Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional What if the g/t teacher isn't trained in ASD?

My son has Asperger Syndrome/ASD and is in the g/t program in his elementary school. It's just a pull-out twice a week and not actually all that great. But still, it's better than nothing. However, the g/t teacher has made it very clear that she doesn't know anything about ASD. This leads to problems, because I think she resents the fact that she has to work with a kid who is "different" and sometimes acts a little goofy. My opinion is that a teacher should teach all children assigned to her class (my son tested into the program fair and square), not just the easiest, goody-two-shoes kids. Has anybody else dealt with a situation like this? Our school is weak on several levels, so this is just one more issue that we can't seem to resolve. What do you do if your child is highly gifted but the gifted teacher in your school doesn't want to work with him?!

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So I would try to educate the GT, but I would also look for others associated with the school as potential mentors for your son. Is there someone in charge of IT who would be willing to do an 'independent study' with your son? Or a Math teacher? What is the Media Specialist like?

Are there alternatives to the current school? Can you homeschool, or homeschool part time?

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Public school? If so, they don't get a choice of which kids to teach.

Our GT teacher had never had a special ed kid in some 30 years of teaching. That says to me: they're under-identifying the disabled gifted kids. I imagine this happens lots of places. Not surprising yours isn't experienced.

Our general strategy for teacher education (not just GT but any teacher):

--casually ask them how it's going, and when they complain offer them *one* useful strategy. Each time.

--offer them time with our private therapist to "share strategies", paid for by us, at their convenience

--get the special ed teacher to do his job of coordinating and leading the whole teacher team who deals with DS, and making sure all of them are following the IEP

--there is a person in the building who supervises the implementation of IEPs. Make sure this person learns of any issues you're having. This is a legal compliance/equal access issue, and they are supposed to fix it at once if it's affecting your DS in any tangible way.

--Get this person or the principal to send the GT teacher to continuing ed about autism and other special needs.

HTH
DeeDee

Hi DeeDee.

Thank you very much for sharing your approach. I feel like have pretty much tried everything (including involving the head of g/t for the entire district). The g/t teacher has received lots of tips and info, and was encouraged to attend a workshop on Asperger Syndrome, which she agreed to do. But in the end she did not show up. She was "too busy." So it seems very much that she does not want to know. My guess is she is hoping she can find enough reasons to have my son eventually removed from her g/t program.

I feel like this is a "top down" type problem in our school. The principal is not supportive or progressive and therefore neither are the teachers. Our special education teachers do not regularly work with gifted kids--there is probably no more than one child like my son in each individual elementary school here--so even they are untrained and of little help.

I feel that our IEP is not being followed. For example, the IEP states that my son is to receive paraprofessional support in the classroom. But when he is pulled for g/t, the para from the classroom does not go with him. Isn't that a violation of the IEP? Or does "classroom" in the IEP only refer to "general education classroom" and not things like art, music, g/t? Regardless, I'm not sure it makes much difference. The para is completely untrained as well.

Hi Grinity,

What is a "media specialist"? I don't think we have one of those in our school. In my research over the past several months I have concluded that different states offer totally different services to schoolchildren.

We have no alternatives to our current school (I wish!). There is a private school for the gifted, but they don't accept kids with special needs. There are private autism schools, but these are very expensive ABA-based places set up for kids who are on the more "severe" end of the autism spectrum. Homeschooling is out of the question because we cannot survive on one income. It's all just very depressing.

When I was growing up - when Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth - they were call Librarians.

Sorry to hear that there are not alternatives. In the long run, I think that the best option is to develop relationships with all the key Adults, and keep reminding everyone over and over that we all want what is in the child's best interests.

Love and More love,
Grinity

I know that I have had to train people on the concept of twice exceptional. It is misunderstood. I went in with so much info that I had> I also had to give info on misdiagnosis and the underachieving child. They seemed to educate themselves when they knew I was on top of things. Yes if the IEP says an aide goes with him to whereever then that should be happening regardless. this is from a sped teacher. If he is not succeeding in the pull out and there is no aide there for support then he should not be removed until given all accomadations and modifications as stated in his IEP.
As a little hint that you are unhappy ask for a recent copy of the IDEA book so that you can review your rights to due process. That will let them know there are issues with the IEP. Then follow through with the parental complaint if necessary. I am a sped teacher but know that sometimes people need a fire lit under their butts to make a change.

My best friend is a teacher (in another state) and she says our school here is a joke. I believe my only recourse now is to either move away (north!! get out of the south!!), or get a 50 page IEP where every little thing is spelled out very specifically. But they're already having trouble bothering to read and/or follow the IEP, so who knows if a really good one would make any difference at all.

If the IEP isn't being followed, the people who aren't following it could be personally liable for damages.

http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/?p=20

I don't know if the teachers and administrators at your son's school are familiar with this case. It would be a shame if they had to find out at a due process hearing...

At least in Texas, the para goes to each class with the child (including pull-outs and electives).

This is the main reason I've chosen to homeschool my son. Many teachers turn their heads to kids that are not completely compliant in every way. This is why there are so many gifted children who fall through the cracks and end up not caring about school and/or dropping out.

