children reaching their peak of extremes at the age of 10, but I have never read of anyone going off the deep end as an adult that struggled through school with ADHD that was not treated with medication. Somehow our generation made it through without such assistance. The following generations (teens now) those who were easily diagnosed seem to be having great difficulty assimilating into normal society. Why is this?

My brother in law was diagnosed ADHD at the age of 9. His mother chose not to medicate him. He is a very successful broker at the Board of Trade in Chicago. Provides very well for his family though he never went to college. He is a very stable man who is happy that his mother chose not to medicate him. He has learned to adapt to his disability without chemical assistance.

Do today’s parents have a plan as to how they will deal with this in the future. If their child learns that the only way he can focus is by taking his medication, what kind of a future is that?

I am concerned but at the same time understand trying to get through the moment with the most current professional advice. How do you see your childrens future with ADHD?

Absolutely, that is the ultimate goal. But too many times we accept the excuses that the schools give us. Why are many children reasonably remediated through private tutoring, yet not through school inervention?

Supposedly, these are the professionals that we all trust our childrens education to; and I do not mean to imply that all teachers are incapable; I know this is not true.

In my experience, they tend to easily write off the learning disabled, frankly because they cost too much money and too much time needs to be invested. This is wrong. Things need to change for these kids. Accepting the school’s pacifying excuses needs to become unacceptable to parents.

Schools count on the fact that most parents do not have the time or money necessary to investigate every appropriate option for their child. Most parents just give up because they are plain worn out with by the constant battling and figure anything is better than nothing in the scheme of things.

We need to wake up and became a thorn in their side in order to make any significant overall changes. Instead it is usually only a select few who have the perseverance. Reality is strength is in numbers. If you are the “problem parent” of your district you will not make the difference alone. My experience is that when I talk to parents of special needs children in my district, they are unhappy with the quality of intervention their child is getting yet they don’t want to make waves because the sped director is “so nice.” WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THAT MATTER TO A CHILD WHO IS FAILING?

Having completed 9 years in the same building, and having spent that time in earnest reading and personal research on remediating dyslexic readers, I believe that there are a very small number of youngsters who probably won’t ever possess average, for their grade level, reading fluency and decoding skill. I do believe they will learn to read and all my students learn to read. Some achieve close to grade level, actually most do, but many continue to be much slower and more laborious than normally developing readers. This alone makes grade level reading in content areas really grueling and I am hesitant to state that any child who cannot sustain reading across pages to be reading at grade level.

I do use fluency training programs: Great Leaps and Read Naturally and I do believe that they help but do not “fix” this small group to which I refer. To be fixed I would need for the child to read on grade level at over 100 wpm on the initial reading, just what we expect our 5-6 grade readers to accomplish in general ed. I have had only a small handful of children who do achieve this.

I tend to believe, at this time, that part of the difficulty is in the identification process. At my site we are pretty strict about eligibility. We do have a remedial reading program and math program, so we have mechanisms to help children who do not qualify for special ed. To qualify under LD, our psych. expects to find a processing deficit and a discrepancy. She does not place children who are poor readers but who do not meet the eligibility requirements. Almost every child I teach demonstrates significant phonological processing deficits and a rapid naming deficit.

I have some reason to believe that not all psychologists adhere as closely to the eligibility requirements. I just taught summer school, special day class. Over half the class could decode words like any other 4-5 grade child, they were poor comprehenders and many had low average abilities. They did not have a classic LD-dyslexic profile. I also do sometimes get children who move in who are not really, in my view, truly LD, at least not dyslexic.

I also have a hypothesis, of sorts, that there is a group that has a processing deficit that starts off slowly, but that does NOT need special education. This sort of child may be characterized as having a very mild LD that can be pretty much taken care of with good first instruction. I am fortunate to teach in a school where the general ed. teachers have used programs like: Project Read, Zoo Phonics and Open Court for a number of years now. So, they receive good first instruction and come to me with skills. My hypothesis is that the children who do qualify for my program usually have multiple processing issues, and they have fewer intact processing circuits with which to compensate. These youngsters are the ones I tend to see and they must be taught every aspect of the reading, writing process with great care and much review.

