School trying to cut services

Before they dismiss her from services they have to retest her and show that she has made all the goals. Does she have an assisitive listening device in place? What are her accomodations?

Group therapy isn’t all that bad for kids with CAPD. They are learning to deal with speech in background noise and in a group situation they can be taught communication strategies to deal with their hearing deficit in a noisy situation.

What was written in the IEP in regards to her classroom modifications and her goals and objectives?

She is using an ALD. It does not seem to be helping that much but we
are trying it. Her teacher reports that she hasn’t seen much difference.
She has more of the integration type of CAPD and I have read that
ALD’s don’t help these kids as much as other CAPD kids.
Her accommodations listed on the IEP are preferential seating,
having teacher repeat and explain instructions, teacher will use
visual aids to assist in instruction, and teacher will give
visual demonstration when needed.
Her main goal for the year related to following directions.
It states that given verbal or written three step directions, she
will follow directions correctly without cuing during small group
activities.
The short term objectives relate to the above.
Her biggest deficits are auditory memory, following directions,
organizing information. She did very poorly on the TAPS-R.
I would be very open to any suggestions for therapy or IEP
goals, modifications, accomodations.
Thanks!

ok what portions of the TAPS-R did she do poorly on?

They can and should dismiss a child who no longer needs services. This should be documented with test scores. I am not aware that speech therapy fixes or even much addresses CAPD. If I understand CAPD, and it is controversial (Mel Levine does not “believe” in CAPD), I am not certain that speech services will do much for her. If she makes good grades and has test scores that are decent, there is no reason to keep her in speech.

In my experience speech therapists in schools concentrate on articulation and/or expressive/receptive language deficits. Occasionally maybe language pragmatics. They do not, in public schools, routinely address auditory processing directly.

So to support your child remaining in speech services, the therapist would need to find low scores in articulation, receptive language, or expressive language. If this is not the case, then your child would not likely remain in speech, regardless of the CAPD diagnosis you were able to secure. CAPD is not itself a specifically named handicapping condition in IDEA. The CAPD would need to be implicated in either an expressive/receptive language delay or a learning disability (effecting reading, language arts or math in most cases) in order for your child to receive services and then the handicap would be either language disability or learning disability.

My son has had deficits related to his auditory processing disorder worked on in speech. (of course, he is not classified on this basis—is classified as having specific language disability). They have done auditory processing tasks like chaining as well as direction following (auditory memory). He also has had work on word retrieval and grammar. He has not had articulation work since K.

His speech services were cut back this past year with our support. He is doing better now and it is disruptive to be pulled out of the classroom.

Beth

My child qualifies based on poor receptive language skills.
She is listed under “speech impaired”, not CAPD.

I was under the impression that a speech therapist could work
on things such as auditory memory, following directions, etc.
These are all weaknesses of my child. However, I am just a parent,
not a SLP.

Things probably vary from place to place. Yes, they work on language skills. I don’t think ours works on auditory memory. She probably works on following directions, but her focus would be understanding the directions. Many young ones don’t understand many preposition words, etc. These concepts are frequently some of those addressed in language therapy. Dismissal should depend upon current test scores.

The way I am reading this post,you have two issues here.

1. Speech isn’t working.
2. They want to cut speech.

I didn’t notice any significant speech goals? I did see a lot of teacher objectives, correct? I also didn’t notice any goals using the listening device.

You are an equal member of the IEP team. TO change or cut services they must have your input ,to cut services they must have evaluation scores to show she no longer meets criteria for needing services.Poor Speech services can make no speech services seem attractive. Her initial therapy reccomendations on her initial eval showing CAPD,is the therapist following them?

My youngest has CAPD,his evaluation reccomended language therapy as part of the remedial process. I will say, it didn’t make an impact in isolation. It only seemed to improve when it was done within the classroom,or a group situation.
Drama classes helped,A much smaller class helped,FFW helped.
The speech therapist we had was young,spent a lot of time walking him to and from the speech “room” only to play a board game with him and possibly one other child who was not any better language wise then my son,so conversational speech didn’t happen,most of the time my son complained about not being able to finnish his board game before they were walked back to the room,only to be 30 minute behind the class. Word retrevial was an issue for my kid. Articulation of two sounds kept him qualified for speech. He worked on R’s and S’s for literally four years.