At our school, you'd have to have it specifically stated that the child has a one-on-one aide who will go to every single class with him. My son's IEP says he will have "paraprofessional support in the classroom." They can interpret that any way they want. It can mean he has his own aide, it can mean there's one aide for 5 sped kids in the room, it can mean the aide goes with him to other classes...or not. We did not know enough (because last year my son had his own aide) to make sure everything was spelled out very specifically. They changed it up on us without notice this year yet were no in violation of the IEP because that part of the IEP is too vague. Lesson learned!

If I had only this one child, I would find a way to homeschool. But I have another child with totally different needs, and there is only one me. It's a bummer.

We have hard evidence of one incident where the IEP was broken. When the teacher was asked about it, she lied/covered it up. She blamed my son--said he was "confused." His IQ is 154--he is rarely confused. LOL! But the school has reacted this way before when we have cried foul. We have not pursued the incident, other than to tell the teacher to stop it (she continues to claim she never did what she did). We have not revealed that we gathered evidence from witnesses at the time of the incident and know the teacher ignored the IEP and lied about it. We have focussed on trying to get DS decent treatment in school--more flies with honey and all that. But our patience is getting thin.

Orson, you can call an IEP meeting anytime to amend the IEP. It's like the Constitution-- a living document-- and it gives you the right to ask for amendments. If you need that specificity about when the aide is there, ask for it.

If you have direct evidence that this teacher violated the IEP, and you think she's not treating your child OK now, I'd encourage you to ever so nicely take action about that. You don't have to go in with guns blazing, but you can talk to those who supervise her work-- whether that is the principal, or the supervisor of gifted services in your district, or those who enforce IEPs in your building and district-- and let them know what's going on.

We have found it useful to have a hired professional advocate work on this stuff for us-- not because we can't, but because the advocate appears to be less biased, she can get things done that we cannot.

Good luck--
DeeDee

We've been down all these roads. Paid advocate, three IEP meetings in the last three months, talking to the principal (no help whatsoever), talking to the head of G/T (probably the biggest nightmare of them all) for the district. It all backfires in our case. To our credit (??), we have never gone in "guns blazing," we've always been reasonable. But hiring the advocate to help us (because we needed a better IEP and weren't sure how to get that on our own) just created an angry school "team" that banded together to treat us like the enemy. We have never threatened lawsuits or anything like that, we have been very cooperative and reasonable as we advocate for DS. It's a shell game with this school, though. They stand their ground and change their story. The entire district locks down against whichever parents they perceive to be "difficult," probably because they've been sued over autism in the past (and lost).

The bottom line, I'm sorry to say, is that we're in a very bad school. This bad school is in a district that presumably has some better schools (the district has an excellent reputation, generally speaking), but the same people are in charge at the top. Meaning no matter which school DS attends in this district, some of the same people will be at IEP meetings. And they've already shown that they are unable or unwilling to make positive changes. I know for a fact that DS is not the only child getting a raw deal in this school.

Our two options, I think, are to leave the district or to hire an attorney. If there were better school options for DS, we would hire an attorney for sure. But there's no private placement here that will meet both the ASD needs (social skills group, for example) and the high academic needs. So basically I'm having a nervous breakdown.

The key thing we've asked them to do is to stop punishing DS for his boredom and his autistic behaviors (spacing out, repeating words), but they refuse. The principal says there must be consequences for his "manipulative" behavior. Even if DS is manipulating them (they consider his spacing out to get away from "2 + 2 =4, 2+ 2 = 4" worksheets to be manipulation), they could try other approaches besides punishment. I have asked the principal directly about this. She insists the work in his classroom is very challenging and that he's not bored. DS tells a different story, as does the mountain of preschool-level worksheets that come home every day. It's just a crappy school!

I'm sorry that your ds is having to deal with this! I was initially going to ask if you lived near me b/c our local district has also been sued successfully for tuition for a private ASD school but I see that you're in the south.

I'm wondering if you've thought about suing them for tuition at the private ASD schools and then pursuing a grade skip (or a few grade skips or grade skip combined w/ subject acceleration) at the private school? Or are the kids there too different from your ds for him to find peers and get his academic needs met?

Orson: It sounds like your school is crappy indeed. I've learned the hard way that a district's reputation is not a reliable indicator of quality. We had a very poor experience with a Texas "Exemplary" and "Blue Ribbon" school. All these indicators tell us are the school's ability to pass students through the TAKS system. In the end, we decided to homeschool and joined an inclusive group. In the inclusive groups, there are a lot of really bright kids who are being homeschooled for academic reasons. There are also a lot of quirky kids with sensory issues. We have many more opportunities for positive social interaction now than we did in public school. DS is never bored and never lonely, and we are all so much happier and relaxed. Homeschooling is definitely not for everyone, especially two income families. However, it can be a viable alternative for 2E kids, especially when you have an uncooperative, oppressive school environment full of combative and defensive teachers and administrators.

Stories like this make my blood boil!

Orson: I'm sorry. I just read your earlier post. I see that HS isn't an option. Hopefully, someone has some better ideas for you.

