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Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 3,363
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Member
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 3,363 |
LRS, does your ds have an IEP already? If he does, I'd try to work through the school first, especially if they've been responsive and helpful in the past for other issues.
When you mentioned you'd contacted the special ed coordinator, was it just an informal call/email? If so, I'd recommend as your next step, gather the info we've suggested here, write up the list of your concerns and the testing you'd like to request and then put that in a formal letter requesting an IEP update.
polar
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 105
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 105 |
Here's the catch-22 though - if you'd started with the writing specialist, you wouldn't be aware of the DCD, would you? I'm not asking about this to be picking, just pointing out how difficult and complicated challenges like this can be to understand. My ds' diagnosis is actually DCD, with dysgraphia as a component of the DCD. DCD presents in many different forms, and I only really have my ds' experience to draw from, but the DCD impacts him in other areas of his life - and had I started with simply a writing specialist, he/she would not have seen outside the writing frame - which means we might not be seeing other impacts of DCD for what they really are - so many of the symptoms can be misinterpreted as laziness, lack of focus etc. I absolutely agree that starting with a full neuropsych eval is very important. What we learned about my DS through this was invaluable. The point I was trying to make was that in my experience, having only a neuropsych eval was not enough. We really needed someone who worked with my child over a period of time to understand all that was going on for him. We found both to be necessary. I also agree that finding the right place where accommodations are needed vs further work with learning is a very tricky thing - otoh, I think the "trick" is more in not letting ourselves press too hard in the direction of not accommodating. We all want our kids to learn how to use handwriting, and they will need some very basic skills with handwriting (how to sign their name, for instance). But it's really hard as a parent to notice at what point too *much* effort is going into learning letters and producing handwriting. Again, I agree with you but maybe I didn't phrase my post well. What I learned are accommodations are important, but they need to be the right and appropriate accommodations made by a professional who really understands the child. I learned this the hard way that it needs to come from someone who really understands dsygraphia and how it affects a particular child. In my DS's situation, his first grade teacher (who was terrible for him) and I decided how much he would write versus have scribed based on some general accommodation recommendations from the neuropsych. What was wrong about this is that neither his teacher or I have the knowledge about dsygraphia to make these types of decisions. polarbear makes a key point -- it is hard as a parent to know. The writing specialist he is working with now is the type of professional who can make these recommendations because she understands both him and dsygraphia.
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Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 67
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OP
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Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 67 |
He no longer has an iep. That stopped in kindergarten.
I am gathering the information you suggested and I will contact the school to formally request testing. I'll let you all know how it goes!
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Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 1
New Member
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New Member
Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 1 |
I am wondering if you found anyone to help with Dysgraphia here in Madison? One OT at the handwriting center at Meriter missed it, the school psych, and the neuropsych missed it, and now that he is back in a more structured classroom, I am seeing clear signs of it. He is at Walbridge so they are pretty easy to work with, but it seems without an offical DX they are having trouble seeing it, despite many long emails, phone conversations and meetings about the stress that certain writing assignments are causing my son, so I am looking for something more concrete. Being HG and with highly developed verbal skills, people tend to just assume he could not possibly have an LD and he gets in trouble for truculence. The neuropsych basically called him clinically stubborn. Argh.
Also, have you considered Walbridge for your son? Turns out there are kids there like him. My son is not AS (he's ADD/dyslexic/dysgraphic) but has a couple friends there who are, and are doing quite well there despite previous horrible public school experiences like bullying, etc. I am very pleased overall with the school and they have been very responsive to my promptings for a different approach to written work, and are now offering assistive tech and teachers are altering their expections for certain types of written assignments that really frustrated him. Since he is a rather unusual combination of gifts and deficits, I get that they are still figuring him out (he only started there in Dec.) The key is that they are responding very quickly to my insisting they need a different approach. Not what one gets at MMSD or from the insurance cos.
I am also curious if you have found a local OT you like?
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Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1,733
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Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1,733 |
I think you should add the PAL II (The Process Assessment of the Learner) test is you are suspecting dysgraphia. The school kept ignoring the signs that my son had dysgraphia until I insisted on that test. The TOWEl just didn't show it and the signs of it on the WISC and ther tests were just blown off and ignored by the school. The PAL showed how severe it was... His scores were deplorable on it and after that there was no arguing any more by the school.
Other than that, I second everything Polarbear had advised- great advice as usual!
Last edited by Irena; 02/21/15 06:41 PM.
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Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1,733
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Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1,733 |
Everything polarbear said, and,
Consider the PAL-2 writing fluency and accuracy subtests. Handwriting Evaluation Scale (optional holistically-scored legibility scale from the WJ-III, uses the product of the writing samples subtest). Ahh I see now that AEH chimed in with the recommendation!
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