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Special Ed 101
Martie, can you help me understand this?
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<blockquote data-quote="Martie" data-source="post: 13469" data-attributes="member: 284"><p>MM,</p><p></p><p>This is just my opinion BUT I do think that widely discrepant abilities cause anxiety in children and adolescents. I referred to this in the example of my daughter who could, at 18 months, solve non-verbal puzzles at a 4 to 5 year old level but still could not talk (much) at 3. This is a set-up for feeling "strange" which I called 'motivation' in the earlier post but also could be true for for anxiety, as in 'why am I like this?" Further when children are good at one thing, people assume they will be good at others and they are BLAMED for not achieving evenly, and called lazy or unmotivated.</p><p></p><p>Case in point: my ex-difficult child only NOW can "own" his lack of motivation for most of what is taught in elementary and middle school--and he COULD HAVE done it--but the whole "Is he Learning Disability (LD) or is he just lazy or is he just strange???" all increased his anxiety. Imagine how much worse this would have been for him if he really couldn't do these things.</p><p></p><p>I think that your daughter's diagnosis's also set her up for feeling her discrepancies to a greater degree because she is so bright. I have a lot of experience with mood disorders, anxiety and lack or performance--and the whole failure to 'get it' on the part of school personnel leaves a mark on kids with mood problems that might roll off more externalizing kids.</p><p></p><p>What should you ask for? Well, first you need to convince someone that the discrepancy is a problem. Notice in the example of my kids that in the case that was severe and the problem real, we just moved out of the SD--for other reasons, too, but their having it so wrong about easy child was a very big reason. Did I win that war? No I left the field of battle. With ex-difficult child, I was easily able to convince the school psychologist that the stat sig spread was artifactual and even offered to make it "go away" to prove my point. I KNEW and he KNEW that ex-difficult child was not Learning Disability (LD) but teachers still talked (about his mother's denial for one thing) and did damage to his self-esteem.</p><p></p><p>So if your SD thinks they can "blow off" the differences in memory performance, they will. by the way, a spread between 9 and 19 on the WISC series is a spread of 3 standard deviations and is not in my opinion a product of ADHD. </p><p></p><p>There are tests that target memory specifically and I have not been doing enough direct service evaluation for the last 10 years to be certain which might be best. I can check it out with colleagues, but truth be told, most of them are into RTI and not very interested in the types of diagnosis that identifies specific problems which is then used to target remediation. I think that a OSFA intervention based on RTI is wrong. My gut tells me that, and I put it into action with my kids--I did not get generic help for either. I found out what the problem was, and had it addressed. Under RTI, it would have been assumed that easy child had problems she didn't have and would have been remediated for output problems instead of underlying problems. The proof is when she finally started talking, a whole lot came out and she began reading spontaneously at 5 which is not typical for a child who is going to have LDs. If I had allowed ex-difficult child to be treated as an Learning Disability (LD) kid just because he wasn't performing, his self-esteem would be long gone before he ever got to age 12. He has a mood disorder (predominantly depressed) and when he is OK--everything works. When he is not OK, nothing works--how does an intervention for Learning Disability (LD) help any of this?</p><p></p><p>I think there are fairly strong parallels to your daughter's situation. </p><p></p><p>If I were going to ask for an evaluation--it would be to investigate what I am certain is a meaningful split in memory abilities.</p><p></p><p>One such test is the TOMAL (Test of Memory and Learning). Unfortunately one of the authors is Reyonolds. It assesses verbal memory, delayed recall, learning, free recall, attention/concentration, nonverbal memory, sequential memory, associate recall, and yields a composite memory score. The administration time is 45 minutes. It is normed on a national representative sample.</p><p></p><p>The other thing I found is the WRAML2 (Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning 2nd ed.) It evaluates immediate and delayed recall and differentiates between verbal, visual, and global memory. It is often used in rehab situations following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to plan interventions. It has 2 verbal, 2 visual, and 2 attention/concentration subtests yielding a General Memory Index, a symbolic working memory index and a verbal working memory index. These last two might be very helpful in sorting out what is going on with your daughter. The scoring includes a discrepancy analysis. I have no information on administration time but the test is normed on an unspecified "national sample."</p><p></p><p>I can not vouch for the utility of these two tests. When I used to evaluate lots of kids, I had strong opinions on many evalaution instruments--now I am more into the theoretical end of things--standing firm in the belief that it really is important to find out what is going on, before deciding what to do. This is not a currently popular view--but I think "try anything and everything" approach is sloppy and hard on the child's sense of self-efficacy.