Revisiting an early ADHD diagnosis when child is in high-school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So are you all recommending that we do the whole 6-hour pyshoeducational testing process that we did in ES again? It cost around $2400 8 years ago. I didn't realize that some people repeat it every few years. Makes sense though because I can see how the symptoms would change over time.

I'm hesitant to go through the whole process again since it did not get her accomodations in ES and we may be denied again. But it sounds like it was worth it for the PPs.

We made sure to use a group that was covered by our insurance so cost was around $300. There's no reason to go to a place that doesn't take insurance unless there are very special circumstances that warrant it.

What insurance do you have? We have federal BCBS standard option and they wouldn't cover much as they considered it educational testing.

NP and we have BCBS federal also, and testing was covered at Children's except for a small co-pay. This was testing for ADHD and other learning disabilities.

[Anonymous]

From her profile description, it sounds as if her ADHD is rather mild (phew!), and all she might benefit from is an accommodation for extra time on tests.

A WISC-V (IQ test) *may* be sufficient to test for processing speed and prove she needs extra time, but please ask the psychologist - the reputable practices know what kind of evidence the schools want to see!

Extra time will be useful for her AP exams and SATs, and the College Board is very slow at processing those requests, so please hurry because you might wait to get a testing appointment, then wait to get a written report, then wait to talk to the school and then wait for the College Board accommodation approval.

[Anonymous]

Actually, I take that back - you said she avoids reading? That might be dyslexia as well, so to tease out these things, you really need a full neuropsych eval.

Sorry.

[Anonymous]

OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

Both of my children had IEPs. Both needed the extra time on standardized testing for college and for exams in college. Writing papers was difficult for one child with HFA so extra time or tutoring was needed in college on papers. We tested every three years (usually not in one sitting - spread out over two or three days). About $3K. Our insurance never covered it. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

Both of my children had IEPs. Both needed the extra time on standardized testing for college and for exams in college. Writing papers was difficult for one child with HFA so extra time or tutoring was needed in college on papers. We tested every three years (usually not in one sitting - spread out over two or three days). About $3K. Our insurance never covered it. Good luck.

My child had an IEP and it was worthless. School didn't follow their own recommendations and therapies were based off other kids needs in the group, not my child. None of it was even related to the curriculum. It really depends on the school and teachers. My child could benefit from a little support but school was clear they weren't going to do anything so we just dropped the IEP and child still has the same grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

Both of my children had IEPs. Both needed the extra time on standardized testing for college and for exams in college. Writing papers was difficult for one child with HFA so extra time or tutoring was needed in college on papers. We tested every three years (usually not in one sitting - spread out over two or three days). About $3K. Our insurance never covered it. Good luck.

My child had an IEP and it was worthless. School didn't follow their own recommendations and therapies were based off other kids needs in the group, not my child. None of it was even related to the curriculum. It really depends on the school and teachers. My child could benefit from a little support but school was clear they weren't going to do anything so we just dropped the IEP and child still has the same grades.

You have to be assertive. If your child is not getting the guaranteed accommodations in the IEP, you need to call the county compliance officer. I had to do that twice with FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

Both of my children had IEPs. Both needed the extra time on standardized testing for college and for exams in college. Writing papers was difficult for one child with HFA so extra time or tutoring was needed in college on papers. We tested every three years (usually not in one sitting - spread out over two or three days). About $3K. Our insurance never covered it. Good luck.

My child had an IEP and it was worthless. School didn't follow their own recommendations and therapies were based off other kids needs in the group, not my child. None of it was even related to the curriculum. It really depends on the school and teachers. My child could benefit from a little support but school was clear they weren't going to do anything so we just dropped the IEP and child still has the same grades.

You have to be assertive. If your child is not getting the guaranteed accommodations in the IEP, you need to call the county compliance officer. I had to do that twice with FCPS.

We were very assertive. However, there was a huge backlash to our child who was getting sent to the office for the entire day (they would not tell us till the end of the day) or pulled out of recess/lunch to sit in the office for petty things that all the kids were doing. He was clearly a target and it was doing more harm than good. The accommodations were worthless as they were not what he needed and they refused to give him what he needed. It didn't make sense to spend thousands on an advocate trying to negotiate with people who don't care when his test scores were good and his grades were overall good, but could have been all A's with a drop of support.

