I just had an IEP meeting with my son’s school where we discussed some recent NeuroPsych testing he had done, resulting in a diagnosis of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. The School Complex Psychologist picked the report apart and basically told us that the results were skewed and that she didn’t believe a word of it. She insists that he doesn’t have any LD problems, all his issues are behavior related (he is also bipolar) and that we just need to keep doing what we are currently doing.
My son is going into the 6th grade and has the handwriting of a 2nd grader. He has a lot of difficulty with writing and shows 90% of the symptoms of dysgraphia.
Does anyone have any suggestions of what I do next? The school psychologist is not a clinical psychologist, although I don’t really know what the difference is.
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
Sara has the right idea — the label doesn’t matter as much as the services to focus on (especially because the school psych won’t be the one providing them).
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
The main problem right now is that they don’t want to provide any additional services because they don’t believe there is a problem. His teacher doesn’t grade on handwriting so they are taking that to mean that he doesn’t have an issue with handwriting. The only things that are in his IEP right now deal with his behavioral difficulties, and those are so few and far between right now that it almost isn’t worth it. He has been stable for 8 months now, so we want to start focusing more on his educational issues rather than his behavior, but they want to put all his educational issues down to the fact that he is bipolar.
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
I would request an OT evaluation in writing, dated, copy to the special ed. director.
A clinical psychologist does counseling and deals with mental health issues. A school or educational psychologist is more involved in testing and diagnosis of learning disorders.
Janis
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but I have seen articles and research about the association between bipolar illness and handwriting difficulties and other LD. You might do a search on www.medscape.com to see what turns up.
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
I’m sorry, I don’t get it. Where did you have the neuro-psych testing done and why would the school psychologist think she knows better? Didn’t the people doing the testing ask for feedback from the school including the school psychologist? Weren’t there questionnaire’s for them to fill out - principal, teachers, whoever, so that they could discern what was behavior related versus what was not? If there were, did the school psych fill one out?
I would have a serious problem with the attitude being presented here. Sounds to me like they don’t want to have to add anything to the IEP and they know the best way to do that is to avoid any further labeling. I don’t know what the setup is as far as administration is concerned, but if it were me, I’d be asking someone who actually did the testing to call this person on the phone and discuss the test results directly. They need to accept the testing as valid, or you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle for any additional services - at least that’s how it looks to me.
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
The school complex psych doesn’t fill out paperwork for any testing, because she doesn’t have any contact with the students. She only shows up for IEP meetings. I did speak to the person who did the testing a couple of days ago, and she is more than willing to speak to the school psych, however that person isn’t returning my calls.
What I did find out is that the person doing the testing is a doctor (has her Psy.D) and the school psych is only a masters level counselor. So, she doesn’t have the expertise or training to be able to make the statements that she did. This will make things much easier for me when we go back to revisit this next month.
And yes, I also believe that this is a ploy to not have to add services to his IEP.
Re: Testing Disagreement with School
I would invite the doc who did the testing to the meeting if she’s willing. She might be. I was shocked when the doc who did my son’s testing volunteered to go to the meeting, but it seems many of them know how the game is played and are willing to advocate for the kids. He was great and I loved having him there. It was a heck of a lot harder for anyone to discount the test results when the guy who wrote the report was sitting right in front of them.
However, you do have some additional ammunition to back you up no matter what. You can simply say that you appreciate the school psych’s opinion, but surely she must recognize that doctor who did the testing is much more qualified to make the diagnosis.
I wish you the best of luck.
What do you want them to do differently from what they are doing? Write down in a coherent list the things you would want added to his IEP. Then start negotiating with them. Don’t sign the IEP until you’re happy with it but of course understand one always needs to make compromises. If you want some suggestions, try getting ahold of a book called Educational Care. it offers suggestions and strategies for schools to use for various learning differences.
Do he get extended time on tests? With dyslexia, he certainly
should.
Good luck.