Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Slope

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I'm not sure of what you mean by slope.

But both my kids have language disorder to some level. My oldest (DD21) was labeled with language disorder LD when she was in 2nd grade and isn't considered gifted. (Her younger brother is GT and has an expressive language processing issues.) I had DD working with a private educational therapist from 2nd-12th grade, she had an IEP 2nd-11th grade. And while the disorder was clearly still there when she was last tested her junior year of H.S she had learned how to compensate, study and be successful at school. She just graduated from college last week. The disorder will always be a part of her and she will never be able to crank out an essay like other students. But she has other strengths and has learned how to use those to be successful.

If the someone who says this is an educator you respond by asking how do we best help my child. Just because a language disorder is only mild doesn't mean he/she doesn't need accommodations and help learning how to navigate school & learning. My experience is that while language disorders can be overcome, kids with them do need help to accomplish this no matter how mild.

Possibly what's going on with dismissing the mild disorder is they don't think you child meets the criteria for an IEP. Or don't want to because they think other kids need the services more. I was told was in order for the school to write an IEP they needed to document my daughter was below 7% in at least one area. Although I've been told since that isn't absolute particularly when talking about a GT kid. But in H.S. since my daughter was functioning well (never getting below a C in a class) that she didn't NEED her IEP anymore.

Are you wondering how to respond when advocating for services or accommodations, or how to respond during a general conversation when someone is being dismissive of your dds' efforts or challenges?

If it's general conversation, I'd say ignore, skip it. Not worth discussing with folks who don't get it (generally speaking - if you're looking for help with how to respond to educate let me know and I'll respond to that).

I'm guessing (total guess lol!) that you're asking because of running into this at school when advocating, so I'll give you a few suggestions for that scenario - if that's not what you're looking for, let us know a few more specifics. Even if it *is* what you're looking for, it might be helpful to give us a few more specifics so we can be more specific in our suggestions. If you're not comfortable asking in the public forum, send me a pm.

Re how to deal with this when advocating - we ran into it a lot. I never thought of my ds' challenges (DCD, dysgraphia, expressive language disorder) in terms of "mild vs severe" but instead focused on how they specifically impacted his access to academics and his academic performance. School staff would frequently use the tactic of saying the impact was "not severe" or "not significant" *enough* to cause a "problem" (in other words, not a big enough deal for him to be accommodated etc). This was simply a strategy on the part of the school to discourage parents from hanging in and advocating until their student was given the accommodations/etc they needed to receive FAPE. When this happened, we (parents) responded by keeping it simple and using a few key strategies:

1) When the school staff said ds was "not the worst, not the best" etc, we'd respond "we aren't here to discuss the other students, we're here to discuss ds' individual needs", then we would redirect the conversation on what we were trying to accomplish.

2) We kept a few key pieces of data and examples illustrating ds' challenge and needs in a binder that we always had with us at meetings and could pull out if needed. For example, we often (in elementary) had school staff report at meetings that ds' handwriting "wasn't the best in class, but wasn't the worse" - and they usually had an example of ds' writing to show to back up their point. I made sure I always had in my notebook: a copy of ds' neuropsych report with relevant sections highlighted, a very brief description of dysgraphia and how it impacted handwriting (from a credible source), a few examples of ds' handwriting from classwork he'd brought home, and results of a few tests I'd run at home specifically assessing how slow ds' handwriting was. To address ds' expressive language disorder, same basic collection of items and also a list of examples illustrating it and how it specifically impacted him over time.

3) Find a relatable example of how "mild vs severe" is irrelevant. For example, if you're in the situation where the school is saying your child doesn't need audiobooks because her dyslexia isn't "that bad", ask them to imagine going to school without your glasses because you're vision is "only" 20/60 or something like that (sorry I'm not very up on my eyesight terminology!)... but the idea is to come up with a real-life analogy that clearly shows the fallacy of the logic of thinking that "mild" means "it's ok to have to cope".

4) Keep the focus of all conversations on FAPE. Free access to public education, required by law. If a child is struggling to read or having to put in extra homework time at night to keep up with class during the day (that neurotypical students aren't having to do), then that student is not receiving FAPE.

Last suggestion - I'd look through the wrightslaw website to see if there are any articles there about this topic. I'm guessing there are.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I'd add here - if this is coming up when advocating for an IEP, we ran into the same roadblocks bluemagic did. It was helpful to first, know whether it's an IEP or a 504 plan that's needed. IEPs are necessary when a student needs individualized instruction, 504 plans are needed to guarantee that students with disabilities have equal access to their education. It's important (jmo) not to focus on IEP eligibility if that's not what your student needs - and needs change. My ds, for example, needed an IEP in elementary school, but now that he is in high school he's on a 504 plan. He needed remediation and individualized instruction in elementary school, but there was an endpoint to what he needed for remediation (both in terms of what was achievable and what was ok to let go), so we let go of the IEP. He'll always need accommodations in school, hence the 504. An example of what was worth remediating (and accomplishable) vs what we "let go" for my ds: he received significant remediation for getting his thoughts out of his head (expressive language disorder) - and the remediation was very successful. We did not spend more than one year of effort on remediating handwriting, because we knew the chances of this "curing" his dysgraphia were nonexistent. Instead, we "let it go" re the handwriting and moved him to keyboard and other accommodations, which are a part of his annual 504 plan.

