Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Losing battle

Today we met with the assistant principal, school system psychologist, gifted and regular classroom teachers to discuss the outside evaluation we had done on DS (HG plus dysgraphia).

The psychologist recognized the giftedness but didn't acknowledge the dysgraphia. She was careful to say that they had a process to determine this (state-mandated RTI). She commented several times his writing achievement scores were on grade-level. She made it clear that the baseline for my son's eligibility would hinge on his ability to meet grade-level standards. She even went to far as to say, "Our job is to make sure he meets state-level standards. It's not our job to make sure he meets his potential." She told a story of a very bright boy who graduated from the district who could be anything he wanted but was running a comic book store. She said they just can't be responsible for kids meeting their potential.

The gifted teacher also did not acknowledge a problem. She mentioned the checklist she made last year for DS and how that cleared everything up. She said it was perfectly normal for kids to reverse letters, ignore punctuation, etc at this point in their schooling. Her opinion was that he needed help with work habits, not writing. At one point the psychologist offered that the school may be able to help with an OT eval and the gifted teacher piped in and explained how DS would never qualify for an OT eval. She offered to take his work home to her husband who is an OT, but she assured us he would never qualify because the quality of his work is fine.

The asst principal is the only one who seemed to acknowledge and care about getting DS some help. She recommended beginning the RTI process and also work on a 504 in the meantime. They would do some preliminary assessments to pinpoint his exact needs and go from there. They will have Tier 2 intervention/accommodation recommendations to us next week.

DH followed-up with an appropriate email but this feels like we're fighting a losing battle. What now? RTI seems like a waste of time based on what the school psych said. If all they are going to do is accommodate in the classroom, that doesn't really address the dysgraphia.

I'm sorry you had such a poor overall response from the school system. I would suggest you follow up on the school psych's apparent offer of an OT eval. From your description, it sounds like the school psych is the special ed representative in your discussion. She is much better qualified to speak about its appropriateness than the gifted teacher, who sounds like she is succumbing to the temptation to be an expert by proxy. ("I'm not a doctor, but I'm married to one on TV.") And one hopes her husband knows better than to diagnose based on a handful of work samples. Definitely go for the 504. Once documented as having a protected disability, it is much easier to keep the process going. I would inquire as to the Tier 2 assessments. Some of them are actually quite good (e.g., PAL-II is marketed as a Tier 2 assessment, and is one of the better elementary-age tests for identifying writing disabilities).

What kind of accommodations/interventions are you hoping for?

Nikiharp, I'm also sorry that you had this type of response from the school staff - it's disheartening and discouraging. Our own experience in elementary school advocating for our dysgraphic ds was similar in many ways, and my one word of caution (just from our experience) - we were able to eventually advocate for and received an IEP, but the same school staff who fought it so hard were the same school staff responsible for implementing it, and where I'd hoped that getting the IEP would mean "success" the reality was we had to keep fighting to get the services we were promised. What happened in our case, ultimately, was that by the time we got to that point, ds was older and wise enough to start realizing on his own that the teachers who were supposed to be helping him weren't and didn't really care, and he asked *us* if he could leave the school - so we did. That change of schools, for us, made all the difference in the world because we were lucky enough to land in a place where even though we didn't have an IEP (it was a private school), the staff weren't trying to disagree with everything we as parents were telling them about our child, and the staff cared tremendously about helping our ds be successful in school.

That said, I think that there are some very positive things in what's transpiring at your school, and also have a few suggestions re advocating. The positive is that you *do* have a team member who believes that something needs to be done - so grab the offer of a 504, get it in place, accept the RTI and move forward.

The next step, for you, is to figure out what it is you're seeking. If you can tell us a little bit more about what you think your ds needs - accommodations/interventions/remediation/some of each - that would help us make more specific recommendations about how to proceed. The thing that's tricky about saying a student has "dysgraphia" is that "writing" involves so many different things - is it handwriting you're concerned about, or also written expression? Do you think that spelling/etc is an issue only when handwriting or your ds will need additional help with it above and beyond replacing handwriting with keyboarding, etc?

