Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional SCT/IEP w/ Aspergers

Just for a bit of background, I've been trying to get my daughter into her school's TAG (Talented & Gifted) program for about a year now. She was just hospitalized for cystic fibrosis issues and while there further testing ended up in a High Functioning Asperger's diagnosis, along with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and mild depression co-morbidities. Her IQ (Kbit..which I realize is a brief test, but my understanding is it correlates pretty well to the Wisc) was 135, verbal and nonverbal scores both 132. Last year she had a straight A average (she's 9, 4th grade), but was on homebound almost the entire year.

For those of you who have been there, my concern is that they are going to deny IEP services because of her academic achievement, when who knows how far she could go with the proper supports in place. Her developmental ped has recommended keyboarding for longer written assignments, a step by step schedule she can see on her desk, written instructions for assignments, social skills group & training, warning before fire drills, non-verbal corrections, lessened homework load, and testing mastery before requiring repetitive work as well as subject acceleration in reading/language arts. Her Asperger's diagnosis came in because of things like lack of attention span, social issues, not making eye contact, gross motor deficits, basically pretty textbook symptoms that I had never really pieced together. I have the SCT meeting on Monday, which is when they determine whether an IEP is needed. On the upside, I'm hoping the Kbit scores and neuropsych's report will be enough to stop the TAG struggles. She was supposed to take the Naglieri the week she went into the hospital, so that has not happened yet. Any advice at all would be appreciated!

Hi Pipersmom,

Several thoughts here:

--Has the school district done its own educational evaluation? They are required to do so before they can say she needs or doesn't need an IEP. Even if they are taking outside results into account. The Wrightslaw book From Emotions to Advocacy is good in spelling out this process. Their website is helpful too.

--The diagnosis ought properly to be either High Functioning Autism or Asperger's; Asperger's is assumed to be high functioning, which simply means "without mental retardation." The term high functioning means nothing with regard to the severity or mildness of the autism symptoms, only that IQ is not impaired.

--How prepared is your school likely to be to give all the accommodations the dev ped recommended? It's a good list, but it's a big list. Know which ones seem like the essentials before you walk into the meeting, but start negotiations with the dev. ped's list.

--They are not supposed to determine IEP status by academic achievement alone but also by "functional skills" kids learn in school (including social skills). You should be able to look at the state standards for things like social studies to argue that the Asperger's impairs your daughter's ability to participate in group projects and so forth, and she needs remedial services to help her do so.

--You will want to think through what aspects of the list require personnel (services, like PT, OT, speech, access to special ed teacher) and what part are just accommodations (reduced homework; things a teacher can do). If it looks like only accommodations they may try to give her a 504 plan instead of an IEP. An IEP is better for the Asperger's--for instance, a speech therapist or special ed teacher can facilitate learning social skills, PT should work on the gross motor, etc.

--You should be prepared by knowing your district's and state's rules regarding who is served in the TAG program. Some places just go by testing and some by teacher recommendation (much harder to deal with for 2E kids). In either case they are not allowed to deny entry based on disability.

HTH,
DeeDee

Aha, here that's called an IAT or "building plan." Do you have an evaluation report from your dev ped in writing? I'd probably share that information right away, so there can be no doubt that further eval is needed.


Ugh, I can hardly believe they gave you trouble about a 504 for a kid with CF!


They do like to emphasize "high functioning" so as not to freak out unsuspecting parents. You sound not in the least traumatized by this so far; I bet you've been through a lot already. AS is a real challenge, but it is perfectly possible to have a good life with it.



Good plan. If you know from past experience that they are going to treat you as though you are asking unreasonably for the moon on a platter, might you consider hiring an educational advocate? Or getting the dev ped to come to school meetings with you while you sort this out? Having Our People to speak on our DS's behalf in meetings has made it much easier to get what our DS8 (who has Asperger's) needs.


The hardest thing to get at school in our experience is proper social skills training. Few schools are equipped to do this, even though with the number of kids being diagnosed on the spectrum they ought to have the resources in place. SLPs tend to want to focus on articulation, not pragmatic language. We have always had to work on the subtler skills outside of school in our ABA program; but having school PT work on the gross motor has advanced DS's skills considerably.


That's great. Do you have a reliable regular ed teacher who has experience with your DD who can speak on her behalf, or whose name you could drop as a casual reference?

We found that when we got gifted services into the mix, school became more functional for DS, not least because the class size was smaller, but having appropriate work to do was a huge win. Our advocate pushed hard for the school to acknowledge both the disability AND the giftedness.


Sounds to me like you're doing a great job under difficult conditions. You can PM me if it would be helpful.

DeeDee

We have an IEP/ALP for DS8 which includes all his GT things as well as his (Special Ed) social skills things for Asperger's. We're in Colorado, where I think they are required to specify in both directions.

It sounds like you have a good list there, providing the school will lay it down in writing like the developmental ped wants it.

With cystic fibrosis and Asperger's as well as being gifted, I can fully understand both anxiety and depression issues! That would be just about enough for anybody's plate. I wish you luck with the school!

