Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it's not about services. who cares if kids get services who need them?
it's about a complete redefinition of what and is not 'typical' and what must be 'accommodated'.
If half your class needs to be accommodated then maybe your school is wrong.

I kind of agree with you but this is really only true if half the class needs the SAME accommodation. If some need extra time and others need breaks and others need seating close to the teacher and others need seating somewhere else then these diagnoses/evals are actually helping folks to identify kids' individual needs and the real problem is some kids get their needs identified much later than others due to lack of access to services.

This is key. Instead of spending millions on standardized testing in elementary schools, we should be giving neuropsych evaluations to all kids in public schools. Early intervention will allow those kids to perform better when they hit middle school. Start the academic standardized testing after you identify and support learning differences for all.

I don’t know. It just makes the kid look more functional than they are. No one will accommodate them in the work force. And everyone will want to hire the kid who didn’t need accommodations. [i]Having testing without accommodations probably resulted in more accurate results.

No. The supports are therapeutic. The earlier you catch some issues, the less likely some kids will even need accommodations later in life. Some supports allow a student to show what they really know, while others help teach the kid the skills they need to overcome the disability. It doesn't just make the kid look more functional. It actually helps make them more functional. Why on earth would anyone want to deny something so vital to a student?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it's not about services. who cares if kids get services who need them?
it's about a complete redefinition of what and is not 'typical' and what must be 'accommodated'.
If half your class needs to be accommodated then maybe your school is wrong.

I kind of agree with you but this is really only true if half the class needs the SAME accommodation. If some need extra time and others need breaks and others need seating close to the teacher and others need seating somewhere else then these diagnoses/evals are actually helping folks to identify kids' individual needs and the real problem is some kids get their needs identified much later than others due to lack of access to services.

This is key. Instead of spending millions on standardized testing in elementary schools, we should be giving neuropsych evaluations to all kids in public schools. Early intervention will allow those kids to perform better when they hit middle school. Start the academic standardized testing after you identify and support learning differences for all.

I don’t know. It just makes the kid look more functional than they are. No one will accommodate them in the work force. And everyone will want to hire the kid who didn’t need accommodations. Having testing without accommodations probably resulted in more accurate results.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many ill behaved students from our school go the privates to get help with their behavior. It really helped clean up our public school in the last 7 years.

ffs. behavioral problems are instant kryptonite to mainstream privates.

but if not, y’all, PLEASE spill the beans on all of these mainstream DMV privates admitting kids with IEPs and a history of behavioral issues! I would LOVE to be wrong. Gimme the names.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dunno about you all but test taking is not one of my regular job duties. Everyone has different strengths. Not being able to finish a test quickly is not a death knell for success in the workplace. The issues that drive the need for the accommodation are what might get in the way, and that will depend on the specific job.

No sh*t. But many (most) jobs require you to prioritize work and complete it in a timely manner to the standards required by your boss. People with “adult ADHD” are not going to be able to get out of these requirements for the pace & accuracy of their work on the basis of their disability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many ill behaved students from our school go the privates to get help with their behavior. It really helped clean up our public school in the last 7 years.

ffs. behavioral problems are instant kryptonite to mainstream privates.

but if not, y’all, PLEASE spill the beans on all of these mainstream DMV privates admitting kids with IEPs and a history of behavioral issues! I would LOVE to be wrong. Gimme the names.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - this thread has so focused on adhd and ‘extra time’. My school doesn’t even test! Not all these kids have adhd. This is nyc btw.
Here’s an example of what I mean - I know multiple people who went to trinity (considered the tippy top in nyc). In one family 2/3 kids younger than 25 all got asd and adhd dx (they stayed and were by no means the only ones and were fine). The parents clearly both have the same personality that got the kids the dx but older so no dx. None of them are failures to launch - they’re doing fine. They’re all a little socially awkward. Example 2 is
I’m saying we are incrementally labeling more and more with each passing year and it’s either bad or good or neutral depending on your pov. But not just about ‘extra time’.

