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Joined: May 2013
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DS7 has DCD and we were able to get him an IEP (Physically Impaired) with DCD as the medical diagnosis. We had a neuropsych diagnose, although a pediatric neurologist told me the same thing when he was 4 (but it wasn't in his records). I am just bringing this up because it seems to be a fairly flexible category in terms of qualifying and getting services although it looks like you are making progress with an LD category. DS gets speech, OT, adapted phy ed (in addition to regular phy ed), organizational skills help, and writing with a spec. ed teacher. They presumably put it all under that PI category. If a kid is "slow" due to the disability, and it interferes with their learning, that's really all that is required to qualify. His Woodcock Johnson Achievement subtests scores were all above the 80th percentile, and he still is getting help with writing, because he wasn't accomplishing much in class. I had a similar struggle--had to call the State before the district would do anything. His IEP manager, the principal, and the school OT had no clue what the special ed categories were! They seemed to think there were like 2, when it's really 12 or 13. The spec. ed director told me almost no one has a PI IEP, and my guess it's because they simply don't evaluate or write IEPs for most kids who would qualify for one. As for the BOT2, DS has had it several times and his scores are always all over the place. I think on the latest test, he actually scored above the 50th percentile. Part of it is that he has excellent spatial ability (despite the dyspraxia) and is able to use that to compensate, for instance copying designs or patterns. He also tends to improve after he's been in private therapy, and then declines again when he is exited. DS also has hypotonia which is often related to DCD...he wouldn't be able to jump off something more than a couple feet tall or hang onto a bar for more than a couple seconds (monkey bars out of the question). He had a traumatic brain injury and seemed to get worse after that which complicates things further. It's hard to figure out what the main issue is and the cause. He's another kid that had a lot of ear infections and was always sick. He had normal development until 1.5, then he was sick and snotty all the time and stopped developing normally. He had ear tubes/adenoids as well but about a year went by before anyone would do anything.
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PI stands for physically impaired. It's one of the spec. ed categories. So a kid with a motor disorder (like DCD) would fall under that if it interferes with their learning. One thing the woman from the State gave me that was helpful was a link to all the categories and what exactly the qualifying criteria are. Another category that DCD kids somethings go under is "Other Health Impairments". ADHD goes under that as well.
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Got it. One issue I am having is my district said they are not required to recognize any developmental delays as LD's after the age of 9. Their excuse is kids outgrow developmental delays. So yes, it is still going to be a big fight.
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Except DCD isn't a delay, it's more along the lines of a neurological motor disorder, or learning disability involving motor skills. So if he does actually have that, all you'd need to do is get medical documentation from someone like a neurologist or neuropsych (and have that person state he should have accommodations in school and therapy). Of course if he scored well on the BOT2, that might be a problem. DS's neuropsych gave him the Grooved Pegboard test for fine motor, and he did horrible, like well under the first percentile. That might be similar to the dexterity section of the BOT though. DS is very slow on any motor test that is timed. See if you can get the BOT results and what he scored for just the sections that are timed. DS's scores kind of average out because he's very high on some things like visual perception and balance, bringing his overall scores up. There are other tests involving motor skills as well. The school gave him a different test for gross motor and he scored lower than the BOT2.
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He scored close to 2 standard deviations below the mean on all but one subtest. On that he scored 1 standard deviation below the mean.
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Neurological is another disability classification that you could look into. Depending on the state and the evaluator giving the Dx, ADHD, slow processing speed, DCD can end up there, too.
Schools are not allowed to simply transition kids on IEPs for developmental delay straight to LD at age nine. They have to re-qualify them under some other disability. The original intent was to reduce stigma for students identified with disabilities, by avoiding the application of heavy-duty labels at a young age, when it's not entirely clear what is really going on, and to cast a slightly wider net to catch disabilities before students fall as far behind in academics. So the idea was specifically to allow some students to outgrow (or really, be remediated out of) early delays without trapping them in special education for their entire careers--which for many underprivileged kids restricts their access to the broadest range of instruction. It was a response both to the desire to prevent further failure as early as possible, and to the issue of equity and disproportionality in special education (over-identification of poor and minority children).
Like many well-intentioned initiatives, there have been unintended consequences.
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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I looked back at your post about the BOT2 and it looks like for most of the subtests he's around 1 standard deviation below the mean, which is around 15th percentile I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong). For certain services, like adapted phy ed, I think schools are looking for more like 2 standard deviations below the mean but I'm not sure if it needs to be an overall score, or just a certain sub-score, or if it varies from state to state. I don't like the BOT2 because I think very few sections are timed. So it makes "slow" kids look more adept than they really are. And the timed sections are combined with untimed sections to produce the subtest scores like "manual dexterity". For the PI category, though, I don't know if it really matters. He could probably still qualify for that category as long as you have a diagnosis, he just may not receive certain services like adapted phy ed. How does he do in physical education? What type of school services are you looking for? I would think about that, and then figure out which spec. ed category would be the most helpful. I'm not familiar enough with the laws to know the ins and outs of all the categories and what services they can get with each category. All I know is that the PI category has given DS what he needs in terms of speech, writing, OT, help with gross motor skills, etc. He had a Speech IEP before they switched it to PI. They switched it to PI so other services, like OT and Writing, could be added. If your DS has ADHD you could probably argue for a "Other Health Impairments" IEP and get certain services that way without even bothering with a DCD diagnosis. He may qualify for help with reading, writing, etc. under that category.
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Neurological is another disability classification that you could look into. Do the states differ on what the actual categories are? Because I don't think that exists here. They have Traumatic Brain Injury and Cognitively Impaired (I think it's called), which would be kids with low IQ. But no "Neurological".
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