Thanks bluemagic, sorry you are dealing with this too. Since DD is only in 4th grade most of the writing has to be done in school. She just ends up zoning out there and looks really unfocused. Then as teachers berate her for not doing the work, she gets more and more unfocused and anxious (but it doesn't necessarily show up as anxiety--it's not obvious). She ends up looking passive aggressive which makes everyone more frustrated with her because it looks like she's not even trying and doesn't care. I don't even know how to fix this situation with a 504. It's not like a regular classroom teacher is going to be able to give her a pep talk and coach her about what to write every time she needs to write something in class.
To be honest I feel stupid because if you look back this has been happening to my son for years but I didn't really realize how bad it was till last year in 9th grade. DS had major problems in 6th grade with anxiety and meltdowns and one of the triggers was writing assignments like this.
The problem we had in identifying this as a learning disability (we didn't do that till last summer when he was 15) was that DS would write he writes well. And some grades & teachers never saw the problem, for example his 8th grade teacher for honors humanities. Still not sure what magic she had as a teacher. Plus the fact that he has labeled as GATE and so much of a better writer than his sister who has a language processing LS made me a bit compliant. When he was having these problems in his 6th grade gifted class, I overlooked the problem and rationalized it that they were asking above grade level. I found him help for his anxiety and social issues but didn't look for the root of the problem and try and work on his writers block.
I'm not sure how you can convince the teachers but you do need to work with this now. In order to graduate H.S. DS needs to take 4 years of English, and writing is 50% of his grade. In our H.S. most writing is still done in class. All the A's in math & science class won't change anything.
As I said in a previous post you can find specialist that will work with your daughter on this kind of problem. Although honestly most English tutors told me this is the hardest part of writing to work on. You need to find someone special. I ended up doing a full neropsc test last summer that really helped clarify all the issues my son has been going through and made it easier to get the 504. Although the 504 only gives him accommodations like more time during in class writing and the ability to turn in homework like this late. Because my son was already the agreement was the H.S. was going to accommodate and I was going to work at home on getting him help. He had a tutor for a while that did help but she left and I never found one to replace her.
