My 14-year-old eighth grade daughter has bipolar disorder and has an IEP under SED. She is in both GATE and special ed programming. She receives medical services from her HMO and from County Mental Health. She is currently stable and doing acceptable work in her academic classes. However, she has always struggled with written assignments (even before she became ill), and particularly struggles with answering the call of a question. Her grades on homework tend to be A’s or F’s, depending on the nature of the assignment.
Today her psychiatrist said that she almost certainly has a receptive-expressive language problem that is masked by her emotional problems and her intelligence, and that is definitely not part of the thought disorder.
However, the psychiatrist can’t diagnose an educational problem so I’ll have to ask the school to test my daughter.
My daughter has always had some trouble with writing mechanics and with organizing her thoughts on paper. However, she began talking at a very young age (full sentences before 12 months), has always had a precocious vocabulary, and reads well, so it never occurred to me that she could have a language-based disability. Is this possible? What testing should be done? Can a receptive-expressive language problem be remediated in a teenager?
Thank you so much.
P. Johnson
Your daughter’s psychiatrist is right. In addition to her bipolar disorder (the SED program) and her learning disabilities (her special ed program), she appears to have a receptive-expressive language disability. This problem is often seen when learning disabilities exists. She needs a speech-language assessment to clarify these problems and then she will need speech-language therapy along with appropriate accommodations to succeed. Yes, it is not too late to address these problems as a teen.
Topic
Speech & Language