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DeeDee: She is SO HARD to figure out! OMG. "What's your concern?...okay....any other concerns? Is there anything you feel anxious about? Anything else you might be worried about? Could it be.... (WILD GUESS HERE)" has been working sometimes. Only sometimes, though.

I don't like trading in stereotypes, but in some ways she is very very....Mars? She has no trouble externalizing--except that she never hits. Expressing anger--sure, why not? Hostility--she's great with that. Vulnerability...she would really prefer not to be vulnerable. She has a lot invested in being tough. She loves bugs, snakes, scary rides, etc. She can hike for hours without complaint and does not feel much physical pain--although if you have to remove a splinter, look out.

I do still feel she is mildly impaired on perspective taking as well. However--boy, oh, boy, is she turning into a great liar.


Sorry. Threadjacking.

This is going to be very Waldorf school-specific, same as not all Montessori schools are the same. Also not all gifted kids are extremely academic - not even EG/PG kids. Kids like my ds sometimes have personalities that are more into inventing, creating, experimenting and thinking outside the box than they are into sitting down and zooming ahead in reading or math when they are in early elementary. I've known similar kids who've fit in well at a local Waldorf - *but* again, it depends on the Waldorf school. And you also wouldn't want to send your child to Waldorf if *you* as the parent are really bought into feeling you want your kid to be breezing ahead in reading/math etc because Waldorf isn't going to be teaching those things specifically in the early years.

I think that ultimately what helps students the most who are challenged with anxiety etc over school is not so much the school philosophy as much as the teacher-student ratio (smaller is better) and having a kind, caring teacher staff who really want to pull the child in and integrate them with the class, make them feel loved, safe, and a part of the "team" that makes up the classroom or student body.

polarbear

Montessori is a quasi-meaningless label at this point, I believe, though perhaps you can get an accreditation? I think the Waldorf label is much more tightly controlled.

It is unquestionably a core part of Waldorf philosophy to believe that children who learn to read before losing their first teeth are unbalanced and living too much "in the head." There is a really complex philosophy and the teachers all go through a long and exhaustive training that IMO is hostile to children who develop asynchronously. I vaguely considered sending DS to a Waldorf preschool--I didn't at all care if he was taught anything about reading or math at preschool--but could not reconcile myself to the idea of sending him someplace where his basic mode of development was going to be viewed with suspicion or seen as inherently dysfunctional.

I would also caution that Waldorf schools aren't philosophically neutral, so parents should be aware of the anthroposophy ideology that underlies the Waldorf method.

I agree with ultramarina that this philosophy could be quite damaging for young gifted children. Anthroposophy ideology is based on a form of karmic reincarnation and could falsely ascribe friction between students and school administrators' rigid practices to being the child's due from "another life". Particularly for a vulnerable child, I would steer clear of Waldorf teaching.

I think "Waldorf inspired" (not accredited or whatever their official stamp is) could easily be quite different. DD went to preschool where they incorporated some Waldorf elements (along with some Reggio and Montessori elements) and it was fine. But if it is an actual Waldorf school, with teachers who have been through the training, I would be wary. I actually think there are some admirable and appealing things about Waldorf, btw, but it also seems quite dogmatic and rigid. It's important to understand that at its core, Waldorf is a religious philosophy.

I am, as always, approaching your non-autistic DD with my autism toolkit, but here are the tools I see as useful.

1. Ask the school for a Functional Behavior Analysis done by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. They should agree to this; they do not want disruptions to continue any more than you do. The BCBA is the person best equipped to take data and notice all the trigger situations that create anxious/oppositional behavior, and to set up a plan to systematically change your DD's reactions in those situations. They work precisely on that moment between anxiety and opposition that you have identified.

2. Consider private ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy, again with a BCBA. These folks do serious behavior modification in a way that works. This should be coordinated with your CBT program. The CBT works on the thoughts that aren't useful, the ABA works on the behaviors that aren't useful. Some practitioners do a blend of ABA and CBT, but this is rare IME. Neither is a fast fix, but I would bet that ABA is faster for a 5-year-old.

3. You need more than a 504, you need an IEP. I think this because your DD will need extra services to work on generalizing her new coping skills and newly learned behavior strategies throughout her day. The FBA would tell you at what times of day she needs this most; a special educator deployed specifically to prompt and reward the desired behaviors is the main way this job will get done, and you could then fade that support as soon as the skills were mastered. As long as she finds her coping strategies more rewarding to her than doing what's desired by the adults around her, it will be very hard to get anywhere.