</p><p></p><p>I hope this gives you some ideas of how to manage your SD's denial of what I think is quite possibly a contributor to your daughter's anxiety, especially since you report it is limited pretty much to school settings.</p><p></p><p>Martie</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Martie, post: 13469, member: 284"] MM, This is just my opinion BUT I do think that widely discrepant abilities cause anxiety in children and adolescents. I referred to this in the example of my daughter who could, at 18 months, solve non-verbal puzzles at a 4 to 5 year old level but still could not talk (much) at 3. This is a set-up for feeling "strange" which I called 'motivation' in the earlier post but also could be true for for anxiety, as in 'why am I like this?" Further when children are good at one thing, people assume they will be good at others and they are BLAMED for not achieving evenly, and called lazy or unmotivated. Case in point: my ex-difficult child only NOW can "own" his lack of motivation for most of what is taught in elementary and middle school--and he COULD HAVE done it--but the whole "Is he Learning Disability (LD) or is he just lazy or is he just strange???" all increased his anxiety. Imagine how much worse this would have been for him if he really couldn't do these things. I think that your daughter's diagnosis's also set her up for feeling her discrepancies to a greater degree because she is so bright. I have a lot of experience with mood disorders, anxiety and lack or performance--and the whole failure to 'get it' on the part of school personnel leaves a mark on kids with mood problems that might roll off more externalizing kids. What should you ask for? Well, first you need to convince someone that the discrepancy is a problem. Notice in the example of my kids that in the case that was severe and the problem real, we just moved out of the SD--for other reasons, too, but their having it so wrong about easy child was a very big reason. Did I win that war? No I left the field of battle. With ex-difficult child, I was easily able to convince the school psychologist that the stat sig spread was artifactual and even offered to make it "go away" to prove my point. I KNEW and he KNEW that ex-difficult child was not Learning Disability (LD) but teachers still talked (about his mother's denial for one thing) and did damage to his self-esteem. So if your SD thinks they can "blow off" the differences in memory performance, they will. by the way, a spread between 9 and 19 on the WISC series is a spread of 3 standard deviations and is not in my opinion a product of ADHD. There are tests that target memory specifically and I have not been doing enough direct service evaluation for the last 10 years to be certain which might be best. I can check it out with colleagues, but truth be told, most of them are into RTI and not very interested in the types of diagnosis that identifies specific problems which is then used to target remediation. I think that a OSFA intervention based on RTI is wrong. My gut tells me that, and I put it into action with my kids--I did not get generic help for either. I found out what the problem was, and had it addressed. Under RTI, it would have been assumed that easy child had problems she didn't have and would have been remediated for output problems instead of underlying problems. The proof is when she finally started talking, a whole lot came out and she began reading spontaneously at 5 which is not typical for a child who is going to have LDs. If I had allowed ex-difficult child to be treated as an Learning Disability (LD) kid just because he wasn't performing, his self-esteem would be long gone before he ever got to age 12. He has a mood disorder (predominantly depressed) and when he is OK--everything works. When he is not OK, nothing works--how does an intervention for Learning Disability (LD) help any of this? I think there are fairly strong parallels to your daughter's situation. If I were going to ask for an evaluation--it would be to investigate what I am certain is a meaningful split in memory abilities. One such test is the TOMAL (Test of Memory and Learning). Unfortunately one of the authors is Reyonolds. It assesses verbal memory, delayed recall, learning, free recall, attention/concentration, nonverbal memory, sequential memory, associate recall, and yields a composite memory score. The administration time is 45 minutes. It is normed on a national representative sample. The other thing I found is the WRAML2 (Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning 2nd ed.) It evaluates immediate and delayed recall and differentiates between verbal, visual, and global memory. It is often used in rehab situations following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to plan interventions. It has 2 verbal, 2 visual, and 2 attention/concentration subtests yielding a General Memory Index, a symbolic working memory index and a verbal working memory index. These last two might be very helpful in sorting out what is going on with your daughter. The scoring includes a discrepancy analysis. I have no information on administration time but the test is normed on an unspecified "national sample." I can not vouch for the utility of these two tests. When I used to evaluate lots of kids, I had strong opinions on many evalaution instruments--now I am more into the theoretical end of things--standing firm in the belief that it really is important to find out what is going on, before deciding what to do. This is not a currently popular view--but I think "try anything and everything" approach is sloppy and hard on the child's sense of self-efficacy. I hope this gives you some ideas of how to manage your SD's denial of what I think is quite possibly a contributor to your daughter's anxiety, especially since you report it is limited pretty much to school settings. Martie [/QUOTE]
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