IEP or 504 Plan

[Caco3girl]

Originally Posted by Invisibleink

It sounds like what you want can be done on a well written (and well Implemented) 504 plan. A special education evaluation still seems worthwhile though, and if you move forward with this consider adding a functional behavior / adaptive skills evaluation. At this age you really don’t want to miss something.

Also, if things slide over the next year or two you can re-convene the child study team if you have done the Special Ed evaluation already. Then you can advocate for why your child’s needs have changed. The eval results should be good for 3 years.

My son didn't really start self advocating until 10th grade. They may have wanted him to, but it didn't happen until then.

I truly think the reason for that is that he was diagnosed in 8th grade as ADHD, so in short, he has spent his whole educational life being lost and just going with the flow, when he could even keep up. Asking a kid to self advocate that really hasn't had a clue on when his tests are, or even what the teacher said 20 minutes ago, is an exercise in futility. He doesn't know what he needs because he hasn't been keeping up. It was only when he truly began to keep up did he begin to understand HIS needs.

In his IEP meeting this year I was advocating for tests/quizzes to be given on paper. He told me taking them on the computer was causing him to glitch. He couldn't explain further, so I requested it during his IEP meeting. They were about to deny the request when they asked him why he wanted it. He stumbled a bit but finally came out with "When I take a test I mark out the answers I know are wrong, that's how y'all taught me to take tests, but I can't do that on the computer. I tried to just remember that b and c are for sure wrong, but I wound up not remembering correctly and I got the answers wrong. I can't take the test like I've been taught to take a test when it's on a monitor".....and the whole room fell silent! He had a logical reason that directly related to his IEP issue and the accommodation was approved.

[Lunacie]

Originally Posted by Invisibleink

Oh, also—no matter what happens it’s time to have your child learn to self-advocate, if this hasn’t happened already.

My son is in 6th grade and they are already wanting me to fade out and let him advocate for himself. It’s really about finding the balance between what the student is ready to do on their own, monitoring for problems, and realizing that some things still need my intervention.

I remember one IEP in particular where the school thought we should stop
encouraging my granddaughter's interest in a particular toy because the other
girls in her age group were interested in Barbie dolls.

I informed them that kids with autism and adhd are at least 30% behind their
peers developmentally, so of course she wasn't interested in the things her
peers were interested in ... yet. Also, kids with autism have very narrow and
very focused interests and don't give a crap about what others play with.

My older adhd granddaughter bought into the whole "be like everyone else"
pressure from the schools and failed miserably because as a 5th grader she
had the skills of a 3rd grader. That shouldn't be a surprise to educators, and
they should be willing to make allowances for differences.

[Invisibleink]

Originally Posted by Caco3girl

My son didn't really start self advocating until 10th grade. They may have wanted him to, but it didn't happen until then.

I truly think the reason for that is that he was diagnosed in 8th grade as ADHD, so in short, he has spent his whole educational life being lost and just going with the flow, when he could even keep up. Asking a kid to self advocate that really hasn't had a clue on when his tests are, or even what the teacher said 20 minutes ago, is an exercise in futility. He doesn't know what he needs because he hasn't been keeping up. It was only when he truly began to keep up did he begin to understand HIS needs.

In his IEP meeting this year I was advocating for tests/quizzes to be given on paper. He told me taking them on the computer was causing him to glitch. He couldn't explain further, so I requested it during his IEP meeting. They were about to deny the request when they asked him why he wanted it. He stumbled a bit but finally came out with "When I take a test I mark out the answers I know are wrong, that's how y'all taught me to take tests, but I can't do that on the computer. I tried to just remember that b and c are for sure wrong, but I wound up not remembering correctly and I got the answers wrong. I can't take the test like I've been taught to take a test when it's on a monitor".....and the whole room fell silent! He had a logical reason that directly related to his IEP issue and the accommodation was approved.

This is a really good point. Nobody can advocate for a problem that they don’t realize that they have. My son has just a few things that he does self-advocate for as a 6th grader...and each of them are for things that he knows he has difficulties with. For him, the first step was knowing where there is a problem. Then knowing it was okay to speak up about the problem. Then we worked on how to ask. I also try to explain to him some of the steps I have taken advocating on his behalf so he gets familiar with how things work.

In my mind, all of this is part of learning self advocacy, and can be introduced if they understand that a problem exists (like your computer test example). I do think middle school is a good time to lay the foundation. Then they can build on it when they’re ready

[Invisibleink]

Originally Posted by Lunacie

I remember one IEP in particular where the school thought we should stop
encouraging my granddaughter's interest in a particular toy because the other
girls in her age group were interested in Barbie dolls

My older adhd granddaughter bought into the whole "be like everyone else"
pressure from the schools and failed miserably because as a 5th grader she
had the skills of a 3rd grader. That shouldn't be a surprise to educators, and
they should be willing to make allowances for differences.

Ugh, this philosophy drives me nuts. They’ll use the same line when a kid is being picked on for being different. It’s like saying, stop being you—and more like them—and they’ll leave you alone. Intolerance is almost never seen as the problem.