My students, thus, come to me having had good first teaching and I continue to provide good teaching. They do become quite proficient by the time they leave me in 6th grade, but I am rarely comfortable that they can just proceed w/o a great deal of assistance with reading the difficult science and social studies texts, or even the novels like “Call of the Wild.” Also, my students (sorry I am bragging) are generally much stronger than many other resource students coming from other schools in the district.

I respect Pete Wright, he and his wife Pam are reasonable people. I post occasionally on their site under a different “handle.” I like to remain anonymous so that I can, if I choose to, cite a “case study” from my teaching experience and not fear I am breaching privacy.

I have far less respect for Reed Martin. His focus is a little different. One thing he does is come into an area and do his parent workshop touting full-inclusion. More than one parent of a moderately to severely mentally retarded youngster has left his workshop and marched to their school district to demand full-inclusion. We had a case here,again, just recently of a parent who was inspired by this man and in my opinion (knowing her child), her demands were unreasonable and perhaps selfish. She also cost everyone involved many, many, many hours of valuable time debating with her. She, of course, got her way. Her child will be fully-included, with a 1:1 aide and with 1:1 time from the resource teacher, the speech teacher and only God knows who else. She is getting the Rolls Royce, which we are not legally bound to give.

Finally, the blanket statements that average IQ = average grade level achievement are simply not accurate. They are not the whole picture. Processing deficits can be multiple and severe, while a child can still have average IQ.

I’ll try to end with this: a woman who posted on this board several months ago had taken her child to two of the most prominent private practitioners in this are, she named them. They both use LiPs, PACE, FastForward, etc. They both work also as advocates against local school districts. This parent stated that both of these women have told her that her child’s processing deficits are so severe, progress will be slow the gap may not be totally closed. I think it is wrong to tell parents their child can do one thing or another based upon an IQ score.

I have to disagree. I think many of these children need therapy not just good teaching. The therapy offered at the schools is so limited.

I have seen kids with severe brain injuries come back after intensive and I do mean intensive therapy (8 hours a day 5-6 days per week) There has to be a middle ground for ld kids. I realize 8 hours a day isn’t going to happen but one half hour a week just doesn’t cut it.
If good teaching (and I do mean by good teaching scientificly proven methods) is not working the child needs intensive speech, OT or even PT depending on their deficits.

I truely believe all these kids can be saved. I do believe that until there is a major overhaul of our education system to get in step with current scientific findings most will be left behind. Neural pathways can be formed if the correct methods are used intensively.

I like what you are saying here, but how is a parent to determine what is a reasonable goal for their child? I am told that I have an average child. The average child parent expects grade level performance.

I am told that my child has an average IQ (107) verbal (107) performance (106). He has closed the gap considerably in the past three years (previous full 98, VIQ 111, PIQ 84) but still has several areas where he is way below.

Our district is full inclusion, no remediation (resource help is redoing bad papers for a better grade) and no modified curriculum. His reading comprehension is at the 27%tile on WIAT. For Stanford 9’s he averages locally anywhere from the 1st to the 10th percentile in everything besides science and social studies which he scores within the 80th percentiles.

Last year for 4th grade, reading curriculum was four novels. This child cannot read 1 novel in the time it takes the rest of the class to read 4, yet he was expected to follow the same curriculum. My husband and I spent HOURS reading to him so that he could pass the quizzes and tests. Who deserves the reading grade?

5th grade promises to double the amount of reading.

I was told that even though he belongs in the mainstream classroom with no modified curriculum, I should lower my expectations for him. When I look at his scores, (as a parent with absolutely no support or guidance from the school) this makes no sense to me at all.

How can I take his scores and determine what is reasonable achievement for him. The message he is getting is that he should be able to keep up to grade level with his peers.

As far as Reed Martin goes, the examples that you cited are FINE examples that inclusion does not work for everyone ( I absoultely agree with you there) yet, that is what the law states. Least Restrictive Environment is a term that is open to wide interpretation. This may very well be another case of schools not being on the level with parents; therefore, parents have to go out and find information for themselves. And we all know that there are plenty of different opinions out there.

Parents become desperate when their children are stagnating or being overlooked, hidden or passed along. I do not know may parents who have had to go to due process, but when it finally comes to that, I comes with full force and a history.

