My daughter doesn't go to her related services at school?

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brenda936
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26 Dec 2015, 11:52 am

My now 15 year old daughter has an IEP for learning disability since kindergarten and has related services of speech, occupational therapy and counseling, but hasn't gone to any of these services since 8th grade. We tried punishment, bribes, and forcing her to go but she resisted all attempts and just stays in her classroom or cafeteria, no matter how long staff persist. I mean literally she doesn't respond to any punishment, bribes, or rewards and resisted staff when they force her to go. She's now in 10th grade. So 2 months ago I and the school decided the services will take place in the classroom/ cafeteria where she is and she refused to comply and got really angry. Then we created a positive behavior support plan. Last week we took her to counseling (outside of school) to find out why she doesn't want to go and she said that these services are only for the r**ed (I hate that word) and she is not r**ed. She doesn't want to do it in a private setting because she is not a "tr**rd", according to her. We told her that receiving services and having an IEP doesn't mean you're dumb and that smart students can receive receiving services and then she stated the contradictory. We have looked for signs of bullying throughout the years to make sure she wasn't bullied because of the services and we asked her countless times if she is being bullied because she receives services and she keeps insisting no.



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26 Dec 2015, 1:21 pm

Have you noticed any prominently negative effects as a result of your daughter not attending therapy? Perhaps she no longer needs them, or at least can function passably without them. When I was in school, I was embarrassed by my need for special services because they singled me out and made me feel different and babied. When the school counsellor gave me the option to drop them my freshman year when I was fourteen, I did because I was sick of the "special treatment". Now in university, I've since come to understand that they're helpful for me, and have gotten them back.

Adolescence is a tricky age, because children are very self-conscious, even aspies. They hate to feel different or like they don't fit in, and your daughter most likely feels this way as a result of her IEP. She's trying to be normal the only way she knows how. Are there alternatives to therapy you could try? Whatever she's working on in OT, is there a "normal" sport or activity she could take up which would meet the same ends? For speech therapy, perhaps you could take turns reading to each other in the evenings, and provide her with literature which addresses the words/sounds/intonation etc. that she has trouble with? Would she be more amenable to having the therapy done at home, where no one can see her, rather than in school where the other kids can watch her being pulled out of class or lunch? Does she have a friend who would be willing/able to accompany her to therapy so she doesn't feel so alone doing it? If nothing else, perhaps your daughter just needs to be given time to reach her own understanding about things. She may decide she wants to do therapy again, if/when she sees that she struggles without it, or she may decide it's not helping her in ways she values, which is her prerogative as an almost-adult. Good luck, keep us posted on any progress!


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brenda936
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14 Jan 2016, 8:55 am

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ASPartOfMe
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14 Jan 2016, 9:50 am

Could there be bad things that happened there she is embarrassed to tell you about?. Is she tired of people trying to make her into a person she is not?. You have to somehow find out what the real problem is beyond the one liner it is for ret*ds. She has the responsibility to tell you the truth also.

I do not know. I can tell you this, you can force her to attend with burly security guards but if she does not want to be there she will not gain anything from the program.


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14 Jan 2016, 4:26 pm

brenda936 wrote:
My now 15 year old daughter has an IEP for learning disability since kindergarten and has related services of speech, occupational therapy and counseling, but hasn't gone to any of these services since 8th grade. We tried punishment, bribes, and forcing her to go but she resisted all attempts and just stays in her classroom or cafeteria, no matter how long staff persist. I mean literally she doesn't respond to any punishment, bribes, or rewards and resisted staff when they force her to go. She's now in 10th grade. So 2 months ago I and the school decided the services will take place in the classroom/ cafeteria where she is and she refused to comply and got really angry. Then we created a positive behavior support plan. Last week we took her to counseling (outside of school) to find out why she doesn't want to go and she said that these services are only for the r**ed (I hate that word) and she is not r**ed. She doesn't want to do it in a private setting because she is not a "tr**rd", according to her. We told her that receiving services and having an IEP doesn't mean you're dumb and that smart students can receive receiving services and then she stated the contradictory. We have looked for signs of bullying throughout the years to make sure she wasn't bullied because of the services and we asked her countless times if she is being bullied because she receives services and she keeps insisting no.


Just my perspective from my experience when I was forced into such things, it may or may not apply:
When I was diagnosed, it was never really explained to me, and it seemed like the sensory integration therapy and regular therapy were punishments and only made me feel worse. It was also pretty humiliating to be a young teenager, forced into S.I. therapy surrounded by little kids, where I was spoken to/treated like a kid. The counselors weren't much better. She may not be hearing these things from her peers, but instead may be drawing conclusions based on how these adults are talking down to her.

Given that she was diagnosed at a very young age, I am wondering if it was ever properly explained to her in a way that isn't condescending and that doesn't make it seem like it's a disease. If someone had bothered to tell me that the reason I get very irritable (to the point that it builds up inside me until I have a meltdown; thus resulting in punishment) was because something kept brushing my arm, and my brother was screaming, and several conversations were going on at once, and the sun was overwhelming; then maybe I would have understood. And there are so many positive aspects that could have been explained as well, but never were.