I have a 6yr old son who has low average scores in both IQ and Achievement tests. He also has Apraxia of speech and problems w/ attending to even short lessons (if the lesson is academic). Physically, he has grown beautifully and is doing all of the “normal” physical activity. He has a lot of little neighborhood friends who are a couple years older and they play pretty well together. In school, anything academic is a struggle and he is currently in spec needs class. Even w/ repetition, 1 to 1 and various learning aids (visual and physical), he doesn’t seem to be making any progress remembering how to spell his name or recognizing certain letters of the alphabet. When he counts, to 10 is perfect but he always misses 13. He can’t always accept praise when it is appropriate or he gets upset because he doesn’t think that he should be praised. Since his scores were not deficient in any area’s, he doesn’t meet any criteria for LD “labels”, ADD or otherwise. His Dr thinks he has PDD since his problems are “global” but cannot provide the kind of testing to be definitive…. I am confused.
My son has been evaluated by school psych services and we took him to a child psych last school year when behavior was a major problem. Behavior has improved. What I tend to hear from both of the psych dr’s is that if my son has an LD, testing is not specific enough to diagnose at this age.
So what now do I do? This is not the first school year he has been exposed to the curriculum. My son has been in a very educational environment for three years. Do I just sit around and wait until he is 8 and “hope” that we can finally figure out then what is eluding us all this time? I’m sure I can’t do that. I have written a letter to the supervisor of spec ed for his program asking for any other kind of evaluation to be done, that is available.
I don’t know what specifically I should be asking for. I don’t know what might be available and I don’t know how to ask for what I don’t know to exist. Got any suggestions ?
The last thing I want to do is give up. We try everyday to move forward in anyway. I would be doing my child a disservice as a parent to just give up and I can’t. Has anyone else had an experience like this ? Have you been successful gaining special education assistance to develop a successful IEP?
Re: My slow learner
Jao, Thank you for the reply !
I do need detail for the acronyms…. I’m still pretty new at this. Can you describe what each acronym (test wise) covers as well ?
I made an appointment @ the Marcus Institute for this December… You can look it up @ www.marcus.org however, I was told the evalutation would take about 2 1/2 hrs. The cost is pretty high… How did you get your insurance to cover part of it ? My insurance company said that I might be able to get part of the cost covered at an out of network benefit level but that each test would have to be approved before coverage could be determined…. Gotta love insurance. I feel like I need a degree just to file a claim.
My son’s Pediatrician said I would need to find a Developmental Pediatrican. Have you had any experiences w/ those kinds of Doctors ?
Re: My slow learner
Your son sounds very much like my daughter. We had her repeat kindergarten when she wasn’t able to master the basics - counting to 100, writing, simple reading etc. The next year she still struggled so we had her evaluated for LD and she qualified for special education resources. She received speech, OT and assistance in a resource room for both math and reading. I wasn’t happy with her progress especially in reading so I researched many of the reading programs available and decided to have her tutored with a Wilson Reading tutor. That was 3 years ago, and although she is still being tutored (and yes, that is money out of my pocket) I have been very happy with her progress. She is no longer in speech and still receives help for math in a resource room. She still struggles with math and spelling as her short term memory is not good. Get online and get as much info as you can and take your sons education into your own hands. You might have to push and fight to get what you think is appropriate - but you will find that you are the one who knows your son the best. Good Luck - and look into the Wilson Reading Program. Even thought your son is six - the sooner you get him going the better.
Yes, we do have an IEP in place this school year for our nine-year-old son, but how I wish that we had been able to figure out what his issues were when he was five or six.
No, obviously you can’t wait around until he is eight or nine… You need to find a pediatric neuropsychologist in your area (what part of the country do you live?) and have your son THOROUGHLY evaluated. A thorough evaluation may consist of the following assessments (feel free to ask me for the acronyms if you need them, but in the interest of space in this post, I won’t spell them out): DAS, WISC-III, TOVA, BNT, RPAT, VMI, ROCF, Immediate Recall, Delayed Recall, Matching Subtest, VRAMA, TONI-3, TOMAL, CVLT-C, WCST, GPT, Stressed Gaits, WJ-III, BASC, and some version of a Parent and Teaching rating inventory. The evaluation will also include clinical interviews, behavioral observations, and a review of the child’s complete record. Your child’s needs may demand different assessments, but there should be quite a few of them.
Is this easy? Well, not in Central Ohio, it wasn’t. But it can be done. Perhaps you could start by called the nearest Children’s Hospital and have him evaluated by a pediatrician who specializes in development issues. This was where we started. From there you should be able to get referrals to a pediatric neuropsychologist. But be prepared, if/when you’re told that they can’t see your child for six months to a year: get on the cancellation list and make it clear that you will take ANY cancellation, and then call their office back regularly to inquire where your son is on the list. For our son, we just basically begged. Before a cancellation finally came through for our son (which took three months), I had the doc involved convinced that he needed to see our boy on two consecutive Saturdays (since the testing required two days). Then we had to set up a payment plan (since this doc wasn’t on our insurance, although it ended up being covered in part after all was said and done). His fee was $1500.
Good luck! Be persistent, and be strong. You can get it done. Keep us posted!