Socially Maladjustment doesn't exist?

[Sheila]

Marty,
As defined by the IDEA, serious emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia but does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have a serious emotional disturbance.

What chance do I have to get the words socially maladjusted removed from this law?
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"Once the ruler is thrown away every mans crooked line appears straight"

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You don't change the LAW--you change the diagnosis.
That was my point--there is no diagnostic difference that distinguishes social mal from SED or BD. It's just a "dodge" that s.d.s use.
If someone tried to call my difficult child socially maladjusted, I'd immediately ask for them to PROVE it, ask for a psychiatric consult (not the s.d.'s in-house shrink) and present alternative valid diagnosis.

One COULD say my difficult child is socially maladjusted-(and he is validly diagnosis'd as SED)-- but the s.d. could call him any unsubstantiated name mto try to deprive him of his civil rights--such as gook or chink-- but I would not allow my child to be so labelled nor would I allow my child to be called socially maladjusted.

by the way--not surprisingly, the words "socially maladjusted" has never been uttered in my presence within the school.

Hope this clariifies my perspective: they have to substantiate a diagnosis that will stand up to scrutiny--social mal won't. "Everyone" knows it's a dodge to avoid serving inner city youth (principally). As I said earlier--I have never heard of social mal being used for "volitional" Learning Disability (LD) AKA laziness

 

[rbakers]

I am not sure what you are looking for here, but it seems to me that if the child is "socialy mal-adjusted" then it would cause and "emotionaly distrubed" individual. That would cause trouble with-school performance and perhaps interfer the ability to become educated and might cause a distrubance in the classroom causing other to not be educated. So, it would seem that the if the "ED" label is applied, then services should be expected. I had trouble accepting this label, but the psychiatrist said to me "what difference does it make EXCEPT that the child will get what is needed?" Gee, I geuss I was letting my personal opinion of "ED" get in the way. I accepted it for difficult child 2 and now she gets what she needs. I hope this ramble helped!

 

[Martie]

Alisha,

Since we don't have archives (last time I looked) WHERE do you get tthese things?

I remember writing this response and feeling outraged that a sd would try to do this but I certainly don't have a copy.

Just wondering...

by the way, I now think the post is less than clear as a stand alone but the point is: "socially maladjusted" is specifically excluded as a category from receiving Special Education. services. That is why I make comments about intentional deprivation of rights to a FAPE. No sd would use this label as a "mistake". The sd is trying to get the parent to accept a diagnosis that leads to automatic DISqualification for SpEd.

 

[Sheila]

roflol

Where do I get them? When I was in the heat of battle with-the sd, I'd cut and paste threads to Word. Sometimes, it didn't particularly have to do with our personal situation at the time, just pertained to something I thought I might need to know in the future and was one of those little caveats that aren't necessarily clear to a novice reading IDEA.