blackcat, a lot of what spaghetti wrote rings true for what appeared to be happening in our district when our ds was in elementary school and we were fighting for services. One thing that helped us put our situation into perspective re what we could get from our district and how to get it was the advice of a local parent advocate - do you have a parents' advocate group in your state? We found ours through the yellow pages at wrightslaw - there are groups in at least several states that are funded through Federal $ and don't charge for advice. The key for us was that the advocate was working with our school district specifically and therefore had local knowledge of each school - so she could tell us, this is what's going on with staff, funding etc at this specific school, and this is why you're running into roadblocks. That helped me tremendously in determining how to go about advocating.
In the classroom, he doesn't even write on the lines and it looks exactly like preschool writing (with better spelling though). I do not think any actual testing was done.
I think it's really important for your ds, at this point, to understand if further OT is going to help with handwriting. You clearly have a battle in front of you for services, and you want the services to be services that make a difference rather than trying and trying to make something work that might not ever work.
I don't know of any specific testing that will tell you whether or not your ds will ever be able to master functional handwriting. I think that knowledge is more of a judgment call based on the nature of his disability. Does he have automaticity of other motor skills? Did he have DCD prior to his TBI, or did the TBI cause the DCD? What do his doctors/neuropscyh evals/etc say about his prognosis for developing automaticity of handwriting?
Re "other life skills" - things like tying shoes, fastening buttons, direction of left vs right etc - are those things he's mastered or he still struggles with? These are all things that took my DCD ds a long time to master, and that, although he can do them as a teen, they aren't "automatic" as they are in most people. If you ask him, he'll tell you he has to think about how to do these tasks each time he does them. He also still has to remember how to form each letter and number - he sees it as "memorizing" whereas most people learn how to form the letters and then it just happens as you write. If your ds is having those struggles with automaticity, it's probably more beneficial to put the extra time with an OT into AT. Would I have had the knowledge to make that decision on my own without professional guidance when my ds was in third grade? Honestly no! But ds neuropsych was able to make the call based on her collective knowledge of DCD and her review of ds' testing, observing his handwriting, and reviewing examples of his classroom work.
Aside from automaticity of handwriting, you need to have a good feeling of whether or not the act of handwriting is taking up all of his working memory at the cost of other functions such as ability to focus on spelling, punctuation, grammar, thoughts and ideas.
If his prognosis is difficulty with developing automaticity (which is the case for some kids with DCD), and/or the act of handwriting takes up his working memory at the expense of other tasks that must occur at the same time as handwriting, just my opinion, but I would move to AT and drop the handwriting OT.
If you have reasonable expectation that handwriting can become functional, then continue to push for the OT... but include handwriting accommodations for classwork while OT is ongoing. Also watch out for handwriting speed. You have a measure of speed from the OT, google the number of letters per minute + grade level and you'll find a bunch of different studies showing what is considered to be typical. You can also test the number of letters per minute at home to see whether or not the OT's estimate seems accurate: have your ds write out the full alphabet, upper and lower case, and time him, then divide to get letters per minute. If he's below grade level on this count - even if he is forming letters ok and there are no worries about grip, etc or memory being impacted while writing, you have valid data to argue for OT for AT.
I do not think they expected me to have classroom work samples at his meeting, but they did not actually make a difference to the OT. She had already made her mind up about what was needed or not needed.
I don't think anyone ever expects parents to come well-prepared to these meetings with arguments that make sense and things like classroom work samples. The school is most likely hoping that you'll come just to listen and they prepare the case they need with the examples they need for the outcome they need - which in this case (and our case) looks like the school doesn't want to provide services (for whatever reason). The thing to keep in mind as you plow forward is - you can't really (usually) know what the motivation of individual people at the meeting is. The OT may sound like she thinks everything is hunky dory and she's written up a report that is ready to exit your ds from OT, but it might not be the OT who thinks he's ready - she could be being pushed to do so with her students by the school's administration. We had that happen with both our school's OT and ds' teacher. The teacher and OT could see ds' limitations, but they had people above them who had power over them who were directing them re what the school could and couldn't do, and directing how they were to approach these meetings and reports. What worked for us was to just listen to those reports or examples, then repeat what we were requesting with the proof that the request was valid. We only requested things we knew the school district routinely offered as services or accommodations etc. The school team knew where they were treading on water they couldn't defend if we were to take legal action, so if we (parents) knew enough of what to insist on and didn't back down, the team gave in. Ridiculous way to deal with the needs of students, honestly, because there are so many students (at least here) who have needs and also have checked-out or uninformed parents, so no one to advocate for their needs.
If this meeting doesn't go well in terms of continuing the services your ds needs, I'd recommend requesting an IEE - you need to have a thorough understanding current functioning vs challenges vs future limitations on progress are in order to make a valid plan for remediation and accommodations.
I am so sorry you've had to face so much resistance at more than one school! These are tough times for school districts as well as parents - it doesn't make what's happening "right" but it's also what it is.
Hang in there -
polarbear
