Is it possible they don't know what dysgraphia is? We had the IEP meeting and when I brought it up I got blank stares from everyone (incl. the school OT). The special ed director who was there to kind of mediate (since the last meeting was a disaster) immediately wrote it down but I saw no signs of recognition on anyone else's faces. How would they evaluate him for that if they don't know what it is? I am worried he's going to get a sub-par eval.
Yes. Though the school psychologist should be doing the testing and be very aware of it. However, let me give you my experience. I first had DS evaluated for dysgraphia and dyslexia by his school. Yet, it got me basically nowhere because the school psych simply would not use the word dysgraphia at all... there is really nothing in the report about it, etc. I point blank asked her if he has dysgraphia and she said something like "I can certainly see your concern re dysgraphia" but she would not tell me directly that he has dysgraphia. I felt like the school eval was a bit worthless because of that - i.e., that I couldn't get any kind of direct confirmation that he is indeed dysgraphic. When I finally took him to the neurpsych, she said it was really obvious he has dysgraphia. It has been obvious to me for years now but it should have been more obvious to the school at least by last year. Now, I will have the dysgraphia dx (actually it will be called "developmental coordination disorder affecting fine motor and handwriting" (or somerthign like that) in the report because, the neuropsych said, school will not recognize dysgraphia but it has to recognize DCD. I am not sure how much I will even use that to get accomodations now anyway - it seems like the EDS diagnsosis is taken much more serious by the school (so far at least) and the accomodations are essentially the same so I fidn I just rely on his EDS to get necessary accomodations. When we do 'slip' and refer to the disgraphia we get blank stares. DS's teacher also told me whe has never heard fo dyspraxia or DCD befre either
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Anyway, I hope that helps you in yoru decsion process some...
