They finally agreed!

[TiredSoul]

The sd finally agreed to evaluate difficult child! The school psychiatric told me he didn't blame me if I wanted to tell him "I told you so".

They stated in the letter that "additional information or testing was needed in the area(s) of Reading, Math, Written Language, Cognitive, Adaptive Behavior, Social, Emotional & Behavioral, Communication, Motor, and other areas including: sensory integration concerns." I just had to re-read that because I first thought it said they 'would evaluate' in those areas - but now I am seeing more closely they might just want "additional info". I hope they are not playing games.

When I asked who would do the evaluating and where - the school psychiatric told me the names of several people at the school. For some reason I thought this was something more extensive than what could be done at school with school personnel. Does this sound right for a multi-disciplinary evaluation?

They now have until some time in Feb. to complete this. School psychiatric said again he would like to do the evaluations with difficult child un-medicated. I am conflicted again, because husband and I just decided we would trial an ADHD medication starting xmas break. So now I am not sure what to do.

 

[SRL]

It depends on the school. Our school district is large and most evaluations can be handled by them. Our elementary school of 320 has 1 FT and 1 PT speech therapist, 1 Occupational Therapist (OT) assistant (does therapy only, not assessments), and a school psychiatric adn social worker which are both shared with one other school.

All of the SD's in the area, including ours, belong to a regional sped co-op from which they can draw staff and resources from for evaluations.

Do ask for the professional qualifications that go with each of the staff members. You do have a right to that information. What you don't want to happen is for crossover into areas that aren't within their qualifications, such as a speech therapist doing Occupational Therapist (OT) assessemnt.

 

[Sheila]

Glad to hear they are going to evaluate!

As SRL said, most sd evaluations are done with-sd staff personnel.

If the evaluator wants to do the evaluation without a medication, that's what I'd do. Check with-the doctor and see if it would be ok to trail the medication during the break and then stop it for the testing.

 

[TiredSoul]

Is it common for the sd to know exactly which dates they will be testing him and which tests they will be administering? Is it reasonable to request this information so I know when to give him his pill and when not to?

 

[Martie]

You have a right to know what test are being used and what the purpose of each is. In the 7th Circuit only, you have a right Occupational Therapist (OT) the completed protocols as well.

In IL, you can consent to one instrument but not another (for example, I would never consent to school personnel administering a Rorschach Test---they are not well enough trained to do that.) However, as is sometimes the case, in my mind, I "cross" federal and state law, so I am not sure if federal law allows selective consent the way IL does. My elementary SD had a S/L pathologist "diagnosing" Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). Only an audiologist can make that diagnosis. When this came up with ex-difficult child (which is absurd--he is a musician with all the auditory skills that implies) I told them to remove the references to this diagnosis or pay for an audiologist to confirm or rule out their "diagnosis." The issue was ex-difficult child was saying "huh?" all the time to teachers to annoy them. The idea that there was not a behavioral/emotional reason for the "huhs?" seemed absurd to me, but as is OFTEN THE CASE, when a SD needs to go outside its own staff and pay $$, they will back off. In some cases, such as mine, that is an advantage, because I didn't want to drag ex-difficult child to an audiologist (I was pretty confident because I am a professional in the field and easy child actually HAS a Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), and it was clear to me that ex-difficult child did not.) Other times, SDs deny outside evaluations that are really needed and this is a problem.

You do have a right to know the qualifications of the evaluators and can challenge them if as Sheila said, staff are evaluating things they are not qualified to do.

Martie