Piper'sMom, We also have an IEP in place for our son with autism which includes accommodations for that, plus it includes the gifted educational plan. The school put everything together in one plan. His giftedness does not affect his need for accommodations for his autism. Your school should be the same: just because your child is gifted, your child still needs help with the issues around CF and the ASD. Do what you are doing and make sure the school doesn't blow you off because your child is gifted!!

Good Luck with your meeting! Nan

It seems to me I read somewhere that even if they tell you in the SCT meeting that they won't do the educational evaluation, if you request the eval in writing they may have to under IDEA. Wrightslaw will know.

Here they won't put gifted services in the IEP (though we did some negotiating about it at the IEP meeting, and most of the same players were involved). Here you get a separate gifted plan, decided on at a separate meeting. But for our child (as likely for yours, Pipersmom) they do need to be planned together.

Hope the meeting goes well!

DeeDee

I'm getting ready to head for bed, but thank you all for the wonderful advice. I'll post more in depth tomorrow.

-Amanda

I spoke with her office yesterday and they mailed out the evaluation on Wed, so I'm hoping it will come in the mail today.



Unfortunately an advocate isn't in the finances, and her Dev Ped is 90 minutes away, although if it comes down to brass tacks, I would consider either finding a free advocate, or asking her Ped if it would be possible for her to come.




I will definitely keep that in mind. The SLP that evaluated her at the hospital didn't seem to see pramatic language as a problem, though everyone else, including myself did. Piper's expressive and receptive language were at 16-17 yr old levels, while her pragmatic language tested out at age level. She did say Piper had some trouble with using "politeness markers". It seems to me that if she's functioning that high on expressive and receptive, pragmatic should be in that general area also..or that she at least should have the ability for it to, if that makes sense.


I'm really hoping that is going to be one thing we won't have trouble with, but time will tell. They've basically been treating me as though they were indulging me with testing her for the past year. I am going to use the guidance counselor who did her homebound teaching last year as a reference. She thought Piper needed subject acceleration then, without having test scores.

I appreciate all the good advice, DeeDee..if anything else comes up I'll def give you a pm

-Amanda

I think the norm here is to do two seperate plans, though I plan to push for an all inclusive. It just makes more sense to me since the TAG teacher will have to be involved in the IEP anyway. Thank you for the good wishes, every little bit helps!

-Amanda

Thank you, Nan. I have no intention of letting them blow me off. I already had somewhat of a reputation as being one of "those" parents because of the pushing I had to do for her to be tested for TAG to begin with. It's a new principal this year though, which makes me slightly more hopeful. She seems more personable and receptive than our old one. I'll update after the meeting on Monday.

-Amanda

So once again I've walked out of an SCT meeting feeling as though I was hit by a mack truck. The same school psychologist was there and basically took over the meeting. All of a sudden dd's teachers are insisting that she has no problems in the classroom staying on task, though they do see social issues. Of course, upon hearing this, the school psych was all about how Piper doesn't qualify for an IEP or a 504. Nevermind they had the developmental psych's report in hand laying out exactly what accomodations are needed. I do feel like I did a better job asserting myself and advocating than the last time, but the result was the same. I'm going to give it a couple of days so I can be rational and e-mail the involved parties. I am not going to let it rest this time and have already started looking at recourse..due process, etc, if the school will not do an evaluation.

-Amanda

Amanda, Blah! Was the new principal at the meeting? I, too, have been to those meetings where you feel run over. Did you have an advocate with you? Can you get one? That has helped us. Also, talking with the principal in person has seemed to help us. Sending the emails is a great idea because it gives them a second chance to do the right thing. We have left a meeting very discouraged and then gotten a response to a letter which gave us the answer we wanted. Keep pushing, and good luck. Nan

Nan, the new principal was at the meeting. I did not have anyone with me, and am looking into that as well. The last time this happened (for her CF) I just completely let it drop..I was intimidated by the whole process at the time. I had thought talking with the principal and laying it all out prior to the meeting would help, but to be honest the school psych took it over and everyone else (except me) just kind of nodded their heads in agreement to everything he said. I came out of it feeling very railroaded. I'm hoping the email will help. I do plan on copying in the psych's supervisor. I feel as though they send him in to shoot down and double talk any parent with a disabled child who also happens to be a high achiever, and that frustrates me to no end.

-Amanda

Amanda, I'm sorry to hear it.

Speaking as someone who's also been hit by that particular truck: you will have to out-persist them, know your rights, and perhaps bring in more help to strengthen your team (so it's not just you holding up your end).

School psychs come in several flavors. Many try to be helpful. We have also encountered the kind who has only a Master's (i.e. not a psych who is licensed to treat people or diagnose them, but qualified only to administer certain educational tests) who nonetheless likes to play the expert and railroad people out of services. Sometimes the district purposefully uses this person as a hit man, sometimes it's on the psych's own initiative. Either way, the school and district see this person as an "expert" and people defer to them, even if they have little actual expertise about what your child needs.

