Please help!! School does not want to provide 504 high tech accommodations for dysgraphia-help with counter arguments?

[Anonymous]

The school is saying that they do not want to provide high tech accommodations for essays, tests, or worksheets for DD- a 3rd grade student with diagnoses of tourette's, adhd, and dysgraphia. They collected data for a 6 day period on 7 writing samples to compare her writing using a computer(which she just had started using) to her written work- they said there is no difference. They are saying there is no substantial limitation in her writing compared to her non-disabled peers because:
-she did not need prompts to refocus compared to her non-disabled peers who needed many
-she did not require support with her writing
-she did not need prompts to start writing compared to her non-disabled peer
-she did not need prompts to refocus and continues writing compared to her non-disabled peers
-she spent less time writing than her non-disabled peers
-she completed more work than her non-disabled peers
-her grades were higher than her non-disabled peers

Meanwhile, she cannot read fluidly back her written assignments nor can my husband or myself, she has letter reversals, difficulties with capitalization and punctuation, her writing is all over the place and does not stay within the lines, has lots of erasure marks, her ideas appear disorganized to me and my husband, she would prefer to type, and self-reports struggling to correctly write bs,ds, qs, ps, without lots of forethought. She has high average verbal cognition and map scores for math in the 80th percentile. Reading map scores have been stagnant this year with no improvement and dropped from the 80th percentile to the 60th

[Anonymous]

The big flags to me are:

*school did not measure her at all on the areas in which you report difficulty - production. of writing and ability to edit. Where is the data collection on the physical formation of her letters? Do you have samples of written work with these kinds of errors? Visit your child’s classroom regularly, and take pics when written work of kids is posted. Teachers commonly post the entire class’s work - take pics that compare your kids handwriting to others.

* less time writing is irrelevant. in fact, it may suggest that writing is so cognitively laborious that she she is substantially limited by her dysgraphia because she cannot output for the same amount of time as her peers. It is possible that her work would be better than it is otherwise if she could sustain output.

*what kind of samples are being compared - is the length and type sufficient to be reflective of her dysgraphia? My ADHD kid had extreme difficulty writing argumentative essays but less difficulty writing creatively because the latter has no organizational restrictions

*grades cannot be the only measure of “adverse impact on education” or “substantial limitation”. In other words, students with good grades can get IEPs and 504s. It’s problematic that the things you are complaining about - handwriting, capitalization, spelling and organization are typically things that are not graded at all. Writing grades are very subjective - MCPS lied about our DS’s writing and gave “pity” grades all the way through HS. It was only when he began failing the PARCC sub-section on writing that we had non-subjective evidence that his writing was below grade level.

*it is wrong to compare a child immediately on use of an aid - kids often need time and instruction on how to use the aid. Also if there is no aid it may mean she needs access to MORE aids and instruction rather than none. She may need to learn to touch type before a computer would really help her to write. She may need speech to text as an accommodation. She may need access to spell check. She may need text to speech for editing (this may be the only way a kid with ADHD can recognize their mistakes - by “hearing” that there is no period when the text is read back.)

* who are the “non-disabled peers” and how is she being compared? is it other kids with high average IQ? (that is the legally appropriate comparison set - i.e. those are the her peers) how is the comparison made? is it by grade average? Ask to see the data sets - what are the grades of each member of the whole class? what is the average? what is the range? You have a right to see the underlying data - ask for it with names stripped off to preserve privacy. Often when we asked for this data, it became clear that there everyone was getting the same grade regardless of production or that DC was at or near the bottom of the class even though his IQ was above average. That in itself is proof of adverse impact.

*confusing about their data collection - are they comparing 7 samples while she is using the computer to the handwritten samples of her peers? that would suggest that she is producing the same as her peers *with* the computer, which means it should be kept? They need to do data collection and compare her written samples to peer written samples - that is apples to apples.

* did you see all the written and computer samples they evaluated/compared? you have a right to it a they are educational records. ask in writing for them. take the samples to a special educator or psychologist and ask them if they are on grade-level, commensurate with IQ and oral expressive ability.

Other issues strike me in your OP -

*has she had a full assessment including IQ and achievement testing (either privately or via the school)? your characterization of her as “high average” cognition suggests she has. was she tested in the Rey-osterreith figure? how was her IQ coding subscore? Did she have any standardized writing testing - spelling, spelling of sounds, writing fluency, writing samples, editing? (All these are WJ achievement sections, although not sure what matches with her age). These standardized and normed results are as or more important than subjective, non-standardized data collected in the classroom. (This was a trick that MCPS often played on is - standardized data reflects problem but subjective classroom data says no problem.)

