33 months old academically advanced but severe speech disorder
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Anonymous
Although OP should get private evaluations, the IEP evaluations generally include a normed test of educational skills, which it sounds like OP's child came out as above-average on. For example, when my 4 year old was evaluated in DC, they gave him the Young Children’s Achievement Test (YCAT). My guess is OP got something similar for a younger child. So looking at an internet list of milestones is not helpful. She should request a private evaluation. OP, did you get any materials on your procedural rights? They should outline how you can request a private evaluation and appeal the determination. |
Anonymous
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OP, I just read it and I could have written this myself for my now 18 year old. Please by all means get private evaluation and speech therapy with a competent person. There are so many of them who just follow what's in the textbook but do not see how to adapt their sessions according to the kid. The early stages of dysphonia, is not being able to pronounce words even though he totally understand them. If left untreated, he will make progress but not fully recover and always sound as if he has some type of mild aphasia.
Take care of the kiddo now. |
Anonymous
He's not 3 yet. Having had my share of EI evaluations, they won't use terms like "educationally advanced" in any case. Op should probably drop that phrasing. |
Anonymous
English is obviously OP's second language, and it's obvious she's not using the term because she's trying to brag about her kid or in denial. The point is -- the child almost certainly got some kind of age-normed cognitive/educational test and was found to be above average, which is the excuse they used to deny services. It's important that OP understand all aspects of this: first, that her child appears to have only an expressive delay; second, that the school district will use that to inappropriate deny services; and third, that her challenge now is to articulate why her child still needs special education despite scoring normally or above-average on the educational/cognitive test. |
Anonymous
Yes pp, I realized this and why I said it was "lost in translation." The speech delay is significant enough to justify services. MCPS is just being difficult as per usual. |
Anonymous
The trick here is to articulate the argument that while DC might be on grade level for age, he/she is not performing commensurate with ability (IQ). That is a hard argument to make at age 33 months when there is very little in the way of "achievement" that is documented through reading and writing and when the developmental window is so wide (meaning that it is normal for some kids to achieve things like letters and numbers early and others not until 7). The other argument to be made is that an IEP or services rests on whether or not the child has 1) a disorder that 2) adversely impacts education and 3) necessitates specialized instruction. An expressive problem, that is by itself below age/grade level OR widely divergent from IQ is by definition adversely impacting education and access to education because the student cannot express what he/she learned or ask questions for clarification, etc. This "weakness", whether it is below average in terms of age level or average but far below IQ/ability level, is something that must be remediated. A school system cannot deny remediation of the weakness just because the weakness, when averaged together with other skills doesn't drag an entire index down to below average. The latter is a common problem for 2E kids -- their high ability enables them to compensate for things like learning disabilities or speech disorders so that overall they are still average even though they are clearly having difficulties in one area. I say this as a parent in MCPS with a high IQ child diagnosed with Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder. For several years, MCPS denied requests for service because overall they deemed DC to be "average," in language skills even though some areas of language were low average or below average and many areas were way below IQ range. It took multiple IEP meetings and documentation to get IEP/services, which in all honesty turned out to be pretty worthless. MCPS speech therapist is never able to provide enough hours and DC was always in a group with kids who had different speech needs. MCPS general ed and special ed teachers had no idea how to provide special instruction -- it was just more prompts and more support and more accommodations and lowering of expectations. My advice -- supplement with as much private therapy as you can afford as early as possible. Document what you have provided and have provider do standardized evaluations in the beginning and end of every year, so you have documentation as to what is contributing to speech improvement. Be open to other diagnoses as your child ages -- early speech problems can be a proxy for other problems that have not clearly shown themselves yet -- autism, ADHD, auditory processing problems, language disorders like dyslexia, etc. |
Anonymous
Good post. One reason I'm thinking OP might want to push for an IEP is to gain access to PEP, where hopefully the teachers do provide better supports for speech delays than elementary special ed teachers might. My child did not have a speech delay, but severe fine motor delay with a normal cognitive test. I argued successful for the IEP by literally holding up a highlighted copy of the Common Core standards on writing, which he was never going to be able to achieve at his current abilities. Similarly, there are Common Core ELA "speaking and listening" standards for Kindergarten that OP could argue will never be met without special ed. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/SL/K/ |