I also know that Reed Martin encourages parents to be sure that they are ready to go this far and that there are other options to due process. He says that it is the last straw and its gonna be messy. I respect both Martin and Wright for different reasons.

I have a daughter who was unable to finish a class assignment. Homework took hours. She was considered “not significant for ADD by her evaluator. Her LMB tutor told me this child is ADD. I fought it. As I continued to see her struggling in school and being exhausted, etc., we decided to try the meds. The 1 thing I remember is them telling me if she’s ADD the difference will be like night and day. If not, there will be no change.

She began taking Concerta on Sat. Monday she went to school, copied 12 science questions of the board and answered all 12 questions. She wrote a paragraph during journaling when before all she ever wrote was the prompt. She told me, “Mom, this medicine helps my reading because it makes all the noise in the room go away”. It now takes 30 min. to do homework. She is a happier child today who is able to show her knowledge. The thought of her riding a bicycle (which is enough of a challenge) without the medicine to help her pay attention to what’s going on around her frightens me to death. The thought of her driving a car without the meds, frightens me as well.

The meds were a last resort. But we went from having a child who was struggling and slipping to one who is happier, and on top of her game. We still remediate, we don’t know if she’ll take them forever, but for now we feel we’ve done what’s best for her. Everyone makes their own decisions about what to do for their child. I would venture to say that any parent that’s on this board is making the decision, for or against, because they love their child and want to do what’s best.

AA,

Although I appreciate your response, I do not believe that it addresses the issue of; have parents thought this through? Medicating now takes care of the present issues. What are their plans for the future? I am sorry if this offends anyone, but the truth of the matter is, the younger we start these children on medication, the more likely they are to become dependent upon it, and please hear me out before passing any judgements.

There is a very legitimate reason why it is a controlled substance. A young child who takes meds to get through school becomes a young adult who needs meds to get through college. This college graduate then needs the meds to focus and perform at work. We need to be realistic here. If you condition a young child that he is successful in school by taking his medication, psychologically (even if not physically) he/she will believe that he/she is ONLY successful when they take their medication. The magic pill; if they take it they can do a good job, if they don’t, they won’t. When does it stop? I’m sorry but I find it very hard to believe that medication is the only solution. It is definitely ONE SOLUTION, and an EASY soultion; but at what cost? On top of all of this, the child has no say in the matter.

Of course it is a private decision. I am just raising the issue that there is no current concrete evidence that makes a diagnosis of ADHD solid enough for an adult to administer drugs to a child to “see” if it makes a difference in their behavior. As with ANY drug it alters the body’s chemistry and in this case it alters mood and behavior so that it is more acceptable during the school day.

I had not intended for my example of my brother in law to represent the “I did it so you can too.” The point of the matter is that years ago we were not as invasive as we are today. At my next appointment, I can walk into my doctors office and tell him that my son is really struggling in school and the teachers say he cannot focus and pay attention. He hands me the survey (2 pages of paper) and if the teachers and I score him high enough, I can most likely walk out with a prescription. That’s basically all that is necessary. But I have now made a major decision for my child without any solid clinical proof that this condition is what it presents itself as by symptoms.

I am on a board of parents and professionals who work with ADD/ADHD children and adults. I speak from experience and this is what concerns me; are parents thinking in the future or taking a trendy option. We will not know for sure until many years from now. I worry about these kids. When I fill that prescription, I have now committed him to a therapy, diagnosis and stigma at school that I cannot back up with any proof that shows medical necessity other than a piece of paper filled out by me and his teachers.

Anyone who tells me that it was their “only option” has not travelled down enough avenues. There is no arguing that it does work for the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, but that is its intent, to control behavior. I’m sorry, but that is the reality of stimulant medication. If you choose to use them, at least be honest about that. An adult making that decision for themselves is a far cry from a parent choosing this option for their child.

All I’m trying to say is, we have been led to believe that this decision is not such a big deal anymore. Just like many other things that are going on in the world today, maybe we are walking around with our eyes closed?

This is my opinion, and I am not saying I am right. I am disturbed by the justification I hear from many parents and all I ask is have you thought past the school years and long term ramifications of the decisions you are making for your child today? Please tell me you have a plan, maybe there is something I am not seeing here. That’s all, just think about it and make sure you understand the role you play in this decision.