I actually think the diagnosis that’s blowing up esp in the private world is asd. It used to be ok to be smart and super socially awkward at all these Tt privates but with the increased focus on social emotional it’s becoming more incumbent on these schools to dx so they don’t just churn out engineers they churn out engineers who can also manage

The fact that the diagnosis of ASD is expanding doesn’t mean that the therapies for it are expanding. Just because the kids get the label doesn’t mean suddenly you can do something to fix it especially on the higher functioning side. The autism label only really helps is if in fact you do have a child who is struggling - in which case they likely are not at Trinity because this generally implicates some kind of behavior or language delay that means the kid is disruptive or really does not fit in. In those cases the dx gets you access to ABA, OT and speech covered by insurance, more behavioral and academic supports in the IEP, etc.

the actual issue that researchers see with kids on the higher functioning end of the spectrum - those *few* who may “mask” well enough to succeed academically at an elite private and scrape by socially - is that they do not keep up on daily living skills like other young adults. cooking, hygeine, organization, manners, taking feedback, living with roommates, etc. That can end up being impairing. And ironically, focusing only on “accommodations” in school so they succeed academically ends up ignoring what they actually need.

I just don’t think that’s true.
Half of Silicon Valley is on the spectrum.
They are flagged at privates bc they can keep up academically but socially they cannot. Doesn’t mean they’re disruptive. Means they don’t have many friends or are generally socially awkward/ say the wrong thing sometimes etc

Half of Silicon Valley is not developmentally disabled.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you just love it when people without disabilities argue that people with disabilities not receive accommodations! To them, it’s a zero sum game, so leveling the playing field is against their interests.

No one has argued that

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you just love it when people without disabilities argue that people with disabilities not receive accommodations! To them, it’s a zero sum game, so leveling the playing field is against their interests.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so antiquated this thinking that all the kids at high performing schools are neurotypical. I’m shocked this is actually what people believe.
We have friends with kids at Philips Exeter and half their friend group is somewhere on the spectrum - we went to an event and it was wildly apparent. I think you see asd (by new definition) over represented in top tier privates

… because the “new definition” is insanely overbroad and not actually a disability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many ill behaved students from our school go the privates to get help with their behavior. It really helped clean up our public school in the last 7 years.

ffs. behavioral problems are instant kryptonite to mainstream privates.

but if not, y’all, PLEASE spill the beans on all of these mainstream DMV privates admitting kids with IEPs and a history of behavioral issues! I would LOVE to be wrong. Gimme the names.

Anonymous wrote:Many ill behaved students from our school go the privates to get help with their behavior. It really helped clean up our public school in the last 7 years.

Anonymous wrote:It’s so antiquated this thinking that all the kids at high performing schools are neurotypical. I’m shocked this is actually what people believe.
We have friends with kids at Philips Exeter and half their friend group is somewhere on the spectrum - we went to an event and it was wildly apparent. I think you see asd (by new definition) over represented in top tier privates

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - this thread has so focused on adhd and ‘extra time’. My school doesn’t even test! Not all these kids have adhd. This is nyc btw.
Here’s an example of what I mean - I know multiple people who went to trinity (considered the tippy top in nyc). In one family 2/3 kids younger than 25 all got asd and adhd dx (they stayed and were by no means the only ones and were fine). The parents clearly both have the same personality that got the kids the dx but older so no dx. None of them are failures to launch - they’re doing fine. They’re all a little socially awkward. Example 2 is
I’m saying we are incrementally labeling more and more with each passing year and it’s either bad or good or neutral depending on your pov. But not just about ‘extra time’.

I actually think the diagnosis that’s blowing up esp in the private world is asd. It used to be ok to be smart and super socially awkward at all these Tt privates but with the increased focus on social emotional it’s becoming more incumbent on these schools to dx so they don’t just churn out engineers they churn out engineers who can also manage

The fact that the diagnosis of ASD is expanding doesn’t mean that the therapies for it are expanding. Just because the kids get the label doesn’t mean suddenly you can do something to fix it especially on the higher functioning side. The autism label only really helps is if in fact you do have a child who is struggling - in which case they likely are not at Trinity because this generally implicates some kind of behavior or language delay that means the kid is disruptive or really does not fit in. In those cases the dx gets you access to ABA, OT and speech covered by insurance, more behavioral and academic supports in the IEP, etc.

the actual issue that researchers see with kids on the higher functioning end of the spectrum - those *few* who may “mask” well enough to succeed academically at an elite private and scrape by socially - is that they do not keep up on daily living skills like other young adults. cooking, hygeine, organization, manners, taking feedback, living with roommates, etc. That can end up being impairing. And ironically, focusing only on “accommodations” in school so they succeed academically ends up ignoring what they actually need.

I just don’t think that’s true.
Half of Silicon Valley is on the spectrum.
They are flagged at privates bc they can keep up academically but socially they cannot. Doesn’t mean they’re disruptive. Means they don’t have many friends or are generally socially awkward/ say the wrong thing sometimes etc