504 meeting - need help!

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I had another 504 meeting with the school today and her teacher (who taught B for 2 wks last school year before we moved her back to 1st grade) is saying that she has noticed an improvement from last year when she had her briefly, but that there are still issues that she is concerned about. They realize that it's the beginning of the school year and all the kids are still getting into the swing of things. The main issue is that it takes B FOREVER to do her work. They know she is smart, but there is an issue with getting things from in her head, to on paper. We discussed some different things:

* giving work to her in smaller amounts, that maybe she is getting overwhelmed when she feels like it's so much at one time
* school testing on a one on one basis away from the distraction of other kids
* verbal testing
* computerized assistance (typing or voice recognition software)
* the "granny" in the classroom being directed to help her more

We talked about different things, those are just some of them. The teacher said she is concerned about making changes that may help her short term, but may end up hindering her long term. I'm just mentally fried right now. I don't know what to do. From what the principal was saying I get the feeling that basically your child needs to be failing badly to get help. That, to me, is so ret*d. That's like standing on the beach seeing someone drowning, but not helping them because they don't look like they are drowning enough at that moment. Like, let's wait until their head starts going under before we go help them. Stupid. But, I guess that's America's school system for you.

The teacher said it doesn't seem to matter what the work is, whether it's large or small, hard or easy, that B cannot work independently and still has troubles even with monitoring and frequent redirects. That she is distracted not only by other students and anything in general, but also "internally" distracted. She has trouble organizing thoughts and her time management skills are pretty much non-existent. She said that often, when you talk to her, that she does have a good depth of understanding on whatever they're doing in class - but she's unable to complete assigned work even though it's clear that she has the knowledge to do so.

I just don't know what to do. I want to help her now - I don't want to wait until she starts failing but it seems like the school systems are set up that way. For right now the teacher is going to try some different approaches that we discussed in the meeting and then we will have another 504 meeting to discuss the results and then work from there.

Any input is appreciated.

What kind of testing has she had done and by whom?

It sounds like she has executive dysfunction, like my son. My son had extensive testing. The testing revealed that my son has ADHD, but since he is not the 'stereotypical' ADHD (it is all internal) I would have never known. In this case, these docs consider it to be part of his PDD-NOS diagnosis and therefore do not diagnose it separately.

Between the ADHD symptoms and executive dysfunction, my son has a hard time w/ the things your daughter does.

The plan with my son is to give him very few problems on a page rather than the standard 20 questions or whatever that the page is usually filled with. Also, because my son is internally distracted, I don't feel it would help him to be removed from the class to a quiet area to do his work.

I am just figuring this stuff out myself. I suggest if you haven't had extensive testing done to get it done ASAP. It doesn't sound like you have had enough testing because if you did the school wouldn't be shooting in the dark about accommodations - they would see exactly what she needs from the test results.

I hope it goes OK, make sure to update, or let me know if you find something that works!

Everything you stated sounds a lot like my daughter. Everything you mentioned will help but I think it will also require a lot of time with you at home, going through the work with her. With my daughter I break it down into tiny steps-she will easily become overwhelmed with a whole page of problems or questions. I let her have her frustration, let her have time to cool off, and then slowly try to prompt her back to a problem-then take a break. They are going to have to modify her workload eventually. They will also probably have to break her work into perhaps one or two problems to a page (this also allows for their extra large handwriting-at least for my daughter).

I know it is frustrating. I gave up on the public school. But do what you can to work with the teacher to lower her frustration and help her feel successful. The more she feels she can do right, the more she will want to try.

I agree with this statement so much. It is very important to not let her get to the point where she feels worthless or that no matter how hard she tries she can't make anyone happy or do anything right. At that age, the encouragement from adults and belief in herself is just as important as her mental capacity and attention span in being able to complete her work.

I don't have any advice, my son is only 5, but this sounds exactly like him. This is only the 2nd week of school, and he is already "requiring many prompts to do his work and to not make loud noises in class" I just have no idea what to do to help him......His school tested him last year and they said that his behavior is indicative of ASD and ADHD. What can you do for the ADHD besides medication???? I am not wanting to medicate my son, but I don't really understand how to help him.