*I would be *very concerned* about MAP scores that drop from 80th to 60th percentile, although the school might argue that those percentiles are not significantly different from IQ.

Third grade is a tricky time to evaluate reading and writing. The demands are not high and smart kids can often still compensate by working harder.

Finally, it strikes me that you might be asking for the wrong thing - you have mentioned “substantial limitation” which suggests you have asked for a 504 plan. And yet, dysgraphia often requires special instruction - handwriting instruction, keyboarding instruction, explicit instruction in spelling, explicit instruction in punctuation and grammar, explicit instruction in writing organization - and need for special instruction means you should ask for an IEP. IEP’s are guided by a different section of the law - IDEA - under which you have more die process rights.

Sorry to go on at length but IMO, you are being gaslit in several different ways.

[Anonymous]

My best advice is to hire an advocate if your child can’t access the curriculum. With few exceptions, MCPS denies and denies hoping parents give up and go away. I’m not clear on what accommodations you’re looking for based on your post. Your child also might do better with an IEP. My son was diagnosed with TS and dysgraphia and we had to fight hard for technology but that was before MCPS ramped up technology in the classroom. They felt he should write by hand so he didn’t lose the ability. We finally got the school OT on our side in 4th and she made a formal recommendation for an iPad. A year later everyone had Chromebooks and it was no longer an issue. He also had an accommodation for software that transcribed and a scribe accommodation (teacher recorded answers). Even with the IEP, there was no meaningful intervention for written communication. Just lots of graphic organizers. I don’t think the MAP scores will figure into their decisions but the above poster seems very knowledgeable. I say this about the MAP scores as I have another child with a disability who has had far lower MAP-R but two schools refused to address it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My best advice is to hire an advocate if your child can’t access the curriculum. With few exceptions, MCPS denies and denies hoping parents give up and go away. I’m not clear on what accommodations you’re looking for based on your post. Your child also might do better with an IEP. My son was diagnosed with TS and dysgraphia and we had to fight hard for technology but that was before MCPS ramped up technology in the classroom. They felt he should write by hand so he didn’t lose the ability. We finally got the school OT on our side in 4th and she made a formal recommendation for an iPad. A year later everyone had Chromebooks and it was no longer an issue. He also had an accommodation for software that transcribed and a scribe accommodation (teacher recorded answers). Even with the IEP, there was no meaningful intervention for written communication. Just lots of graphic organizers. I don’t think the MAP scores will figure into their decisions but the above poster seems very knowledgeable. I say this about the MAP scores as I have another child with a disability who has had far lower MAP-R but two schools refused to address it.

I should add that my son ended up doing wonderfully when he was older. Except for messy handwriting, nobody would ever know. He wrote for the school paper and was accepted to his first choice college. So stay positive.

[Anonymous]

Hire a lawyer and ask for an IEP.

[Anonymous]

If you are in MCPS, write a letter to the “team” (504 or IEP) and ask for them to seek the advise of HIAT - the high incidence assistive technology team. I found them to be great. They were on our side when the IEP team wasn’t and offered us good (if now completely out of date) technology. They also qualified DC for Bookshare.

IME, dysgraphia increasingly becomes a problem from 3rd grade on. By the end of Es or beginning of MS, ask for notetaking accommodations. You need a whole suite of thigs to use in various classes in various ways depending on the various sub-components of writing skill difficulty - copy of class notes, ability to take notes on an iPad w/ pencil on an app like Notability that records sound contemporaneously and plays back, ability to take pics of whiteboard and place where daily homework is written (BTw, my ADHD kid, after a half year of school still didn’t realize teacher wrote assignment in same place in classroom everyday) and/or use of laptop to take notes (not very useful unless good touchtype skills)

[Anonymous]

Sorry you are going through this OP. You really need to find out what writing program they are using. If it is Lucy Calkins/teachers college/writing workshop method that means almost ALL the students don’t write well and don’t spell well. So I’m comparison your child’s work doesn’t look so bad because they care more about the ideas than the mechanics.

My oldest son had a traditional first grade teacher who had spelling tests, and wrote one paragraph assignments twice a week following a model. The teacher corrected them all for spelling, punctuation and reversals. The students then erased to correct so the finished product was perfect.

