How likely is it a six-year-old with a developmental delay to catch up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, thank you for advocating for her. If her developmental delay prevents her from understanding/being able to learn what you are teaching the other kids, she needs a different curriculum. That’s the whole point of individual, specialized instruction. She should be getting instruction that she can access. Maybe that numbers or colors or drawing or following one step instructions or cutting with scissors. I don’t know what she’s ready to learn. But “will she catch up” isn’t the relevant question. Does that make sense?

Children in the beginning of kindergarten- their needs are just being identified. Assessments are not easy at this age. This is very typical. Many students in kindergarten and first grade have needs that are being identified. Please stop bashing schools and sped teams. How would they know at the start of the school year? give teams time to assess, interpret, and intervene before bashing and assuming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, thank you for advocating for her. If her developmental delay prevents her from understanding/being able to learn what you are teaching the other kids, she needs a different curriculum. That’s the whole point of individual, specialized instruction. She should be getting instruction that she can access. Maybe that numbers or colors or drawing or following one step instructions or cutting with scissors. I don’t know what she’s ready to learn. But “will she catch up” isn’t the relevant question. Does that make sense?

Children in the beginning of kindergarten- their needs are just being identified. Assessments are not easy at this age. This is very typical. Many students in kindergarten and first grade have needs that are being identified. Please stop bashing schools and sped teams. How would they know at the start of the school year? give teams time to assess, interpret, and intervene before bashing and assuming.

They are six months into K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS just turned 5 and we were told that if he hadn’t caught up by 5, that the diagnosis of global developmental delay would go away and be replaced by intellectual disability. No one says it explicitly but what I have discerned is that kids don’t catch up if they haven’t caught up by 5, and that we shouldn’t expect DS to.

One thing that I have found is it feels like so much if the infrastructure for kids with SN is geared towards ASD. I think kids with ID are more rare and it sometimes feels to me like the SN infrastructure caters so much to the ASD kids that the ID kids are sort of ignored.

I’m actually an attorney and my DS wasn’t getting any services until one of his teachers basically privately pushed me to push much harder and gave me language and almost a road map to use. That conversation combined with my own research allowed me to go into the IEP meetings to FINALLY get services. It makes me ragey that my DS’ education literally hinges on my ability to figure out some set of magic words and then say them verbally and in writing. Because I believe everyone agreed that he needed more help but he wasn’t getting it until I essentially said the magic words. Now he gets a lot more support. It makes me angry. If I needed help from the teacher to know what to say and I’m an attorney who works in education law no less, then how do “normal” parents stand a chance????

Tell the parents very specifically what to do if you can.

“ My DS just turned 5 and we were told that if he hadn’t caught up by 5, that the diagnosis of global developmental delay would go away and be replaced by intellectual disability. No one says it explicitly but what I have discerned is that kids don’t catch up if they haven’t caught up by 5, and that we shouldn’t expect DS to.”

This is such false, inaccurate info. Whoever told you this is wrong, or you misunderstood. Please do not post this as if it is true or fact. THIS IS NOT ACCURATE INFO. Sorry you had such a terrible experience. This is not what I see happening in the schools. It is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, thank you for advocating for her. If her developmental delay prevents her from understanding/being able to learn what you are teaching the other kids, she needs a different curriculum. That’s the whole point of individual, specialized instruction. She should be getting instruction that she can access. Maybe that numbers or colors or drawing or following one step instructions or cutting with scissors. I don’t know what she’s ready to learn. But “will she catch up” isn’t the relevant question. Does that make sense?

Children in the beginning of kindergarten- their needs are just being identified. Assessments are not easy at this age. This is very typical. Many students in kindergarten and first grade have needs that are being identified. Please stop bashing schools and sped teams. How would they know at the start of the school year? give teams time to assess, interpret, and intervene before bashing and assuming.

They are six months into K.

In FCPS, it is still the second quarter. You are wrong with your assumptions and judgement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many thanks for your responses! To clarify, “cognitive minutes” are basically resource room minutes for reading and math support.

The girl’s parents are not in a position to get her private services outside school and are not savvy about the system and advocating for their daughter. I feel like she is being “swept under the rug” because she is not a behavior problem.