4. I would talk with a developmental behavioral pediatrician about anxiety meds. For some kids (including one of mine) relief from anxiety improves everything and radically reduces the (seeming) oppositionality. It can truly be night and day. For my DS, anxiety meds gave him the ability to access the behavioral therapies we have used; without the meds he was in fight-or-flight too much of the time for any of it to be useful.

To be frank, I don't see all this as "slightly 2E." Maybe from the testing perspective she only measures as slightly 2E, but it sounds from what you write as though she is always on a knife's edge of being too distressed, and it sounds as though it affects her throughout her day, nearly every day. I think that after you start addressing the anxiety, you will be able to get her to the point where she realizes that the more advanced schoolwork is fun; but I'd work on the anxiety first.

DeeDee

I suspect that the district will shut you down if you make noises about an IEP... so don't discount the idea of a 504 plan on the basis of thinking that the one thing is "more" than the other. By all means ask if they'll consider an evaluation under IDEA, but I wouldn't make a big deal if they think that it's more of a 504 matter. The accommodations in a 504 plan don't necessarily have to be any different than they would be in an IEP, and they are every bit as mandatory.


The two things are just different from one another in terms of intent-- IEP is about educational benefit to the individual student, and 504 is about making a level playing field so that the child has the same opportunities as unaffected peers. Many districts see IEP = "special ed, different classes/placement" and 504 = "everything else" in terms of qualifying student needs. That's not right, necessarily, but unless you have a diagnosis that is specifically on the list of qualifying conditions, with clear history that it results in IEP's in a variety of educational settings, well, then a 504 may be the most probable outcome. (Parents whose kids are on the spectrum may not be as aware of this since most districts automatically qualify kids on the spectrum for IEP's.)

That said, it does sound like you have some compelling evidence to support qualification on that score. Major life activities impacted would be learning and social interaction.

The nice thing about a 504 is that it is tied to ADA, not IDEA-- so it actually has broader applicability outside of school settings. A 504 can fade in/out in terms of supports/accommodations as well as an IEP can.

I do think that DeeDee has given you some good recommendations. Know that some kids just struggle with anxiety more than others-- it seems to be something about the way that they are wired, to worry internally about things, but you can modify how they cope.

We've worked on putting anxiety into physical outlets-- playing the piano, walking the dog, working with one of our DD's animals, pulling weeds, that kind of thing. It's partly imagery (CBT) and partly about developing a healthier set of coping skills behaviorally by substituting an adaptive behavior for a maladaptive one (ABA).

We've not resorted to medications. That's my personal bent, though-- I really see psychoactive medication for pre-adolescents as a very very last resort. It's not that I'm against it unilaterally, but that I think that it's more important to try to address things other ways first, because those medications, even fairly short-term, do have more-or-less permanent impact on neurotransmitter function in the midbrain.

I also firmly believe that in a child for whom the anxiety seems tied to specific environments (school, etc.), the answer is probably not "this is a dysfunction" so much as "this is a response to an environment which is somehow inappropriate for this individual" and the answer needs to be different, as well. That's where an IEP/504 can come into play-- to flex that environment in some specified and predictable ways in order to allow the child to experience an educational environment which is as accessible as it is to any other student in the classroom. Ratcheting down the fight-or-flight is definitely the way to make progress in shifting the learned maladaptive responses. The other trick that we've learned over the years is to try to do most of the "work" in changing DD's responses... during the SUMMER months, when the natural anxiety-stimuli associated with school are not present. It's much, much easier then.

Lovely.

My DD is 9. However....she has been this way forever. However and however again, I feel like we are just starting to figure her out. You're much farther down the road than we were at 5.

FWIW, her behavior in school was better than your DD's, but her behavior at home was worse, from what your describe. Her school behavior improved as she got older, though she still is hardly known for being a pleaser, and it takes a good, experienced, sensitive teacher to handle her *well.* She could, and did, really run rings around some of the young, uncertain teachers at preschool. The preschool suggested that we have her evaluated for giftedness and "other things" at age 3.

She has been extremely impatient to become an adult pretty much since birth. The other day she was given a consequence (weed pulling, actually--we do give her physical chores as consequences and it works well) for being disrespectful and said something like, "You're all wrong about me and you always were. One day, I'll leave this house, and you'll see what I can become."

Whether or not a 504 or an IEP would be a better solution for a situation like this can depend on the school district. Anxiety disorders qualify students in our school district for IEPs (under OHI), as well as ADHD and ASD. What services are offered under a 504 or an IEP also can very between school districts.

polarbear