I’m looking for advice from anyone. My 11 year old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD/w mild ODD when she was 5 years old. We went through the whole thing and she was put on medication and therapy. Ok, she was having problems in school and Social Security got involved. We went through many tests by speech therapists, psychologists and the like. We saw specialists and finally the determination came back that she is classified as Mentally Retarded (the actually wording that they used) with multiple disabilities. She has an IQ of 74 and was placed in Special Ed. classes. Along with this she also got support for speech therapy 5 x a week.
She was doing quite well for a while. She liked school and seemed to be moving along at an ok pace. Last year the school decided to move her out of special ed and put her in regular classes. I called and voiced my concerns. They couldn’t understand why I would be worried about her being pulled out of spec. ed and figured that I would be ecstatic over it. They put her in mainstream classes and pulled out resources (even though she’s been tested by a speech therapist again through S.S. and they still find a need for therapy).
She repeated 4th grade because of this. She finally made it to 5th grade even through she was struggling. Half way through the year, she took a test and they bumped her up to 6th grade. She is now going to middle school next year and into 7th grade even though she has received F’s this past marking period in math, social studies, science and english. The only B’c and C’s have been in Art and Gym. The teacher tell me that she is doing fine but then I get phone calls that they have pull information out of her during class and she isn’t doing all of her work. I am very concerned about this but I don’t want to hold her back in spec. ed classes if she is ready for mainstream. Can IQ’s raise over the years? I don’t think so, but I’m wondering. What would you do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Re: Advice with LD child
Is there any way you can find out if she’s *learnign* stuff or whether they’re just passing her along? Could be that they know she’s keeping up, but the grades aren’t showing it — I would absolutely want to know why, though. And frankly, it seems more likely taht to them she is “doing fine” because she’s getting along (and perhaps the special ed classes are places they wouldn’t want to send her, for her own good — by this age, often the academics are nonexistent and/or there are major behavior issues). They know next year she’ll be in middle school and they won’t have to worry about her anymore.
Hopefully it’s not like that (but unfortunately, that has been my experience as a teacher).
Re: Advice with LD child
Kay: please insist on Woodcock Johnson acheivement tests- they will list standard scores, percentiles, grade equivalents, etc. since these are nationally normed tests- it gives you alot better idea than some phoney baloney report cards.
good luck and god bless
Re: Advice with LD child
When you mention that social security got involved what did this include? Did SS evaluate her? Has it been three years since her last eval? Is an IQ of 74 meet the district criteria for MR?
Re: Advice with LD child
SS was the one main one that evaluated her and they came up with the determination of MR. She was just retest again for emotional problems and speech therapy. I haven’t heard anything about the emotional problems as of yet, but the speech therapist suggested that she continues with therapy.
I’m just extremely concerned with this. She’s a smart kid but extremely immature for her age. She doesn’t do well under pressure and I’m afraid of what will happen once she gets into middle school. I recently found out that slight cases of Autisim runs through the family but I don’t know if it’s genetic or not. I haven’t had too many people give me information in this area. I do know that I had extreme problems with learning in school. At the time though they didn’t have programs the way they do today.
Re: Advice with LD child
Will the school district do this? She’s going to an inner city school and we recently just got word that they are cutting the budget for the schools in our area. Just what kids need right?
Re: Advice with LD child
That’s where it gets frustrating. I talk to the teacher and she says that everything is fine, she does well on testing. Then I get phone calls saying that she’s having problems in class, she doesn’t want to participate and she refuses to do her work. She just basically shuts down. I’m trying to get some information out of the teacher now, but she hasn’t responded to me yet. And they just canceled the IEP meeting and I don’t know when the next one will be.
Re: Advice with LD child
I knew that she had problems with language and yet I don’t know why. I have three girls and all of them show the same exact symptoms. My middle daughter is in speech therapy and my youngest one just turned 6 but isn’t in school yet. There are some severe developmental delays that need to be addressed by her doctor to figure out what is going on. She actually seems like she’s 3 or 4 at the oldest which is a very big concern but I just can’t seem to get the help for her.
Re: Advice with LD child
Kay,
I want to make sure you are aware that,1. the school district is obligated to evaluate your daughter and if you disagree with their finding you may request an independent evaluation at their expense. I am confused as to why SS did the eval,and why the district didn’t do their own.
-Can IQ’s raise over the years? I don’t think so, but I’m wondering. What would you do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Sure they can! I tested in the educably mentally handicapped range as a six year old. I was average (100) at eight, gifted (132) at 14, and a genius (150 top scale of instrument used) in my last year of medical school. My kiddo was clearly going to get a number somewhere in the 70s when I halted the test at age 6, as I didn’t want to know the results. She scores above average now, and I am trying to get a GT label for her, because she is in a preparatory school which has many gifted kids. This is a fairly common thing with language impaired kids, and all the evidence is that your kiddo had a significant language impairment. That being said, you need to find out what the problem is that’s holding her back in math, social studies, science and english, and I sure wouldn’t promote her to middle school until I was clear that these had been remediated. What is her reading and math level?
Shirin