I had our follow up visit with the pediatrician. There was no obvious sign that Rachel is ADD. There was a low incurance of scores in the ADD inattentive part (scores of 4, 5, and 6), but not enough for her to say Yup it’s ADD. So she is asking the school pyschologist to do the full ADD test that shows a whole lot more. The doctor agrees that it isn’t completely obvious if it is lack of attention that is keeping her from her potential or a LD/processing disorder that is causing that problems. The Dr said that she was a bit surprised they didn’t do it as the report sounded as though that was what they were going to do. I understood the same segement to mean that they were going to have Rachel seen by the speech language pathologist, of which the teachers said would happen once Bob could get to her (he works 1/2 day a week at our school). So now we wait for the new test to be done, hopefully. I believe that it won’t be an issue at our school. They are very determined to help succeed.
Now I have been reading different posts from various LD site about IEP’s and how schools seem to try to trick parents into signing these IEP’s and somehow get out of truly helping the student. I haven’t actually heard of this before. I live in Canada and maybe things are different here, or are they? Does anyone from Canada have any info on IEP’s. I know that my daughter is going to be getting one and I would like to know what I in for. I really would like some info on what to expect in Canada with IEP’s.
Re: Prelimenary ADD/ADHD survey came back and a ? on IEP
School pysch is doing the expanded ADD test, the speech language pathologist is doing the auditory test, when he gets around to her. I guess I wasn’t very clear. The school never once said or even indicated ADD it was the pediatrician. At her old school (she started at a new school in Sept) there was absolutely no attention problems what so ever. She was always on task and working hard, just not keeping up, actually falling behind. I looked back at her report cards and found that she was fine at the beginning of kindergarten, then started for fall behind later that year in language subjects, by grade 2 she was struggling with reading writing and math. It wasn’t until we moved to the new school that we were told she was 2 years behind. No one ever even indicated that she was falling that far behind. :x
I have been thinking of asking her about it. I don’t think that she zones at school, and the preliminary survey that her teacher filled out didn’t indicate that as much as her forgetfulness, disorganization, etc.
Re: Prelimenary ADD/ADHD survey came back and a ? on IEP
I am also in Canada. It varies province by province, but to be honest with you the IEP’s I’ve seen since coming back here a few years ago have been pretty worthless — too general and vague and not enforced anyway.
Forgetfulness and disorganization may *be* the attention/ADD issues that the school people are trying to address.
Or, they may be symptoms of other problems.
In my own personal experience, disorganization is a fact of my life. I simplify what I can and find ways to cope. On the other hand, it gets far worse when I am either ill or stressed.
Speaking of which, has your daughter had a *very thorough* medical checkup? If she is showing these signs, there can be a lot of physical causes from allergies to asthma to sleeplessness to diabetes etc. etc. so get her in and ask the doctor for more than a once-over.
Stress — well, if she is having so much trouble in school, she is probably overwhelmed, and then forgetfulness comes in, when you don’t understand what is going on anyway.
Has she had effective tutoring in basic reading and math skills? Once the foundations are there, the rest is a lot easier to organize.
Hmmm...what is the value of an IEP???
It really depends on your school and the individual teacher! Often, with inclusion, the IEP is hard to implement, except for certain specific accomodations — if you NEED those, the IEP gives you some muscle to enforce an unwilling teacher — but it is not a guarantee of anything. It even depends on the individual kid, and their reaction to all the other variables…here’s my 2 cent story:
A friend of mine had an IEP for her kids — essential in elementary, as they had behaviour issues (and the IEP/dx is necessary to protect the child from the ‘usual’ consequences, essential if the ‘usual’ behaviour is beyond their ability!) and LD issues. She had a GREAT resource teacher and her kids really benefitted — had I had access to the same, I would have taken an IEP regardless of my worries about it. They are in the same board, in a school just down the street. YES, due to french immersion at that school, I believe it is essentially a ‘better’ school. Not my school’s fault — we have a much greater ESL burden, as nearby apts. bus to our school — so the school populations and challenges, even in one small area of my city, are very different.
However, I did not choose an IEP, despite the fact that my son and her youngest have identical ‘dx’s’ — Specific LD in Communication. And despite MUCH pressure from the school! (since guess what, a designaiton means more money and less responsibility for the school!) My son was tagged ‘ADD’ by the school, and his symptoms of visual dyslexia (LD evidence that we had a LEARNING problem, not a FOCUS problem) were ignored, except by one knowledgable TA in Gr. 1.