Re suggestions for advocating:


Yes and no. RTI is mandated but you might also be able to advocate your way around it. First, you need to know what it is you're after. If you simply need accommodations for handwriting, that shouldn't require RTI. Dysgraphia is a life-long disability - you may need to support early learning of handwriting, but your ds is most likely not going to be able to ever rely on handwriting to fully show his knowledge. I would counter the school's suggestion of RTI if it's aimed at giving him better handwriting. There's a real catch-22 there potentially too - our ds did go through handwriting OT in 3rd grade (recommended by his neuropsych so that he would learn the correct way to form letters). It did work - his posture while writing improved, he learned how to use the correct pencil grip, he was able to write longer before pain and fatigue set in, his papers were no longer crumpled beyond recognition, his legibility and letter spacing etc improved tremendously. So, on the surface, it seemed like a success. But what it *didn't* do was perhaps more significant, and very predictable for a dysgraphic person: ds' handwriting still sucked up all of his working memory, so there was still a significant difference between his punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc plus a huge difference just in output amount between using handwriting and keyboarding (and oral answers). The other thing was - even if those things weren't going on - he did not have age-appropriate handwriting speed - it was (and is) extremely slow. This may not seem like a big deal in 1st grade, but it is a *huge* deal when you're in middle school trying to keep up with homework and classroom expectations. Another thing we would never have seen then but that absolutely happened was - all the gains in learning how to form letters etc - weren't really "learned" gains. My ds is now in high school, and he will tell you that he still has to think how to form his letters and numbers every danged single time he writes one. That is *not* something that non-dysgraphic people have to rely on Soooo… our ds didn't have "RTI" but he did have what was basically the equivalent of RTI through OT and… it helped but it wasn't a solution. I'd be worried that the school would go through RTI and try to use the results to say that RTI was a success. The thing you should do (I think) is to ask very specifically what is planned for RTI, and what the goals are to judge is it or isn't it a success - and if the goals sound counter to what is realistic to expect for a dysgraphic person, let the school know it up front. Request reasonable expectations and goals. And put all of this in writing. Keep mentioning he has a diagnosis of dysgraphia. Include a brief one-page summary of what dysgraphia is - you can grab one from the NCLD website (I think) or elsewhere online if you don't have one. I would definitely include one that someone else credible wrote up - not one you put together. You can also refer to any relevant pieces of reports you have from private evals.

{quote]She commented several times his writing achievement scores were on grade-level. She made it clear that the baseline for my son's eligibility would hinge on his ability to meet grade-level standards. [/quote]

This isn't legally correct (from my understanding). You may find helpful information here: http://www.flspedlaw.com/lilliefenton.pdf


Technically she's correct about "it's not our job to make sure he meets his potential" (although she's also just annoying!). BUT the key here is she's taking the focus off of what the school *is* legally required to do: provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to each student. This is *different* than making sure he meets his potential. You need to steer the conversation back on track by reminding her/team/etc that the school *is* required to provide your ds his FAPE, and that his disability (dysgraphia) is preventing him from accessing his FAPE because of reasons 1,2,3 etc.


Again, this is just an obnoxious way of intimidating a parent and getting the focus off of the real issue. When things like this come up, when other kids are mentioned - right away state simply and clearly "This meeting/discussion is not about comic-store-boy (or whoever), it is about meeting the *individual* needs of our ds". And move on. (and in your brain, laugh to yourself as you think of how you'd wished you could say "And when my ds finds the cure for cancer or wins the Nobel Prize we will be sure he doesn't give your school any credit either") (sorry I'm kinda in a snide mood this morning lol!).


One thing that happened to us in advocating was that *before* we requested an IEP eligibility review, our ds' teacher was very worried about ds' writing and talked to us about her concerns. Then once we were "in process" and having team meetings every single danged school employee made a big deal about how our ds was doing "just fine" "middle of the pack, not the best but certainly not the worst" "no problems" etc. I think that what was actually going on was, the school did not want to provide services, so the employees (teachers/tas/etc) were coached re what to say. It's possible this gifted teacher may really believe this, but it's also possible she can't say what she really thinks. Not that this will change anything, but just remember to focus the conversation on what you *know*, not what the teachers say as evidence there isn't a problem.

It also helped us with things like this to bring in our own examples at home - timed writing, handwriting vs keyboarding output examples, papers from class with handwriting issues clearly illustrated etc.


So ask her to be specific, what was the checklist, what did it clear up, and then relate that to what your ds' current needs are, what dysgraphia means, etc. It sounds like the school staff is putting up an argumentative wall that they hope will stall you out - what you need to do is to just keep re-stating what your ds' needs are, keep bringing up your "data" (reports, examples that illustrate the issue, explain what dysgraphia is etc). Everytime you hear a statement like this, just state the plain and simple facts.


