A lot of kids have anxiety that is directly tied to the disability.
This has happened with my ds, and I would add that in ds' case (and I suspect other children too)... it wasn't obvious that the anxiety was caused by the disability - it was much easier to see the anxiety before anyone recognized the disability, and by the time the anxiety was obvious, it was so high that it was seeping into other area's of ds' life, not just siutations that were a struggle due to his disability - yet once his disability was recognized and accommodated his anxiety dissipated almost overnight. Treating the anxiety alone, first, before evaluating, would have led nowhere.
Re the school, we've found that teachers and school staff will draw conclusions based on what they see and what they have knowledge of, and it's likely they've seen many more cases of anxiety in young children than they have of LDs that impact handwriting. Or they just can't see past the anxiety in a way that let's them see what the real issue is. In any event, I don't think schools are legally able to diagnose anxiety or to even suggest a potential issue with it. Is there a parent advocate group or disability advocate group in your area? It sounds like your friend could use some help from an advocate, and sometimes you can find that help at no charge - even just a call in to ask "what do I do next" could be extremely helpful for your friend. The thing that advocates have in addition to legal knowledge is *local* knowledge, and this was very helpful for us in advocating.
You can also send questions like this in to wrightslaw (at least you used to be able to - I haven't looked there in a few years so my knowledge may be out-of-date), but it's worth a try.
I'm also curious what your friend has done, so far, in advocating. Has her ds had an IEP eligibility review process yet? Has she requested it? If not, she should put a written request in *today* (you can do this via email), and request the evaluation for SLD-writing, including a request for both speech-language and occupational therapy in the eval. While it's possibly true, as Cookie mentioned, that to *receive* OT services through the school you need a diagnosis which gets you the IEP, you can request the OT eval as part of the comprehensive eval by the school.
The second thing I'd suggest - for the sake of her own sanity - is to consider a private eval. Some schools do wonderful jobs of comprehensive evals, but the objective of the school is academic function, and if there is either a learning disability, disabling anxiety, or some other challenge, parents and children need and benefit from having someone look at a *life* plan, not just academics, and that's part of what you get with a private neuropsych eval. A private neuropsych can also help you by providing recommendations for what will be attainable and useful for your child at school (both remediation and accommodation).
My last recommendation, for now, is to have this parent keep a log of every conversation with the school and be sure to keep all paperwork. Honestly, it doesn't sound like what they are telling her is exactly legal. I'm not recommending this as looking toward actual legal action, but found that when we weren't getting the full/true picture from our school (in our case the school tried to bluff through things in order to discourage parents), it was extremely helpful to have written down what was said in a conversation, then send it back to the school as a summary, and give them a chance to say "Oops, no, that's not what I meant". For instance, with your friend, if she was to send a summary email back to the school saying "This is my understanding from our latest conversation: ___ is requesting that we seek an anxiety diagnosis from a private source for our ds. As we mentioned, we are concerned that the anxiety is secondary to a possible handwriting challenge or learning disability. We are asking for an OT eval (or IEP eligibility eval), and our understanding is that you are requesting we first seek ___". etc. That offers the school the chance to say "No, that's not what we meant" and then everyone starts from what is, hopefully, a foundation based on real policy.
Hope that makes sense
polarbear
