Rosaspina,You have received alot of very wonderful advice here. The school discouraging you from doing testing isn't approiate protical on addressing providing services for your child. Although the specific issues of difficuilty in testing as related to your sons functioning is very helpful for you to know. You need to establish baseline date(testing) in order to establish, have some idea of where your son is at in all areas of functioning. That way you can chart if he is making progress, by using his test scores. You would want a full battery of test done by the School Psychologist. Contact your State Department of Education's Special Education Department and ask them to mail you a copy of their Policies and Procudures Manual (it's free). It is book that has all Forms,list of all services school is required to provide and testing(for free), catagories of disabilities and information you need to know to support you, in advocating for your son. Your school distric is required to test your son when you put it in writting you want a full battery of test to determine all areas of disability. I have been in your shoes. Get the book Smart Kids With Learning Difficuilties, it has charts and graphs and explains how to document you childs giftedness/LD so school can have all info. in educating your son. It is the parent input that is crucial in identifying unique learning styles that help teachers to provide modifications and accomadations in lessons plans. Attach this information to IEP. You also can find a provider by contacting your Health Care Authority in your state and requesting name of a Clinical Psychologist who does Educational Testing. Contact PEATC and find out where your Parent Advocacy Training Center is and ask for their contact information. Every state is required to have a Parent Center. to provide free training for parents of disabled children. You can contact Social Security Disability and ask to fill out application for your son. Social Security oftens has testing done to verify if child qualifies as disabled. Their testing is done at a medical level. If you have already got Social Security Disability. Contact them and ask for copys of the tests that were used to make the Disability Determination. Fax the Disability Determination to your school distric along with a nice letter requesting they imeadiatly provide services and start battery of tests. (be sure to program your fax machine to print out verification of receipt of fax for proof you notified distric of your request) Ask your school distric if they are doing,Response to Intervention(RTI),
school Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports,Universal Design, and the name of the reading program they are using. Put in writing to your school distric you would like copys of all educational records, testing, behavioral notes, attendance records and report cards since he started school. If your school is doing RTI, they should provide you charting of your childs educational progress and testing that was done three times a year to show if your son is at grade level. This is the family support document for RTI on pdf, ABC's of RTI: >http://www.rti4success.org/images/stories/topPicks/ABC_of_RTI.pdf> This Family Support Document has wonderful list of questions that would give you idea of what to ask for, how to ask. RTI is also used to monitor progress of children with IEP and to support gifted children in identifying level of performance to assure decisions are made based on scientific based data. Get a 3-4 inch note book and start organizing all of these records including copys of all medical records, medical reports. It is interesting that a growth chart can show if enviormental stressors are affecting health and growth. Get the book, From Emotions to Advocacy, second edition, The Special Education Survival Guide by Pam Wright and Pete Wright.
Sure am happy if any of this info. is helpful! Wishing you the best!