I can't tell you how many years I kept hearing that when I tried to talk to our ds' teachers (this was before we had a diagnosis and before I'd ever heard of dysgraphia). Going back in time, had I known about dysgraphia, I would have asked the teachers to show me comparisons of my ds' handwriting to other students in the class. I would also have taken pictures of the writing assignments plastered on the class bulletin boards in the hall to prove that the other kids weren't reversing letters! (OK, I probably wouldn't have done that but I was keeping my eyes open, and I knew the other kids were moving past letter reversals long before my ds did). I think the other thing you can do here is to re-focus the conversation by pointing out that dysgraphia isn't as simple as *just* letter reversals - restate all that it really is. Another thing I did that would effectively shut down this type of remark was to state along the lines of "Yes, it's true - it is developmentally normal for some children to still be reversing letters at xx age, HOWEVER, we KNOW that my ds has a diagnosis of dysgraphia from (whoever the expert is). Are you disagreeing with the opinion of a private (neurospcyh or whatever the credentials are) who is credentialed and highly respected in our community and among his/her peers?" That usually led to an immediate change of conversation


This is just plain silly! That's really nice that the teachers dh is an OT, but she should know (IF being married to someone makes you an expert in their field lol - pardon the sarcasm) that an OT assessment isn't going to just look at what handwriting looks at - it will include an evaluation of motor strength and functioning, hopefully both fine motor and gross motor, and that just because handwriting maybe "looks" ok doesn't mean that the student is getting through the process of creating the handwriting that looks so nice without major effort or frustration or pain.


Actually - I'd say that depends. If they really put together an appropriate accommodation plan, that may be all your ds needs - depending, of course, on what his needs are. There are many dysgraphic kids who, once they have keyboarding in place and accessible or once they are offered a scribe in the classroom who will have written expression needs met - they don't need help with it past getting around the handwriting wall. Other kids, like my ds, have additional challenges with getting their thoughts out or other aspects of written expression - but sometimes (and definitely with my ds) - you can't really see all of that until you've first accommodated for handwriting. So yes and no, classroom accommodations *might* be all that is needed. But you really do need to get them in place asap for your ds. For all sorts of reasons - not just because he needs them to show his knowledge, but because the longer it takes to get them in place, the more frustration he will experience, the more chances his self-confidence will take a hit. I also think it is easier to integrate things like keyboarding etc as a normal part of a student's classroom experience when they are younger and haven't yet started to worry about looking "different" from the other students.

Can you or aeh let me know what a Tier 2 assessment is and how it fits into an IEP eligibility process? It's a term I'm not familiar with (yet have vague memories of - lol!). The PAL was one of the tests my ds had (and performed miserably on!) so it *was* helpful in qualifying him for an IEP under SLD/written expression. We also requested the TOWL, which is a fairly widely used test - and it too illustrated ds' considerable challenges with written expression. Another thing I've mentioned here before that was helpful for us in advocating was to make a chart splitting out ds' WJ-III Achievement subtest results based on oral response, handwritten response (untamed) and handwritten response (timed). In a typical report, these subtests are just listed in any random order (or maybe by subgroup) - which makes it look like the student is just really uneven in achievement, which can be interpreted in 1800 different ways. The chart showed really clearly the impact of his dysgraphia - the oral response subtests had scores in the same percentile range his IQ scores were in, the handwriting/untimed subtests were around 30 percentile points lower, and the handwriting/timed subtests (called "fluency") were another 20-30 percentile points lower. If you don't know which subtest is which, let me know and I'll look them up.

And fwiw, ITA completely with everything aeh said

Best wishes,

polarbear

Tier 2 assessments are supposed to be diagnostic assessments administered to Tier 1 non-responders to help plan interventions.

Brief overview of RTI/RTII:

Tier 1 is what every student receives. It includes the core curriculum, teacher training in proper implementation of the core curriculum/supervision of teachers for fidelity, and screening/progress monitoring to identify those students who are not making adequate progress under Tier 1.

Tier 2 comprises roughly 15-20% of students, who need additional supports beyond Tier 1 instruction. They are typically identified by underperformance on Tier 1 screeners and progress monitoring. Tier 2 assessments should tease out some of the larger causes of underperformance, and assign them to standard interventions. For example, among the low readers, there will be a subset who are not English proficient. They would be assigned to some type of ESL intervention. But unless you know that this is the type of low reader you are, it would be silly to assign all of the low readers to ESL, which is where the Tier 2 diagnostic assessments come in. Reading has been very well studied (the same cannot be said of mathematics or writing), so it is relatively straightforward to direct intervention decision-making. You need good oral language, phonological awareness, and background knowledge (context), usually listed as the Big 5 (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension). If you are lacking in one of the key elements (all of which are relatively easy to assess), one remediates that element.

