This is about my niece, age 8 second grade. I had worked in the public school system for 14 years as an aide in the special services dept. I knew before my niece ever started school that she was going to have problems. She is EXACTLY like my son was. My son started at the school that my niece now goes to. Thank the Lord that my husband got transferred and we moved to a school that actually got my son on the right track and improved his self esteem.
My niece was tested in Oct of last year, upon my encouragment to her mom to do so. I never saw the test results until last night. She brought them over because the school has mentioned holding my niece back again, and has even mention medication for ADD. I was on my soap box in a split second when I found this out.
Plot of Standard Scores According to what I am looking at, average is 90 to 110. Verbal comprhension-80, Visual auditory learning-75, spatial relations were good at 100, Sound blending was also good at about 98, Concept formation, fluid reasoning-90 Processing Speed, visual matching-90, Sort-term memory, numbers rversed-75, Oral Language, Oral Expression and Listening were all average. Broad Reading-70, Basic Reading skills 80, reading comprehension-75, Letter Word Identification 75, Passage comp-80, Word Attack-95, Broad Math-85, Math Calcualtion-80 Math reasoning 85, Calculation 75, Math Fluency-90, Applid Problems -90, Quantitative Concepts-80, Written Expression-75, Writting Fluency-85, Writting Samples-75, Academic Fluency-70, Academic Applications-85
Now am I nuts, or just too close to this, but does this child not fall into the below average range? Should she not be recieving a little extra help at school? Suggestions that the tester gave seemed to agree with what I had thought, more time to complete assignments, before introducing new matter make sure info from last leasson has been mastered. review and repitition, shortne assignments. Allow written exams to be taken orally when necessary. I don’t think the teacher even read this eval. The things that have been suggested to help my niece to have a sense of accomplishment are the things the teacher is complaining about. NO MODIFICATIONS. If they can’t keep up, too bad, so sad, hold them back another year.
I know this is long, but I had to get this all out so you could maybe see the whole picture. Again I ask, am I nuts in thinking she needs some help? Teacher said she didn’t qualify for any special help, No special service intervention, no title 1. I would love hear some thoughts on this. My sister-in-law has come to me for help and I am not sure what to tell her. Thank you all in advance and have a Blessed day.
Re: Woodcock testing ?????
I go off on tangents/rants about ADHD & learning differences, so get ready….
Who diagnosed the adhd? The school? Does your sis disagree with the diagnosis? Maybe an independant eval with evaluator chosen by your sis and paid for by the school?
While some schools have the staff to diagnose adhd, you know that it is illegal for them to recommend medication. Legally it remains a parental decision. (Of course the parental decision should be carefully considered, informed and in the best interests of the child. My dd is medicated, which took us almost a year of consideration and research before we felt comfortable trying it, but I dare any school personnel to dictate my child’s medical treatment or question our decisions.)
A disproportionate amount of ADHD’ers have LD’s/learning differences or just plain old need school modifications for the ADHD. I found my dd’s school was too quick to attribute dd’s problems to the ADHD and dismiss the other glaring issues.
I have also found along our journey that very few in the schools really and truly understand how ADHD affects learning differences and vice versa. They say they do, but I have not found that to be the case.
Retention unless very very early like Kind. rarely works, b/c the underlying issues are typically not addressed.
While sp ed laws are federal, the states can interpret/set up their own criteria. So really swell states like CA or NY don’t look at potential versus achievement, just that every sp ed kid has to be below a certain very low criteria to qualify. So only the most severely LD kids qualify leaving a lot of kids to suffer without help in ‘borderline’ ranges. Those same ‘borderline’ kids my qualify just a few miles over in a neighboring state. Fair huh?
OHI is the big gray area in special ed. My school tried to use LD criteria for OHI - just never got the sense of that thinking (why did federal law make OHI available then?). So I have had those conversations like “so if dd’s potential is in the 98th %ile yet she performs at the 16th %ile in writing and 18th %ile in reading can you please explain AGAIN how the ADHD is not ‘significantly’ affecting her learning?”. Their response “but we need it to be the 15th %ile which is LD criteria and perhaps by next year she will be at 15%ile.”
Can’t comment on the scores - don’t have the experience/knowledge. If they were standard scores and if your niece is of average IQ, she is only one standard deviation below across most. Many schools have the formula like 1.5 or 2 standard deviations.
GL
Re: Woodcock testing ????? Thank you
Thank you for your input, it looks as if we are on the same page. I told my sister-in-law that it takes alot of input from her as a parent. And she better be prepared to fight all the way to get what she thinks she and her daughter need for her to be successful in school. So many fall between the cracks, those are the ones we find on the street, or siting in the bleachers on graduation night, it is so frustrating. I have been there, I had 3 with some sort of learning problems, but this one is not mine, but I want to help her as much as I can. So thank you all again for the input.
Re: Woodcock testing ?????
Vonnie,
Let me just start this out by saying that your sis and your niece are very lucky to have you! I am going thruogh a similar battle at my son’s school- he also was given the Woodcock—shlammma bamma bing bong test. He scored in the “slightly below average range” Just enough for them to say he is not eligable for services. He was diagnosed in Nov. with CAPD.And really, like your niece he needs modifications similar to the one’s you listed. However- all I get from the school is “Well, we can’t make those types of modifications unless he is eligable” So here is what they offered me- A 504 plan that recomends the following: If the student is confused by verbal directions, try rephrasing them.
Classroom material may need to be repeated.To obtain child’s attention-eye contact, a verbal reminder, or a gental touch should be used.
My response? WOW, Thank you so much for the courtesy of actually typing up the teacher’s freakin job description!!!!!!! Now- what is it that you were going to do to help my son?
My heart goes out to ya both- sorry I had no words of wisdom to share, but I hope I made you smile :)
Good Luck!
Heather
Re: Woodcock testing ?????
I would take another peek at reedmartin.com and/or wrightslaw.com. Those 504s can have about as much weight as an IEP. You need to get in there and work for those services
try posting on the teaching board too?