Like what, specifically? This worries me a bit, as it sounds like the commong and misguided concept that if you just keep having (unrealistic) expectations for autistic kids, they will eventually cave and meet them. It presumes that autistic kids CAN do things the way NTs do, but just resist more, or take longer to get there.

What kind of autism background does the teacher have, if she has opinions on short term/long term strategies for spectrum kids?

Being distracted sounds like sensory issues - request that they have her evaluated by someone with a background in them.

If she is slow to respond when questions, it could be processing delays that could be her brain taking longer to figure out the correct response, due to her fear of being embarrassed for giving a wrong answer or from sensory problems. Some ASDs lack the ability to filter out the unnecessary, so they must process the lesson and the conversation across the room and the commotion in the hall and the activities outside and separate the lesson and figure out what is wanted before responding. The staff must be taught to give her amply time to reply without ramping up her anxiety by interrupting the process with prompts.

Organization and time management are executive function skills that can be taught - Work with the committee to develop a plan to teach them and have it included on her IEP or 504.

Being unable to complete assignments is often due to dysgraphia* - request that she be evaluated by someone who has experience in that area. She can have a scribe to do her writing, is entitled to extended time on tests, tests in a venue without distractions and be allowed to answer tests verbally.

Our daughter is dysgraphic and the CSE and teachers fought us about getting her to write. They folded when I asked them how they would handle a child without hands. Would the CSE insist that she write, too?

If she needed to be returned to first grade last year and has that much trouble, why no IEP? What's her DX?

*Dysgraphia is a deficiency in the ability to write, regardless of the ability to read, not due to intellectual impairment.

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Thanks for the input. The school assessed her previously and confirmed the former ADHD diagnosis and my suspicions of her having Asperger's. I know they said she had some processing delays, but they weren't bad. I will get the eval results and look at them again a little later this morning.

I'm beginning to think that I need to take her to be evaluated outside of the school and see what they find and what they recommend.

She is in a gifted program. Her IQ when they tested her was 124. I understand the teacher not wanting to make changes that won't be beneficial to her long term, but I told them I don't think the problems she is having are ones that will get better over time or that she'll simply outgrow. I told them this is B, this is her - I don't see this changing any time soon. Maybe as she gets older she will pick up some skills that will make it easier, but as a whole I don't see her being able to completely overcome these difficulties any time soon, if at all. I do think that their expectations of her aren't realistic.

On the 504 they put her to have preferential seating near the teacher, frequent redirects, checking for understanding of the task, peer support/help, extra time allowed to complete work, must be accompanied by adult on field trips at all times... that's what I can remember off of the top of my head. They will send home a copy with her today for my records.

I strongly recommend taking her to a neuropsychologist for a full evaluation. The information you will learn about her will be priceless.

Is there any reason you have her on a 504 plan rather than an IEP?

has she been evaluated for OT services? like EduAdvocate says, dysgraphia may be part of the issue. an OT evaluation should reveal if this is affecting her and if so, should get her more accomodations for the written work and also OT as part of her IEP/504 plan.

make sure that they address the issue of HOW MUCH work she is getting, not just HOW MUCH AT ONE TIME. it could simply be they need to require less written work from her due to the processing delays and/or dysgraphia.

i know this is something i will be battling in the future as well. my youngest at 4 1/2 is unable to write, copy simple shapes and lines, or even cut a pattern with scissors. he is starting OT this year which hopefully will help. my SO never had OT services and his handwriting still remains mostly illegible and slow going.

maybe DW a mom has some tips on this when she sees it. i believe her son has had issues with handwriting as well and is using a computer for text entry if i remember correctly.

She is getting A's and B's in a gifted program so I guess because she's not actively failing they don't see her needing an IEP. My fear is if we don't get on top of this now she will begin failing. She was assessed through the eval process with the school and they didn't see any fine motor skill problems. She had some gross motor skill problems with her hand/eye coordination when throwing/catching a ball that was the equivalent of a 4 yr old. I have an appt with her ADHD doc on the 15th so I will see if she can refer us to a neuropsychologist.

