Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Really Really Disappointed.

She really couldn't find anything nice to say on that AT Eval?

Maybe use your bad experience to meet with the principal and advocate for getting input into which teacher next year would be a better fit for him. If he's 2E and has an IEP, you could always ask for an IEP meeting too.

Yeah but that is not even my problem. My problem is she used the form to yet, again, list a litany of 'problem behaviors' while not once mentioning (not even once!) that he can not communicate in handwriting. It just seems so odd and, like, passive aggressive. The AT eval form was not an eval for behavior modification or medicine or a eval for any disorder. The purpose of the form and eval is basically 'what tasks does the child need to be able to do that he can not do and therefore impedes his functioning and learning in the classroom.' And what did she do wth the form? She went on and on about behaviors. I am not so bothered that she mentioned the behaviors but the she really went on and on and at the same time did not mention that he can not write, draw or accomplish fine motor tasks effectively. What did she think this would accomplish? Did she think the AT lady would provide ADHD meds? Or maybe shock therapy for when he is "argumentative"? I am just at a lost for what she was trying to accomplish... It just seems she used it unnecessarily as a platform for her to B%^$# about my son and not to help with the whole point of the eval which was to brainstorm ideas to make it so he can independently communicate in writing with technology.

That's probably not meanness (although her other acts certainly are)-- it's ignorance.

When a kid can't write, it usually looks (from the outside, to the less-trained eye) exactly like "won't write." And when the kid is smart in other ways, they can't see why the child "won't write" and it looks like defiance.

Even teachers who are reasonably well trained in other ways do not know how to spot this. Your teacher, not a paragon of fairness or open-mindedness, isn't going to get it.

Her input into the eval is evidence for you to use-- it shows that DS needs a teacher who understands his disabilities and is willing to think outside the box to meet his needs.

Irena, we had an issue with a teacher when my son was in preschool. It wasn't nearly as difficult as what you are facing, but it was hard at the time. I went into meeting after meeting where the teachers talked about nothing except behavior. Not one mention about his skill set or what might be causing the problems.
It was around this time that I began to suspect that my son was "gifted" and I started pointing out his frustrations and difficulties relating to the other kids. The school completely turned a "deaf ear" and insinuated that if he was "smart" he would be acting better.
It was a terrible situation- we voluntarily moved schools because I felt that his teachers had no interest in "getting" him and the constant negative feedback was causing him anxiety issues. The happy ending is that with a better teacher and classroom, the classroom issues improved drastically and evaporated by kindergarten.
Sending you lots of support. It's wonderful that you are championing your DS- it will get better with a better teacher.

Does she think that you deny there are problem behaviors? So she feels the need to keep bringing it up over and over so that you finally get it?

I know of another parent in our school who kept getting negative behavior reports basically every day from the teacher at pickup. The teacher told her that he's the most difficult student she's ever had. I think the underlying goal was to make the parents break down and medicate him, which the parents finally did after the child had a violent episode and hurt a teacher. Ironicallly the meds did end up helping a lot, but it was inappropriate for the school to treat the situation that way. If a child has a disability it is the schools job to deal with it by getting the child a para if needed, coming up with a positive behavior plan, etc. But they didn't offer any of these special supports, and were't even following the IEP. So the teacher resorted to continually telling the parents how bad his behavior is, trying to get them to break down and medicate.