Anonymous
How old was your child? That makes sense at age 4-5, not a two-three yearly. |
Anonymous
Yes, you'd have to tailor your argument to the legal standard for the under-3s, which I think may be different. But there actually are "common core early learning standards," at least at DCPS: https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/DC%20Early%20Learning%20Standards2013.pdf I also used those to show that my child was in no way meeting the preschool standard for written language; there are also communication & language standards. |
Anonymous
Sorry, in direct answer to your question: My child had just turned 4 when I went through the process and was almost exactly a year away from K (IEP meeting in early fall). So I pointed to the Early Learning Common Core Standards mainly, but also looked at the K standards to discuss how there was no way he was set up to meet those without support in the classroom when he entered K in one year. |
Anonymous
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Hi OP,
This sounds a lot like my kid. By age 2 she knew the alphabet and at 42 months she read her first book independently. I enrolled her in school at age 5 this year and I knew it was unusual that she was reading at an early first grade level, I was blown away to learn that it was unusual that she could count to 40, how to write upper and lower case letters, knew way more than the basic shapes. She knows what an octagon and a parallelogram are. She also knows tertiary colors, how to spell her first and last name just from hearing me talk on the phone. She is basically really good at memorizing mass amounts of information but applying it is well below the normal range. She has fantastic receptive speech but very delayed expressive speech. She has a great deal of trouble with articulation because of a tongue thrust but not apraxia. The crazy twist is that she has Down syndrome and I hear from professionals that they meet a kid with Ds like this about every 7-10 years. That has left me wondering where to best find her help and where is she going to fit in. So, I told you all of that to tell you that it is a frustrating experience to know you have a child very advanced in some areas and very delayed in others. I found our public school systems therapies dismal (not DMV) and not worth driving me kid to even if they were free. I found a place to take her that will charge on a sliding scale and they are great. I’m super happy with the OT who recognizes my kid’s natural drive to learn and she adds in cognitive challenges that will help move my kid think beyond memorization. Autism has been ruled out for her definitively. She does not show any indication of that. So, I think you have to assess whether or not your kid has autism and they probably won’t be able to rule it out until age 5. You can monitor and report now any red flags you see. Assess if your kid is on target for problem-solving and other cognitive abilities that require more than a powerful memory. Can you ask him something about the book and will he correctly point to the answer or indicate a correct answer non-verbally? Does he have low-tone. Low muscle tone is often an indicator that a phenotypical child might have a genetic issue. It also needs to be addressed with PT. As for actually getting your kid to talk, you need a an ST of course. But things to do on your own to help are practicing vowel sounds and then add a consonant onto it. Alternatingconsonants. You really need a ST book to explain this. Tools I like are the MAPS cards which teach the letters and letter combos phonetically. I also like the app Endless Reader by Originator. It covers vocabulary basics at three different levels and when the kid interacts with the letter it pronounces it over and over in a funny and helpful way. Lastly, I’ve had some good progress with her using the Speech Buddies tools now that she’s older and can say many words but needs help with articulation. A kid needs to be old enough to understand why you are sticking the tool in his mouth though. Good luck to you. Don’t give up speech is one of the most complicated functions humans can do so it often has challenges. Please ignore the people who misinterpreted what you say. Those people don’t understand how confounding it is to have a kid excel in some areas and delayed in others. Sometimes, people, when your kid does unusual things, it surprising to find out because you thought it was totally normal they can do that so please know that. |
Anonymous
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Its actually not that uncommon for some kids with speech issues, especially those in a lot of therapies to be reading or have basic knowledge early. Mine and several others we know were reading very well by 3-4 and none of the parents sat down and actually taught them. We all exposed the kids but the kids were very visual and figured out how to decode as at least the SLP's we went to as part of the therapies would use flash cards with written words and pictures.
This child is smart, but has just been exposed to a lot (which is good) and has started to learn to decode written language. For some kids it just comes very easily but is is completely separate from the speech. My child could read better than he could speak early on. |