Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional What is this? Issues with written assignments.

To answer your initial question about EF issue vs. language issue, I guess it depends on whether he is like this with other assignments. Last year the teacher would write a starter sentence on the board as well as a concluding sentence, and the kids had to fill in the middle with some sort of story. DD could not do that at all, and became very anxious about it. She also did not want to do research papers, even if the teacher gave a list of specific questions she wanted answered. DD did not know how to organize all the information into paragraphs.

I put in a written request to the district detaling what my exact concerns are. The OT came back with a couple appropriate tests to test for motor deficits (which all came back OK), but otherwise all they wanted to do was an achievement test for writing, that did not even include extended writing ability. If you want extended writing ability tested, make sure you specify that as one of your concerns, otherwise they will try to give him the WJ-Ach where kids don't have to write more than 3-4 sentences at a time to get a good score. Also write that you want them to review his writing done independently in class.

Even though I thought I was very specific about my concerns, including asking for a meeting to discuss them (which they granted) they still came up with a completely inappropriate evaluation plan, claimed they are not responsible for any "neuropsych testing" (even though the type of testing I was asking for was listed in the State evaluation manuals), and they stonewalled and acted passive aggressive. Ultimately I had to make them pay for an IEE, and the evaluator ended up confirming most of the things I was concerned about which the school had disregarded, like poor fluency, EF deficits, poor writing, etc.

In order to tease out motor ability vs. EF, you need to have different kinds of tests done. For instance DD scored really well on the tests of visual motor integration, but had a horrible score on the Rey Complex Figure test, which also involved motor skills, but her really poor organizational ability showed up on that but not the others. Then we knew it was more of an EF issue than motor issue.

DS did well on VMI but did not take the Rey Complex Figure test. So many tests out there, hard to know where to start. I don't think there is even an Independent Evaluator in our city--although I guess I could ask the school.

Your neuropsych is already fulfilling this role for you. You can ask specific questions about writing and EF in the followup meeting.

I realize that this will be really, really hard for you to do, eco, but I think you need to consider not helping him with these assignments. If he turned in his best guess at what it was supposed to be, it would put the teacher on notice a lot better that he was having a problem with grasping the instructions. Part of the reason they summarize your concerns the way you describe is that all of his turned-in work is probably fine, and they don't understand how much you had to do to get him to a place of being able to perform like that.

I think it would be a good idea to help him if he's getting frustrated, but write an email to the teacher stating what his difficulty was, and what you did to help. Then you have those emails as documentation.

Yes, and the hope is he hasn't already graduated HS (or college) by the time I get a report and followup meeting. :P

I have good luck speeding these things up by contacting the person and stating that the 504/IEP evaluation process has started at the school (you don't have to be super clear as to how far into the process you are...), and the report will be an integral part of the planning process.