Well, I talked with her. She is going to have him do some sort of share thing for one of his writing this Monday. So that's nice and that is what she meant by "giving someone else a chance" because she had allegedly planned to have him do that. on Monday (at least we know not to be absent that day!) I didn't sound off, I simply asked as least confrontationally as possible. And I feel better that she already had a plan for letting him have some positive light for his hard work - at least he got some recognition this year ... that will mean a lot to him. I thanked her for that and said of that will mean so much to him and we moved on. No problem (at least not that I perceived). Then I had a questions about his class seating arrangements which had recently been changed and we discussed that. The pros and cons of his new seat and am relatively okay with her response. Again, I just asked (I think its valid considering) and said okay thanks for explaining - makes sense, we'll see how it goes. Then, since things were going so swimmingly (lol), I did bring up the AT eval form and she got really defensive. That did not go so well. I asked why when she was asked what tasks DS can not do that is impeding his functioning and learning in the classroom she did not mention his inability to write? but spent a great deal of time and paper discussing "behaviors" such as "oppositional and argumentative." She immediately became defensive and she said she thought it would be "redundant" for her to put on her form that he cannot write because there is a section on the form called "services received' and it is listed there that he gets OT (this section does not list why it just says he gets OT for letter formation). She said, and I quote, "So there is an inference from that there is a writing problem, I didn't need to actually say that on the form." (?!?). Uh okay. Really? And I said that - I said "Oh that is odd to me, I would think that when asked 'what tasks does the child need to be able to do that he can not do and therefore impedes his functioning and learning in the classroom?' it would be a good idea at that point to mention that he really struggles immensely with handwriting and any activities that require fine motor and drawing." And she told me she "had to go, good bye." Yeah.

My kid is not nearly as bad as the picture that is being painted by my complaining about this... Seriously. He has never been violent or anything. He is never sent to the principal's. I do not get bad reports. He is not having any tantrums or meltdowns or anything like that. And the school psych has said more than once that she has observed and he has been so good. Even his special area teachers say he is good (not perfect, he likes to take the steps two by two, he laughs when his buddy slides down the railing - typical boys stuff). My kid is actually a good kid. If you recall, for weeks he had been observed in class (that was in regard to attention/on-task) and he had no idea he was being observed and these people, with the exception of the school psych, were completely unknown to him, and him to them. All of his in-class observations (which were really like a blow by blow of every little thing he did indicate that he is good and even mostly on task (25-30% off task depending.) Thankfully and those were very, very helpful and were more favorable that teacher had expected I think. The observations did reveal he has trouble with the multistep sequencing (very typical of dyspraxia, as you know). The motor planning is so deficient is affects his executive functioning is affected (when your motor planning requires so much attention and is not automatic your attention is used up on that and you ability to accomplish tasks obviously goes down significantly). The muti-step transitions (e.g., pack up your stuff, go to cubby, put stuff away, get stuff for next class, etc) he tends to be slow and forget a step etc., which can be 'disruptive.' He is always a beat or a step behind. But it is because he is struggling with motor planning and multitasking - he's a step behind everyone or has to go back for something he forgot, etc. When they start yelling at him and putting him down for it, he may then seek to defend himself by explaining that he struggling (he has said I can't listen right to you while I am trying to pack my bag you need to give me a minute). And that is often seen as being argumentative. He is argumentative - but not in a dysfunctional excessive way. He is very fidgety. He sits in weird ways on his chair and he drops things a lot (pencils, books, supplies) - it is annoying (he's always dropping pencils at home and forks etc.) - his hands are weak - it is not his fault but it is annoying and, then, he is looking for what he dropped, etc. I don't deny that his motor planning problems and fine motor deficits are annoying but they are not purposeful "behaviors" or even, imo, adhd behaviors. He also tends to pace about when he is doing creative writing. Oh and yeah his creative shocks are kind-of weird. I suppose they could be adhd.

