My 13 year old daughter has ADHD, seizure disorder, a LD in written expression and possible Bipolar. She is special ed qualified with an IEP in place. I am haggling with the school about what services they should provide to help her with writing. They work with her with a graphic organizer occasionally but I want them to do something more effective. Her English teacher, the general ed teacher on the IEP team, keeps saying she can write. She says this because my daughter can write sometimes. Her writing is usually the bare minimum, disorganized, off topic etc, but sometimes she writes something coherent. Her teacher thinks that because she done some decent writing this proves that she can write so remediation is not needed. Her writing was better in the third and fourth grade than it is now. It seems that her writing is getting worse as time passes. Do children have good days and bad days with an LD? Because she can sometimes write does this mean she does not need remediation?
Thanks for your insights,
Shelly
Re: writing ability comes and goes
A while back there was a discussion of writing and bipolar on the National Association of School Psychologist’s yahoo group. If you go to yahoogroups.com and search for NASP you should be able to find and join the group, which consists largely of school psychologists. I didn’t actually read the posts about bipolar, so I can’t help you out with specifics, but I do recall there were a number of discussions on the topic.
Andrea
This may be the simple and not particularly extensive answer but…inconsistency is a hallmark of the adhd. My son’s math progress report is a great example. He’ll have 3 or 4 assignments with above 87’s (even a few 100’s), then a few more that are below 50’s. Then his tests will be under 50, his retests usually around 70’s. You wonder, does he know the stuff or not? Some days he does and some days he doesn’t. Totally frustrating and a there is a huge disconnect between his ability and his classroom performance.
Not sure if this helps but just know I share your frustration.
If you feel your daughter needs writing help in her iep, pull up your examples and insist they include help for her in the iep. As an equal participant in the iep process, your say must have equal weight, work samples can only help bolster your case.
Best wishes.
Amy