Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Reading

I should clarify that by less nice I mean quoting laws and bringing up timelines. Just not sure if there are laws and timelines for evaluations of this sort vs. IEPs where there are very clear rules for how long they have to respond and do certain things. At the old district I often had to resort to listing the dates that I made requests to show them that they were behind or about to be behind where they should be by law. I am always polite and respectful with them because I know I will have to see them face to face at meetings as well as hopefully get the best help that I can from them. It just often seems that I have to remind them of the laws to get things moving

On a positive note, after I emailed today I got a call shortly after from the person who I was waiting to hear from and she is sending some stuff. By snail mail. I would have preferred an email address to leave a digital trail and I actually have no idea what is being sent, but at least something is happening. And apparently she could not send the forms until she confirmed which of my son's names was his first and which was his last name. Seriously, that was the hold up. I did write his name out for them in 2 emails, but I guess I should have labeled first and last, lol.

As far as what I said to them in the first email, it was this:

Hi, I would like to request an evaluation and IEP meeting for my son who attends a private school. He is diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and Tourette's and I am also concerned about his reading and writing. His last IEP was done over a year ago at our old school district in (Blank) County. Please let me know what further steps, if any, we need to take to get this process going. Thanks.

After that I answered a bunch of questions about DS, but they didn't ask for any specifics about why I wanted him evaluated as she said the other lady would talk to me about that. Maybe the stuff they are mailing will ask for that information?

I should get DS's MAP scores on Friday and it will be the first time I get reading scores, so I'm very interested to see what they are. The private school is definitely having trouble with DS not wanting to write and not producing writing at an appropriate level for the classroom, so I can get statements of concern from them no problem. There is no way I can show any below grade level performance. Even on writing he is probably low for grade, but still within the normal range. I don't want to wait for him to fail and then test and remediate. Maybe he is fine, but I am worried and I have learned to trust that feeling over the years.

I should also mention that although I list that DS is diagnosed with Autism, we do not consider it a valid diagnosis at this time and are working to get it removed. DS has very severe ADHD that, when unmedicated, looks a lot like autism. It's actually amazingly difficult to find anyone who accepts our insurance and who will reevaluate for autism... I've been at it for 2 years. Until we get it removed I will continue to list it, just in case it is accurate and also because it has a greater impact than his other diagnoses. It feels a little like lying, but an autism diagnosis does make getting an OT eval much easier for instance. I will of course tell them that the autism is uncertain at this point, but I really wish we could get that reeval!

Thanks for all of the help so far. I'll continue to update.

Yes. The district has strict state and federally-mandated timelines for responding to your request for an initial evaluation, and then for proceeding with the steps to conduct an evaluation, even though your child is enrolled in private school. Child find makes them responsible for every school-age resident of their catchment area. In most states, they have 5-10 school days to respond to your request for an initial evaluation, generally with a request for more information (your concerns), a permission to test, or a refusal to act. But they have to do something. And yes, it has to be on paper.

It sounds like they are within the timelines for responding to you. Once you receive a permission to test (it may have different names, depending on your state, but it will clearly indicate that the district is proposing assessments of your child, should name the areas in which they will assess (e.g., psychological/cognitive, academic achievement, attention/behavior/executive function, social-emotional development), and may even give the names of the assessment instruments), determine if you agree with the assessments, and request, if need be, any additional assessments (e.g., occupational therapy, speech and language, adaptive physical education). For an initial eval, academic achievement is usually comprehensive, but in some cases, you will have to specify assessment in all areas of academics, including reading, writing, and mathematics).

Once you are comfortable that the evaluation will cover the areas of need, sign and return it promptly, as the timeline for completing the testing and holding the eligibility meeting doesn't begin until they receive your signed consent to test. At that point, the district will have anywhere between 30 calendar days and 60 school days to complete the evaluation, depending on the state (check your state's department of ed, special education due process timelines for this info). And then may have an additional 10-30 days to hold the meeting. States may have any combination of, an evaluation review meeting, an eligibility meeting, and an IEP development meeting. Some roll them all into a single meeting, while others split them out, each with their additional time line.

Update:

I heard back from the district after quite a bit of silence and they wanted to get started right away on evaluations. We started today in his school and tomorrow we go in for I guess formal evaluations at the district. I am not actually at all sure what all they are evaluating for, so hopefully I will find out more tomorrow. I am very happy with how quickly things have gone since we fell on their radar. The people I have spoken to so far have also been very friendly and the counselor at our private school says we are in an excellent district for special ed. All good!

I had actually posted in another thread earlier in the month wondering if I should even go through with this due to finally getting those MAP results back and finding out that DS scored in the 99th %ile on the reading portion. His lexile is listed at 627-777. I do not feel that he is actually reading at that level though. I was expecting him to do above average but I was very surprised he tested more at a third grade (I think?) level. I guess the eval won't hurt, but I'm feeling really silly about having concerns now, especially since the writing and language section was his highest scoring category :P

I do wonder if his score would be as good if he were to take the 2-5 version of the test. In math he took to primary in summer and then switched to the 2-5 and dropped from 237 to 217, but climbed back up to 230 this winter. If he were to drop a few points on the reading section it would make a much bigger difference because he only got a 207.

