Hi eco, I'm sorry - I didn't notice this reply yesterday!
I have wanted to get his language evaluated (and listed that as a concern in eval request), but the school won't do it.
Our school wouldn't evaluate our ds' language either, although I do believe (based on what our advocate told us and based on what I've researched) that the school has a responsibility to either evaluate for speech/language or provide a written response re why they don't see the need. If you hadn't gotten that far with your school you could make the request again, listing reasons you suspect the issue. It might or might not work. To be honest, we had a *very* tough time advocating for evaluation and services at our ds' elementary school.
We made the choice to go for a private SLP eval for two reasons: first, we'd already been through two tough years of advocating at school by the time we realized our ds had an expressive language challenge (and before we realized SLPs can help with written expression), so we predicted that going through the school eval would take considerable time (based on our previous experience) and had a high probability of resulting in no services offered. We also felt, in our situation (school etc), that it was imperative to get our ds appropriate help, and help received through the school at that point was minimal and sub-par. That's just one school though - and doesn't represent any other school anywhere else.
One thing we did that you might be able to do is network around and find a school district SLP who you can find out some basic info from: i.e., what is the school district bar for qualifying for SLP services. In our case, we knew up front once we'd asked that our ds would not qualify under the *typical* set of district guidelines, meaning we'd have another uphill battle to advocate through.
I planned to do it through the university, but to tell the truth--between having to be DS' frontal lobe, along with taking him to constant "other" appointments (and his grade in one class being reduced on the basis he was not there to "participate"), I really just hit a wall.
I totally understand this - and I've been there. There is only so much you can do with 24 hours in anyone day and in order to have some kind of life outside of dealing with 2e issues. I am not a person who looks back or has regrets or any of that, but to be honest, parenting a child who struggles is extremely time consuming, and it's time consuming for the child to, to deal with everything. It also takes a lot of mental energy for kids to cope with these types of challenges, and with having to go to tutors/therapists/etc. When we're in the thick of it as parents we often don't realize what our kids (and ourselves) are missing in terms of just having time to relax and recharge. It's tough. Really tough. You can't fit everything in, you just have to pick and choose and deal with it all as best you can - so don't ever forget that as his mother, you're the person who knows best what direction to take at any given point in time.
[eco21268]I would not be at all surprised if there is something going on with his language, beyond pragmatics. He just says so many weird things, and is so difficult to communicate with about things that seem pretty basic.[/quote]
Sounds like something's up. And it may be that you're at one of those intersections on the 2e journey where you have to step back, reassess and think - do I need to deal with this issue head-on for now, instead of something else we're working on. Communication challenges can get more complicated and difficult as the years go by in school. Especially once you hit that transition from middle school to high school and expectations from teachers rise, project work becomes more integrated into the curriculum, and parents are generally not a part of the communication mix between school and student.
I also wonder about his fine-motor skill. When the school OT did the VMI (?) last year, she noted that his "hand shook" but DS told her that it shakes when he is on meds. He has very messy handwriting (but can make it look very nice, if he's slooooooow), can't snap his fingers, was at least 10 by the time he could tie shoes, button pants, etc. He is very fast at keyboarding, can play multiple instruments, draw, and build Legos. But I guess those are different processes.
This all sounds *so* much like my ds - who has a dyspraxia diagnosis. The snapping fingers issue actually relates to a test (somewhat) that's part of the criteria used in diagnosing fine-motor dysgraphia (it's called a "finger-tapping" test - and requires the student to repeat finger tapping combinations made by the evaluator). When my ds was initially diagnosed and this test was mentioned, I thought the neurospych was crazy when she suggested my ds couldn't repeat her finger tapping sequences - it looked like such a basic task. Then I went home, told my dh all about it, and found out he couldn't repeat that type of task either! Anyway, I digress... sorry! The one thing that is different for my ds in your description above is that he isn't terribly fast with keyboarding. It is *very* typical of dysgraphic children however (which is separate and not necessarily related to dyspraxia) to be able to keyboard quickly yet labor over handwriting.
You might want to look at dyspraxia symptoms if you haven't already. Our neuropsych has a diagram that illustrates how many of the symptoms of dysgraphia, ASD, and ADHD intersect.
I probably should go ahead and have the language evaluation, privately. It's discouraging because I figure, even if he were diagnosed with an SLD, the school would still refuse to evaluate him. I continue to shake my head in disbelief they refused this year, with his history and a very detailed NP report.
So I think what you've experienced (let me know if I get this incorrect!) is that you have presented the np eval with diagnoses and recommendations to the school, requested an evaluation for IEP eligibility through the school, and the school has said no, they will not evaluate for IEP eligibility. Is that correct? Did you make the request in writing?
he did not do anything language oriented, though, except ADOS. As far as I can tell, anyway.
Our np didn't do any language-oriented eval either, other than confirm that it was a possibility ds may have an expressive language challenge and that speech therapy could potentially be helpful. DS' actual speech/expressive language eval was done through the SLP.
His NP moved out of town and is kaput. I attempted to contact her, earlier this year, for a consult and received no response. I am considering taking the report to another NP to see what they might suggest.
That's too bad about the original np. If you can network around and get a good reference, I'd seriously consider taking the original report along with your updated observations to a new np for a review.
I never feel like I "really know what's up" with DS.
I don't know if it's helpful or not to hear this, but I always feel like I'm chasing things from behind - sometimes way behind. I will feel like ds will make great progress (and my other kids, one 2e, one totally nt and at the moment, totally teen lol), and then wham! yet another *something* comes up. We're two years away from college now, and on the one hand I'm amazed at how far ds has come from the elementary student who couldn't communicate, and on the other hand there are days when I wonder how on earth he's going to be ready in time to go to college. So although it may sound (on here) like I have things figured out - and really, I do feel like I have a *lot* of things figured out - I don't know that I'll ever have it figured out! Hope that makes sense - just wanted you to know, you're not alone
Best wishes,
polarbear