My son also gets A's. He was turned down for the gifted program because of his behavior (prior to diagnosis). I complained that their selection criteria excludes children with disabilies via the "characteristics of gifted" criteria portion of the acceptance evaluation which accounted for 33% of the evaluation. They changed the selection process (Victory!) based on my complaint!

I am just starting the IEP process right now. I am also worried about them saying that because his grades are good, he does not need an IEP. I brought this up in the initial meeting w/ the SPE Coordinator. She said that grades are only one portion of education. She believes that his sensory and other issues are directly affecting his education - but we need what they call the DOMAIN panel to make that decision. I was reassured by her that they wouldn't just base his need for an IEP on his grades - I hope she is right. If not, I will fight it as hard as I can. I need the IEP so we can get special services through the district.

The neuropsych did so much testing that the school only had to do a speech/language assessment and hearing assessment. All the other testing and then some that they would need for the IEP is done.

this seems to be a common problem as ive run across it as well. the school psych told us that since our son is still academically doing as well as or better than his peers (knowledge of colors, letters, numbers), there isnt concern for him. of course at 4, its not like hes doing any real school work, and since he cant write or even color due to his dx, he should be considered failing.

to me, the concern should be not if they are failing according to their peer comparison or grade level, but if they arent working up to their potential. a child capable of above level work should be considered failing if they are not achieving above level work. if you have a child on the opposite end who is only capable of below level work, and they are achieving below level work, i dont believe that is considered failing for that child. so why the disparity?

and how do we get them to see and agree with this? i dont have that answer.

It's because "potential" is hard to quantify whereas grade level standards are not. Plus there would be the danger of the school lowering expectations for some kids arbitrarily.

The only solution here is to have an aggressive IEP that states some goals that are in line with capabilities.

You use the scores on the testing they do to show them where the student's strengths and weaknesses lie. If they test 2 standard deviations below the norm (2nd %ile), they will continue to have difficulty. 98th %ile would indicate a marked propensity for that subject. Standard scores and subtest scores show performance which can be used as an indicator of potential, too.

Any of these indicators can be graphed (several year's worth) to show where they, including IQ, have declined. It's a powerful tool to use when trying to prove your point.



Think about how this is going to become part of the IEP meeting -

You are going there with the agenda of getting them to provide education which will take into account the abilities of the student in each subject area, not just assign her an arbitrary class. They have never encountered someone asking them to do that and, like Aspies, they resist change. That means that you will have to define what they are going to provide and show them why. The graphs showing their program is not meeting her needs makes it hard to say, No.

You're there to advocate for your child. That means selling the committee on your point of view. The graphs are props that you will use to make it easy for them. Set the values up so any decline looks like falling off a cliff.



Getting them on the IEP is step 1. Then they must determine how they will measure and assess progress and establish an interval for assessment and reporting to the committee (including parents) to see if it is necessary to make adjustments. There's no reason to wait a year to find out something is not working.

im not positive which tests you are referring to, if you could expand on that. if its the state testing that public schools do, i can see how a downward trend in that would show increased failing.

a few issues i see with that. 1) that requires waiting at minimum an entire year between two sets of scores, if not longer. thats a lot of time to allow a child to slide backwards before you can get them accomodations, and then they have to play catch up.

2) children like mine are too young to undergo the regular state testing. his teachers do use the Brigance Test, however because of speech issues, certain parts of the test are inaccurate as they require verbal answers and the test giver cannot interpret his answers correctly.

my son has only been diagnosed since this past may, so we are still very new to evals and tests done for asd students and dealing with IEP issues. my oldest did have an IEP for 7 1/2 years, but that was only for speech and we had no opposition to it. for my youngest, while his teachers and the ST and OT have been great, it has been a big fight getting him services. the school psych still refuses to dx autism for my son, an issue we are suppose to be revisiting this fall.