Reply to 18 y.o. DD's mysterious brain ailment, advice please

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP what does your daughter say about why she stopped doing activities that she was previously involved with? Does she agree with you that this illness caused some kind of change in her? You have not mentioned her point of view in your previous posts and given that she is nearly an adult, it seems very relevant whether she perceives herself as ill, or just growing up and changing. [/quote]

Excellent question.

DD knows she's fallen apart academically, and she's accepted that something has happened to her physically. At first she was in deep denial, but when she started getting F's, she realized that something was wrong and started accepting help.

As far as dropping her activities, I think she's in denial that her brain illness has caused her to quit everything. She says she's not interested in the things that used to interest her. She still has a lot of friends and likes to socialize with them. And she's cheerful and funny. She used to care intensely about her grades, but now she's OK with Bs because that's the best she can do.

I think her brain can't handle more than school and socializing. She takes fitness classes occasionally when a friend suggests it, but she has no initiative. I'm torn between wondering if she's still in denial or if part of what's wrong with her brain is that she can't see herself very clearly. [/quote]

If you can't afford a neuropsych on your own, you might try to request an IEP and see if the school will provide any assessment.  All schools have what is called a "child find" obligation.  That means that they are obliged to find, assess and accommodate all children with disabilities.  A child who suffers an illness and whose performance in school then drops might be exhibiting a medically-based disability.

It's also quite common for bright kids to be able to mask some kind of learning disability or attention problem but then fall apart in HS, when the workload and organizational expectations increase dramatically.  It could be that the illness and the drop in academics are correlated but not causative.

The problem is, in 10th or 11th grade, you probably could have successfully convinced the school that they had a duty to assess.  If your child is literally about to graduate, then the school can just drag it's feet, because once graduated, they have no further responsibility. [/quote]

P.S. Why/how did you get the reduced course load?  If the school just allowed you a reduced course load without an assessment of why, that would be an indication to me that it failed in its child find duty.  The school has an obligation first to support students in a full course load, then consider reduced course load.  I say this because my child also had an illness which has made school difficult for her over the years.  Each time the school has pressured her to take a reduced course load or tried to convince us that that was the only option available.  It is not, and to push a child into reduced coursework without evaluating and trying to address disability needs is to fail in the child find duty.  [/quote]

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