I agree with your statement about the parental intent. It concerns me though that such a decision is based on today with no present plans for the future.

I do have to disagree with the statement of the LMB clinician though. First, ADD/ADHD is considered a medical diagnosis and an educator is in no position to diagnose nor make statements about the effects of medication. Its the same as getting medical advice from a neighbor.

Second, stimulant medication will affect anyone who takes it. If it were the magic bullet that only worked with ADD/ADHD individuals, it would certainly make diagnosing the condition more concrete. If you took it and did not have ADD/ADHD you would benefit from the stimulant as well with increased attention span, heightened alertness, etc. for the duration that the medication remained in your system. And just like every other medication, it affects everyone differently. Some experience the benefits more intensely than others given their individual body chemistry.

I am glad that your daughter is doing well and I would never pass judgement on your intent. I just ask that parents who choose medication as their option, especially those who say it is their only option, dig deeper for a plan B, just in case.

Just out of curiousity, what have you tried before meds that has not worked?

I would love to see documentation of “every behavior plan we can contrive at school.” It has been my experience that when I ask to see the paperwork that records all of these plans, it cannot be produced. Just like when they tell me they have tried all of these remediation techniques but cannot produced a log or history.

I need to see it to believe it, especially when someone tells me they have tried everything possible. That’s just not humanly possible. The fact of the matter is that they either gave up because they decided the effort was no longer worth their time or resolved themselves to a lesser of two evils.

I was so excited about the two educational initiatives in congress, a dream come true! I am just hoping that politics doesn’t get in the way. I, as I have said before, remediate my kids reading first and writing second and then go for it. If I can remediate reading in about three weeks and they give me a research paper in about 10 weeks, are these kids ‘disabled’? I don’t think so! Last year, I asked a question at a cluster meeting of the English and reading teachers. Since spelling and reading weren’t taught in the school district, (whole language reigns supreme), how are most of my students diagnosed with a reading and spelling disability. How can a person have a disability when they were never taught? You could have heard a pin drop and there were at least 100 people in the room. The head of my English department, ( chairing the meeting) had nothing to say. I will be watching these two initiatives very closely. The committee sure got things right, now let’s see what politicians come up to the plate and take the chance of not being re-elected!

Shay,

Truely amazing. Whole language reigns supreme where I live as well. Rather than let them continue on with intensive whole language (they did one on one pull out) I asked for research that supported their program. The nice man with the PHD who was in charge of curriculm did not have any. I took him out of the program and taught him myself using phonographix.

They looked at me like poor thing, she actually thinks that she can teach a child with ld to read. He reads above grade level now with excellent comprehension.

There is no research base that supports whole language. The comparison I keep coming up with is that if doctors practiced without the benefits of research you would have the bumps on your head read at your next check up,
then some leaches would be applied to your skin to treat your infection.

Thank you for doing what you do!

Linda

I think that what Anitya is saying has validity. There are some parents who have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the mention of ADHD, probably because they lack solid information. As a result, they don’t explore options that can really help their kids. I’m not just talking about meds, either, and I don’t think Anitya was. I know what I am talking about, because I was one of those parents. My resistance cost my son years of unhappiness. My son is gifted and has LDs. He started OT at age 5 and was in a self-contained class for gifted kids with LD by age 7. Despite this early and appropriate intervention, he continued to fail. He wasn’t a behavior problem. He wasn’t hyperactive. He simply couldn’t stick with anything hard or boring — and EVERYTHING was hard or boring. When it was suggested to my husband and I that he might have ADHD,we thought that was absurd and that the doctor was just selling us the flavor of the month. Nonetheless, we tried all of the non-medicine approaches, including weekly counseling, without success. Finally, we decided to have a trial of stimulants. Almost immediately we saw a huge improvement. Two years later, my son is a straight A student. He still has his LD and always will, but he is no longer in special ed. Instead, he has been accepted to a very selective school for gifted children. Medication doesn’t make my son feel any different than he ever did. He has the same personality, likes and dislikes as always. We don’t use it for mind control or as a substitute for good parenting. We don’t use it in place of strategies to help our son be organized, we use it in combination with those strategies. To shame parents into rejecting medication as an option by telling them that they are experimenting on their children and that they should only do it as a last resort is just as bad as someone trying to shame a parent into giving it to their child in the first instance. I don’t think Anitya was trying to do that though. I think she was offering some realistic comments.