I think Mel Levine himself is more than a little controversial, personally. He has a lot of good ideas, but others that seem way off base, and in some cases potentially damaging. I couldn’t believe when I read that he thought a kid with Aspergers was just a kid who had a little “social skills problem” that needed to be worked on. Talk about the understatement of the year! I’d like to see him “demystify” some of the AS kids I know! (he’d have to get them to stop talking about trains first!)

I don’t know enough about CAPD to comment one way or the other. But my enthusiasm for Mel Levine is guarded. I like his attitude of inclusive teaching, and his message of hope, but he oversimplifies things A LOT. In the books of his that I’ve read, (A Mind at a Time, and The Myth of Laziness) every “case” that he presents is a child (or adult) with one specific area of deficit. There may be kids out there like that, but they’re not the ones I know.

I think it was you, Anitya, who wrote quite a while ago, that a child with a single are of deficit usually learns compensating strategies quite easily, but the more areas of deficit that are present, the harder they are to remediate. I don’t think Mel Levine is talking about my kind of kid.

Karen

Unfortunately, there is the possibility that being pulled for speech may do more damage than good but if you do decide to fight for appropriate speech services… remember that no service can be taken away without your signature unless the school decides to take you to due process over it, which would cost them more than keeping the service in place. Even if they do take you to due process, the services “stay put” until a decision is reached. It’s so close to the end of the year, I don’t think you have to worry too much about changing anything before summer. There isn’t time to make any serious improvements in her services or for the school to withdraw services if you don’t sign them away. Consistancy is very important to my son so I wouldn’t allow any changes this time of year based on that.

I agree with you Karen. In fact, I got so mad reading his book “One Mind at a Time” that I took it back. Every child he talked about had all these glorious strengths that they could use to compenstate for their weaknesses. He obviously had not met my child. He also was very much for managing “by profile” as opposed to remediating (rewiring) underlying deficits. That turned me off too because the only way my son has come has far as he has is by therapy that has changed how his brain works.

Janis talked me into taking a second look at his book and I have. He has lots of good information in the book–very thorough discussions of how things should work. So I will keep the second book for what he does offer. And I do think he has a very hopeful message for a large number of children with LD, but my child doesn’t fit that profile.

Beth

One thing that helped me temper my irritation with him and his book, “A Mind at a Time” was by looking at _where_ I picked it up in the book store. It was NOT with the therapeutic/disability/LD books, it was with the mainstream child development books, right along with Dr. Spock and T. Berry Brazelton.

If you look at it from THAT perspective, that he’s trying to get people to look at their basically pretty “regular” kids who happen to have hit a rough patch, it’s a completely different read.

Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, of course he’s going to sell a WHOLE lot more books if it is focused on pretty “normal” kids, rather than those who have severe or multiple deficits. He hardly even touches on special education. In each of his case studies, “someone” has an enlightening talk with the teachers, and they all automatically flock to give the child just the type of support s/he needs. This isn’t our life.

Karen

Don’t we wish it was.

BTW, I called the middle school. There is a new ESE coordinator and seems like she is changing things around a bit. They have an inclusion track—has 30% ESE students in it. Teachers undergo special training and there is a special ed teacher who assists with providing study guides, organization ect. I am sure that it isn’t nearly the level of support you get but it might be a reasonable option for Nathan. I think there are two teachers for entire school so they must just pop in and out. They also have a language/english class taught by a slt which incorporates speech therapy, lots of writing, and uses the Rewards program with more proficient kids (those who read 4th or 5th grade level in sixth grade), Wilson with less proficient kids. This has 15 kids in it compared to standard classroom of 28 (next year because of new state law).
Nathan is doing reading with regular class as well as resource room now so he might be OK with less intensive services in inclusion classroom.

Anyway, seems like there are more options than ESE coordinator at elementary school told me. Middle school ESE coordinator told me a lot of this is brand new with her and they might now know (seems like they ought to though!)

