Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional District too inept to do eval

Blackcat... even if you were to get a school eval and they were competent - chances are you'd still need a private eval. My kid is pretty severely dysgraphic b/c he simply can not write and yes some of it EDS but the majority is dysgraphia and the school did an entire eval on my insistence allegedly specifically for dysgraphia and dyslexia and it seemed pretty useless. The report said very little about his writing difficulties. I was all excited thinking I would get somewhere and all I really got were some recommendations for executive functioning skills. I still needed an outside eval and dx. And even that seems to have little effect. This year the psych was supposedly pretty jarred by DS's writing issues in math class when she was observing for inattention and seems to be taking it more seriously. But, really, one needs a private diagnosis on it. My school is actually pretty good and they are not nearly as idiotic as your school sounds but still dysgraphia just isn't very well addressed. It's like there is this big pink elephant standing in the room and everyone wants to pretend it's not there and they just keep looking all around it. It's odd. I feel like with this ADHD eval I am hoping for one of two results - adhd to be properly diagnosed (to the point where I really feel comfortable that the diagnosis is correct) and try some meds; or for someone to come out and say that that DS's dysgraphia is causing what seems adhd and needs to be better accommodated or something like that. It seems to me like my Ds's school is all over anything behavioral - adhd, executive functioning, atypicality, asd, etc. but can not seem to understand or wrap their minds around dysgraphia. Now, like I said, this year is getting better as they said they are going to have DS use Panther Math Paper! (YAY! although I had to propose that - they didn't know about or come up with that themselves).) But DS also has an EDS dx and a letter saying that keyboarding and technology to use in lieu of DS physically writing is "medically necessary." So I think I just get more elverage with that Dx than I do with dysgraphia.

A sum of my situation is as follows: I think/suspect that my DS's "behavioral issues" - his inattention, his adhd like behavior are very likely symptoms/by-products of dysgraphia but no matter how much the school evaluates him, no matter how much they observe him, no matter how awful and fraught with reversals his written work is OI never see them actually use the word dysgraphia or address it directly. Why? I really have no idea.

Anyway, it just seems like an awful lot of schools can not identify or deal with dysgraphia. The eval the school did for my DS last year ostensibly to identify dysgraphia and/or dyslexia resulted in nothing helpful at all. Even though DS's profile just screams dysgraphia! After the eval, the focus of the school switched to executive functioning and actually major direct attempts to take away my son's writing accommodations.