ADHD is diagnosed based only on symptomology. So is multiple sclerosis. So is essential (vs. white coat) hypertension and scores of other well-accepted medical conditions. So, for that matter, is LD. Why are some diagnoses more acceptable to some people than others? I don’t know, but I wonder if posts like yours don’t discourage people from becoming educated about ADHD. You say you accept the diagnosis and that it is not “always wrong” to medicate, but then you say everything about it is experimental. That is not really so. ADHD has been consistently studied over many years. There is still a lot to learn, including the long term (meaning more than 2 years) use of stimulants and the mechanism that causes the condition. Nontheless, there is a lot of information available to parents about ADHD treatment, including approaches such as behavior modification. But, if you get parents convinced that it is a made up or usually unrelieable diagnosis, or, if not made up or unreliable, so unclear that any parent who tries to get their child treatment is making a guinea pig of him, the result is that a lot of people just won’t look any farther, even though their child might benefit from being diagnosed. JMHO.

Andrea

I don’t think you understood my post and you in fact made the knee-jerk reaction. You, too, also seem to have no plan for the future with medication. My point, plain and simple is, if you begin to condition a child to believe that he is successful when he takes his medication, there is the possibilty that he will rely on in in the future to be successful.

I’m not sure how my questions and comments could prevent anyone from making the decision to use medication. I have had to cross this road and when I began asking parents these questions, no one could answer me. All of the “we trying everything” could not be backed up, they couldn’t remember everything they tried.

I am only trying to make a logical, well-informed decision before resorting to medication. If parents who giving their child the meds and have a plan for the future for this very simple question lets hear it. Like I said before, this is only my opinion and maybe I am missing something. But the only responses I get is its working now, no one has touched the future.

I just feel that people take this too lightly these days and we are going to pay for it in the future. Just please think of the pyschology behind the magic pill theory. Has your prescribing doctor given you research info on dependence (psychological or physical), long term effects? Most likely not, because it is not available.

Like I said previously, I would never pass judgement on a parent that decides that this is what they want for their child. I just understand how easy it is to get this medication and the problems are relieved for now. And the medication is talked about like it is Tylenol.

I understand that there are all different degrees of severity with ADD/ADHD but just think about the numbers, the amount of kids who take medication for this condition. If it is truly a last resort, we have a lot of serious cases out there? All I’m asking is if parents have really thought this through past the next couple of years?

I am not convinced. Convince parents with facts, not by trying to tear me down like I do not understand. I think I’m asking reasonable questions. If I am so wrong, what are the answers? Convince me that this is the BEST OPTION for my son. I’m open to both sides.

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. I understand what you are saying and agree. We have many kids identified who do not belong in the program. They possibly just need another method, more intense instruction; more like a remedial program?

I have a basic idea of what whole language is (and I was phonics raised and rely on it constantly) but could you describe what it really is and why we moved toward it?

My kids, I believe, are getting both. But the sight words lists are unbearable. These are torture to a child with memory deficits yet they keep coming home week after week.

Linda,

I totally agree with your theory about research, great analogies!

I was considering doing the same thing with my two boys. Our sped program uses a hodge-podge of programs. They are not using the way they were designed to be used.

I was just wondering how severe your son’s reading deficits were? I’ve posted here saying that I believe my son should be reading at grade level. Been told by experts here that it is an unrealistic goal. So, I hestitate taking matters into my own hands, like you did, but I admire your initiative and would like to make a difference too without relying on them to do the right thing.

Were you hesitant as well, I’m just afraid I will make matters worse because I don’t know how to teach a dyslexic how to read (yet neither does my school district).

Any words of advice?

My son has LD. He has CAPD. I now suspect he has ADD as well.

We did Fast Forward to improve his attention. It did. We have done IM to improve attention. It did. We have done lots of other sorts of remediation—mostly Neuronet. It too has improved his attention.

There is something else going on with him. I don’t know if it is ADD. I took the forms to the pediatrician from his teachers. He is sending us to a neurologist.

