Compliance - writing a school day for teacher's to follow

Get the book by Barbara Bateman on writing better IEP’s to learn how to do that part of it. In regards to a typical school day one would have to check on the state and federal regulations on what a child should learn in that school year. Because he is in the deficit mode you would need to have an intensive situation to move up his skills into the appropriate grade level.. Your education attorney or advocate should be doing this not you. I would suggest a multi sensory instruction ALA Lindamood-Bell, LiPS-Seeing Stars with Visualizing and Verbalizing, with a speech pathologist working on his phonology he should be making gains but there may be many layers to his problem that need to be addressed and he may also have language issues as well.

Are you absolutely sure that your son isn’t ADD-Inattentive? Could he have an auditory processing problem? There is a high comorbidity between these two. My daughter has a triple deficit, CAPD, ADD-Inattentive and she is Dyslexic. I found out she was ADD/ADHD last summer.. I always thought it was CAPD but when she hit fifth grade ADD-Inattentive came out in full swing and she also has periods of hyperactivity. She has always been the model student, well behaved but we couldn’t control her inattentive behaviors, zoning out in class, in her writing and math problems. Her spelling was deplorable and she has an excellent memory she just wasn’t tuned in. Once we started her intensive program with the medication she started putting it together. It was the most amazing thing to watch. I wish I had done more research into ADD-Inattentive years ago because now we are playing catch up due to years of her inattentive behaviors.

Absolutely positive he is NOT ADD- ADHD ! In a sense it would be wonderful if he was . ONLY because he would have been noticed long ago.

Since he tries harder then anyone else in the class, is the Student Council Rep and most well liked, he has been over looked to those who have autism and ADD in his class.

I asked before he entered 4th grade for a PPH (not realizing at the time he needed a tutor instead). I was told he never looses his place and absorbs every “SPOKEN” word during a lesson.

Since I posted this this AM I have been looking for the number of students allowed in adaptive classrooms in MD. They had 28 in this class 2 yrs ago , 19 this past yr and are ending the year with 8.

Many thanks for writing . MK

ADD-Inattentive isn’t noticed right away because the kids are model students. Even if a child appears to absorb the spoken word doesn’t mean they are comprehending, picking up meaning and inference of vocabulary. I have seen many kids nod and act like they understand because they have good pragmatics but after some gentle probing I see through their facade.

I still feel something is missing in this puzzle…I wish the best to you and your search for answers.

My older son’s 1st grade teacher had a son with adhd, she didn’t say a word about adhd, she just let me know that he was getting his behavior card pulled for not paying attention in class, otherwise not a behavior problem. The first thing I did was take him to the doc,and have his ears checked(he has a history of frequent ear infections), the doc asked if I had thought of an ld, it had never occurred to me that he would ever have trouble in school, k-garten teacher called him a delight to have in her class. Developmental ped. dx’ed add inattentive and slp dx’ed mild capd. He has been on ritalin ever since. The few times he has missed or we tried him in school with no meds, he was just not in class.His body was but the rest was in space.He got letter grades in 1st grade, and went from Fs in all lang. areas and Cs in math to Cs in lang. and As in math.All of his teachers(he’s had a lot in 7 years) enjoy him, he is very quiet and not disruptive at all, a hard worker. He always receives praise for his attitude and hard work. However, he is still add and it does affect his ability to keep organized and follow through on schoolwork. His meds give him the option to pay attention and follow through, that is how I explain it to him. They are not magic smart pills. I also am add inattentive, I was a good girl, followed all the rules in school, never got in trouble, didn’t get dx’ed until recently(Iam 38). So not all add kids are the disruptive ones who have trouble with their behaviors. Some just drift through school and life, not always realizing their true potential. I apologize if this was too far off the subject, my add at work I suppose ;o) !