I will attempt again to push for more service minutes. After seeing what some other kids get, she is not getting enough resource room time or speech services. I am going to frame it as what does she need now to learn now because she is not making progress with the current level of support!

As a teacher you can advocate for further testing by the school district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Thank you to everyone for your helpful insights! It is next to impossible to get kids into self contained placements in my district in kindergarten. I suspect this child may need that in the future though.

I am concerned that the speech path is setting low goals for her so that she will meet them with a lower minutes rather than setting more ambitious speech goals and providing more minutes of speech therapy. When I brought this up I was told pulling her more than once a week wouldn’t be the least restrictive environment. I do also know the speech path has a high caseload and can’t help but suspect that is part of not wanting to provide more minutes. I can’t help but feel like a child who just learned to use the pronoun I and answer who and what questions needs more support with language to access the curriculum. What argument can I make that receptive and expressive delays impede access to the curriculum such that she needs a “more restrictive environment” ie more speech minutes? Would more speech therapy even make a difference for her?

It sounds like she may be eligible for more resource room minutes since she hasn’t made any progress at all toward her academic goals. Again, I feel like the idea is to set easier goals so kids will meet them with a minimum of services. The plan is to give her simpler goals in her next IEP. I feel like identifying the letters in her first name and counting to 10 are already very low for a kindergarten age child.

Goals are set based on the students individual strengths and needs. Goals have to be achievable. That is therapy and special education 101. If a child can’t count to five, we aren’t going to propose a goal that they do two digit subtraction this year. That’s not realistic or helpful to the child. It is not about caseloads, minutes, or screwing over children. Respectfully, you are a caring teacher, but you are a general education teacher who does not appear to understand special education. You don’t appear to understand that sadly, but all children are on grade level. It does sound as if your student has more needs than are currently identified. This is not uncommon in kindergarten (or early first). The team can do assessments, add goals (appropriate goals), and increase services (appropriately). Schools are in a hard place because they are scrutinized for not providing enough services, while also literally being attacked (hello FCPS/ thank you “advocates”) for recommending too much special education services. Please talk to your school team.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for speaking up! My son had a host of issues due to being premature and while we knew he was behind I didn’t really know how bad until I volunteered one day. Teachers kept telling me all was well and I think they they were pressured by administrators.

We got private evaluations. It was bad. No words by age 4 and only 30 minutes of speech twice a month and the wanted to reduce it.

I learned a lot. Similar issues later as he grew and another teacher told me what to do and what to say.

Thank you for speaking up! This little girl needs help and to will only get harder as she gets older. Earlier the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Thank you to everyone for your helpful insights! It is next to impossible to get kids into self contained placements in my district in kindergarten. I suspect this child may need that in the future though.

I am concerned that the speech path is setting low goals for her so that she will meet them with a lower minutes rather than setting more ambitious speech goals and providing more minutes of speech therapy. When I brought this up I was told pulling her more than once a week wouldn’t be the least restrictive environment. I do also know the speech path has a high caseload and can’t help but suspect that is part of not wanting to provide more minutes. I can’t help but feel like a child who just learned to use the pronoun I and answer who and what questions needs more support with language to access the curriculum. What argument can I make that receptive and expressive delays impede access to the curriculum such that she needs a “more restrictive environment” ie more speech minutes? Would more speech therapy even make a difference for her?

It sounds like she may be eligible for more resource room minutes since she hasn’t made any progress at all toward her academic goals. Again, I feel like the idea is to set easier goals so kids will meet them with a minimum of services. The plan is to give her simpler goals in her next IEP. I feel like identifying the letters in her first name and counting to 10 are already very low for a kindergarten age child.

I have had similar issues with my child. Too easy goals so that they can have less services. It is frustrating. We have also had the same goals over the years never achieved and refuse of teachers to think a different way.

Make sure the parents know how to advocate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS just turned 5 and we were told that if he hadn’t caught up by 5, that the diagnosis of global developmental delay would go away and be replaced by intellectual disability. No one says it explicitly but what I have discerned is that kids don’t catch up if they haven’t caught up by 5, and that we shouldn’t expect DS to.

One thing that I have found is it feels like so much if the infrastructure for kids with SN is geared towards ASD. I think kids with ID are more rare and it sometimes feels to me like the SN infrastructure caters so much to the ASD kids that the ID kids are sort of ignored.

