Hello all, I am new here. Well, sort of new, I have been lurking on this board for awhile now. I wanted to wait until my difficult child's test results came back before posting, since I haven't had much to contribute or ask until now. My situation is with my fiancee's son, an 11 year old boy. Here is his background in a nutshell: diagnosed with ADHD when he was 4, diagnosis was confirmed at age 8. He is defiant, argumentative, has age-inappropriate temper tantrums, cries about things most kids his age wouldn't cry about, seems to have low frustration tolerance, anger management issues, is oppositional, argues about everything, gets in trouble at school for his behavior, few friends, seems unhappy much of the time. When in the midst of a defiant episode (usually when he hasn't gotten his way or was asked to do something he doesn't want to do), there is not talking to him. No amount of threats, taking away privileges, imposing punishments, etc. have any effect. He just screams, cries, and acts defiantly with seemingly little control over what he is doing. Then, once the episode is over, it's as if nothing happened. We talk with him and he will acknolwedge that "it wasn't worth it." Those are some of the things I can think of off the top of my head, but the battles and episodes occur daily. difficult child has two half-brothers (4 and 8) and a half-sister (6) who are all "normal." Has lived full-time with his father since age 5 mos and has very little interaction with his mother, who is an alcoholic.
difficult child is on Straterra, 40 mg, which was increased from 18 mg in September. He recently went through neuropsychologist testing and the ADHD diagnosis was confirmed. Bipolar, Major Depression, and Asperger's/autism were all ruled out, although there was some indication of mild depression. He was diagnosed only with ODD. The testing showed he really wants to be a "good kid" and get along with others...so he is not to the point yet of not caring. The psychologist said, however, that the not caring may eventually happen and evolve into CD or worse if the ODD is not brought under control. He was placed on Abilify last week and continues with the Straterra. The kicker was the intelligence testing...it revealed an IQ of only 82 (almost borderline mentally retarded, depending on what scale you use).
While we knew he was not going to end up a physicist or doctor, we did not realize difficult child's IQ was so low. He's currenlty on an IEP for reading and writing disabilities, as well as the ADHD. His behavior is a huge concern at school. He gets frequent discipline referrals for defiance, refusing to listen to teachers, purposely disrupting class, and general disobedience (as they put it). Twice he has physically acted out to the point the incident was labeled an "assault" on teachers. The police were called last year for the second incident (which occurred on the last day of school) because teachers could not bring difficult child under control before we got there.
My question is...should we request a re-review of his IEP in light of the testing results? We do not think he is performing at the level he should be compared to other kids his age (although have no proof to confirm that). When he has behavioral incidents, the teachers seem to blow it off. The last one, for example, notes on the discipline referral form that difficult child was "creating a dangerous situation," yet when the teacher talked to my fiancee, she minimized the incident saying "it only lasted 15 minutes." difficult child has been a behavioral problem since he started school and it is well documented in his school record.
We don't know what, if anything, can be done in the school system. We feel as if they may actually be "embellishing" his grades to show progress. Certainly, as noted above, they somtimes minimize the behavioral issues. They let him get away with things like using the word "cuz" instead of "because" on homework because they get sick of arguing with him about it (this came from difficult child who told us this). He cannot even construct a grammatically correct sentence -- for example, he does not capitalize the first word or place punctuation at the end without prompting. His penmanship is awful and most of the time we can't understand what he has written for homework in his assignment book.
Can we request that he be taken out of a mainstream classroom? If so, what alternative schooling options are out there? (in general -- I know some programs are probably school system-specific). What can we request the schools do to deal with both the behavioral problems and the academic concerns? His IEP gets "reinstated" every year, but they really don't ever change anything on it. They add a few comments, change the date, and call it good. We don't think they are doing enough for difficult child...but the problem is that we don't know what enough is.