Forgot about the middle schoolers day. My son is finishing 6th grade. He is not in resource this yr but has support in most classes. It has been a bit of a roller coaster yr as far as grades (they always come up good by report card time but boy what a scramble at the mid point!). Although he has done well in Engl. and reading this yr, historically that is what his weakest subjects were, and on the recent Terra Nova test he did very bad on those parts even though he did average on math,soc.studies and science(with accomodations). Perhaps your son could go to resource for his lang. arts and reading and have support in his other classes from the sped teacher or aides in addition to accommodations from the classroom teachers? My son’s 5th grade had separate teachers for core subjects so this wasn’t too hard to adapt to in 6th.Just a few more electives and study hall. He should be able to go to the same electives classes as the other kids within reason. I chose to remove German class as one of my son’s electives choices because he has had so much trouble with his own lang.
I don’t think there would be much difficulty in shop class (tech ed?), home ec or pe. Chris has had trouble with typing, but because he still has trouble keeping up with what line he is supposed to be on.He still has a C and that is fine with us.I hope this helped.(and was more on the subject :o) )

According to what I’ve read, ADD-Inattentive is rarely noticed because these kids are just sitting there quietly. No one ever said our child was inattentive, or possibly ADHD (“he’s too well-behaved”), but they were all marking his reports cards “N[eeds Work]” for staying on task. Only an alert SpED (who came over from the middle school for our last 5th grade IEP) caught on and gave me the clue I needed to get our child dx’d.

Quoting from Dr. Amen’s site:

“Most people with this form of ADD are never diagnosed. They do not exhibit enough symptoms that “grate” on the environment to cause others to seek help for them. Yet, they often experience severe disability from the disorder. Instead of help, they get labeled as willful, uninterested, or defiant.”

(And I would add: And drive their mothers crazy at homework time.)

Here’s Dr. Amen’s test (questionnaire style) that can give you an idea whether ADHD might be worth pursuing:

http://www.amenclinic.com/ac/addtests/subtype.asp

Hi,
I am a middle school special ed teacher. I teach LD reading, math and language. Does his school have a LD tutoring class? where I teach most of the ld students are in regular classes and have a tutoring class ( we call it study strategies) in place of an elective. This teacher gets copies of notes, study guides, teacher lesson plans etc. and helps with review, projects, organization etc. It has made the difference for all of the ld inclusion students. We have very few students removed because of failing grades and the tutoring makes the difference.
NBarnes

Hi Mary Kay,

First of all, I must say it is appalling that they couldn’t get someone from the middle school to come to the mediation hearing — that should have been a given if this was the topic to be discussed. Secondly, why is it your responsibility to write out what his day should be like? Sounds to me like they are abdicating their responsibility to you. It’s their job to make a proposal of how they are going to meet his needs (it’s obvious they haven’t been doing a good job so far) and why are they ruling out private school in that case? As you can see from the many responses you’ve gotten so far, a lot depends on what is available at your school, how good the teachers are, etc. but none of that answers the basic question of how they are going to meet his documented areas of need.

They’ve had two years to try and help your son, what’s their excuse for why it hasn’t helped him? I’d ask for private educational therapy with a fully-qualified Lindamood or OG trained teacher (two hours a day should be about right) at their expense to make up for the time they’ve wasted in the last two years, and if not you want NPS placement at a school for LD kids of your choice. If you want, you can even get that ed therapy DURING the school day, I did this through an ed. therapy center once, in place of an elective and a P.E. class, (this child was getting APE twice a week). Since they’re letting you write your own ticket, why not ask for the moon? Compared to what they’ve been offering, your proposal just might make a lot of sense to a hearing officer, or even to them, especially when compared to the cost of a private school…

Research shows that kids who don’t get intervention early need more and more intensive interventions if they are ever to catch up (just see the research page of LD Online for documentation on this, articles by Reid Lyon, etc.), and it sounds to me like that’s where your son is at, unfortunately. If you can hold your district responsible for this unconscionable delay, then go after them for all it’s worth, but whatever you do, don’t let them delay it any further. For more info, see my website at www.angelfire.com/on2/thepuzzle
and feel free to email with further questions!

Good luck!

Sharon