Second thing when advocating for IEP eligibility - we heard the same thing as bluemagic re bars which students must fall below to be eligible - "7th percentile" or "failing grades" etc. None of this is true - those are guidelines, but the whole point of an IEP is that it's *individual*. We were able to successfully advocate around those arguments by constantly refocusing the conversation in school meetings to keep what our ds' challenge was and how it impacts his academics. The law is on the side of providing access for students with disabilities, so as long as we kept it simple and focused, didn't get emotional, and purposely deflected comments such as "it's only mild", the school staff couldn't argue with the data we had. Hope that makes sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

This point that spaghetti makes about internalizing incapability is huge.

I still remember an early adolescent student I had years ago who topped out the math reasoning section of my achievement testing--got only one or two items wrong, and did not hit a hard ceiling, on a test with norms up through college. This child should have been aiming for a top flight engineering school, but had been beaten down for so many years by school experiences that limited his options (and his view of himself) to the level of his reading disability (which was significant, but not severe) that we could not convince him that he was actually extremely intelligent and capable. Last I heard, he was working in an auto body shop, which is valuable and honorable work, but oh...

As best as I can figure out, "mild", "severe" etc only make sense in the context of "how much pain is this currently causing the child, and how much will it cause them in the future if we don't do something now?"

It's very, very important with 2E kids to realize that just because they are pulling together their superpowers of compensation to stay grade-level at the moment, it doesn't mean they are not increasingly struggling to keep up, and getting more stressed with every passing minute. Every day basic tasks become easier and easier for their classmates, freeing their brains up for more complex tasks - but not for the 2E child. When they try to take on those increasingly harder tasks, they are ALSO still putting just as much effort on all the basics, too.

As polarbear flags, there are some LDs which can be remediated; reading and spelling especially. If they are not remediated thoroughly and as soon as possible, today's "mild" impact becomes tomorrow's "severe" and destructive dysfunction.

A way I think about what it means to automate those basics skills - aka gain "fluency" is this: think about a child first learning to read, with books that have one or two words per page, and the child is painstakingly working their way through syllable by syllable to decode. A few years later, an NT child will be reading those pages as fast as they can turn them. Now imagine trying to do a research and analysis for a social studies paper - when you are still battling your way through each individual word of your research resources to decode, just like you did when you first learned to read, because that skill has not automated. And imagine writing that paper if your letter formation has not automated, and you still have to think about how to create each individual letter in each word, and how to space your words, and what letters you need and what order they go in and which one was the "b" again?... But yes, your disabilities are "mild" and so you CAN produce that paper.... eventually. Sort of.

2E kids have some amazing strengths and are incredibly good at faking it. But eventually they will hit demands higher than they can compensate for, if they haven't received the remediation they need, and also learned to use all the available accommodations to by-pass as much as possible the things which can't be remediated. My MG dyslexic daughter hit her wall in grade 3, going from "grade level" reading in two languages to completely unable to function in class. She didn't change. The curriculum expectations did. My HG son with (probable) severe ADHD-inattentive and expressive language issues didn't hit the wall until grade 6, when dramatically more sophisticated expectations for writing and executive function suddenly overwhelmed him. His mild, there's nothing-to-diagnose-here issues suddenly became severe I-can't-do-any- of-this-work issues, but again, *he* didn't change.

So as others say above, it is really, really important to not ignore "mild issues", because ignored, they don't tend to stay mild. If it's remediable, it needs remediating, as much as humanly possible, and preferably before he hits the wall and too much damage is done. It also needs accommodating for those parts that will either always be way harder/ slower/ less efficient for him even after remediation (such as using audio books, voice recognition/ word prediction, etc) and for those aspects of LD which simply aren't particularly remediable, like handwriting.

Sorry if this sounds lecture-y, it's not meant to! But I too constantly hear "it's mild" by people who mean "so we can ignore it", and that is a dangerous and destructive view of LDs. So a wee bit of a button of mine

Great post, Platypus. I'm framing it!!

I'm using the same line of reasoning in helping DS what is going on for him in school. It's really difficult on self-concept when these kids hit the level of their EF/language issues incompetence. OTOH, I'm trying to be grateful for this happening before college, so maybe we can do something to help.