My fiancee wants to hold difficult child back a year and not send him to middle school next year. The psychologist did not agree, saying this would do no good. I tend to agree -- trying to force material on a kid who doesn't have the intellectual capacity to process that material will only frustrate and damage him more (in my opinion). But the psychologist really didn't say what we can do when it comes to the schools. difficult child starts counseling with this psychologist next week for the behavioral/emotional issues. We also talked about family counseling (or at least something for my fiancee and I to learn how to parent/deal with the behaviors at home). difficult child is very challenging, to say the least.
Does anyone have advice on where we go from here? We thought the testing would give us some direction, but it really only added more questions. We honestly don't have a clue what to do next. It's all very overwhelming.
Any advice, comments, or real-life experience stories would really be appreciated!
Thank you, Merry Christmas, and God Bless all of you for being here.
difficult child is on Straterra, 40 mg, which was increased from 18 mg in September. He recently went through neuropsychologist testing and the ADHD diagnosis was confirmed. Bipolar, Major Depression, and Asperger's/autism were all ruled out, although there was some indication of mild depression. He was diagnosed only with ODD. The testing showed he really wants to be a "good kid" and get along with others...so he is not to the point yet of not caring. The psychologist said, however, that the not caring may eventually happen and evolve into CD or worse if the ODD is not brought under control. He was placed on Abilify last week and continues with the Straterra. The kicker was the intelligence testing...it revealed an IQ of only 82 (almost borderline mentally retarded, depending on what scale you use).
While we knew he was not going to end up a physicist or doctor, we did not realize difficult child's IQ was so low. He's currenlty on an IEP for reading and writing disabilities, as well as the ADHD. His behavior is a huge concern at school. He gets frequent discipline referrals for defiance, refusing to listen to teachers, purposely disrupting class, and general disobedience (as they put it). Twice he has physically acted out to the point the incident was labeled an "assault" on teachers. The police were called last year for the second incident (which occurred on the last day of school) because teachers could not bring difficult child under control before we got there.
My question is...should we request a re-review of his IEP in light of the testing results? We do not think he is performing at the level he should be compared to other kids his age (although have no proof to confirm that). When he has behavioral incidents, the teachers seem to blow it off. The last one, for example, notes on the discipline referral form that difficult child was "creating a dangerous situation," yet when the teacher talked to my fiancee, she minimized the incident saying "it only lasted 15 minutes." difficult child has been a behavioral problem since he started school and it is well documented in his school record.
We don't know what, if anything, can be done in the school system. We feel as if they may actually be "embellishing" his grades to show progress. Certainly, as noted above, they somtimes minimize the behavioral issues. They let him get away with things like using the word "cuz" instead of "because" on homework because they get sick of arguing with him about it (this came from difficult child who told us this). He cannot even construct a grammatically correct sentence -- for example, he does not capitalize the first word or place punctuation at the end without prompting. His penmanship is awful and most of the time we can't understand what he has written for homework in his assignment book.
Can we request that he be taken out of a mainstream classroom? If so, what alternative schooling options are out there? (in general -- I know some programs are probably school system-specific). What can we request the schools do to deal with both the behavioral problems and the academic concerns? His IEP gets "reinstated" every year, but they really don't ever change anything on it. They add a few comments, change the date, and call it good. We don't think they are doing enough for difficult child...but the problem is that we don't know what enough is.
My fiancee wants to hold difficult child back a year and not send him to middle school next year. The psychologist did not agree, saying this would do no good. I tend to agree -- trying to force material on a kid who doesn't have the intellectual capacity to process that material will only frustrate and damage him more (in my opinion). But the psychologist really didn't say what we can do when it comes to the schools. difficult child starts counseling with this psychologist next week for the behavioral/emotional issues. We also talked about family counseling (or at least something for my fiancee and I to learn how to parent/deal with the behaviors at home). difficult child is very challenging, to say the least.
Does anyone have advice on where we go from here? We thought the testing would give us some direction, but it really only added more questions. We honestly don't have a clue what to do next. It's all very overwhelming.
Any advice, comments, or real-life experience stories would really be appreciated!
Thank you, Merry Christmas, and God Bless all of you for being here.