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Sounds good but I'm not sure if it would work. Having just gone through setting up a 504 for my son. The documentation for eligibility for the 504 required more information than a checklist from one teacher. It's worth a try and you have enough to start the process. Perhaps the school psychologist will do a better job in the assessment and can be instrumental in working with this teacher.

This is certainly something that goes more smoothly at some schools than others. We've gotten some traction on getting DS more physical activity during the day, but we're not yet to a point that will fully satisfy his needs. For us, it's been a cycle of bringing the need to the school, not getting much, then the teacher being frustrated and seeking help. Small interventions are being shown to help but not fix things. We're now in the process of making the case that more significant interventions can help further.

In parallel, we're working to help DS see how well he responds to physical activity. He's begun to advocate for himself as well, which seems to carry more weight than the 504 document.

The questions were odd to me. They wanted to know if he was fidgety so I said yes. But he's a 9 year old boy who gets one one fifteen minute recess a day and only has pe once a week so he sits in an uncomfortable chair all day. That would make me fidgety. We were asked if he's inattentive. In class yes. At home or in karate or gymnastics then no.. another one was emotion. Yes he's highly emotional and sensitive but he's the one who stands up to bullies to protect others and he often gives his lunch away to a child who says they are hungry. Is he disorganized? With school work yes but his logos and trophies are put away nicely and in a specific order. So I'm confused about the questions and wouldn't know what to answer.

Cola,

When the school gives a parent a questionnaire to fill out, you should comment on the environments you observe your son in (home, social activities, church etc.). If his teacher is reporting different behavior at school, don't comment on that because you are relaying her report. If your son is displaying different behavior across multiple environments, that is a red flag. Is there another restrictive environment you can observe his behavior in similar to a classroom? Like church, or the movies? Is he fidgety at those times?

Dump that doctor. Find a Family Practitioner. I find FP's to take more time, to listen more thoroughly, to learn about your entire family before jumping to writing prescriptions.

Cola, when I've filled out these types of behavioral surveys for my children (for neuropsych and counseling evals), I've always been told to fill in the bubble that I *think* fits my child most of the time, but to also circle the number of any that I have these types of questions about, and write comments on the form explaining the questions I have.

So for example, on the disorganization, I'd probably mark the "sometimes" (or whatever choice is closest), and add a comment that states he is disorganized with school work but keeps his trophies well organized. Remember that the forms are great for looking for overall patterns, but notes such as schoolwork is disorganized but your ds is organized in other areas of his life are where a professional can start to see important patterns that will give clues to what is up. That's why a good diagnosis relies on so much more than just a quick glance over a form filled out by one teacher.

polarbear

Another thought for you, since your ds is 9 years old. My ds has a diagnosis/challege that has symptoms/behaviors that overlap with ADHD symptoms. His elementary school staff was fairly certain he had ADHD, so in the process of trying to determine does he or doesn't he, one thing I did at home was go over a "children's checklist" of ADHD symptoms - it was a list he could fill out, and it was really helpful in understanding what was going on with him. It's been quite a few years since he was 10 so I don't have the book at hand, but maybe you could google and find something similar.

polarbear

I respect geofizz' opinion on this - our parent advocate in elementary also suggested we do the same when ds had an inaccurate ADHD diagnosis and an accurate "other" diagnosis and we were struggling tremendously to get him qualified for the services and accommodations he needed at school. We chose *not* to do this (although we could have), and I am glad, in our ds' case, that we did not - so please know I'm not disagreeing with geofizz and others, just offering an example of why a parent might not want to do this, when they are unsure of the diagnosis:

1) We were fortunate in that, when this was suggested, we already had private testing that showed clearly our ds had other challenges, so that we could target remediations and accommodations specific to his *actual* challenges. If you write up a 504 assuming the diagnosis is something it isn't, you are running the risk that the accommodations put in place aren't appropriate. While that usually isn't going to do any harm to a child, it also most likely isn't going to provide significant help, and it may result in time lost from class or other therapies that is really needed.

2) Paperwork is going to follow your child in school. Once the school has a record of your child having a diagnosis, you're going to have to prove your child *doesn't* have that diagnosis to get it off of their school paperwork. We actually had to do this (see why we did this in #3 below) by paying for a private ADHD evaluation, which, while it is good info to have (knowing that he doesn't fit an ADHD diagnosis), it was also something that we knew as parents already and that we didn't really want to have to pay for.

3) Having the ADHD diagnosis on his paperwork tended to focus the school staff on that diagnosis during his IEP eligibility review, when we really needed them to be focusing on his actual disability diagnosis. It was also used as a "possible reason" that he was having difficulty with written expression, when he has a diagnosis of a written expression disability. The impact of that was two-fold - the school tried to use ADHD as a reason to prove that ds' struggles with written expression were only due to focus and therefore he didn't need any individualized instruction in written (which he did), and the staff also tended to look at ds as a "kid with ADHD" rather than a student who was trying but unable to perform due to his LD not being addressed. We also had the school tell us he should be medicated in order to properly assess his written expression - and this is simply irresponsible. All the ADHD medication in the world would not have addressed ds' challenge simply because it wasn't ADHD. I won't go into how inappropriate it was for school personnel to suggest meds!

4) The school staff (in our school at that point in time) was used to seeing a lot of students diagnosed with ADHD (and I think correctly diagnosed, at least among the students I knew well), but they didn't see as many students with LDs and since there is such a wide range of LDs and how each LD impacts a student, it was just "easier" to see ds as a student with ADHD, and not acknowledge that there was something more/different going on - and ds really *needed* that recognition that he had something different going on - that was the first step toward getting ds help that was meaningful and effective.

So - food for thought re why *not* to use a diagnosis to get services if you aren't sure the diagnosis is appropriate. We definitely would have had an easier time getting accommodations for ds if we'd let the school write a 504 plan for ADHD, and some of the accommodations would have overlapped accommodations he receives for his actual diagnosis/challenge. But we would have also caused delays down the line in getting *appropriate* services/etc for ds at school.

I suspect that what you need at this point in time, for your ds, is an evaluation that looks at the whole student, and includes how he is functioning both at school and at home. You can initiate that type of evaluation through your school, or you can opt to have a private evaluation - but one visit to a pediatrician isn't what you're looking for.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Incidentally, if going through a process with formal ADHD rating scales, some of them have self-report forms going down to age 6 (notably the BASC-2; beginning from around middle school for most of the others), which can help to pull out not only some of the symptoms (or non-symptoms) that are not as externally-noticeable, but also some of the emotional effects and self-perceptions that often go along with some kind of classroom struggle.

I find this thread especially interesting because we were told recently that DS had ADHD and it was not correct. He had been having difficulty at school and I arranged a speech evaluation. The speech therapist said she had never seen a child fidget that much in 15 years and that we needed to get ADHD medication immediately; she said it had been a great help to her own daughter. The school agreed that ADHD was a likely reason for his difficulty, so they did a screening test on him. At the same time, our psychologist arranged a screening.

Even his teacher, who thought ADHD was likely, gave responses on the screening that weren't even elevated. He was solidly at the median. It was consistent for the school screening and for the psychologist's screening.

When DS was moved up to a higher grade, those particular symptoms disappeared. He still has certain difficulties (he definitely has some challenges), but the ADHD-like symptoms disappeared.

I think it really illustrates the importance of a proper evaluation.

I agree with polarbear. I think it is worth using the diagnosis for services if that is important (in other words, if you have to get something quickly and think the accommodations will help), but it's better to get services based on the right diagnosis because the accommodations and services needed are different. Even if you use the ADHD diagnosis to get the process started, it's better to really know what is going on.