I’m actually an attorney and my DS wasn’t getting any services until one of his teachers basically privately pushed me to push much harder and gave me language and almost a road map to use. That conversation combined with my own research allowed me to go into the IEP meetings to FINALLY get services. It makes me ragey that my DS’ education literally hinges on my ability to figure out some set of magic words and then say them verbally and in writing. Because I believe everyone agreed that he needed more help but he wasn’t getting it until I essentially said the magic words. Now he gets a lot more support. It makes me angry. If I needed help from the teacher to know what to say and I’m an attorney who works in education law no less, then how do “normal” parents stand a chance????

Tell the parents very specifically what to do if you can.

“ My DS just turned 5 and we were told that if he hadn’t caught up by 5, that the diagnosis of global developmental delay would go away and be replaced by intellectual disability. No one says it explicitly but what I have discerned is that kids don’t catch up if they haven’t caught up by 5, and that we shouldn’t expect DS to.”

This is such false, inaccurate info. Whoever told you this is wrong, or you misunderstood. Please do not post this as if it is true or fact. THIS IS NOT ACCURATE INFO. Sorry you had such a terrible experience. This is not what I see happening in the schools. It is wrong.

I’m the PP who wrote this. This is what we’ve been told by multiple medical providers-a psychologist who did a neuropsych on our kid, a neurologist, a developmental pediatrician, and our regular pediatrician. It has zero to do with the school. Im just sharing what our medical providers at CHOP have told us.

[Anonymous]

Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

You’re thinking it’s some kind of concrete thing based on the diagnosis but the reality is that they’re telling you it looks like your child has an ID. Many kids with autism are delayed in more than two areas - speech, motor, social - so GDD - yet have high IQ and are not obviously ID. ID refers to IQ. Delays =\ ID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

You’re thinking it’s some kind of concrete thing based on the diagnosis but the reality is that they’re telling you it looks like your child has an ID. Many kids with autism are delayed in more than two areas - speech, motor, social - so GDD - yet have high IQ and are not obviously ID. ID refers to IQ. Delays =\ ID.

All I’m saying is that GDD, according to the medical literature, is a diagnosis for kids under the age of 5. If they haven’t caught up by then, the diagnosis changes to ID. This is not a rubric that is specific to my child. It is the general framework for the diagnoses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

Medical providers are not versed in special education law/policies, educational disabilities/labels, or how schools operate. Schools can “label” or “qualify” under developmental delay younger than age 7. It is a broad category that most children get it has nothing to do with the school label or eligibility category of ID or placement of ID. Very few children get labeled or placed as ID in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

You’re thinking it’s some kind of concrete thing based on the diagnosis but the reality is that they’re telling you it looks like your child has an ID. Many kids with autism are delayed in more than two areas - speech, motor, social - so GDD - yet have high IQ and are not obviously ID. ID refers to IQ. Delays =\ ID.

All I’m saying is that GDD, according to the medical literature, is a diagnosis for kids under the age of 5. If they haven’t caught up by then, the diagnosis changes to ID. This is not a rubric that is specific to my child. It is the general framework for the diagnoses.

It doesn’t work that way. Getting an ID diagnosis is a big deal and it requires extensive testing and evaluation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s more context about how a GDD becomes an ID diagnosis if the child hasn’t caught up by 5:

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/global-developmental-delay-dsm%C2%AD--5-315.8-(f88)

Again, this is from a medical context. It could be that the schools approach it differently!

You’re thinking it’s some kind of concrete thing based on the diagnosis but the reality is that they’re telling you it looks like your child has an ID. Many kids with autism are delayed in more than two areas - speech, motor, social - so GDD - yet have high IQ and are not obviously ID. ID refers to IQ. Delays =\ ID.

All I’m saying is that GDD, according to the medical literature, is a diagnosis for kids under the age of 5. If they haven’t caught up by then, the diagnosis changes to ID. This is not a rubric that is specific to my child. It is the general framework for the diagnoses.

No. The term GDD in no way takes into account the extent of the delays or the reason. A profound GDD coupled with say a syndrome, sure. A mild GDD, like many kids with autism have, no.