Reply to 33 months old academically advanced but severe speech disorder

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "33 months old academically advanced but severe speech disorder"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp here.  This is probably the lost in translation aspect of things but your kid isn’t “academically advanced.”  He may not be cognitively delayed but while knowing letters, colors, and numbers is great, it doesn’t really mean anything.

Look at his development as a whole and go by the cdc milestone chart.  Since your kid is closer to 3:
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-3yr.html

[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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/

[/quote]

How old was your child?   That makes sense at age 4-5, not a two-three yearly.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics