Hello to all,
I decided at the end of last school year that I wanted a independant evaluation for my 7 year old other than the district testing. I really am feeling that the district is not meeting her needs whatsoever and am hoping to be able to get her into a private school this year. Just wondering if there are any real key questions issues to be brought up when I am there. I want to make the most of it. I have gone through the mountains of paperwork/testing all in order of year and left out the ones I had questions about. I plan on telling her for sure that at the last CSE meeting they plain out told me summer school would not be provided my child because in their opinion it would not be helpful since they thought she would never progress any further than she is right now (imagine that one had to hold me in my seat almost!!!!!!!!) Seems the farther we get into the educational system (or lack there of) the harder we have to fight to not let our kids be throw aways. Anyway,thanks in advance for any insight. Jen
Re: private testing questions
Good Heavens, Jen! I can’t imagine anyone saying that to you. You must have been outraged! You were smart to decide on private school.
Many public schools are not equipped to deal with children who have special educational needs. It is easier for them to dump the kids. It’s my opinion that you can’t force the school to do what they can’t do. But, here’s the problem. To PROVE that they can’t handle your child, you have to leave your child in a destructive situation for about three years. Then, you can request that the school pay for a placement in another situation.
Personally, even though we couldn’t readily afford to do it, we put our son in private school and paid for it ourselves, rather than have him start a spiral of failure and discouragement. The choice means that, although we are older people, we have no retirement savings.
At this point, if I understand you correctly, you have two separate things facing you: 1) gaining a full understanding of what your child needs to learn, then finding a place where that can happen or a person who can help that to happen; 2.) finding a way to pay for what she needs. I think you have to separate the two goals in your own mind as you approach testing.
Carol
Re: private testing questions
Jen
When someone talks to you that way in a condecending manner, the thing to do is to keep your cool and say excuse me, I must have misunderstood you.
Please give me the same courtesy and respect I have given you.
It stops them in their tracks, and they realize you are in control.
Next thing I would do is bring a tape recorder, tell them right before the meeting starts. Tell them your memory is poor and you need this to remember
every word that is said.
Sorry you had to experience this, I’ve been there and not handled myself well,
I got the book IEP and your child. They five you great pointers.
Good Luck
MaryEllen
Re: private testing questions
It can be helpful to let the tester know all the reasons why you want the testing done. Are you still interested in negotiating with your district or have you firmly decided to pull your child out? If you want to keep both options open, tell the tester that. If you just want the test results for private school, tell him that. If you want to know as much about your daughter’s learning style as you possibly can, tell him/her that.
There are a battery of tests that can be done. If money is no object, give them license to do them all. If you just want a brief profile to gain her admittance into a private school, you could maybe save yourself some money by letting the tester know that’s the only reason for testing.
Re: private testing questions
Hi Jen,
Your decision is a wise one. My two sons are in a private school for dyslexic boys and are doing well.
I have a few comments.
1. Your best bet is a school with many years experience in teaching ld kids…they’ve got the methods that will work. Sometimes, however, if the child is not severe the smaller classes and often creative teaching methods used in private nonld
schools can work. First choice however is ld school always if you have the funds.
2. We are currently working with an attorney and she tells us the private evaluators to use because she has trained them so to speak so the reports use the correct lingo. Note: LD evaluator writes the report an then runs it by attorney for discussion so
that key items are in there. Key wording from prior caselaw of winning cases. This helps the case.
3. Keep a nice paper trail going… Write lots of letters, do everything by letter no verbals. Hand deliver and have letters stampped if district “loses” them.
4. I always type up a summary of my child before the meeting with evaluator so that she has a copy. I can read it to her or
just present it to her. It has history, my comments, etc.
5. One of the other posters presented a point. You have to let the child fail first to prove school doesn’t have program to meet child’s needs. Your child may already qualify for this. I had no knowledge of this while I ignorantly letting my child fail. I believed the teacher’s “I see progress”.
6. Slap that teacher with a wet noodle on her comment that your child won’t progress any further than she is now. How dare she call herself a teacher. It is evidence of her lack of knowldge on how to teach.
7. We still keep tabs on our kids in private school to show our
concern to child and teacher, to ensure progress, and to just be
involved.
Best of luck. donna
Have you checked out the “LD in Depth” section of this website? There’s quite a bit of information under “assessments” and “IEP” — including how, if you are not satisfied with the school district’s testing, you can request an IIE (Individual Independent Evaluation) by professionals of your choosing, with the district paying the bill. Most school districts will grant a request for IIE if they realize you know your rights, because their legal costs are much more than the cost of an IIE if they turn you down and you challenge their denial.
Anyway, my point is that you are likely to have substantial costs in the future for therapies and schooling so, if you can get money out of the school district for testing, you might want to go that route now.
It might be a good idea to post a little more about your child’s difficulties and what testing has been done. Sounds like your school district is saying she is mentally retarded and therefore can’t learn. This is a totally different situation (from an educational standpoint) from a child with average or higher intelligence who has severe learning disabilities.
I want to mention that private schools aren’t always better than public schools, and sometimes are worse when it comes to providing special services. We pulled our daughter out of a private school when she was still reading at a preschool level in 2nd grade. The school had absolutely no clue about how to teach a dyslexic to read. We ended up homeschooling for 3rd grade and have found, through trial and error, that our daughter learns very well with one-on-one and almost nothing in a classroom setting. The key to our daughter’s academic successes has been (1) one-on-one tutoring at home (2) using curriculum materials hand-picked to meet her needs, and (3) private therapies (in our case, vision therapy, PACE, and Phono-Graphix) selected to remediate her specific sensory/motor and cognitive deficits. No school could have done what we were able to do in one year as homeschoolers! On to your testing questions…..
Usually it’s a good idea at this age to get a complete speech and language evaluation. This will evaluate articulation, receptive language, expressive language, and phonological processing. Good tests to be included are the LAC (Lindamood-Bell Auditory Conceptualization) and CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing). It’s also a good idea to include the SCAN, which screens to some extent for auditory processing problems. (Our medical insurance covered the cost of this evaluation, based on a referral from our GP.)
If there is any suspicion of motor delay, it’s a good idea to get an evaluation by an occupational therapist trained to assess sensory integration. (May also be covered by medical insurance.)
If there are directionality problems (left/right), writing reversals, squinting, head-tilting when reading, then it’s a good idea to get a developmental vision eval. You can find certified developmental optometrists at http://www.covd.org. (Usually covered at least in part by medical insurance.)
If the child has difficulty following multi-step verbal instructions, says “huh?” a lot, has trouble participating in group discussions, has socialization difficulties, etc. then it’s a good idea to get an evaluation by an audiologist trained to assess CAPD. You can find CAPD audiologists at http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/. (Eval usually covered by medical insurance.)
Elsewhere on one of these boards is a post with information about IQ testing. If I recall correctly, the WISC is a good one for age 7.
One thing I would be careful about is to get more than just educational and psychological testing done. Typically this kind of testing turns up deficits such as “difficulties with visual-spatial processing” — but cannot assess an underlying sensory problem causing the difficultiese, such as poor tracking or focusing. Also, keep in mind that sensory level deficits can camouflage IQ scores. Children with multiple sensory and/or cognitive level deficits who get appropriate remediation almost always start scoring higher on IQ testing — sometimes much higher.
Mary