I don’t know what he will say—we can’t get in until September. But I have to say that after all the talk about how easy it was to be diagnosed as ADD, that I would walk out of the pediatrician’s office with a prescription. I really thought it was just a matter of me taking the forms indicating inattentive behavior there. I was quite surprised. My son fits the clinical description of ADD extremely well.

In first grade, his teacher told us he suspected he had ADD. I thought it was just the CAPD. I felt vindicated when I was told that FFW improved his attention by his second grade teachers. In third grade, a new resource teacher started telling me about his lack of attention.

My son has serious learning issues. I honestly am to the point that if medication would help him then I think it would be a disservice to not to do it. He struggles so and it pains me so.

Beth

Beth, I understand how you feel. We have done all the intervention, we have provided LMB, and SI OT and OT through the school. We spent hours on homework. It was the pediatrician who told me that it wouldn’t help if she wasn’t ADD. I have a long term, trust relationship with this pediatrician. I believe what she tells me.

All I know is that I now have a child who is on top of her game, who is happy, productive and only takes her medicines during the school year, or when she is going to the beach, or someplace where I want to make sure she is paying strong attention. I don’t believe I am doing the wrong thing for my daughter and you can’t convince me that I am setting her up for a life of drugs. In fact, my pediatrician stated that her husband, who is a gen practictioner, has a patient who is a trial attorney. When he’s getting ready to go to trial, and has alot to read and focus on, he takes his meds. The rest of the time he doesn’t. You know what? I can live with that.

My son had trouble learning his letters in kindergarten. He was a precocious very verbal child that seemed to grasp even the most complex concepts. In K I took him to sylvan learning centers. It was horrible, we paid all this money with no results. Every day a different teacher would work with him trying to help him write his name, this went on for 2 months.

In first grade at school they put him in what is called basic skills. One teacher worked with him and another boy. Again, there was very little improvement. He could not read cat in the middle of first grade. Again I had placed my child’s fate in the hands of the “experts” and again this very bright boy was failing. A slot opened up in a program called reading recovery. It was really the same thing the basic skills teacher was doing except that it was one on one. I didn’t understand how more of the same was going to help when it didn’t help the first time. It was then I realized this is something they were not capable of doing.
I read about phonographix actually just found it in the local barnes and noble. I decided that what the authors said made alot of sense. I realized that I was the only one who could help my child. My son’s first grade teacher encouraged me to take the lead in teaching him to read.
We did it intensively for about 3 months. He immediately got it and developed the ability to sound out words. At first he read slow sounding out each word but one year later he passed many in his class and now reads very well.
Just buy the book reading reflex and do it. It isn’t hard and you can’t do worse than the whole language crowd. You might even have to unteach him certain things that they taught.
Some parents can’t teach their children. My husband is a wonderful dad but he couldn’t do what I do without many melt downs from my son. So don’t feel bad if you try and it doesn’t work. Just give it a shot. At least you will know you did all you can.

Sight words are whole language. They also just used to have my son read getting him to look at the pictures with a whole lot of guessing what the text said. There was some phonics in the program but it was more guessing strategies and memorizing words and working on lists of words with similar endings sat cat bat etc.

We did all the intervention, but she still could not pay attention in class enough to get a sheet of paper finished. She spent every afternoon standing on the fence at recess b/c she couldn’t finish her work. SHe cried, b/c she never got to play at school and all for something that she could not control. We spent hours at night trying to get homework done. We spent 2 years like this.

All I know is that after meds she is able to finish work, play with friends at recess, spend a reasonable amount of time on homework. She can actually show her knowledge. Her handwriting itself improved dramatically. To see the smile on her face when she is able to hand in a class assignment. My daughter has severe specific LDs in all areas. She has SI problems, Motor planning problems, fine and gross motor problems and auditory and visual processing delays. She has a gifted IQ. All I know is that she is a happy and successful student and I won’t apologize for giving her this opportunity. I’m not asking you to agree with me, and I’m not asking you to medicate your child.

I don’t know what we’ll do in the future. I’ve had friends whose children, at puberty, no longer required the meds. I’ll take it one day at a time and make decisions, with her best interests in mind.

