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FWIW, when our ds was evaluated for IEP eligibility, his WJ-III Achievement scores in writing and fluency subtests were lower than the scores reported by ljoy, but they were still well above the "cut-off" bars that our school district publishes as qualifying requirements for IEP. We did successfully advocate for an IEP (SLD / written expression) for our ds, but it wasn't easy. The roadblocks for us were those very low bars that the district used as a guideline for qualifying (and tried to present to parents as absolute cut-offs), combined with our ds' high ability scores and also high state testing scores (in spite of being below 1% percentile on the TOWL, he was only one or two points away from scoring "advanced" on his state writing testing - the key as an advocate is to understand not only the nitty gritty details of your child's challenge but also the specific points such as how a test is administered, what is being asked on the test, how the response is given etc - in our ds' case, he struggled with generating ideas for written expression and those were the two points he missed on the state test - everything else was a grammar or spelling etc question which he got correct. On the TOWL he couldn't produce any work to be scored from because he didn't know how to put his thoughts on paper). (aeh, I am probably not explaining this as well as you can!)

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that sometimes schools will look at absolute scores and these scores, while significantly low for the student who was tested, might also be looked at by school staff as "a-ok". That's where as a parent, we really have to be a strong advocate in understanding test scores and being able to explain them to school staff.


This is a really important point, and one our advocate really stressed with us. Not only the amount of time that work was taking, but also if your dd is frustrated or experiencing anxiety over the amount of time and effort her work is taking.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps ljoy - one other thing I wanted to mention above and forgot to include - again, I don't know what your dd's specific challenge is, but as I mentioned my ds was extremely challenged with written expression - in his case the primary issue was getting his thoughts out of his head, as well as challenges with summarizing information and with organizing his thoughts once he had ideas to write about. Because he had severe challenges with these specific pieces of written expression, he also lost out on several years worth of written expression instruction and progress that his classmates were experiencing simply because he wasn't producing any written expression. So - when he was finally evaluated by an SLP in 5th grade he was really really really struggling with written expression and during middle school that resulted in him routinely spending (guesstimate here - by ds and myself) around 3 times longer than his classmates on homework every night due to his writing challenges. The really cool thing though is that after having worked with his SLP since 5th grade, and with a lot of help with scaffolding at home, he's now, at the end of 8th grade, made tremendous progress in written expression and that progress has not only helped decrease the amount of extra time he was putting into classroom work and homework, it's made a huge impact on his self confidence and self esteem.

polarbear, you are exactly right. The two subtests referenced form the Spontaneous Writing composite, and are derived from an open-ended writing exercise, which is extremely challenging for students whose written expression deficit primarily has to do with idea generation, organization, initiation, or elaboration. I hope at least one of these is in the IEP goals.

I understand that Contextual Conventions has a picture prompt. I'm not sure about the Story Composition section.

An IEP, tuned to my DD's needs -- phonological skills, writing, spelling, anxiety, and self-esteem -- brought her Spontaneous Writing Composite scores on the TOWL from a 92 to a 150 in a year and a half. Intervention works.

Actually, they both do--because they are scored from the same student product, using different rubrics.Yes, it does, when done appropriately and well!

(warning - I started with a short reply and it grew - feel free to ignore! plus anyone who's been around these forums for awhile has already heard it previously... but for aeh, I will go ahead and leave it all here - it felt good to write it out again lol!)


aeh, my ds had very weak IEP goals (with no outline on how to measure progress). By the time I'd come up to speed (working with an advocate and also getting advice from our local disability legal services) the fight for updating and maintaining his IEP was just not worth it. The sad thing was that after several years of never-ending advocating, and finally getting an IEP, we were still left with teachers who didn't believe ds needed help and preferred to think it was ds being lazy rather than an actual challenge (ds has had a diagnosis of dyspraxia and dysgraphia since 2nd grade, as well as years of classroom evidence that he couldn't produce written expression). By the time he'd reached the end of 5th grade my ds was aware enough to realize that I was spending a tremendous amount of time advocating for help for him, he knew he had an IEP that specifically stated he was supposed to be getting help, and he knew that he wasn't getting that help and that his teachers didn't seem to care if he ever learned how to write. He was also put in the position (by the teachers at school) of having to request the accommodations outlined in his IEP each time he wanted to use them, rather than being encouraged or at least allowed to use them all the time - which is what he needed and what was specified in the IEP. These realizations on his part intersected with an increasing frustration that the rest of school - the discussions about science and history etc were extremely boring to him because he was in a regular classroom with non-gifted peers. All of that coming together in a maturing kid led to ds simply telling us at the end of 5th grade "I'm not going back". We pulled him out and sent him to a private school (recommended by his neuropsych because they were technology-friendly) where he didn't have an IEP but he had teachers who were happy to let him use his laptop for classwork and who believed us as parents when we explained what ds' challenges were and who were personally happy to help meet ds where he was.