[Anonymous]

Not the OP, but just curious...when you get the Neuropsych done again, is it better to go to a new provider or stay with the original tester?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, but just curious...when you get the Neuropsych done again, is it better to go to a new provider or stay with the original tester?

Personally, I don't think it matters. My son is now 17 and has had 3, each done by different people: #1 by the school, #2 by a sole practitioner who moved to another city and #3 by a neuropsychologist at Mindwell. All were fine.

Find someone who both you and your child is comfortable with and that you can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD was diagnosed as having ADHD (combined type) in elementary school. She was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and the initial diagnosis was confirmed by a psychologist who completed the whole psychoeducational testing process (6 hours of testing for DD, parent and teacher input, etc.). We tried medication for a while but it made her feel "out of it" so we stopped it. We had a 504 hearing in elementary (sorry if I'm using the wrong term--I don't remember the term exactly) and were denied any formal accomodations because they said she was doing well academically and didnt qualify. I didn't push back at the time.

DD went on to do well in ES, MS, and has a 3.6 average in highschool (10th grade). She is very organized so executive functioning is not an issue for us. We hadn't given the whole thing much thought until we started thinking ahead to junior year and beyond when the coursework will undoubtedly get harder. Is it worth revisiting the issue in HS to figure out what, if any, extra support she needs? Although she's organized and usually gets her work done on time, she still says she's bored out of her mind at school (no, I'm not suggesting she's gifted), takes much longer to do homework than others her age and, according to her, hates to read and wants to avoid any class that involves reading anything longer than a few paragraphs. These things sound to me like there are still some ADHD symptoms at play. And I say this as someone who has struggled with ADD all my life.

Those of you who have been down this road, has it been worth it to revisit an ADHD diagnosis in HS? Did it make a difference in your child's ability to get through high school? I know many of you on this board have much bigger problems but I would appreciate hearing from anyone with a siimilar experience.

We are in FCPS and have been dealing with 504s, IEPs from elementary to 11th grade. DD has ADHD. Testing every 3 years is standard. We tested in 5th, 8th and 11th grade.

You mention that you have gotten turned down for accommodations because she was doing well.
When you begin this process of looking into accommodations again, you will have to complete a parent referral where you will describe her current functioning. I see that you say she is doing well with a 3.6 GPA. Where is there a problem? In our experience, the school will not do anything unless there is already a problem that you and the teachers can provide narratives on. There needs to be some evidence that her disability is negatively impacting her education. From what you describe, taking "longer to do her homework" isn't really evidence enough, especially when you say she is very organized and has no executive functioning deficits. If things fall apart in 11th grade, then that would be the time to revisit it. I hate it that the school does this. We couldn't get more accommodations for DD because she had a 3.0 GPA. She wasn't failing anything in 10 grade. By the time she started to fail in 11th grade, they didn't want to provide the accommodations we asked for but rather, they wanted to keep doing the accommodations that already weren't working.

[Anonymous]

Children’s and Kennedy Krieger will be covered by insurance but longer waits

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

You make me sick. Your child has no academic problems and you are just gaming the system. Some of our kids have actual special needs and you are doing us all a disservice by giving true SN parents a bad name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds to me maybe you are upset her grades are not better when they are excellent. What supports are you looking for? More than likely if she is doing well, you will get no help in less you doctor shop to find someone to tweak the scores to get what you need/want.

OP here. No, not upset by her grades at all. She's generally a good student. Just concerned that, while she has good organizational skills and is keeping up with schoolwork, the rigors of junior and senior-year coursework may be too much for her. The only support I can think of is extra time on tests.

You make me sick. Your child has no academic problems and you are just gaming the system. Some of our kids have actual special needs and you are doing us all a disservice by giving true SN parents a bad name.

I disagree. Good job being proactive, OP. My DD did not need medication in elementary or middle school, but worked 3 times harder keeping up than her siblings did. By the beginning of high school, it was clear she could not keep up with the volume of work, particularly reading. We retested, and started medication and got accomodations (extra time which she typically didn’t use, preferential seating in the front of the class and private testing space, which was probably the most helpful.) Things got out of hand so quickly once she started struggling, it was a huge surprise to all of us. She was overwhelmed, depressed, her self esteem plunged, several teachers really gave her a hard time because she didn’t have a 504 coming in so they assumed her inattention was behavioral - it was difficult. Even though we moved fairly quickly to get things in place to help her, I would say she never really regained her self confidence as a high school student.