Anyway, just wanted to thank everyone for their help and let you all know that we are getting our district eval and so far things are looking good with it. And I'm also feeling a bit ridiculous at this point with the 99th %ile score on what I thought was a weak area. OTOH maybe the district will test fluency, which is my biggest area of concern right now, along with written expression. I will update again at the end of this process to let you guys know if we figure anything out. Thanks!

Trust your instincts. If something feels odd, too hard *for this kid* regardless of measured grade level, there may well be something there. (The challenge, of course, is convincing the school you're not crazy.).

The thing with kids who are 2E is that they can be simultaneously - and visibly - way ahead on some tasks while underlying processing skills are lagging behind. It's not until the complexity of the task gets high enough to overwhelm the other strengths and compensation mechanisms that you realize the child is missing a key skill. For instance, throughout K my DD was one of the two strongest "readers" and "writers" in her class - but two years later, she was still at the same level while her classmates had automated those skills and moved onto more complex materials.

Long way of saying, trust your gut if something feels too hard, and don't let them convince you to wait until the child is failing - because for a 2E child, that can be a long, long way down and a hard climb back out that hole. Really, really trust yourself. You are the one spending all that one-on-one time with the kid, and lots of research agrees that you really do know better than the experts when a child is off-norm in some way.

Well, after 3 days and many hours of testing (which still isn't complete, seems DS is getting too many questions right) I learned that they are actually doing IQ testing. I hadn't even realized they were doing the WISC until the second day of testing and was really surprised because at the last district I had to fight so hard for IQ testing and they didn't do more than the bare minimum anyway. This lady even did the optional subtests. I'm not sure I wanted another test done and if we had decided to retest I would have preferred to wait until 8, but I guess I can't complain too much. I do wish they had discussed it with me first, I thought we were just testing reading, writing, and comprehension, my areas of concern (turns out we are not going to be testing any of them).

I was able to talk to the psych about her impressions so far. She said she can't tell yet if his score will be in the gifted range, but she kept telling me he was going to the end on the various sections, which I would think would give some idea of whether he will meet the cutoff or not. And when I specifically asked if she thought he would qualify for the gifted program, she said that it's not just based on IQ and listed a bunch of stuff including leadership skills, social/emotional skills, creative output, and also academic levels (flashback to last horrible school experience). I mentioned that I had provided his MAP scores which put him in the 99th %ile and she asked me if that was by district norms and I said no, national norms (DS is private school, so there are no %iles on the report, I looked them up online). She said that this is a high performing district and he may not qualify academically with his scores.

She then let me know that there was no way they would find a disability of any sort and they aren't even going to test for any. She said he would have to be significantly behind on reading or writing to even consider assessment/disability and he is significantly ahead on everything. She also said that they can only test him on grade level material, so if fluency is fine on 1st grade text then there is no disability, even if fluency is poor on more cognitively appropriate text. So now I'm feeling pretty bad about putting DS through all of this testing and having him miss 2 days of school because it seems the the only thing that might come of this is possible qualification for the district gifted program in case we can't afford private next year. And even that seems iffy because if you apply a bunch of extra criteria, especially things like creative output, DS isn't looking so good (although his art teacher tells me he is extremely gifted in art... which is hard for me to believe!) Plus the tester doesn't even seem confident DS will come up as gifted on the WISC despite saying he has done amazingly well on the test and mentioning a few times he did all of the items available on certain subtests.

So, am I out of options? Should I save up and pursue private testing? Should I fight the district if they deny DS from gifted programming based on emotional immaturity or lack of creative output? If he were not allowed into the gifted program there is no way he could go to public school. After a year at the private gifted school DS has further widened the gap between himself and agemates and I can't see him being happy at all in a typical classroom. He actually already complains his current school moves too slow and the math is too easy. Plus some of his favorite classes are Mandarin, Projects, and Coding, none of which will be offered at that public school. I guess I have to really hope for a good result with our financial aid application

Wait and see until the results come back. What matters is the discrepancy of cognitive ability and achievement, not if DS is on grade-level or not. This is a process. One step at a time.

I would agree that waiting would be prudent. As someone who's been on the other side of the table, I can give some perspective. Especially in high-performing districts, one frequently hears from parents asking for previews of testing results for gifted eligibility, sometimes so they can lean on the process when their kids don't qualify. ("The tester told me he did exceptionally well on the test, so you have to admit him.") Examiners are almost always cautioned (or learn from bitter experience) not to indicate one way or the other until the whole selection process is complete, to limit attempts by parents to game/pressure the system. She might think privately that he's a shoo-in, but if she's wise, she won't say anything about it to you. Hence the party line about multiple sources of assessment data (probably a state requirement, btw). You can't make any inferences about his eligibility for GT programming based on what she says to you.