It was like night and day suddenly being able to drop my child off at school in the morning and not have to prepare myself mentally for the next round of emails requesting that ds be allowed to use his laptop, without having to explain over and over again what the impact of dysgraphia is, without having to follow up to make sure my ds was actually receiving services, without having to fight for proper placement in class based on his intellectual abilities (among other things, ds was held back in math in elementary school because he couldn't write fast enough on math facts quizzes and because he had difficulty writing out word problems - yet this is the same ds who at his new school was immediately multi-year subject accelerated in math and never blinked an eye or made a grade less than "A"). We gave up on school meeting ds' needs and pursued the private SLP (which I mentioned above, ds would never have qualified for through the school district in spite of so desperately needing it). I mentioned above that ds' low written subtest scores on the WJ-III weren't low enough to meet the school district policy for IEP eligibility. I didn't mention that in spite of his not having produced enough words on the TOWL to even have it *scored* - and scoring in the 5th percentile on another test that was given in place of the TOWL (after the school psych made my ds sit for the TOWL twice because he was convinced my ds was just being lazy or not trying or whatever instead of acknowledging that not producing words was exactly what was happening in class and that it was a real issue for ds )... we *still* had school staff trying to convince us that ds was "a-ok" and didn't need an IEP.

I so often wonder and worry about the kids out there who's needs go entirely unrecognized in our district and elsewhere, or who's parents don't have the knowledge or energy to relentlessly advocate, or who's parents don't have the resources to pull their children out of public school when it's not working. Honestly, my ds would have been in just a soooo not-so-good place at this point in his life without intensive help. He was already on the verge of being diagnosed with severe depression at the end of 2nd grade due to anxiety that was *all* classroom related due to his then-undiagnosed LD.

If you haven't noticed, I am a passionate person when it comes to things that matter to me - and as you also most likely know, parenting a 2e child is so time-intensive. (And ds is one of two 2e kids in this house, and sandwiched in between I have a child with physical challenges - so there is precious little time left over for much else other than parenting lol!) - but I do so wish/hope that I can somehow do something someway at some point in time to help make a difference for the kids in my school district who are perhaps not receiving the help they need and deserve.

Sorry for the long semi-rant! And aeh, thanks so much for your insightful and knowledgeable contributions here on the forums - we really appreciate your input!

polarbear

Thank you so much for sharing this. I wish every special ed administrator, evaluator, and teacher could hear accounts like this from families, periodically, to remind them that there are real, lasting impacts, not only academic, but emotional as well, when children's needs are not acknowledged or addressed.

We have been very blessed with our children's school experience (partly because we didn't leave it in the hands of the public schools--a direct outgrowth of my employment in the same), but I know not to take that for granted.

I have posted this article on here before but it's germane to this thread. Here is another story of child-find gone wrong, very wrong:

http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/how-apraxia-got-my-son-suspended-from-school/

I have personally talked with these people. I am facebook friends with the mom in this story. It is a true story. They are in a school district close to me that is a very wealthy district and suppose to be an excellent district.

In my experience, with my school district, they do not seem to like to find 'learning disabilities' - they don't like things like dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc. They REALLY do not like writing disabilities at all and seem to go to to great lengths not to identify them or deal with them. They do not understand the behaviors that can result from LDs and they have little to no understanding of dyspraxia. Even though it is blatantly clear my son has dysgraphia and I specifically requested he be looked at for dyslexia and dysgraphia last year, the school gave him an IQ test and a bunch of adhd evals and tests. They seem to "Child-Find" with ADHD and Autism but not anything else. They seem to want to push any kind of problem into one of those two boxes. I think my school is good with those issues - people in the autism community are generally happy with our school. But having a kid with a writing disability, my experience has been really really bad. And the school would never identify it or test for it.

Wow, Irena, that's a harrowing experience.

This story is harrowing. As a parent of a child who has had school anxiety, in 6th grade I can completely believe this. I was called to school once because my son started behaving inappropriately in class and the principal and an aide has my son CORNERED. And the rest of the class was excused to recess early because my son was supposed to be dangerous. And they hoped that when I got to school, I could get him to talk. It's easy to see how easy it would be for a school to misinterpret this kind of behavior.

My hugs and sympathy go out this family. The freakiest part of me, is it's looks quite possible this happened at the elementary school I attended for a few years to as a kid.

I can totally see that story happening at DD's school, because the gossip is out of control. It can happen so easily if a teacher gossips about an odd behavior, the other person says "sounds like the kid is sexually abused" without even knowing the child or seeing the behavior, the first person says "hmmmm, that's probably it, what else could it be" because they don't understand disabilities, and pretty soon it spins out of control. Plus people in the elementary level just don't seem particularly bright, they are just average (in general, I'm not saying that there aren't bright, reasonable elem. teachers out there). Reg. ed teachers don't have training on disabilities but they have training on mandated reporting. All of those things combine and pretty soon a simple behavior (rocking due to anxiety) becomes sexual abuse and no one listens to a single thing the parents have to say.

Anyway, I'm keeping my eye on this thread because I'm wondering if some of it applies to DD. She has slow processing speed on the WISC and her OT yesterday said she was trying to figure out this processing speed issue because it's not obvious to her, and she played games with DD. DD was amazing with some sort of 3D puzzle and did it really fast. Then she played an alphabet game with her where she started at Z and went backwards. DD was supposed to name animals that start with each letter. DD only named something like 14 in 4 minutes which is abysmal. Her reading fluency is really high but she's not fast or fluent in other areas, so I'm trying to figure out what it all means.