JSD24

I've seen issues like this referred to as 'stealth dyslexia'. It's really not stealth. He doesn't decode which is the 'elephant in the room' clue that he's not a fluent reader. Not sure where you are in PA but there is the Scottish Rite in Harrisburg (there might be other PA locations) that can remediate the reading disability. There are other groups that can help: IDA - PA and Everyone Reads PA are 2. There's a public charter school out in Pittsburgh that does a great job with remedial instruction. What I don't like about the special ed system is that school psychologists cannot diagnose dyslexia. It's not allowed per their practice act but dyslexia affects 20% of the population (this is per the Connecticut Longitudinal Study). This causes so many students to not get the help they need. Given how your son compensates for his disability, he's probably not going to fall far enough behind to qualify for school based services which is why I'm making suggestions for outside of school. There are also homeschool programs that don't cost a whole lot. These include Horton Literacy Primer and Toe by Toe. Turning on closed captioning on your TV is another way to help teach reading. Audiobooks borrowed from the library where you see the text and hear it being read can also help. If you can show the decoding deficit, this might be something the school can give him as an accommodation. (The test for his disability is the inability to decode nonsense words. Not sure if this was done with the school's screening.) As texts get more complicated, he will struggle more & more if he can't decode.

She needs better social skills so she can participate in group projects. This is why this is a "school" issue. Has the school evaluated social skills? There is at least one assessment for this: SSIS - Social Skills Improvement System. The other area of need the school should evaluate (and it seems that many schools skip with an autism diagnosis) is pragmatics. Your child might be masking at school given she's bright. If the school does an eval like the TOPL, you want to see them do the optional extended part so she's challenged to the point where she can't mask. What we saw was the guidance counselor didn't have the skills to teach a student like my daughter social skills via a 504. I'm thinking that the level of service - 30 minutes once every 6 weeks/3.4 hours per year - might not have been enough time to cover what she needed. With a 504, there is no progress monitoring so they weren't looking at how effective the services were. If you go to school & mask for 6-7 hours as well as being surprised (to use the language from Social Thinking) by how peers react to you socially, the situation will be hard. It's good that she's bright and doesn't have academic struggles because that would make school even harder.

With my son, he wouldn't do the book reports that were assigned throughout middle school. The special ed supervisor kept saying 'it's will not skill'. (She was the LEA at his IEP meetings.) I had no proof to refute this. In HS (while COVID was going on), I finally wrote to his IEP team after they did his triennial eval (RR due to COVID) that I felt it doesn't match what we are seeing. I asked for a neuropsych eval - I wanted an IEE but they offered to do one with a neuropsych who was on contract with our IU and I agreed to it. The result was that he has dysgraphia - something that I had suspected in preschool and the school had looked at more than once when he was in elementary school and had said he didn't have. He was in 11th grade and was finally getting the accommodations he should have had 12 years ago when he started kindergarten and his teacher had asked about an eval for OT. The school couldn't do one then because he had been evaluated for OT when he was in preschool and a year hadn't passed so the eval wouldn't have provided valid results. Part of the gaslighting was that OTs are credentialed to evaluate dysgraphia. I don't believe that's true even though that's who did the evals in elementary where they said he didn't have dysgraphia. The interactions with this school have been very frustrating with getting the right support for my children. My daughter was evaluated for autism in 6th grade. After an incident in 8th grade, I was asked to give my permission for a psychiatric evaluation. The conclusion of that eval was that she has Aspergers (later changed to autism level 1) and needed an IEP with the autism box checked. She had these same issues when she started kindergarten but I wasn't aware of how IEPs and special ed worked. This is the reason why I advocate. I don't want to see other families have to deal with the same things my family have had to deal with.