In contrast my younger son had a teachers who used Lucy Calkins. It was a disaster for a student who has orthographic dyslexia. My son had reversals, couldn’t spell common words like -they, because, when. His ability to visually imprint the correct way of writing these words from just reading is awful. He doesn’t see written mistakes. So now add to that teachers who NEVER correct spelling mistakes. Because he could spell phonetically and had supposedly good ideas he got high marks in writing. I kept saying how is this possible? I can’t read what he wrote and neither can he because if so many reversals, spelling and punctuation mistakes. Finally k had him tested in third grade. The school gave him a 504 plan but they were never going to actually teach him to spell or correct his reversals. I bought a British spelling program for dyslexic students called Apples and Pears. I had to do 100 lessons with him in those books (I started with level A) so that he could learn to spell common words correctly. By the 60th lesson there was a vast improvement. I sat there with an eraser and any reversals or misspellings I erased.

The school offered to test him for an IEP but I asked how they would help his spelling and reversals and they said they would just have him use technology. I envisioned him being an adult and not even being able to write a simple written note without errors.

[Anonymous]

I agree that if you can afford it, hire an education consultant or advocate or whatever they're called to help you get your kid the help they need. The neuropsych who evaluated our son told us that if we wanted anything serious from the district, that's what we'd have to do. It will cost money now, but it may well cost more money and misery later if you don't intervene with a heavy hand now. I didn't make it through all of poster #2's recs, but they sound like they know what they're talking about, so you have a case!

[Anonymous]

OP...Thank you all so much for your advice!! Poster #2 you rock!!

[Anonymous]

Poster 2 does rock. They ended with get a full eval and IEP with services. That's step one and two but there's about 100 steps in those two. Good luck.

Some other things to think about. right now you do want your 3rd grader handwriting so ask for OT for handwriting. Mine got it in APS after a years' long fight. That OT also taught typing, in 4th.

If the assignment is a creative writing assignment, ask for assistive tech and sometimes "graphic organizers" can seem like double work.

The way I got dysgraphia dx on the IEP wasn't my professional evaluation. It was bringing a few of my kindergartners worksheets in to the 3rd graders IEP team meeting. The k kid did some. my 3rd grader did some. they did some together. Nobody could tell the difference between the two. That sealed the deal for us. Got a K kid who's work you could bring in?

[Anonymous]

I really think all these posters who are saying just get an IEP aren’t realistic. It’s a school where they actually take time to document to justify not even getting any writing accommodations. OP you need to just supplement writing at home. Instead of spending money for an advocate or attorney, just get a tutor and have your child practice keyboarding at home. It shouldn’t be that way but based in the schools response and part of your concerns about having erasures, not writing always in the lines, and having to think before writing b,d,p,q is not going to be enough. Those are things schools don’t care about.

[Anonymous]

Honestly it doesn’t sound like you have much of a case. My DS gets to type due to poor fine motor skills and produces 2-3x as much typing. He is also going to take more time to learn to touch-type so he needs the extra practice. If the school did not see much of a difference in handwritten v typing, I’m not really seeing the point in expending energy on this.

[Anonymous]

Poster 2 again - TBH, while I do encourage an IEP, we found that MCPS literally does not know how to do special instruction for dysgraphia. So I advise: some private tutoring at home in handwriting. Handwriting w/o Tears is a popular curriculum. Teach cursive only, which will force/correct the proper formation of print letters. At 3rd grade, you may find that presenting this as a “grown-up” activity might be motivational - only grown ups write in cursive.

You can find some home keyboarding games on the computer. Build a cardboard box to cover the hands and keyboard to discourage peeking.

A private tutor for writing might be necessary. Other things, as our kid grew, that kiddo need explicit instruction in - how to summarize paragraphs, how to make an outline and write from the outline, how to edit (both for grammar/punct. and writing org and clarity).

A good language assessment (from Lab school SLP) helped us identify language weaknesses that contributed to writing difficulty.

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
Thanks for everyone's help. We had a 2 hour meeting today. The school did not want to agree to anything. They stacked the deck and had 10 people there. We ultimately got the school to agree to let her access Co-writer software and word process any writing assignments- so she can write the answers for her worksheets but on a Google doc. They will let us put stickers on a laptop for adaptive 2 finger typing

They would not agree to putting her worksheets online digitally, doing workbooks online, or a separate programs for organizing her ideas.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Can you clarify status - does DC have a 504 or IEP or is the school agreeing to this “off plan”, i.e. saying you can’t have an IEP plan but we’ll give you X?

Also, still unclear to me whether DC has had full psychoed assessment across all language, writing and reading and math domains as well as IQ & if it was school provided or privately done.

Where you go from here depends on what track you are currently on and where you have been in terms of assessment.