My son was diagnosed in March of 2003 with a learning disability through the school district in Kansas and this was with my expressed permission. I had been working with the school for awhile to have him tested because I had seen my bright child struggle. My husband and I chose to hold him back in Kindergarten even though the kindergarten was going to pass him because we felt strongly that he had not mastered the concepts of kindergarten and that 1st grade would be very difficult for him.
At the end of his second kindergarten year he was better than at the end of the first kindergarten year but we still had concerns. In first grade he had a teacher who held a masters degree in learning disabilities and she agreed that he needed to begin the process of being “tested” for LD and after all of that was completed, he was diagnosed LD and given special services through the “Resource Room” from then until now. Keep in mind, KS does not give any official test, i.e. IQ, ability, etc.
He is now in the 3rd grade and we moved over the summer to a good school district in MO but the requirements in the state of MO are quite different than in KS. They performed IQ testing on him as well as ability testing. Don’t misunderstand me, I did not think my son was stupid, I really believe he has a disability. According to these results he did not score low enough on his ability to be considered LD and if it were not for his medical diagnosis of ADD he would not receive any services through the school district.
I was frustrated and upset because while the testing may have been an accurate picture of his current IQ and abilities, it did not take into account that he has been receiving services for an hour a day for an year and a half. My frustration and fear is not so much for my son as for others as he will receive services because of his medical diagnosis. I honestly believe that if he was not ADD or if I chose not to medicate him for it, he would sit in the general education setting and fail. How many students have to go through that because they don’t score “low” enough to get the services they need until they have failed to such a point that hopefully someone recognizes it and steps up to make the school retest them.
I truly believe that catching any potential educational deficiencies before it becomes a larger problem academically, emotionally and socially is of far greater benefit to the child and the classroom teacher than waiting until they reach that “score”. So my question is am I wrong? I feel pretty strongly that I am not and feel that maybe I need to instigate some change in my state where these children are concerned. MO is a state not well known for it’s education and I believe this is a major reason why. Too many children are being looked past and are not achieving what they could acheive if they just had a little extra help from a teacher qualified to help. (Special Education teacher)
If anyone agrees with me or even if you do not, I would appreciate some input on the subject and possibly some leads on how to obtain some information on others states, methods of testing, % of student with disability, standardized test scores in grades that take test K-6, graduation rate, number of students who go to college, scores/numbers of students “profecient” in subjects at graduation. I know this is quite an undertaking but I need to start somewhere and here sounds good.!!! :D
Thank you for your comments!
Christine
Re: difficulty with my new states special education requirements
****The Department of Education, in its letter to LDA of North Carolina, wrote that it is “generally” appropriate for the multidisciplinary team to include in its written report (to determine eligibility) information regarding “outside or extra” instructional help or support which “may indicate the child’s current educational achievements reflects the service augmentation, not what the child’s achievement would be without such help.” *****
OMG!!! That is exactly what I said to them when we met to go over his “scores”!!!
Thank you for sending me this information. Please feel free to reply again with any additional information or opinions you have. Thank you!!
Christine
Re: difficulty with my new states special education requirements
Christine,
One thing I want to mention is that I think you are using the term “ability” to mean “achievement”. Actually, the IQ scores are considered “ability” and the academic levels are considered “achievement”.
I completely agree with you that early intervention is desirable and needed. It puzzles me how KS can “diagnose” a learning disability without any formal testing, however. I think that is very strange and I am not sure how that could have complied with the special ed. law in effect at that time.
However, the good news is that the special ed. law has been revised and is called IDEA 2004. Once the federal regulations are completed and distributed to the states, I think you’ll see some changes in many states. It does allow for early intervention BEFORE a child is labeled with a disability.
It is possible for a child with ADD to be functioning below grade level but not really be LD. It is almost impossible to separate the two without some pretty good testing. And there certainly are many children that fall in the below average gap where there are no special services. I think the key is not so much labeling as it is just giving extra help to any child who needs it. But that doesn’t happen nearly often enough.
Janis
Re: difficulty with my new states special education requirements
Janis,
I am using the term ability because I believe that’s what they were calling it but I may have misunderstood. I probably did.
In KS, they begin by bringing a specific child up in what is called a SIT meeting, Student Intervention Team. It is a board of educators within the particular school. The childs classroom teacher is the one to bring the child up and in that forum he/she expresses any concerns they see in the classroom with that particular child. I believe the principal and the school/district psychologist are present at these meetings as well. From there they are given ways of helping the child within the classroom setting and possibly being removed from the classroom to receive help in reading or math or whatever but not by the Resource Room teacher, by a para or reading specialist. Once a child has been brought up in these meetings enough times and all attempts to modify the classroom enviorment have failed, they move onto the process of assessing for an IEP. In that they do a lot of observation and some testing showing their ability verses their age range. By that I mean the test results read something like, your son is 6yrs and 2mo, his score in X is 5yrs 1mo. (I hope that makes sense!) I’m sure there is more involved in it but that’s about all I can tell you there.
