Socially Maladjustment doesn't exist?

Sheila

Moderator
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

New Member
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

Moderator
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

Moderator
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.
 
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