I just rec'd difficult child's IEE report

klmno

Active Member
I'm pretty happy with it, I guess. There are two areas I found particularly interesting. The light-hearted one is difficult child's responses to the "finish the sentence" intrument. I'm relaying these below with difficult child's answers underlined.

The happiest time that I will have is when I am released.
At home, I like school.
I regret doing what I did to be in here.
At bedtime, I usually stay awake.
A mother is a very important person.
I feel pretty good now.
In the lower grades I was a troublemaker.
My nerves are plucked by others occasionally.
(I loved that one!)
The future will be better.
I am very glad to be leaving soon.
The only trouble I get into is what I put myself into.
I wish I was home.


The biggest section that sticks out in my mind is the Rorschach Diagnosis (Exner's Comprehensive System). Has anyone else's difficult child had this? This evaluator wasn't one who gives a definite opinion- instead he stated things like "difficult child may be feeling this way" or "if difficult child looks at things this way, it might lead to ABC". Anyway, in this section he says difficult child efforts to focus attention and synthesize aspects of experience fall below normal range. He states difficult child is emotionally imature and may misinterpret actions and intentions of others, but that he has an adaptive capacity to think logically and coherently. Then, he says difficult child "may show a potentially maladaptive style of processing his affect in which he exerts less control over his feelings than most adolescents of his age." Then he says it's not to say that he can't, but that he chooses not to. Then he says difficult child indicates signs of a sense of entitlement, a tendency to externalize blame and responsibility, and narcisicm. But then, he says this inclination may be due to an avoidance to self-focus due to feeling inferior, having limited self-esteem, and a lack of self-confidence. He noted that difficult child directly told him that he distanced himself from others to refrain from negative behaviors. I have summarized his lengthy paragraph on this but it seemed contradictory in a way and I would have liked for him to be a little clearer about which he thought it was- narcisism and a sense of entitlement or a defense mechanism. He ended the paragraph, "thus this type of personality characteristic may be more indicative of a coping skill".

How do you all interpret that assessment? Is it a long way of saying difficult child is socially maladaptive?

He recommended that difficult child stay on an IEP, have positive reinforcement, emotional support, clearly defined expectations with rewards/loss of privileges as consequences, and someone to help him process his own emotions and help with coping skills. And that he get a lot of praise and encouragement when he does well and see a mental health clinician at the first sign of any emotional or behavioral disruption. (I like that a lot better than the sd psychiatric's recommendation in her evaluation that the sd do a threat assessment on difficult child - which she wanted done as soon as he returns to mainstream and could lead to him being in an alternative school right off the batt for the remainder of high school.)

One very good thing that has come from this entire situation is that since difficult child had only lived with me before, as a single parent, and had only been in one school system, it was good that his behavioral counselor on his unit did two of the forms that were identical to forms I completed and although there were some understandable differences (difficult child doesn't dry in there but has cried in front of me)- they identified the same areas of concern, which also matched one of the teacher's form results. These revealed some inattention, easily frustrated, easily annoyed, tendency to be obsessive or a perfectionist, and feeling inferior.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
K....I will have to think more on this when I am not so flippen sick.

I dont think it is contradictory right now...but then again, Im heavily medicated!
 

klmno

Active Member
Ok- sorry to hear you are still sick. You better get well before Easter! :)

I guess I viewed it as contradictory because of the entitlement and narcisistic tendencies I see in my mother and bro- although I think they tried to get difficult child to think that way too, I don't see my mother and especially my bro's tendencies coming from feeling inferior. I do see difficult child's coming from this- but that's because of the things difficult child tells me in private and the emotional breakdowns I've seen him have that he never admits to, much less discusses, with anyone else- even tdocs- I wouldn't have called his defense mechanisms narcissism. But since I'm not a therapist or psychiatrist or psychiatric, I don't really know how they have the criteria set. I should look up the DSM criteria.
 
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KTMom91

Well-Known Member
I see several contradictions, and no definite statements. As you mentioned...narcissism or a defense mechanism? The thing that jumped out for me was "He states difficult child is emotionally immature and may misinterpret actions and intentions of others, but that he has an adaptive capacity to think logically and coherently. Then, he says difficult child "may show a potentially maladaptive style of processing his affect in which he exerts less control over his feelings than most adolescents of his age." Then he says it's not to say that he can't, but that he chooses not to." Can difficult child help it or can't he?

And socially maladaptive? What exactly does that mean? Seems to me that being socially maladaptive is somewhere in the difficult child job description. Don't most of our kids have some difficulties in adapting to social situations on various levels?
 

klmno

Active Member
Socially maladaptive is a particular buzz word when it comes to sd's and IEP eligibility. I don't quite get it either- I think it's another one of those words that means one thing to sd's and another if you're involved in the life of a difficult child outside of school.

That part about difficult child being emotionally mature - I read it like this- he's concluding that since difficult child has the cognitive ability, it must mean that he's choosing not to focus or reflect better about speicific incidents. That seems worrisome to me for a psychiatric to draw that conclusion when he had just written that he was emotionally immature- can a very intelligent 5yo be expected to act like a 9yo just because his IQ might be that high? If we're talking about ability to process feelings, apprise situations, interpret others' actions, those things aren't based on cognitive ability alone. They do relate to how mature a person is and if the person doesn't have the maturity to add things up better, that doesn't mean they are choosing to not handle it any better. This guy needs to read TEC, LOL! I'm glad this guy is going to be at the eligibility meeting next week. Another thing- he wrote that he suggested following a Mr. M's recommendations regarding difficult child's academic growth, but I have no idea who Mr. M is or what recommendations he's referring to.

The psychiatric is catually very qualified and used to be difficult child's private therapist, which is why I specifically requested him for the IEE. However, he too made mistakes in the report and quoted the sd psychiatric from her report a whole lot instead of approaching this like an Independent evaluation offering his own, second opinion. I was a little disappointed from that standpoint but think the state wasn't paying him diddly and he didn't spend much time on it. I think difficult child will be found eligible so I'm not going to beat this horse anymore with the sd. He did portray difficult child in a more humanistic way - unlike the sd psychiatric who made it sound like difficult child was about to turn into Cho and everyone at school should fear him and watch him like a hawk- which had been my first concern because that would have tipped difficult child over the edge about one week into returning to mainstream.

Anyway, I'm to a point where I doubt anyone is going to read these things unless difficult child gets into Department of Juvenile Justice or big trouble at school- unless maybe he does apply for college someday. I'm not sure how much colleges are reading these for kids coming out of high school with an IEP.
 
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