Tier 3 is for the approximately 5-10% who are not making adequate progress even with Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports in place. Interventions need to be intensified and individualized. There is substantial overlap with special education, but they are not necessarily synonymous. (For example, a one-on-one mentoring relationship might be considered Tier 3, but would not require special education eligibility, nor a special educator as mentor.) Some people would insert an additional tier between 2 and 3, which would make this tier 4.

In an RTI IEP eligibility process, a student should work his/her way up through the tiers, until all appropriate non-sped Tier 3 supports have been exhausted. The information one gathers along the way, in the form of Tier 2 and Tier 3 assessments, feeds into the eligibility and instructional planning discussion. These assessments, even prior to a formal sped referral, may include tests like the PAL-II, the TOWL-4, the CTOPP/-2, the KeyMath3, and subtests of the WJIII. You probably won't get a cognitive assessment until the actual referral to sped happens. Even then, you might not get one, unless the referral question warrants it.

A 504, on the other hand, starts from documentation of disability, and some impact on a major life function. It does not require educational failure/lag. It originates from federal disability law (aka, ADA), not education, so it is not subject to the same RTI mandates (which are not federal in origin, anyway, rather imposed by the states in response to a line referencing "response to scientific, research-based interventions" as an option for LD identification).

Hmm. This got less and less brief as I went along!

Thanks aeh - that was a great explanation!

polarbear

ps - Nikiharp - let us know what Tier 1 interventions/recommendations your school suggests!

Thank you both so much. I just don't know what I would do without the help. I'm finding it difficult to simultaneously understand dysgraphia and request what he needs to succeed. We do have a great narrative report from the our psych so we've used that as our guide. The school also has the test results and recommendations.

The asst principal said they would be using some sort of rubric to determine his weaknesses. The assessments you mentioned were not suggested. Should I ask for them?

We asked that the following be used as a guide for what they suggest:
-interventions with an emphasis on teaching him how to write
-accommodations to lessen the burden of writing
-that he be given challenges in his areas of strength
-that an OT evaluation be completed

I do realize that these aren't specific and I'm probably not using the language right, but it's how we best summarized what our pysch suggested.

I don't think the issue is as much with the motor skills as it is with what happens in his brain. He needs intense remediation in every aspect of the writing process. If you want me to list some of her specifics, just let me know.

I hope some of this makes sense

Nikiharp - thx for the additional details. I'm on my phone and out of time at the moment. I'll post a bit more later today - but wanted to add one thing based on your update - if you have any concerns that the written expression issues include challenges with expressing his ideas you might also want to request a speech-language eval and the CELF. I'll explain later when I'm not tripping over my thumbs on my phone!

polarbear

Ditto polarbear.

Sounds like you are talking about written expression in the language sense, not merely in the handwriting or spelling sense.

Some accommodations along the lines of your brief summary:

-reduced written responses: minimum items sufficient to show mastery of skill and understanding of content. E.g., in content areas (this means science and social studies), short answers rather than full sentences or paragraphs.
-alternative response formats which minimize writing, such as multiple choice, true/false, matching, cloze (fill-in-the-blank) with and without word bank.
-supplementary oral assessment: in particular, follow-up lower-than-expected assessment scores with oral elaborations and clarifications.

So, am I understanding correctly that the speech-language issue would still fall under the SLD in written expression?

Thank you both. I do think the school would be willing to provide some of these accommodations but I'm not sure they will see the need for additional assessment, especially if the school psych has to approve/administer it.

Yes, I think so - depending on what the SLP testing shows. But when you are starting an IEP eligibility review, you request an SLP eval specifically, and this is not part of the standard testing for SLD/whatever category - it's separate (or at least it's separated out in our school district on the eligibility check sheet). The idea with the eligibility review is that you bring your concerns forward and the team decides what type of testing/evaluation needs to be included - you don't necessarily have to know going in that the issue is SLD or something else. aeh will be able to answer this question better than I can


Do you think there's an issue with budget or time re the school psych? Or is it the psych's personality or bias re the need for testing that is the concern? Keep in mind that the speech eval will be given by an SLP, not the school psych. I think that if you are clear in explaining why you are making the request and you include evidence to back up your request (school work for example, or a history of issues your ds has had) and tie that to a pattern of inability to express his thoughts, then simply be kind and persistent in your request, the school staff can't really argue against the request for an SLP eval. Once you have the eval, they may be able to successfully argue that your ds' scores don't qualify him for services under their policy matrix (whatever it is) but the *request* for an eval by parents with a legitimate concern, is something they should honor.

Best wishes,

polarbear