Your best counter to this is to provide better experts, ones who are obviously best suited to speak to the specific needs of your child and who can call them out when they do not follow the law. We bring our outside medical expert and an advocate to every school meeting about DS. This costs us money, but ensures that they can't deny our child's needs. And it costs us much less than going to court for due process would have.

Our first advocate was provided for free by the state's Legal Rights Service, which helps people with disabilities. This got us over the hump to the IEP. The state can't provide free services forever, here it's emergency-basis only, so we had to switch to a private advocate, who has done very well for us. Maybe your state has something like this? If not, look into attorneys for special education in your area. Sometimes just one letter from a lawyer stating what your DD's rights are will scare a district straight, especially if the district has been to due process before, which is expensive for them as well as for you.

It is also very likely free and not that difficult to file a complaint with your state's Department of Education. If you go this route, you should probably send a copy of the complaint to the school board and superintendent. Have they given you the booklet about IDEA that spells out your rights?

And are you documenting everything? Best advice I have gotten about managing this process: buy a large, heavy duty binder. Every communication with the school gets put into the binder, in order of date, along with all relevant testing that demonstrates what your child needs. If they say horrid things to you, write it all down in ink, date it, and put it in the binder. It is all very valuable evidence. (This is not abstract: the binders have saved us on several occasions.) I also found that buying a small digital voice recorder to take to school meetings caused a significant positive change in the behavior of school personnel. You have to ask everyone's permission to record, but I've never had them say no.

What I don't really recommend at this point is that you, yourself, try to become an expert on the law: it's too detailed and may drive you crazy. You do have to know the basic rights that apply to your child so you will know if you are being lied to, but ultimately the school and district people may never listen to you or take you as seriously as they will listen to your outside experts. I spent a horrible, frantic year boning up on law after my DS's rights were violated, and it took a lot of energy away from other important things (nurturing the actual kid, for instance). It solved the problem better to hire help for this. And it took some of the load off me.

Hang in there. You can do this.

Best wishes,
DeeDee

Just an update. I contacted the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy, they provide referrals, educational advocates and legal help. I'm expecting to hear back this week at some point about what level of service, if any, they can offer me to help with our situation. I also sent a preliminary e-mail to the principal thanking her for setting the meeting up so rapidly, but expressing that I was not pleased with the outcome and was drafting a longer e-mail to the team expressing my concerns. I also let her know I was investigating my options ie, using an advocate. About a week later, I received a return e-mail (after running it by the school system's attorney, I'm sure) offering a 504. I let her know that I felt an IEP was more appropriate considering Piper needs services and not just accomodations.

I also sent off the longer e-mail to the team and the Psych's supervisor (the head of SPED services for the county) detailing my concerns and feelings about the meeting, making sure to point out Piper's functional deficits. I got an e-mail back today asking about whether Mon was a good day for the Gifted eligibility meeting, AND a meeting with the county SPED supervisor and the principal to discuss my "procedural" concerns, as the principal termed it. If I haven't heard from VOPA by Fri, I'm going to call and let them know what's going on now since it's significantly changed since I contacted them. A little apprehensive about both meetings, but we'll see what happens!

Pipersmom, you are doing an absolutely awesome job as your DD's advocate!

I hope you remember to give yourself enormous kudos and a treat from time to time.

DeeDee

Amanda, It looks like they are working toward getting you what you need! I hope the outcome from the new meeting is better. Good luck Nan

I agree. Sounds like the district is ready to meet you part way as well. Good.

Thank you all for the support! Master of None, as horrible as this may sound, anyone I know that could go with (aside from a relative) is also active in Piper's school. It is something I'll keep in mind though.

After an odd e-mail from the Principal last night requesting copies of any other cognitive testing Piper has had, I requested a copy of her scores from the NNAT2 she was given about a week ago. I had a funny feeling. Sure enough, her NNAT score was only 109. I had talked about it in a prior thread, but I requested the additional testing (NNAT) after Piper did the WJIII-Ach during a hospitalization last spring and scored a 148 Total Achievement, 152 Broad Reading, and 127 Broad Math. Additionally she was given the KBIT during this last hospitalization, and came out with a 135 composite score, 132 verbal, 132 non-verbal. So, I'm 99% sure I'm going to walk into the gifted eligibility meeting and be told she isn't qualified. I realize life isn't easy, but one easy thing with the school system would be really nice! (okay, vent over). Any advice on dealing with that would be appreciated.

On the social pragmatics - did the slp do an observation while she was interacting with a peer group? Sometimes the highly structured tests do not reveal all - especially social issues that get more confusing in an unstructured, complex environment. Many evaluators feel strongly that observation during in the classroom and in unstructured social settings should be part of the evaluation.

I'll add to Dee Dee's comment about schools doing a poor job of addressing social pragmatics. Even in the best of situations, if the child isn't coached to generalize the newly taught skills to daily interactions, the training might not have any real world benefit. Rick Lavoie talks about this in his book, "It's so much work to be your friend".

When the slp worked with her, it was in the hospital setting, mich, so no, there wasn't any peer group observation done. At the SCT meeting, they didn't even offer an educational evaluation because of her grades. We'll see what they offer Monday morning, and plan on bringing up an education eval if they don't.