During our first P/T conf, teacher basically ambushed me with this big thing on how DS pays no attention whatsoever, at all, ever. Okay, I say, I do not argue. I responded by immediately contacting the renowned ADHD center at our super-great children's hospital for an eval. As part of that teacher had to fill out a BASC2, as you remember. As you may also remember, the BASC was the first time I was hit with her really extremely negative reports of behavior. I mean she made him sound like he was psychotic and totally out of control. I took the completed teacher's form to an iep meeting and went through it with the teacher while recording the meeting (I record all iep meetings now)). I had her explain each extreme response. Her responses were based on so many negative assumptions - not actual observations and she did not answer many of the questions properly or accurately (even "misinterpreting" what some of the questions were actually asking) and I recorded it all. I had to do that because most places will give the teacher's form way more weight than the parents. When the two forms conflict, they consider the parents unreliable (the basc manuals and their training actually instruct this). I needed concrete evidence the teacher's form was unreliable. I submitted all of the forms with the recording. I also submitted all of the in-class observations. I talked a long time with the head of the ADHD clinic about it - lovely woman who actually gave me a consultation just to chat about this without even charging me or my insurance. Considering the EDS and co-morbidity of DCD/dyspraxia with that and the obvious unreliability of the teacher's BASC and what the several in-class observations the school did, it was decided that the ADHD clinic was probably not the best route at this time. To first get him looked at by neurology or neuropsychology for dyspraxia and dysgraphia. And that's where we are now - we have an appointment for that eval with neurology at the end of this month. The school knows that we are getting private evals in response. She knows that in response to her concerns, I contacted ADHD clinic. It's not that I just dismissed her.

So I am not sure why she did what she did on the AT eval form re "behaviors." But I am getting the distinct feeling she wants on him on something - drugs? some sort of behavior modification? or something? I do not know.

Oh, and in terms of medication.. the doc said that if it does turn out to be adhd she doesn't think it severe enough to warrant meds - at least not from what she sees from the in-class observations and my reports. So if teachers' goal is meds - it may not happen anytime soon even with an adhd dx. My friend whose son when to the same clinic was dx with adhd and they did not recommend them using meds at this time... so it does seem this place is conservative about prescribing meds. They do offer various bootcamps and behavior therapies though.

I suspect, fundamentally, her view is that DS does not have a writing disability - that he has adhd and that is why he doesn't 'like to' write and he has behaviors resulting from adhd and poor parenting. She is also pissed that he doesn't follow the "rules" and that I often support him in that - i.e. I send in books for him to read instead of forcing him to only read books from the "basket." She wants him treated as a behavior issue not a learning difference. She has no understanding of giftedness at all. She does not understand dysgraphia and she had never heard of dyspraxia.

Irena, I am do sorry that your ds' teacher has treated him this way. You may remember me talking about my ds' 2nd grade year - he also had a teacher who didn't understand his challenges and who was convinced he had ADHD , waseuther lazy or dumb, and who was constantly reporting behavior "problems" such as being slow to get snow clothes on or staring off into space in class or not producing written work. She was certain he had a low iq because he couldn't write 20 math facts correctly in 2minutes. It's tears later, he's appropriately multi-year accelerated in math and gets straight As without having to burst any brain cells open, and he still wouldn't be able to write down 20 math facts in 2minutes lol!

By the time ds was seen by a neuropsych in the latter part of 2nd grade he was so anxious the neuropsych warned us he needed to be removed from that classroom yesterday, and that he was on the verge of clinical depression - due largely to the classroom situation.

I never did go beyond any type of conversation with the teacher past politically correctly giving her info on ds' challenges and passing along recommendations for accommodations. We requested a change of classrooms for the next year and got it. I was worried at the time that his teacher would negatively talk him/us down in a way that would negatively influence who ds did get as a teacher, but stepping back from the emotion of the situation I realized that none of e teachers really wanted to have a kid in their classroom that they didn't understand or were frustrated with, so we got the teacher we asked for -a teacher who had a very different viewpoint who was much more accepting of kids who are outside the box.

Anyway, not sure I have anything to add except this one the - I'm replying because, yes, I held it in and didn't make a fuss over the teachers treatment of ds and I'm glad I did - I needed to maintain a good working relationship with e school and e only thing that pursuing it would have accomplished at the time would have been to antagonize a highly respected teacher.

OTOH - and this is why I'm replying lol - its almost 7 years later, and I STILL to this day have times when I would just love to go back and share a piece of my mind with that teacher!

I'm trying to do something more positive with those feelings instead, which I can share with you via pm. But I did want to post here to let you know that what you're feeling is so very very very normal in this type of situation.

Btw, please forgive the speeding quirks - I'm on my iPad

How soon is your school year over? I hope it's soon!

polarbear