I did ask why they did not do IQ testing and they told me why. It took awhile to soak it in but I totally understand the reasoning behind it now. They believe that by giving the IQ/achievement tests too many kids fall through the cracks. A child with a low IQ whose achievement is low as well would not have a severe enough discrepency to justify services, so this way they are able to give more children help than if they used the other forms of testing. (Of course the same example was also used for children with high IQ’s who did not show a severe discrepency). They can offer help to more children for a variety of levels of achievement. By the way, there is only one school district in the state of KS that I can think of that is not known for being quality schools. I personally believe that is the reason why. They are helping students before they fall between the cracks.
I’m glad to learn about the IDEA 2004. I would like to learn more about it.
I also understand that his ADD probably plays a huge factor in his delay and I don’t necessarily want to “label” him but my mind works better in terms; things I can dig into and research. It’s difficult to research something that has no name. I want the best for my son and want to help him the best way I know how. I wish I could afford the testing required to know. Having said that I totally agree with your last statement about not being so concerned about labeling but giving extra help to any child who needs it.
Thanks for your comments, Janis. Please reply with any other information you think may be helpful to me.
Christine
Re: difficulty with my new states special education requirements
Janis,
I am using the term ability because I believe that’s what they were calling it but I may have misunderstood. I probably did.
In KS, they begin by bringing a specific child up in what is called a SIT meeting, Student Intervention Team. It is a board of educators within the particular school. The childs classroom teacher is the one to bring the child up and in that forum he/she expresses any concerns they see in the classroom with that particular child. I believe the principal and the school/district psychologist are present at these meetings as well. From there they are given ways of helping the child within the classroom setting and possibly being removed from the classroom to receive help in reading or math or whatever but not by the Resource Room teacher, by a para or reading specialist. Once a child has been brought up in these meetings enough times and all attempts to modify the classroom enviorment have failed, they move onto the process of assessing for an IEP. In that they do a lot of observation and some testing showing their ability verses their age range. By that I mean the test results read something like, your son is 6yrs and 2mo, his score in X is 5yrs 1mo. (I hope that makes sense!) I’m sure there is more involved in it but that’s about all I can tell you there.
I did ask why they did not do IQ testing and they told me why. It took awhile to soak it in but I totally understand the reasoning behind it now. They believe that by giving the IQ/achievement tests too many kids fall through the cracks. A child with a low IQ whose achievement is low as well would not have a severe enough discrepency to justify services, so this way they are able to give more children help than if they used the other forms of testing. (Of course the same example was also used for children with high IQ’s who did not show a severe discrepency). They can offer help to more children for a variety of levels of achievement. By the way, there is only one school district in the state of KS that I can think of that is not known for being quality schools. I personally believe that is the reason why. They are helping students before they fall between the cracks.
I’m glad to learn about the IDEA 2004. I would like to learn more about it.
I also understand that his ADD probably plays a huge factor in his delay and I don’t necessarily want to “label” him but my mind works better in terms; things I can dig into and research. It’s difficult to research something that has no name. I want the best for my son and want to help him the best way I know how. I wish I could afford the testing required to know. Having said that I totally agree with your last statement about not being so concerned about labeling but giving extra help to any child who needs it.
Thanks for your comments, Janis. Please reply with any other information you think may be helpful to me.
Christine
Re: difficulty with my new states special education requirements
Christine,
It sounds like someone in Kansas has some common sense! Hopefully the new law will cause more states to institute that kind of early services without the IQ test. The IQ achievement discrepancy is no longer required in the new law, but states may still opt to do it that way.
ADD causes plenty of learning problems without there also being a specific learning disability. So it very well may be that your son is correctly categorized for placement purposes.
But all in all, I agree with your original point. We just need to help any struggling child anytime they need it.
Janis
If their argument really was that “his ability was too high” - that is not a valid argument against having a disability.
http://www.ldonline.org/text.php?max=20&id=971&loc=24 has a “letter of clarification” explaining why a studnet who is not failing can still not only have a disability but also be eligible for services.
Different states have different criteria for eligibility, though; you’ll want to ferret out the specifics. Some states have very cut and dried, numerical criteria, relating to a discrepancy between ability and skills levels (which can be very different from achievement in classes - it’s important to make sure they look at things like reading skills, and not figure that since he’s doing okay in third grade without being able to read [just an example; don’t know your specifics], he doesn’t need services…. it’s easy for the school folks to pass hiim on since *they* won’t have to worry when he’s a bright seventh grader who’s being shuffled down to lower level courses ‘cause, well, he must not be that bright (he can’t read).