What is the craziest thing you have been told at an IEP meeting?
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Anonymous
Exactly. Every one of the 297 DSM V diagnosis has to fit into one of the 14 IDEA educational disability categories for an IEP. You cannot expect an exact match although ADHD often is put into OHI instead of Autism. A school may put ADHD + communication disorder under educational autism rather than OHI (other health impairment) when the types of services (like Speech) is usually provided by the school under Autism. |
Anonymous
8:11 here (FOUR ASD evaluations). The last time this was discussed (last year, surprisingly, it didn't come up this year) was when we were discussing speech services. The school ST (who had worked with DS for at least 2 years) indicated he didn't take an interest in his peers and conversations on topics not of his choosing. In this case, whether he had ASD or not was critical to the discussion because it would change the nature of services and goals. DS has a communication disorder and has expressive/receptive language skills well below those of his peers. It's so difficult to converse on topics not of his choosing because he doesn't know the topic, the vocabulary and is so slow to process the conversation. It's not that he isn't interested in his peers, it's that he has difficulty communicating with them and is of an age where language makes a huge difference in peer relationships. When you're with people speaking a language you're not fluent in, it's hard and exhausting trying to keep up with conversations. That this 'observation' came from his school SLP who should have known the difference was crazy. He needed a speech goal, not a social skills goal. |
Anonymous
You articulated beautifully why inaccurate educational labels are so damaging to children. All these labels come with a ton of baggage and assumptions, and they direct the types of services children get, even when therapists SHOULD know better. But this is what you get when you have the lazy, uninformed diagnosing of school personnel taking the helm. What's worse, is they rely on their own previous bad decisions to reinforce their new decisions; so they now no longer recognize what an ASD is or isn't. |
Anonymous
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My kid with ASD/ADHD has always had speech communication goals like
* participating and initiate conversation and maintain conversational exchange. *Respond to interaction initiated by adults and or peers by giving appropriate response. Not sure why the label matters at all as long as the services and supports are appropriate and helps meet IEP goals. |
Anonymous
WTH is wrong with you?! You are out of your freaking mind if you think that i am going to roll over and ALLOW MCPS to label my DS with ASD when he IS NOT ON THE SPECTRUM....just to get services or therapy! MCPS is lazy and greedy and wants to use MY kid to get more funding for the school, well they can shove it. If I were going to be THAT lazy as a parent, why did I bother to go through the expensive process of getting him privately assessed 3 times?! I should have just let MCPS determine my DS' fate. All labels and everything else in your kid's school records will follow them throughout their academic career. I will not allow that to happen to my kid. He struggles enough with his severe ADHD DX. With regards to the services or accommodations he gets, I flat out told the IEP team that if they were going to "try"to force my hand and threaten to take his services away if I didn't agree to the ASD DX, that I would happily pay for them privately! Shame on you PP.  
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Anonymous
I realize that you do not want your child misdiagnosed and they shouldn't be to receive services. BUT it is not the kiss of death for a child to have ASD and for that (correct) diagnosis to be recognized by the school. Your response is incredibly insensitive to those parents who have children with ASD. |
Anonymous
These are social communication based goals and do not move a child with a LANGUAGE-based communication problem forward. |
Anonymous
NP here. She didn't say it was the "kiss of death" -- but you should face reality. Few parents want their children to have an ASD. Few parents also want their children to have learning and language issues as severe as my kid's. But I sure wouldn't take it as an insult if they didn't want their child mislabeled, which is the point of her response. Slapping ASD on every issue willy-nilly by using the meaningless phrase "it's a spectrum" keeps children from getting the exact help they need. |
Anonymous
Funny, MCPS spent a year and a half telling me they could not rely on my son's severe discrepancy and had to do rounds of useless RTI. |
Anonymous
Correct. These are appropriate social communication goals for a child who does not have any language issues. Perhaps you can post examples of appropriate IEP goals for a child with language based communication issues to illustrate the difference. |
Anonymous
8:11 again. Here are some IEP goals my DS has. -Larlo will ask 2 relevant questions or comments to gain/clarify information or express his thoughts regarding someone else’s topic of the moment using correct word order ….. across settings. -Given a social situation or picture, Larlo will generate content specific questions using content appropriate vocabulary… -Given a social situation or picture, Larlo will generate content specific responses to questions from peers or the SLP using content appropriate vocabulary… Notice that for these goals, DS isn't required to use grammatically correct sentences....we have other goals for that. To me, it's very apparent how these differ from the goals a child with a social disorder would have and why it's important that my DS be viewed as a child with a language disorder rather than a child with ASD. It's not that an ASD diagnosis would phase or bother me. Rather, it wouldn't result in interventions/services/goals that address his language based social challenges. |
Anonymous
Thank you. That is helpful. It makes sense to have more precise IEP goals using appropriate words if the child has issues with expressive language no matter under what educational label the IEP is under. However, an IEP under "Autism" does not automatically mean that an IEP does not address speech language issues or pragmatic speech since an IEP is an "individual" education plan so it is important to "use the words" in IEP goals that will better address the challenges like you illustrate. |
Anonymous
8:11 again. You are factually correct. However, based on my lengthy experience with two kids, the disability category matters very much. We've seen how 'autism' has colored the discussion of our kids' needs and services. In an ideal world, it wouldn't matter. In the world my kids and I are in, it matters greatly. |
Anonymous
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I think two things stand out of the many crazy things we were told:
1. My DD was given a test of autistic behaviors and she scored average so no behavioral support was required. 2. She wasn't speaking yet so no speech therapy was necessary. And, yes, these were actual professionals in their respective fields that were saying these things with a straight face. |
Anonymous
If kids without disabilities go, kids with disabilities can't have a different standard applied. It's basic civil rights. |