IEP/504 help for Tuesday morning

[Tau]

I've been reading here for just over a year, and have found all of your advice especially helpful. Because of what I've learned through this forum, we skipped the round robin of differing diagnosis's and went straight to a neuropsychologist when we realized we were over our heads with our daughter.

daughter has an IEP already for speech therapy, and we're going in for our review tomorrow. We just got the neuropsychologist report back with the ADHD - combined type diagnosis and a list of recommendations.

We'll be bringing that in with us when we go tomorrow, but when we called today to find out what we needed to prepare for, we learned that they don't like to give IEPs for ADHD, and usually go with the 504.

I know that a student cant have both at one time, but the speech therapist has been hinting that this year will be her last for speech therapy, because of all the wonderful progress shes made so far. (and I don't disagree)

One of the recommendations was for my daughter to have periodic breaks during class time to go out and get some physical activity. My concern is that this will require an extra staff member to be with her during that time, and that the school is going to balk at it because of the extra expense, that will be the schools responsibility with the 504.

Is there anything I should go in armed with? Any extra planning or strategizing I can do to make sure that my daughter gets what she needs? Is there certain criteria for an IEP that I could push for instead of a 504 - or are there advantages to a 504 that I'm missing?

Any advice is most welcome - we're desperate to start making real headway after a could of years of struggling.

 

[Liahona]

http://www.conductdisorders.com/community/threads/504-or-iep.104/

here is something from the archives about 504 vs. IEP I've never done a past a link in a post before so I hope it works.

 

[Liahona]

You don't have to sign anything right there. You can take it home and think about it. Ask Martie and Shelia about it. Does difficult child's school work really suffer and/or is she a behavior problem? One thing they might do is say she isn't severe enough for an IEP. I'm not an expert about what to do so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

 

[Tau]

Her schoolwork is suffering, but she has a wonderful and understanding teacher this year. Its the coming years that I'm very concerned about.

Her behavior at school is great so far - she successfully "holds it all in" and dumps it once she gets home. Again, she has a very creative teacher who allows the whole class to ebb and flow within the confines of the days lessons. So while the teacher does notice that daughter sometimes has difficulty transitioning, and can be distractable, it doesnt interfere with the class, or her personal performance.

I'm grateful that she has such a special teacher, especially after last year's miserable taskmaster. That said, my DS is already struggling with his 5th grade teacher who is very unforgiving, and shes the only 5th grade teacher in the program - meaning daughter *will* be getting her.

She is in the GAT program through our district, and tested at 129 on the Weschler IQ test, but they also reported that she has a strongly impaired working memory. I'm worried that her potential will get lost because she won't get the support she needs to do as well as she is capable of.

 

[Liahona]

Can she be given an IEP under a learning disablity? It is possible to be gifted and learning disalbed. What are the scores/subscores of the achievment tests and the subscores of the IQ test?

 

[Liahona]

http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/sec504.idea.eligibility.htm

This might help. Good luck. Sorry I'm not an expert. She reminds me of my son.

 

[Tau]

The neuropsychologist didn't mention there being any learning disabilities. :\

Her scores for the WISC-IV

Verbal subsets - Scaled Scores
* Similarities - 15
* Vocabulary - 15
* Comprehension - 13
Perceptual Reasoning - Scaled Scores
* Block Design - 12
* Picture Concepts - 15
* Matric Reasoning - 14
* (Picture Completion) - 14
Working Memory
* Digit Span - 10
* Letter-Number Sequencing - 14
Processing Speed - Scaled Scores
* Coding - 14
* Symbol Search - 16

For the NEPSY test, to look at executive functioning - she scored a 10 on the tower test, an 11 on the auditory attention, a 19 on the visual attention, and a 15 in design fluency.

She also scored in the 10/11 range for the memory domain section of the NEPSY.

I'm not sure if this is at all meaningful to anyone, and I have an 18 page report in front of me full of test results. If theres anything there that I could use to push for an IEP over a 504, that kind of advice would be enormously helpful!

 

[Liahona]

Sorry I'm not good enough on these tests scores. What are the scores for the Verbal, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed? For example my sons were Verbal 93,Perceptual Reasoning 127, Working Memory 104, Processing Speed 85.

What acheivement test did they do to say that her school work is suffering? For example they, the school, did the Woodcock Johnson. If there is a large gap between any of those numbers it might mean something.

 

[Liahona]

When is your meeting in the morning?
Maybe someone with better/more experiance will post in the morning.

 

[Tau]

Her composite scores were:

Verbal Comprehension - 126 (96%)
Perceptual Reasoning - 123 (94%)
Working Memory - 110 (75%)
Processing Speed - 128 (97%)
Full Scale IQ - 129 (97%)

The school didn't evaluate her, we had a private neuropsychology evaluation done at our own expense. (ouch!!)