Mine has developed some maladaptive coping skills (pretend not to care at school-fall apart at home).

I think the serious asynchrony requires a custom balance between challenge and scaffolding. This is not easy!

As for "degree/slope" of (really, any) E--those mild, moderate, severe designations are so influenced by environmental factors. And who is doing the deciding. It's a tough call.

Saw this comic about ASD yesterday and it reminded me of this discussion. I know this comic is focused on Autism but I think it can give some insight into this discussion.

http://themighty.com/2016/05/rebecca-burgess-comic-redesigns-the-autism-spectrum/

Thanks for explaining what's going on - that helps

Since you're trying to make a case for attending a SN school next year, you might ask the school how they would address explaining why it's important to remediate now, what the risks of not remediating are, and why "mild" doesn't mean "ignore".

I also think that if you google around a bit, you can find studies that illustrate the risk of not remediating LDs... I'm sorry I don't have any at hand at the moment, but when my ds was in elementary school I remember seeing quite a few of these - for instance, studies that speculate that a significant proportion of people incarcerated in the US have unrecognized/unremediated LDs. I have an acquaintance who has a ds who was suspected of having a reading LD in elementary school (school staff picked up on it), but his parents didn't want to admit it. The mom suspected their might be something to it, but the dad was adamant nothing needed to be looked into, and the mom didn't really *want* there to be an LD so she let the dad make the decisions re ignoring it. This student is the same age as my ds; he's had so *so* many issues in high school - dropped out for awhile, been in trouble with the law etc. I of course have *no* idea if this is in any way related to a potential LD, but this student never did very well in school, and school just kept getting more and more difficult as he went into higher grade levels, to the point that he found it easier to give up than to continue to struggle with difficult work. I'll always wonder a bit if he wasn't dyslexic or doesn't have some other LD that he's struggling with.

I don't know if you've thought through this yet, but dyslexia and dysgraphia sometimes appear to have a genetic component. Do you know of any other dyslexic/dysgraphic people in either you or your exh's family? If there's a relative you can think of who your exh might be able to relate to, is it possible there's a story with that relative that might help pull your ds' situation into perspective? Or even possibly a relative who might understand your perspective and possibly help your exh see it from the point of view of an adult who's struggled with an LD?

I would still tend to stay away from phrasing things as "mild" vs "severe" when talking about your ds' LD. Focus on stating how it impacts him.

I also would point out the cumulative potential toll of waiting to remediate dyslexia - I can see this in my own dyslexic dd. She went undiagnosed until 3rd grade, and she's had intensive reading tutoring since 4th grade. She now reads (technically) above grade level, but the impact of those early years shows *all over the place*. First and foremost, she's lost vocabulary acquisition relative to her nt peers who didn't have to struggle to learn to read. While dd was working with her tutor to catch up, her peers were continually moving forward, reading more, and constantly acquiring new vocabulary. Even though dd reads ahead of grade level now, she's just recently finished 6th grade and the difference I see in her vocabulary bank vs those of her siblings who aren't dyslexic is really significant. The second significant impact is simply that she doesn't enjoy reading - so even though she *can* read now, she's still not reading for pleasure and she avoids reading for knowledge whenever she can - which continues to impact her vocabulary bank as well as her general knowledge bank. Not being able to read the same books peers are reading also starts to impact self image relatively early on - not just from feeling like you can't read, but with my dd, it limited her participation in peer conversations - starting when her same-grade peers started reading series books like Warriors etc - dd actually tried to pretend she was reading those books, based on listening to her older siblings talk about them or listening to other kids - she'd fake it. It mattered to her to fit in, and dyslexia made that tough. Same for my ds with dysgraphia.

One other thing about dyslexia (which is only anecdotal coming from me, but you might be able to google around and find info on it) - my dyslexic dd lost ground over where she could/should have been achieving in other subjects before her dyslexia was remediated because she misunderstood directions when doing homework and taking tests.

Re the regression in spelling - how was that regression measured? Are you certain he's regressed in what he can spell, or is it a function of how a test was administered? I only ask that because my dysgraphic ds could usually spell well on spelling tests (oral and written), but couldn't spell worth a dang while writing. Even with keyboarding he relies a lot on spell-check and word prediction. Some words like they're/there/their etc he's never learned how to spell the correct version at the correct time. Anyway, I think it's important to be able to pinpoint for certain - has his spelling regressed, or is something impacting his ability to use his spelling ability. In *either* case, you need to deal with it, but it will probably make it easier to address the what to do if you know for sure what's up.

Re making the case to send your ds to the school you're interested in - if it's a public school within your school district, are you able to get a recommendation from your ds' current IEP team?

Sorry that all of this is more food-for-thought than advice on how to word things - I hope you're able to get through to your exh and get your ds the help through school that he needs.

Best wishes,

polarbear