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Hmm. Are you saying that his nearpoint copying of a word can be wrong? How's his handwriting? Has he been looked at by an occupational therapist, for perceptual-motor or visual-motor integration, or a vision therapist/developmental optometrist, for visual tracking? Early speech delays are often related to oral-motor coordination issues, which would link up with other motor planning stuff that might impact writing, in particular.

He was in speech and occupational therapy early on. He used to be ambidextrous up until he started school. The occupational therapist taught him to use a tripod hold on the pencil but he still uses his fist to hold utensils and other items. He is near sighted and has suffered from headaches from the age of 7. The optometrist evaluated him and found him to have minor astigmatisms and he is near sighted. I was unaware of developmental optometrists until recently but we will get a referral to one at his upcoming appointment. He will be getting a referral to the same psychologist my younger son uses as well.

A little back story on him: He was 6 weeks premature due to severe preeclampsia but weighed in at 8lbs 3oz (I have big babies). He needed some extra care at the hospital with suctioning and feeding. He was lactose intolerant to the lactose in breast milk and had sensitivities to soy and lactose/lactose free formulas. He had to be put on a special diet of formula that was already broken down for easy digestion. He was hospitalized at 3 weeks with projectile vomiting and difficulties eating. He was also hospitalized 3 times before age 2 for RSV. He had multiple ear infections resulting in ruptured ear drums 3 times and ended up with tubes placed. He also had severe issues with strep throat and high fevers resulting in scarlett fever. His tonsils and adenoids had to be removed at 5 as well.

He was a summer birthday and fell into the group where he could attend kindergarten at 5 or 6, even taking into account the actual BD vs due date. We chose to start him at 5 based on the recommendations of his therapy team.

My, that is a big baby! We had a 34-weeker, too, but ours was just about half the size of yours.

Has he ever been evaluated for PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Strep infections)? While the most publicized behavioral symptom associated with PANDAS is OCD, ADHD-type symptoms and learning difficulties, especially in handwriting, have also been reported. I'm not an MD, but his early infection history, particularly scarlet fever, in combination with the ADHD, handwriting, visual issues make me wonder if there might be value in having a neurologist evaluate him for PANDAS. With all those food sensitivities in infancy and early childhood, he sounds like he might be predisposed to autoimmune syndromes.

If you do not see anxious/obsessive/compulsive symptoms in him, this is much less likely.

Multiple early ear infections can often have an impact on phonological processing, due to difficulty hearing the sounds, which can then surface as a reading disability later on.

He is actually very anxious and tends to have some OCD tendencies. PANDAS is not something I have thought about but I will definitely bring it up with his doctor.

Reading the description of PANDAS I would be inclined to think he does not have that. The only thing he truly has in common is the strep infections. Yes, he has anxiety and some OCD type tendencies but not like described. I think his anxiety is linked more to his fear of failure because it has greatly increased over the past 2 years and tends to increase with regards to learning anything new.

OK, so I just emailed the district Special Services director and requested an Individualized Educational Evaluation which is provided by an individual provider not affiliated with the district at the district's expense. During my meeting today with the director she informed me that dyslexia is not a LD and the district is not required in any way to provide services. According to federal law and the Supreme Court they are.

jaggirl - you've already gotten great advice, I have just a few things to add.

On the CELF-4, although your ds' scores are all within average range, there's one "gotcha" you might want to look for or be aware of. The CELF subtests aren't timed (or at least some of them aren't timed). My ds had a significant expressive language challenge yet he scored very well on most of the CELF subtests, including the subtest that defines his challenge. The thing was - on this one particular subtest, he took an unusually long time to answer the questions, and the SLP who administered the test noted that, noted a slight discrepancy when looking at that subtest vs his other subtests, and more significantly noted a correlation between that subtest and the things we'd observed when communicating with him. So in other words, average and above average scores on the CELF don't necessarily mean there is no expressive language challenge.

Have you tried contacting an advocate? There are advocate services (parent navigators) available in many areas that are funded by the Federal Govt. and our local advocates group was tremendously helpful in helping me advocate for an IEP for my ds in public school.


After every single meeting (or phone conversation, or verbal conversation) you have when advocating, it's a good idea to send a quick email to everyone who was at the meeting (or took part in the conversation) restating what *you* heard said and you heard agreed to (or what you heard stated as concerns) - basically a summary of what was said. Then add "this is my understanding - please let me know if I've missed anything or misunderstood anything." That gives the school staff the opportunity to clarify what they've said. It's easy for people to say things off-the-cuff in meetings or one-on-one conversations that aren't technically correct - and there could be any reason for it - maybe she just wanted to get you out of her office, maybe she really meant to say that the district is not required to provide services unless a need is demonstrated, or maybe she's just clueless. Whatever the reason, send her the email. 9 times out of 10, that worked to get our school staff to back off of any type of intimidation etc that they tried thinking we (parents) didn't know what our children's rights were under the law.

The last thing I'll add is that some of what you wrote is similar to my ds who has Developmental Coordination Disorder - the not having a preferred hand until school, issues with timed tests etc. So if you're looking for other things to google, there's something for you to look at

Hang in there! Let us know how the district responds to your request.

Best wishes,

polarbear

You know what jumps out at me? Dyspraxia... but I am no expert and am biased b/c my kid has it. Fluency issues, spatial deficits, poor spelling, sequencing issues, normal in forward number sequence but had difficulty in backward sequence for numbers... There is a whole physical thing that goes along with dyspraxia... but these are all the learning issues that go with it. Has anyone ever considered it for him?

Oh I see it jumped out for Polarbear too! We crossed posted! Jaggirl, DCD is another name for or a type of dyspraxia... (apparently there is all sorts of confusion in the field right now as to what to call this disorder - motor apraxia, dyspraxia, developmental coordination disorder, etc. are all used interchangeably).

Oh and my DS got very OCD - his anxiety goes sky high when his disorder was not recognized, understood and accommodated... Now that he knows and I know and the school knows what his challenges are and we have accommodations and have gotten some very helpful therapies he anxiety is much better.