We know her schoolwork is suffering because she only completes it sporadically, and even then - only about 70% of it. Her teacher doesn't seem concerned about it personally, and grades daughter based on how well shes done on what was actually completed.

Thats very gracious of her, but I know other teachers will not do the same.

Heres a list of all the tests that were done:

Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children
Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment
Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function
The Behavior Assessment System for Children, Second Edition
Children's Depression Inventory
Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale
University of Illinois U-C Neuropsychology Child History Questionaire

 

[Tau]

The meeting is at 9am, CDT.

 

[Liahona]

Maybe you could request that the school do achievment testing. This way you will know how is she grade wise to other students. And will show how her ADHD is affecting her school work in a way the school will have a hard time refuting. A learning disability is determined by a gap between the IQ and actual achievement. And with a high IQ the achievement needs to be high as well for her to not qualify.

Are there any other issues that could affect her school day? Depression, anxiety?

If her teacher is making that wonderful accomadation and it works great for her ask for it to be put in what you get! Remember you don't have to sign things right there. Martie and Shelia will be along and they know alot more than I do.

 

[Tau]

I really appreciate all of your help, especially at this late hour. I've gleaned more than you know from our conversation, and I'll be better armed for it.

I'll check the boards again right before I leave, just in case someone has additional advice.

Thanks!

 

[Liahona]

If she has a hard time staying in her seat and transitioning maybe requesting a behavior observation would help you get the school to take notice that ADHD is affecting her at school in a way that she needs an IEP. It would also buy you some time to talk to Martie and Sheila.

 

[Martie]

Sheesh I was on earlier today and you guys managed 13 posts in my absence.

There is no such thing as "we don't do IEP's for ADHD." That is not legal: ADHD is a qualifying disability under OHI.

I could interpret the Weschler scores but don't need to--your daughter is very bright. Nothing should stand in the way of her high achievement except ADHD, behavior problems (if they appear) and motivation which is a problem with bright difficult child's as they age almost without exception.

You cannot get an IEP on what might happen next year. What you need is negative educational impact NOW. Here is what it takes to qualify:

A qualifying disability--you have that no matter what they say

and

NEGATIVE educational impact which should not be measured only in academic performance. Social adjustment and having friends is part of it too.

My last piece of advice is to ask THEM for the citation to the portion of the law that says that ADHD is a qualifier ONLY for a 504. This will stop them because there is no such citation. If they fall back on "it's our policy," they may not have policy contrary to law.

Best of luck to you--let us know what happnes and don't sign anything. Take it home to think about it.

Martie

 

[Sheila]

Hello and welcome

There are a couple of educational impact threads in the Sp Ed 101 Forum.

 

[Tau]

Sheila,

I have spent a good portion of last night reading through the threads in this forum. Was there anything else specific that you were referring to, that I might have missed?

Emily,

While she has issues with modulating her emotions (quick to frustrate and then rage), she has managed to act appropriately while at school.

I will take your suggestions of requesting a behavior observation and/or an achievement test, should it be warranted during the meeting.

Martie,

My concern is that because daughter has done such a good job of "holding it in" while at school, she may not qualify for the extra assistance that the neuropsychologist says would benefit her.

She is very social and has a good network of friends at school, and so far her behavior problems in the classroom have been minor. (talking too much, slow to transition, forgetful with homework etc..)

I have all of your advice written down, and will be sure to hold them to their own accountability.

Thanks everyone - I'm still checking the thread, in case there are last minute updates!

 

[Sheila]

The Archives is a different forum. The adverse ed impact threads I was referring to are at http://www.conductdisorders.com/community/threads/adverse-ed-impact-help.795/ .

 

[tiredmommy]

Try to bring someone with you to take notes!

 

[Tau]

Just wanted to update everyone!

We went to the meeting, where daughter's caseworker and speech therapist, speech intern and her classroom teacher were present. The instructional specialist, who was supposed to be there, was in the hospital today because of kidney stones - but we proceeded without him.

I was very happy with how receptive everyone was. They all seemed surprised by the limitations of the 504, and were very willing to extend daughter's IEP so that we could include her other ADHD accommodations - even if it meant that her speech therapist "monitored" her classroom speech, 20 minutes a month. She stated that she was willing to do this for as long as daughter was in elementary school.

We ran out of time, because daughter's classroom teacher needed to get back to her students. Her input had been so helpful, volunteering things that we should include, that I hadn't considered, that we wanted her presence for the rest of it - and we will all be reconvening tomorrow morning.

This is great for me as well! We can look over the IEP form to see what other services are listed and I now have more time to read through the archive that Sheila directed me to.

I appreciate everyone's advice more than you can know. While daughter's meeting is going so smoothly, I believe we will have a little more resistance when we try to establish a new IEP for DS. I submitted my formal letters (using the sample letter that is often linked to from here) to the principal and the school and I'm sending the certified copy to the district today.

We're hitting the ground running, and I couldn't have done it as well without this site!