Polarbear- thank you for responding! You have articulated so well in the second paragraph of your response, what I have been belaboring with the school coordinator this morning- to no avail. They are trying to separate out the disability and the giftedness, to where the lack of a robust gifted profile, based on the writing sample, is not thought of as being a result of his specific challenges. I was given a detailed explanation of why middle school being do difficult because of increased organization and independence requirements, would put an added layer of stress on DS, to where we wouldn't want to burden him with the rigor of the accelerated program! A number of his attention and other difficulties are markedly reduced when he is presented with challenging material.
He has an ADHD diagnosis and Mixed Expressive Language Disorder, along with a small bouquet of other diagnoses. His executive function tested at below the 10th percentile, and he has difficulty with the pragmatics of language. As others have found, the school(s) see that he is performing significantly above grade level on test scores, so he wouldn't qualify for instruction (basically, they can't go through the RTI process with his scores). While we have held on to the IEP, it really doesn't have much content. The school has not been able to see the child as a whole, with the 2e piece. Does any of this suggest a possible avenue for evaluation?
How did you work with the expressive language challenges within the gifted program? Did it impede consideration for the accelerated setting? I guess I'm trying to figure out what to do next in trying to advocate for him. In a program that includes ELA acceleration, their counter is that his written expression has to be similar to other participants without accommodations (though they are not saying that explicitly). I do have a meeting set up with the SPED teacher/ coordinator so hopefully I will have another avenue to explore.
Thanks again!
