daughter qualifies for IEP in math; now what?

What did the neuropsychologist say about the large spread between verbal and performance IQ? What sense did you get about your daughter from him/her?

Beth

Because there is a significant discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal intellectual functioning, her full scale IQ was not truly representative of her intellectual potential. She seemed to think daughter had great potential.

The doctor supplied several recommendations including individualized instruction, modifications such as extra time on test and breaking packets of work down into “piecemeal” style, organization strategies, and continuing with speech to improve thought organization and written language skills. None of this is being implemented by the school because the private eval was out of date by one month. So the county performed their own evaluation and daughter qualified for an IEP under math.

The IEP is now in place but I have not received a copy of the school psychologist evaluation. When I inquired as to when to expect a copy of the evaluation, they responded probably in December as they are behind on paperwork. Her IEP includes extra time to respond, work will be checked frequently to ensure understanding, preferential seating and working from 4.5 grade equivalency to a 5.1 grade equivalency in 1 year for math calculations and math reasoning. Daughter is in 6th grade.

I was never able to get the school SLPs to work on anything but articulation; I definitely wouldnt look for help there

There has to be something glaring from those coding and picture arrangement scores but Im hard pressed to put it together

Have you explored the visual end of things? I forget

Lindamood Bell has a program called On Cloud Nine that works on visualizing math. Often kids who have math difficulties have problems with this. It isn’t a complete program but is unique in what it offers.

The reason I asked about what the neurospychologist said about the spread between performance and verbal is that a significant descrepancy is suggestive of some sort of nonverbal learning disability. There is a syndrome with the same name which captures kids who have a combination of spatial/social/ motor deficits. My own son was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disablity but it isn’t at a syndrome level.

There also are people who have just a math disability. You might look on the math board here and under math skills under LD in depth for some ideas.

Interactive Metronome often helps with the lack sequencing which is characteristic of people with deficits in math skills.

Beth

Those look alot like my son’s scores.

Vision therapy and interactive metronome worked.

In second grade he could not count to 100 on a numbers chart.

He is 5th and doing well with no extra help in math. He does everday math which many kids with math difficulties opt out of especially visual problems because it is very visual spatial intense. His test scores are 76-92 but mostly 80s. He gets points off for not labeling but usually gets all the answers correct.

My son had a block design score of 4 and I think 7 in picture completion when tested in first.

I haven’t had him retested in years but will soon so I will let you know what the new scores are.

Thank you for all the information and advice.

I would love to take her to LMB for On Cloud Nine math but because of school hours, it is impossible. The school hours are from 9 to 4 and the LMB clinic hours are 8 to 5; clinic is about 45 - 55 minutes away (depending on traffic and the amount of road construction going on). I spoke with the school about the possibility of checking her out early to attend LMB at my expense. They refused saying that she would miss AKS requirements for academics; which she is failing anyway. Although she passed visual and hearing, I have made an appointment for an eye exam to rule out visual problems. I actually had her evaluated a couple of years ago and she didn’t need therapy at that time. (One of my sons completed visual therapy a couple of years ago and did benefit from it.)

I just not sure what to do: I am constantly going back and forth on whether to keep her at this public school, see if she can return to her previous private school and because of their hours, begin LMB at least one hour a day (not sure this is possible because of recent grades), or try to enroll her into an ld school which is about an hour away and very expensive.

She is supposed to begin a new schedule under her IEP today. She will be going to resource for math and science.

I took my son out in second grade and partially homeschooled him. The school made a huge fuss and threatened me with someone visiting my home to check on us. I looked up the definition of truancy in the state regs and found it only pertained to excessive absences not excessive tardies. So I wrote a nice polite note to that effect and asked what regulations prohibited me from doing this. I got a call from the prinicapl who basically told me that my case had gone all the way up to the school board and there was nothing to stop me legally.

So there is often more hot air about what you can and can not do than real authority. I was nice and polite and maintained a good relationship with the principal. She knew the school was not doing what they needed to do for my son. I also knew that there was little that could be done right then about the incompetent special ed teacher.

But my son learned to read that year because of me and no other child in resource room knew how when the new special ed teacher came the next year.

Beth

Thank you Beth. That’s an idea. I’ll keep that in mind also. She started her new schedule yesterday and likes her new science and math teacher much better. I’ll watch her stress level along with her grades. I may go ahead and have LMB lined up for the holidays in December. By that time, new grades should be available.

The thing you have to remember is that the schools are not necessarily looking out for her interests but their own. The principal of my son’s school basically told me that the powers that be were afraid that I would teach my son to read when they had not and sue them for costs. It would not have been an issue had I been willing to totally homeschool him. But I couldn’t do this with a job. The issue is that your child is on an IEP and so has been identified as having special needs.

So decide what works for your daughter and your family and place a low priority on what the school thinks about it.

Beth