With regard to the 2e aspect of the evaluation, you have a right to request an independent educational evaluation (or the district can offer additional testing) if you are not satisfied with the results of the evaluation. So no, the process is not over. Also, the prior written notice for the evaluation should have included a list or description of the types of assessments to be conducted. If it did not, then there are due process violations. You may wish to check your paperwork to be sure.

Unfortunately I signed and turned in the permission to evaluate and never made a copy of it. As far as I can recall it was just a generic permission slip with nothing specific written on it (no specific tests listed/no areas of concern). They had sent out this huge packet with about 7 different rating scales for me to fill out and I never thought to copy any of the material. I suppose I could ask to look at it, but then I would have to confront them on the spot, in person, and I am not prepared for that. I suppose I will keep it in my back pocket in case I need any legal leverage.

While I was there the last time they gave me an additional thing to fill out about the gifted characteristics of DS. I particularly disliked this form as it is something they actually use for admission to the gifted program and I think the vast majority of it doesn't even relate to giftedness, especially in 2E kids. It asks about imaginary friends (DS never had one, let alone multiple complex ones), early talking (DS did talk early, but many gifted kids don't), early reading (ditto), high empathy (not likely to be present in young kids with ASD), creative output, artistic talent, etc. I filled it out because I had to, but I will not be happy if my honesty keeps DS out of the gifted program. Plus I am not one to want anything to do with "selling" my DS. I hardly see how his early motor skills relate to his current academic needs regardless.

I am very happy to hear that the testers reticence may just be standard procedure. I have been worried that if he scores too low on the IQ test our current placement at the private gifted school may be at risk as well. His school doesn't have an official cutoff, but they exist to serve the gifted kids who are at DYS level. I was so surprised we got in, but it turns out they used the abbreviated IQ from the SB5 as well as considering DS's strong math and visual spatial skills. Plus apparently DS killed it in the interview (hard to believe!)

Since I told the school we were doing testing with the district to address the reading and writing concerns I'm pretty much going to have to share the results with them. But now that I know that the behavior of the tester could just be standard school protection stuff and not a reflection on how DS did I am going to sleep better while waiting for the results to come in.

I'm also happy to know we have more options with the LD testing. It does concern me though that for fluency and comprehension she can only test him with first grade text. DS was reading at a first grade level in preschool, so obviously fluency concerns won't show up at that level. And since his comprehension deficits are mostly with inference and not fact recall, first grade text won't show much there either. Plus with him reading at about a second grade level without any real progress for about 2 years I worry that he will just fall further and further behind. I'm wondering if they are thinking his skills are just "evening out" in preparation for that big third grade reset?

At any rate, thanks so much for helping with the wait. I am the sort who will worry no matter what, but I can drop it down a notch now as I now have a new and more positive plausible explanation. Thanks

When a parent requests the independent educational evaluation the parent gets to choose the evaluator within reason. The IEE is often a neuropsych. Don't worry about which subtests they used, because your son will have the ones he needs by the end of the process.

Just a heads up the results are part of your sons educational record and you are entitled to them when they are ready. My district loves to say that they will give them to me at the IEP meeting so they can explain them to me. That's just not happening.

Inference is a lot to ask for a 6 year old. I was panicky when my son was 7-8 because he could not infer. It was limiting him in science (6th grade textbook). He is 9 now, something "clicked" developmentally and he can infer. AP Biology and reading at college level.

My son also has ADHD and struggles with writing, which turned out to be more about what he was being asked to write. At 6 years old / 1st grade he was obviously lagging behind age peers in writing. Turned out that writing assignments were too long and too... boring. I taught him grammar, vocabulary, spelling and handwriting all separately and away from writing. I used a lot of rote memorization - which seems to reduce demand on working memory. He didn't write for 2 years during this process. He read freely. Then I taught writing forms with rote memorization of outlines for persuasive and compare/contrast essays - enough to get him through most short answer questions in science. He took another semester off from writing and then started using "UnJournaling" book, which he LOVED.

Now he is doing poetry, which he is surprisingly good at. Closed and open couplets and haiku are short enough they're not overwhelming to him. He finally has motivation to learn to write short answer essays - he wants to take AP tests. His writing is well above what one would expect for his age now, although it's still a significant lag behind everything else.

Perhaps some of these ideas will help you with your son. Maybe not! I mostly wrote it all out to illustrate that kids have developmental plateaus and grow by "leaps and bounds".... and plateaus in between sometimes.

(tangent: my son could NOT count backward or subtract at 6-7 years old. It was crazy. I taught him multiplication instead of subtraction. One day, something "clicked" developmentally and he could count backwards, subtract - and divide! all at the same time. After that he started accelerating like crazy in math! 9 years old, he's doing Algebra 2. Insanity!)

My son's reading (inference) weakness never turned up on a reading comprehension test, it only came out in writing. I felt anxious like I was taking a HUGE risk with his future when I decided to teach him round-about ways. My anxiety was unfounded. I'm guessing yours is too. You know your child best. Don't worry! You're doing everything you can! You're being a fantastic advocate for him! He has the perfect momma for himself! ❤