You mentioned above that she had low scores in receptive language on the CELF. This would be consistent with what you're reporting about her language comprehension and ability to follow oral directions. She also scored poorly on phonological memory, which is not only associated with dyslexia, but auditory processing, which can also affect how she comprehends oral language. Both the putative receptive language deficit and her documented relative weaknesses in reading comprehension would affect her ability to comprehend text.
I think you may already have the data necessary to document a receptive language deficit. Depending on your local school district situation, your school speech language pathologist should be able to update the receptive language testing, if that seems called for. You can request that the IEP team add this testing, even if you're mid-cycle. It's possible you may obtain a little additional information if you also pursue an auditory processing evaluation at a hospital. This is usually covered by insurance, with a referral from your PCP.
Sorry for taking so long to reply, we've been on vacation.
Just out of curiosity how would having the diagnosis of an auditory processing disorder or receptive language deficit benefit her at school? Meaning, what could they do to help her with either of these disorders? Would she receive speech therapy that would help alleviate her struggles with her comprehension of both oral and written text? Can they use the speech eval from 2012 or are the results outdated?
She is already on an IEP and receives some accommodations, although it has been hard to get the reduced workload accommodation followed. The solution to the homework overload was that if she is spending too long on homework, or she starts to feel overwhelmed by the workload, she is to stop and email the teacher and the learning specialist. This actually isn't too bad of an idea because her homework load isn't always excessive. Some weeks her workload is rather light. Just took some discussing with the specialist to make this happen.
From my perception the learning specialist seems surprised dd has an IEP since "dd is doing so well, especially compared to other 6th graders not even on IEPs". Honestly I've been providing quite a bit of scaffolding at home to help dd adjust to the expectations of middle school, homework, grades, etc. since this is new for her this year. I'm on top of missing assignments, teaching her how to study, follow rubrics, and so forth. I'm a stay at home mom so I have the capabilities to do this, many of the parents at the school work so I'm guessing the students who aren't doing as well as dd don't have parents checking up on them and making sure things are done and turned in. Honestly without my help I'd hate to think how dd would be doing right now.
She goes to a rigorous STEM charter middle/high school so my guess is getting services added might be a battle. In fact, her three year renewal for her IEP will be up at the end of this school year and I'm worried they won't want to give her a new one and that is a fight I'm going to start preparing for. Between my scaffolding for her and the fact that dd is an EXTREMELY hard working, people pleasing student (i.e. an assignment that may only need 15-30 min for the neurotypical student to complete, dd will spend more than an hour because of her learning challenges and also to ensure she does it right and well, so the work she produces is average or even above average but takes much more time and mental energy for her to complete), I don't know if I can convince them that she benefits from an IEP.
