preschooler with LD

Well they can absolutely NOT readminister the same tests in such a sort period of time. Good grief they should know better than that. His scores would probably increase on the second administration due to the “practice effect”. Both of these structured tests are normed on a population of same aged peers- you cannot say that one is “harder” than the other. They might examine somewhat different language abilities- and those can reflect his particular strengths and weaknesses- but that would up to the evaluator to sort out. Wow 7% cut off is so low! I’m a little confused by the results of his two tests- how can there be a 20 point discrepancy in scores and for them both be at the 10%ile? Either way, his scores should be higher given his high IQ- there is definitely a delay. Speech and language abilities also provide the foundation for reading- it’s important to intervene now. You may need to get an advocate…Good luck

I agree with jlh. You need to find out the laws in your state or read the IDEA regs. I believe they say that they district must have an early intervention program. It sounds like you are getting the run around. Testing in the 7th percentile seems awfully low to me as well, since the norm is between 25% and 75%.

Have you considered either getting an advocate or pursuing speech and languager services privately, say through your health insurance if you have it?

How low were the scores on the CELF & Preschool Language Assessment-3?

K.

in development to qualify for services. Thats one of the most generous EI programs in the nation.

Of the kids who qualified and received those services, less than 20% are eligible for school preschool service when they are tested at their third birthday.

Im not saying EI is awesome(although it is)Im saying it requires a MAJOR delay to qualify for help between ages 3 and 6. Im not sure IQ would even enter the picture. My son received EI and school sponsored preschool and never received an IQ test until elementary.

And, for the record, I have no idea how to transfer a % delay into a percentile rank. So my info may not be numerically valid

I just know that when I did EI, we often shook our heads at kids who were turned down for services by the schools. Questionned our jobs on occassion. You spend all that time teaching a kid to build with blocks for OT concerns and, by golly, she builds so well she no longer qualifies for help because she built a 7 block tower at the testing. Catch 22

I agree with K. See if your pediatrician will refer you for private S/L eval/therapy to be paid by insurance. I would not want to take chances with a mediocre public school pre-school, personally. He’ll get more service if done privately.

Oh, and one more thing. I think you should refer to this as a language delay/disorder and not a learning disability at this point.

Janis

I moved from San Diego last year and have a lot of conections in special ed. Please email me privately if interested. Also, at SDSU they have a very good speech and comunications clinic. The therapists are students finishing up for their degree but are supervised. My daughter was 4 and 90% unitellegitable and in one summer of therapy went to 20% unitellgitable.

Also, with most testing there is a time limit under which you can not administer the same test. I know in San Diego it is critical as to who does the testing and I can help you with that. Also, my guess is that they want to readminister the tests because if they use the private testing that you paid for and qualifiy for services then under the law you can require THEM to pay for the initial testing. San Diego is well aware of this and that might have something to do with it. Just some thoughts.

Leah

I can totally relate. My child did great in EI but hey felt she needed to continue being served in a pre-school type setting she had in EI. What pissed me off is that even tho we had written reports and recommendations from her speech therapist and EI teacher and my agreement, (all of us of course had had far more sxperience with my child than the school district) but the district had someone come in observe her for 2 hours (on one of the best days she ever had) and tried to deny her SDC. Fortunately I had a tape recorer and an advocate at the IEP who forced them into putting her into an SDC.

Janis,
I need to disagree with you here. Just because a pre-K program is public, does not mean it will be mediocre. I was lucky to find an advocate who knew where the best PK teachers were in the system. Even tho my child SDC is in a location within a run-down neighbor hood, the teacher is excellent, my daughter makes gains everyday and the class is only half full which allows my child a lot of personal time.
I tried the private insurance route and it only allowed us 6 speech classes and then cut us off and told us to go to the school district. Most HMO’s will not cover “developmemtal delay” for speech.

I suggest that you deal with the problem yourself, instead of waiting on the school. I HIGHLY recommend the Hanen Program’s books and other materials. http://www.hanen.org/Hanen2002/frames.htm Get _It Takes Two to Talk_ It is pretty cheap. Speech therapy at this age group is NOT rocket science, and you can do a whole lot more for your kid’s development on a daily basis than the school can do in once or twice a week therapy. I also suggest you get his hearing checked. Hearing loss, whether fluctuating (fluid in middle ear) or otherwise is the MAJOR reason for speech/language delay, and pediatricians tend to be crummy at picking this up. My second child didn’t even babble until she got her tubes in at age 11 months, and even with that I had to leap up and down to get my pediatrician sign off on the ENT consultation. Make sure that your audiologist (not the nurse with the hand held in the pediatrician’s office) checks him specifically for central auditory processing disorder.

There certainly can be good public pre-schools. However, if a child has a significant language delay, it can have a profound impact on learning later. The majority of public school speech/language pathologists do NOT do individual therapy. So for real language remediation, I still say I wouldn’t take my chances with public school services alone. I work in the public system and I know the difference in services between public and private. There is the same parallel for children who have language based LD’s. Rarely ever are they remediated in public schools, because number one, they are generally not using proven methods and/or they are not giving the child enough service to actually remediate.

You are fortunate to have your child in a class that is half full. I’m sure that is helpful. Actually, when my own child was 4, I did have her evaluated by the public school speech therapist and she said she’d give her once a week service. That really is not enough to accomplish anything. I just feel that early intervention is very important and some issues require more intensive therapies than others.

Janis

Hi, Shirin,

I primarily teach hearing impaired children and am familiar with the Hanen materials. I also very much agree with suspecting possible auditory processing disorder when there is a receptive delay. I am very familiar with that as well since my youngest child is diagnosed with APD. But I will add that few audiologists are qualified to test for it, and few will test children under the age of 6 or 7. I would only go to an audiologist who specifically specializes in APD testing. I do know of a very excellent one in the Washington area who will test pre-school children, however. Surely this SLP who tested her child’s language also screened his hearing. I would assume that would be routine with any child with a language delay. But you are very correct in your recommendations.

Janis

>Actually, when my own child was 4, I did have her evaluated by the public school speech therapist and she said she’d give her once a week service. That really is not enough to accomplish anything. I just feel that early intervention is very important and some issues require more intensive therapies than others.<

I totally agree. It is just that HMO’s have lots of ways to wriggle out of speech therapy and it is a shame. It is true, the districts do not give enough speech as I have a son who has been showing the effects of this over the years. My daughter was fortunate that she was in an early intervention progran and they gave her 1:1 speech therapy, 30 minuts 3 X per week and it helped tremendously with the aid of her language enrichment class for 2 year olds. Not only do children need an adequate supply of speech therapy, they need a trained teacher to help them practice and encourage language in a social setting. Just sending them to a regular pre-school is not sufficient. My son went to a wonderful pre-schgool but the teachers were not trained to work with him to encourage language. He developed coping mechanisms like getting other children to speak for him and he had good non-verbal skills as he was well liked by his peers. He is now 11 and we are still trying to unravel the damage of insufficient district services.