Sorry to hear you didn't get anywhere with school. My DS15 a high school sophomore does have low processing speed similar to your son. (Low average at least 3/4 standard deviations below his top score). I was surprised when I signed his 504 this past fall how easy it would have been to exclude him. If he had been having "discipline" problems they could have excluded him or if he had missed a lot of school. In our case I had an easier time than I expected convincing my school to give him a 504. (This is the school they kept wanting to drop my older daughters IEP) But his teachers were complaining as well as I or I doubt anything would have been done. If you looked at his grades you could also CLEARLY see that particular assignments he would get zero's on while others he would get A'.s His 504 is written up more for his anxiety disorder, depression &a LD for written expression. His low processing speed is seen more as a possible reason for the anxiety and written expression problems than a impairment itself.
My DS does find on math & multiple choice tests. What he has difficulty is with writing prompts and short answer prompts. Clearly you either need to work with him on his test taking skills, either finding a tutor or working with him yourself. Learning how to "skip" questions he doesn't know and mark them to come back to when he has time is a skill he will need to learn even if it doesn't come natural to him.
As far as the 504 goes it really only helps my DS is a few special circumstances. He is allowed more leway on turning particular assignments in late and he is being giving extra time for writing assignments.
Good Luck. Hopefully even without a 504 having this discussion at school will help the teachers understand him better.
Last edited by bluemagic; 01/13/15 08:57 PM.