Beth

I have found that the communication between each of our schools is abysmal. None of them really understand how things work in the next one up the ladder. Because of that, I’ve found that they are very reluctant to promise any services (particulalry increased services) because they have no idea whether the other school is set up to provide those services. That makes the end of the child’s last year in the lower school very stressful for us parents who want to be sure that our kid’s needs will be met!

We had a transition team meeting for Robbie at the end of 5th grade, which was supposed to include the SPED administrator for the middle school. She didn’t show up, (NO ONE from the middle school was there) so it was completely pointless. We met again after school let out, with just theSPED administrator from each of the schools, and that was pretty useless too. The new one just kept telling me that everything would be fine, but couldn’t give me any details, and the old one had clearly washed her hands of the whole situation.

We didn’t have any better time in the transition from the lowqer elementary to the upper elementary with Robbie. It was easier with T, because I already knew all the players, and knew how to work the process. The good news ws that they really did handle the transition well from the child’s perspective, but it was hard for this less than totally trusting (burned once already) parent!

It sounds like things are more hopeful than they sounded before at your middle school. HOWEVER, I have to warn you that in Robbie’s 5th grade class, they just had too many SPED kids in the same class. They had a full time aide in the class, the SPED teacher was in the room through all academic cycles, (not for arts) and there was another aide who was there for one particular child. This wsa all on top of the general ed teacher. It still wasn’t enough because of the mix of kids.

I’d be a little concerned about a classroom where 9 or more kids out of 28 were special needs, if the classroom teacher doesn’t have some really good support. I don’t know how a SPED teacher who pops in and out, from one class to another can give that. It sounds like it has possibilities, but I’d stay on top of them!

Karen

You raise some good points. How many special needs kids are in Robbie’s middle school inclusion class? I really don’t know how they manage the sp ed teacher being there. The ESE director told me there were two teachers that did this and there are three grades. Three elementary schools feed in and ours has 7 classes for every grade. Thus, I would think there would have to be several sections of inclusion for every grade. That is how I came up with the “pop in and out” theory.

Right now, Nathan gets a fair amount of attention but I can see how he could fall through the cracks in the setting I described. He may not be as weak as a lot of ESE kids, because of all the work we’ve done, although his difficulties aren’t confined to one area, but he isn’t as strong as a NT kid.

Beth

I don’t know exactly how many special needs kids there are in his class. I don’t know exactly how many there were last year either. Just that it didn’t work last year, and it does this year. I am sure that the mix and severity of needs has as much to do with it as sheer numbers. This year, I know there are at least 5 special needs kids in the class including Robbie. (22 kids total) One is either HFA or Aspergers. He doesn’t need much help academically, mostly someone to run interference for him. Another one that I don’t have a clue what her issues are. I don’t think she’s NLD, but she’s another bright kid with some (to put it mildly) behavioral “quirks”. the two others I know of both have language based LD’s. So in terms of academic needs, Robbie falls right in the middle of the pack.

Last year, _I SUSPECT_ that the mix was skewed more in the direction of language based LD’s. I know for sure that the SPED teacher looked on Robbie as one of the least needy kids in the group. But between an overly demanding general ed teacher, and the case load in the room, the SPED teacher (who I actually have a LOT of respect for) just couldn’t give him the support he needed to keep him on an even keel emotionally. When we switched his class mid year, the new general ed teacher was much more accommodating and supportive, which was a good thing, because there was only a SPED teacher in the room half the day rather than all day. (they had an aide the other half of the day) He still worked with his old SPED teacher 3 days a week after school, which was nice for the sake of continuity. But even with less “help” in the second classroom, he did MUCH better.

This year, it really falls largely to the SPED teacher to keep track of the needs of the kids on her case load, because there are more teachers involved. I think part of the reason things are going so well this year is that we got lucky with a REALLY good SPED teacher who has gone out of her way to educate herself about NLD. (well, I helped… I paid for her to go to an LD conference that included 2 NLD talks in the fall)

We had a funny incident a couple of weeks ago. The English teacher had written on Robbie’s supplemental, (the reports we get in the middle of each quarter, between report cards) “Robbie needs to come to me for clarification on projects BEFORE the project is due”. Well part of the problem is that Robbie often doesn’t KNOW he needs clarification. But on the particular project the teacher was talking about, _I_ had called the SPED teacher for clarification, and _SHE_ had worked with Robbie directly on the project. We had a team meeting for other reasons (we had to pull him out of Spanish…long unrelated story) and this subject came up.

