HI All, I am new to the forum and am looking for a reality check.
I have two children in the highly gifted range, both of whom have processing difficulties (auditory and visual). We were surprised with the first, who loved school but became miserable and depressed in Kindergarten. Following diagnosis, we had a huge (but ultimately successful) struggle with his school for needed supports. Their position seems to be that providing supports to gifted-LD kids is like giving tax cuts to the wealthy.
My issue is this - my daughter appears to have the same problems, but blends-in better to the class due to a higher social awareness. The district opthamologist wrote a report stating that she needs 24 vision therapy sessions due to “unskilled” scores on his test, and she has been diagnosed with CAPD. While she is learning in her 1st grade classroom, she regularly skips sections of the page in reading and written work. She also has problems with dictation.
With lessons learned from our son, we went to the IEP meeting with an advocate, and after 3.5 hours ultimately prevailed. However, there wasn’t a consensus and it felt like they believed me to be manipulating the system for unecessary services. My relationship with the teacher seems to be adversely affected and I feel awful about it.
Was I out of line here? All I wanted was a note in her record that the CAPD exists (check her understanding of directions if tested in a noisy auditorium) and vision therapy. I would give a squinting child glasses even if she had average grades in the classroom, so why wouldn’t I obtain corrective actions in this case?
Thanks for any input.