There are some words that must be memorized as whole words because they don’t follow phonemic rules: of, for example. There are about 200 of them. I haven’t counted exactly because the program I use to teach reading for dyslexics has them for me in groups. I should count them one day…

The last time I looked at the research, medication sales for ADHD has gone up 65% in the last 5 years. Also, concerning brain research, we know the region of the brain that is affected by lack of phonemic awareness, the temporal/parietal area; the area that doctors say that they think is affected by ADHD, the frontal lobe, executive functioning. Eighty-five percent of the kids diagnosed with ADHD also have a reading disability. It is just too much for me to believe that there are that many kids that have soooo much wrong with their nerve cells in the brain. Teach the kids how to read and maybe you will see the ADHD symptoms disappear. Also, when you used to talk about ADHD, everyone talked about focusing and organization, but now oppositional defiance disorder is added to the mix. Why? I have had many kids that had ADHD who were on meds, in my self-contained and was doing poorly in academics and behavior. What ever happened to behavior management classes and structure in the home? I believe that ADHD exists but not at the alarming rate that it does today. ADHD is from the womb and 24 hours a day including summer and weekends. Kids that I know that I feel are truly ADHD, have a history from the crib. Asthma is on the rise and steroids used at a young age usually can cause ADHD. I think that if a child can’t learn, fidgets in class, can’t focus, is frustrated, he must be ADHD, by the way, can’t read either. A child with a reading disability will have the same symptoms as a child who has ADHD, hence the statistic. We need to teach reading in the elementary school and then see who is realy ADHD.

I agree, they used to say that if the meds worked than the child must have ADD. If this were true, then it wouldn’t be the drug of choice for tests and finals on college campuses. Some of my students were caught selling it in my school last year. There has to be another way, we are drugging too many kids. Where was this problem when I was growing up in the 60’s, why so many now? I still think that it is about the lack of structure in the whole language classroom and the lack of teaching basic skills.

Hi Lulu,

I certainly can tell you what whole language is. Let’s first take reading: big books that continue repeating themselves; sight words, sight words, and sight words; no decoding skills, just sight words; teaching the kids that when they get to a word that they don’t know, read to the end of the sentence, go back. use either context cues (the other words in the sentence) or pictures and guess; and the main focus is on comprehension but the problem is that those that can’t decode, have a real problem comprehending; word walls; and thematic units. Also, if a child is behind in reading by the time he is in third grade, there must be something wrong with him, solution, LD. Spelling patterns aren’t taught and the kids are told to just spell the words how they sound, causes spelling disability in your evaluations. Let’s take creative writing: the writing process isn’t taught, grammar taught only in the context of their writing not in isolation and all they say is write on let’s say How would you act if you were a bug? I am sure that I could add more but the bottom line is the belief of the WL people is that since hearing and speaking are innate in the child, so is reading, writing and spelling. Whole language never taught anyone how to read. The problem is that it used to be that 50% of people would learn how to read no matter how they were taught, now, in the recent research, 74% of fourth graders can’t read on grade level. I know that the term grade level is vague but maybe this will help. Fourth grade is when a child should be able to decode most MS words and words with the advanced code. This is when the reading starts breaking down because most kids don’t understand how to decode them. Those with phonemic awareness difficulties or those that just needed to be taught how to read don’t understand that more than one letter represents a sound, the advanced code. In standardized testing, the more MS words a student can pronounce, the higher the grade level. The harder the passages the student can read and answer the questions, the higher the grade level. So, all rests on being able to decode MS words.

Also, the whole language classrooms are set up to have a lot of stations. Kids are always up doing something and being entertained, this results in lack of structure and when the students get older, they still think that we should entertain them. I know that my 11th graders think that everything should be interesting and their tolerance for boring is about a nanosecond! They are so used to being entertained by Gameboys, computer games, TV and games to teach them to learn that they can’t learn unless you entertain. If anyone wants to add to the whole language list be my guest. Please make sure that you teach your kids to decode with PG or other programs that teach systematic phonics. This can’t be taught on the computer, needs a teacher teaching it directly. Just to clarify, this is not the basal/phonics/ rules and exceptions/ sounds in isolation/ of the old phonics programs.

You can decode any sight word using Phono-Graphix. Buy the book and see, it breaks the letter patterns down by sound.