It's always good to make requests in writing as it creates a paper trail so things don't end up a he said/she said situation. This includes following up with a letter/email after an IEP/ARD meeting. With a speech only IEP, the case manager tends to be an SLP who wouldn't be able to include things unrelated to speech. Also, Tiered support is gen ed and there isn't any paperwork required. The thought behind this is you see an issue, you provide help to the student, the student catches up and stays caught up. Reading between these lines: no disability was present so an IEP wasn't needed. I'm a question person. Rather than asking for Tier 2 in math, I'd say: My child is struggling with math. What can be done to help him? If they don't have Tiered support, they might have a teacher who can help if he gets to school early or has a ride so he can stay late. (Odds are the school would say wait & see but they can also say that a special ed eval in math is a possibility.) To answer your question about PWN: The PWNs I've seen have be extremely vague. A request like this wouldn't have made it onto a PWN. It would have been better to have requested that your concern about your child's poor grades in math go under 'parent concerns' in the IEP. This gets it into writing where anyone reading through the IEP can see that you have concerns about how your child is doing in math. As Lisa would say, PWN in this situation is not a hill to die on. The evals they do for special ed are not like the tests that teachers write to assess how well a student has understood their instruction. Special ed assessments are normed or tested. It's possible there is no disability when a student doesn't do well on a teacher's test. They could have been having an off day or they might not be grasping the concept being taught. (I do agree with you that when a student isn't doing well in math, the school should have something in place so they can get extra support & hopefully catch up.)

I remember being in a meeting with my special ed director. She said that the school is obligated to meet the needs of students - it's really another way of saying they need to provide FAPE. Doesn't matter if what the student needs currently exists or not. They need to meet his neets. If it is appropriate for him to take Regents Chemistry as a co-taught class, they need to provide it. I'm not from NY so I'm not exactly sure what a Regents Chemistry does versus the non-Regents version of the class. I did find this with doing a search of case law in NY: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3365753441522273465&q=co+taught+regents&hl=en&as_sdt=4,33 If he's denied the class, he's being denied the Regents diploma. If the Regents diploma is FAPE, he need the co-taught Regents class.

You can use medical assistance to see a provider who can evaluate for medical autism - or if she's covered under employer insurance, it can be done with a copay or 2. A full neuropsych eval is nice to have but it's hard to get it covered and expensive if it's not covered. A psychologist with the right training can do the assessment. It might take a handful of phone calls and waiting for a few months to have it done but this is doable. We had BHRS (now IBHS) services for my daughter. They were the ones who evaluated her for autism when we were looking to renew the authorization for services. It was a rating scale that I filled out. And it's a good idea to have a backup plan. What happened with my friend was she signed up for the ID waiver and they had ID supports lined up. Then the school redid the IQ test and he was low but no longer ID. He's also got autism so he'll still be able to get a waiver but the transition program was no longer a good fit. With autism, my big concern tends to be social skills. This is one thing that can hold a person back from being able to hold a job. I'd definitely ask the school to evaluate this if they haven't already.

I remember talking to a person who worked as a school psychologist - she now does IEEs. She remembers a student who was immune-compromised and would have graduated ~15 years ago. What he school did was livestream his classes so he didn't have to get exposed to all the germs at school. Not sure if your district would be willing to do this. Also, there are robots with cameras & speakers that a school can buy which would allow a student to attend classes. This website has info: https://provenrobotics.ai/telepresence-robots-in-education/ This one too: https://www.cnn.com/business/tech/av1-robot-sick-children-school-spc/index.html This is a longer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMcsPOvdMbw The embedded video is shorter. (I didn't watch them all the way through. I'm assuming they are 'appropriate'.) If your son is present via a robot, he's present & not absent. This could definitely be an IEP accommodation.

In PA, all disabled children are eligible for Medicaid (also called Medical Assistance). With either an ID or autism diagnosis, there are adults waivers that that they could be eligible for as well. (Good to get on the waitlist in your county now so they can plan for when your child graduates HS & needs the waiver funding.) I'm not sure the medical autism diagnosis is really needed. Providers should be told of the autism diagnosis because you approach a person differently when autism is present in addition to ID. If your child is non-speaking, I'd encourage you to watch the movie Spellers on YouTube. My friend's son was given an ID diagnosis. It was given because there wasn't a good way to assess him because he's got autism and apraxia. The apraxia made his speech & fine motor unreliable. He spells now and is taking college classes. Given what he says via spelling, I feel he should have had a GIEP. He's Vince. His story starts at 46:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h1rcLyznK0

I forgot to add that parents are not members of the 504 team so the school gets to put what they want on a 504. With an IEP, parents get a vote. With a 504, they don't.

I'd send an email: Dear School- Accommodations on a 504 should be supported by information on a student's need. When we meet next week, can you please bring the data showing XXX's need to switch from written tests to oral tests so the 504 team can discuss this recent change. I'm suggesting an email so the school is prepared to answer your question and not say 'I'll get back to you on that' at the meeting.