I chose to take private summer tutoring from a local private school, where I found a teacher who had lots of knowledge about KIDS— her advice, based on his response to her methods, was to avoid SPED and IEP, get private tutoring and work work work…which we did! Since the school administration were NOT trustworthy, IMO, and she was, I decided to make my own mistakes and kept him in the regular program. He also HATED pull-out, so this made my decision easy — I didn’t want to pay with unhappiness and increased school hatred (already our biggest problem, and still is!) for a minimally valuable resource experience, when I could work with him myself/provide skilled tutors outside of school, and have a reasonably happy, well-adjusted child.
In gr. 6, my son still struggles — but is managing, and we work together. His biggest problem really is motivation, at this point! He is in a regular program, and his teacher, having praised his reading ability and proven comprehension skills (now that he’s writing more, we can prove that his reading is truly ‘there’!) was shocked to learn that he had experienced a great deal of difficulty learning to read. I ask for sympathy with his spelling/writing issues — but he is marked to the standard, and with her ‘stern support’, like Beth’s son, is beginning to really improve in this area.
My friend’s kids are in Gr. 6 and 7 — IEP is nothing but a piece of paper. She is continually meeting with the school, and while the IEP is still necessary for behaviour issues with the eldest, the value academically is NIL. They are not getting the support the IEP says they should — guess what, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get this from the individual class teachers, (not the teacher’s faults!) and resource people are spread so thin that these kids are ignored since their basic underlying skills (reading writing math) are reasonable and their issues are organization, compliance (LD based, not exactly unwillingness but some of that too), etc. Very hard and time-consuming to remediate, plus, most ‘born organized’ types think we really COULD IF WE JUST TRIED…and get angry at our perceived ‘unwillingness to comply’. Hence, these problems are generally ignored and/or punished by teachers…again, unfair, but all the ragging, meetings, etc. about the IEP will not change a basic mindset.
Yes, her IEP’s are necessary — but academically of little value. In our case, I don’t think the IEP would have had any value at all — and might cause problems, especially for my child who is motivated only to do the bare minimum…
For example, had I had an IEP I might have been motivated to fight this fall when I was informed that we HAD to mark him down on spelling tests for using inappropriate case letters — being visually dyslexic, my son avoided a and b and d and c etc…would write A B C D, and his printing was a resistant mix of upper and lower case. My first reaction WAS ‘hey, that’s unfair, you don’t know how we struggled to get those letter shapes learned and to produce ANY legible writing at all!’ But, having no IEP, I could not DEMAND an accomodation. So I mentioned that he DID have extreme issues, but said that I agreed with her that he needed to be marked to the ‘standard’ if he was to improve…
WELL…writing has not slowed to a stop…though he is obviously slowed and goes back to correct himself, he has improved IMMENSELY!
But if he didn’t think he HAD TO IMPROVE in order to go to gr. 7…hmm, do you think he’d be putting in so much effort? I don’t!
My best advice is…read, read, read. Ask other parents in your area, if you can. Ask teachers, if you know any who teach in your system (If you know any as friends, who work in your board, don’t expect a ‘straight’ answer from your child’s teachers!) Learn what your kid ‘needs’, and try to get the best balance you can…that may or may not be an IEP! I do believe you can’t go wrong with one-on-one tutoring — you just need a Victoria type!
Best wishes to you and your child…
The SLP to do a test to verify for ADD? LOLOLOL That is a PSYCHE’s job. Now if he is looking for auditory processing that technically would be the Audiologists area of expertise. However, SLP’s can do the SCAN if they are trained to do it. We can do the TAPS-R Test of Auditory Processing which has come out with a brand new version…but it is still more of a reasoning test and not a true indicator of auditory processing INMO.
The TOVA which is the Test of Vigilance can be given both auditorially and also visually, I aced the TOVA which only meant I could hyperfocus for a short period of time but it didn’t mean I wasn’t ADD. There is a huge difference between how she does on a test for attention vs. how she is functioning day to day in school.
That is the MAJOR problem figuring out why she isn’t doing well in school and which came first her attentional issues or ??? From what I have seen with many kids who are on my speech and language caseload, Attention is a HUGE piece of the puzzle. If they aren’t doing well in school and I have been working with them after I get to know them and I talk with them I learn the most amazing things about where they go in their mind when they are zoning and are supposed to be learning.
Ask your daughter what she does in the classroom when she is taking a break…see what she says…you may find it very enlightening.