Unfortunately the private ASD school here is a one-on-one ABA school, and is not appropriate for 2E kids. We literally have no options other than to somehow find another public school in the region (so we can keep our jobs) and then try to sell our house (good luck with that, of course!) and then hope that this new school isn't just as bad. We can also try to get on a waiting list to attend a school not in our district, but I have asked around and around and around and I cannot find a school here that gets high marks for Asperger kids. Most parents and students are dissatisfied and many are homeschooling.

If I had one child, we would move to an apartment or very inexpensive shack somewhere so we could live on one income and homeschool. But I have two children and I can't homeschool them both. They have totally different needs and literally need to be in two different places. The homeschool groups in my area are generally evangelical, and my DS is heavily into science, evolution, etc. We can't be in a group that teaches that the earth is 6,000 years old. So it's just one problem after another. I had no idea before I had kids that schooling would be such a huge, huge problem.

I hear that you are frustrated and feel like you are spinning in circles. It sounds like you think that homeschooling would be a good educational placement for your AS child in many ways, but you can't seem to figure out the logistics of how to make it work for your family.

I do want to point out that you don't have to homeschool both children just because you homeschool one. I know a lot of families who have one or two children homeschooling and one or two others in public or private, because the children need different things. We had one child in public school (at her request) and one child at home for three years. It worked out fine.

I also want to mention that homeschooling doesn't generally take up the same amount of time each day that public school does, because all of the time that is spent on logistics such as changing classes, handing in and passing out homework and tests, going over material that some kids are having trouble with but others aren't, etc. doesn't happen in homeschool.

There is also no law that says that instructional time has to happen between 8am and 3 pm. As long as your son has someplace safe and appropriate to be during the day, he can do "school" any time that it is convenient for your family. My husband and I both worked for part of the time that we have been homeschooling. We managed to arrange our schedules so that we could "tag team" most of the time, and filled in as needed with grandparents, friends, etc. so that our son was always with someone who "got" him, and we both did academics with him when we weren't working. I would further point out that, if your child reads well, much of what teachers provide in elementary grades is essentially babysitting services, so you don't have to feel guilty if you can't find a way to provide direct in-person academic instruction for 7 hours a day.

There is an incredible wealth of resources for homeschooling available for free or at very low cost online and through libraries, and we have never relied on homeschooling groups for instructional support, so we never worried about what other people were teaching. The public schools around here have their fair share of Young Earth evangelicals in instructional roles, so homeschooling actually helps us avoid this. If you don't know of any inclusive or secular homeschool groups in your area, it is pretty easy to start one using Yahoo! groups and the public library as jumping-off points. You say:


It sounds like others have already done your research for you, and found that there really isn't a lot in your area for someone like your son. This is either grounds for a class action suit against the district, or a signal to stop beating your head against a brick wall, depending on your level of energy and crusadership. It also sounds like these people might be a place to start in terms of finding homeschooling support in your area, if that is something that you decide to pursue.

Of course, you need to do what works for your family as a whole, and that balance can be the most difficult thing to figure out, particularly since it is generally a moving target. BTDT.

I wish you the best of luck in your quest.

Incidentally, have you looked into applying to DYS given his IQ scores? I doubt that they'd be able to solve your problems but any additional support might be welcome at this point.

I guess my homeschool problem is based mostly on fear--LOL--but also on the fact that if I homeschool just my 2E child (and not both my kids), my other child will be sent to the bad elementary school. That doesn't seem fair. But in my case, both kids are so, so totally different that I don't believe I could do a good job of homeschooling them together. My kids are both "difficult" personalities--one because he is so driven and focussed when he wants to learn that he becomes almost obsessed, and the other because he might have some LD and struggles with listening and following directions. So my homeschool situation would be not unlike the bad public school situation--one kid way ahead and one kid behind, but both on the same field trip.

I have several homeschooling friends who have told me exactly what you say--they can cover the school curriculum in less than half the time it takes the public school. We already "homeschool," of course, by supplementing all the stuff my son wants to learn that the school doesn't teach. But we also use the public school, partly because the public school can offer special education, social skills instruction, pragmatic language instruction from a trained speech language pathologist, occupational therapy, etc. I feel bad taking that away from my son in favor of giving him less stress, no homework, and more accelerated curriculum. It's a toss up. Or maybe not. I'm still thinking this all through. The services in the school are weak, though, and I need to keep reminding myself of that. Nothing I couldn't teach myself in most cases. But again, I feel like I can't split myself in two. While one child is way ahead academically, he does require quite a bit of one-on-one assistance (he's only seven). The other child is struggling a bit (still trying to learn the alphabet and he's 5) and he also requires on-on-one instruction, and more intensely at this point. Add to that the fact that they are close in age and very competitive/jealous, and just the thought of homeschooling makes me want to reach for the world's largest margarita.

I appreciate all the great help and advice I am receiving here. We are desperately trying to make up our minds about next year, and you guys are all helping me get my head together.

FWIW, many of the homeschoolers in our district still get special education services such as speech and OT for their disabled homeschooled children through the public school.