From what I've been told in the trainings I've taken, you are only allowed one FBA per year. This might not apply to you/your state. This is 1000% my guess: Could RSD get the person who did the completed IEE to do an FBA IEE based on the observations they did when they observed for the IEE you will meet about next month? Based on what you posted, I'm thinking this was what the conversation between the evaluator & RSD was about. I think that when an evaluator does a lot of IEEs in a SD, they do develop a relationship of sorts. This is OK. Professionals in the same industry can & do develop working relationships. The evaluator can still be able to be unbiased when they have a working relationship with a district. Yes, they are allowed to talk to each other without parent permission or the parent being present. Evaluators don't just show up & observe. They are going to arrange a time that works for the school and will hopefully be a good time so the behavior they want to see will occur. There are general ed FBAs that a school can do w/o parent permission. With this, a BIP/PBSP can be written for a student who doesn't have an IEP. A 1:1 aide is an accommodation so it is something that can go on a 504. Lastly, I'll ask if the person who did the OT IEE has school OT credentials? Schools listen to school people more than they listen to medical people. A student might medically need OT weekly and not have a need for OT at school. Given the school OT didn't seem to have an interest in what was on the OT IEE report, one reason could be that the person who wrote the report does not have school credentials.

My son has ADHD & dysgraphia. Oral testing was a game changer for him. Given that it took longer for him to write, he did better with being able to voice his answers instead of writing them. If your child is being disruptive during testing, taking tests in another room might be a good thing. If testing orally keeps her focused and prevents her from leaving questions unanswered, it could help bring her grades back up to where they were. I post this a lot: What's in the IEP should be based on data. If there is no data to support the need for classroom tests to be given orally, it shouldn't be an accommodation on her IEP. I don't see this being assessed as part of the special ed testing but it could be part of the observations they are doing. With a medical ADHD diagnosis, I would expect the school to assess executive functioning. Social skills might also be an area to assess.

Special ed assessments - I believe this is the 'oral testing' you are asking about. Every test has a testing protocol. You'd need to know what test is being given to know if oral testing is an option per the protocol. I have a few thoughts on this. (1) ADHD can co-occur with LD. If the student has an LD in reading, the results might not be accurate. (2) Some kids will mess up with filling out Berger Dots - either accidentally or on purpose. Doing the testing orally means there's an adult making sure the student's choices are accurately recorded. (3) Some kids will look to please the adult they're working with. It's possible that a student might not be honest with oral testing (which is why you need to follow the testing protocol). (4) If the evaluator had a bad experience with (1) or (2), they might opt to give the test orally as it's a waste of time and resources to give an assessment and the results aren't accurate. It also makes them look bad. Keep in mind that the student doing the Connors or BASC is one part of the special ed assessment. Parents and teachers will also do rating scales. With other evaluations, the only protocol is the student answering the evaluator's questions. I believe that a lot of IQ tests are like this.

I'm curious if the school evaluated this student for an emotional disability that is secondary to the dyslexia diagnosis. Can they say that an outside therapist is needed if they didn't evaluate? I'd say no. I know that disabled students can live in fear of their disability being discovered where they end up getting teased and/or bullied. It's possible that outside therapy is needed but it's also true that this student might need a safe place and trained person to talk to when feeling anxious. (If this isn't in the IEP, the IEP might not be FAPE.) I've also seen where dyslexic students thrive when in a school that specializes in remediating dyslexia because they are not going to be singled out due to the disability plus they will tend to make better progress because every teacher is either trained to accommodate or trained to remediate (or both). My feeling is that talking to the student and doing your best to figure out where support is lacking is great data to bring to a meeting. Specific examples can go a long way to demonstrate where FAPE isn't being provided to the student as well as how this issue might not be present if all classmates were similarly disabled.

The thing my child had the biggest need for was reminders to use the bathroom as well as the ability to carry a water bottle. What's ironic is, with COVID, the school turned off all the water fountains and EVERYONE started carrying a water bottle. Water bottles were banned by the school many years ago because kids would put things other than water in them and you can't learn if you're drunk. They talk about pendulum swings in education. Makes me think this is going to be one. Extra time on tests was a game-changer too. Anxiety slowed her down. Extra time leveled the field.