I told the English teacher, “I thought that the contact person between me and the teaching team was [the SPED teacher]. If you want me to, I’d be glad to talk to you directly when we’re having a problem. I talk to [the SPED teacher] several times each week. But be careful what you ask for…”

He immediately smiled and said that, no, it was fine for me to keep the SPED teacher as the contact person.

Karen

I had to laugh!!! They all get to talk to me at the elementary school!! It is a 1500 kid school and all the people in the office even know me!

I wish we had the kind of class sizes you do. Even with the amendment for smaller class sizes, we will have 28. There is 30 plus in Nathan’s class now and no aide. I have visited the class—his teacher does amazing things in there. But I think she is exceptionally talented and of course, not all teachers are.

Thanks for the insights. I am not looking forward to middle school. I sure hope I can say, as you have, that it is not as bad as I feared.

Beth

Hearing that tears at my heart strings because it makes me wonder whether Nathan is really more impaired than Robbie, or whether Robbie has just recieved a lot more help all the way along. I can’t even imagine Robbie in an classsroom of that size with no (or even a little) help! Either he or I would be a raving lunatic! (I’d put a , but it’s really not very funny)

Karen

I will tell you that first and second grade were total wastes of time. In second, I pulled him out and partially homeschooled him. Apart from the totally incompetent resource teacher, there was no way my child could keep up with what was in effect an inclusion classroom with no support. This year is the only year that he really has been able to handle grade level work in the classroom, and that is because of all the therapy we’ve done.

I think Robbie has more strengths than Nathan. Nathan has the disadvantage of having both language based and nonverbal learning disabilities. I suspect his nonverbal disabilities aren’t as severe as Robbie’s though. So, it may be more like comparing apples and oranges.

I never did have that neuropsych done. Before I found someone, school started and the combination of therapies seemed to have made an amazing difference. He is now up for his third year review and I think I would really like it to be a useful measure of what we are still dealing with. This is a large metro area—you’d think it would be easier to find a good neuropsychologist!
My sister, who is a clinical social worker in Chicago, told me she knows some really good people there. She reads reports all the time. I’ve thought about taking him there….

Beth

Well, Robbie has always been on an IEP except for 3rd grade, (which wsa a total disaster) and has always had pretty good support. Even the year he wasn’t on an ed plan, he was in a classroom of 22 kids with 2 adults in the classroom at all times. So we (fortunately) have never had to see how he would do with the level of (dis)service Nathan has had.

While decoding has never been a problem, inferential comprehension stands in his way more and more, and he as had severe problems with written output. So there is some overlap into “language” areas with NLD kids too.

It might not be a bad idea at all to take Nathan to Chicago for an eval. It would probably be an easy “sell”, telling him he was going to get to go on a trip to another part of the country, and see his aunt in the process.

Robbie is up for his 3 year re-eval in the fall too, and I haven’t had the heart to tell him he has to be tested again. I recently set up his eval dates with our neuropsych, (we’ve already told the school that we’re having the testing done privately again) and she said we called “just in time”… She was already booking for Oct., and his IEP date is mid-November. She’ll have time to get it done, but only because she is great at turning reports around quickly.

Karen

Well, Nathan has the inferential reasoning/language piece too!!! He has been making nice progress though with a combination of a tutor working on reasoning and comprehension and Neuronet where she is working on what she calls the “ultimate because”. Our Neuronet therpaist told me that Nathan had no sense of the world being connected in relationships—which impacts his reading comprehension and explains a lot of why he is always asking me to explain things. We are doing this instead of (maybe ) and certainly before Visualizing and Verbalizing. Yesterday, he actually told me the main point of the movie Tuck Everlasting! Always before he would just say “I don’t know” or tell me something not very important.

I have a few leads that I didn’t follow up on a Neuropysch here but may do the Chicago thing, if nothing else looks good. Don’t I wish I could return to the same, really good, person like you!

Beth