Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of challenges does your child have, and how old?

Most of the camps are diagnosis specific.

Age 9, ASD (HFA), Adhd combined. A handful! Bright, energetic and motivated.

My kid with a similar profile did well at TIC. They don't offer one on one, but they do have small group sizes.

In the Sligo Creek Aspergers Program, your kid will likely spend half the day in special ed and half in general ed. The special ed teachers are good. There are also two paras in the class for 7 or 8 kids. A para goes with the kids to general ed. If your kid can't handle the general ed setting, then he can spend more time in special ed. The special ed classroom is calm and quiet and they are good at handling behaviors. If your kid is on or above grade level academically but not doing well behaviorally, he would be a good candidate for Sligo Creek.

Anonymous wrote:Laura, you know that MCPS doesn't have AAP right and that neither does DCPS but that there are similar issues going on. A mother recently posted in the MCPS forum that her child with an IEP did not even get on the wait list for a MS magnet despite having high scores and that the decision from an appeal found that he should have been on the wait list. Seems like possible discrimination against kids with special needs.

Do you have members from MCPS and DCPS and are the goals similar to get these children access to some of the accelerated opportunities?

NP. I am in MCPS and I just joined. I encourage other MCPS parents to join so we can work together on this.

We tried Quillivant for DD. We were on Twice a day ritalin which was very short acting. Quillivant didn't work well for us, but we are glad we at least tried. It's definitely easier than getting a pill down and once a day dosing is nice. Our problem was that Quillivant lasts too long, so that the effective dose also kept DD up until 1:00 AM.

One bit of advice. The Quillivant comes with a syringe that you use to squirt the liquid into your child's mouth. We found this awkward, so we just poured it into a small medicine cup and had DD drink it.

Sounds a lot like my DD. Medication is likely a must. Usually stimulants are a first line drug for ADHD, but if sleep is an issue, you can try melatonin, which is a natural hormone, safe and available over the counter. There are a lot of other options for sleep, but you should talk to your doctor about those.

My DD is also on a point system. She earns points by doing her homework and good behavior, which she can then spend on screen time and other goodies . If she sneaks screen time, she pays the points for the time plus a penalty for sneaking.

And unfortunately, you can't afford to be sloppy. Consistency is important. If she can successfully sneak through once in a while, it reinforces the behavior. If sneaking is never successful, she will eventually stop trying.