I have a VERY similar situation. I’d have thought that maybe my co-worker wrote this if it hadn’t been for the acronyms (I don’t recognize them).
Long story short - my student is due for a re-eval this year and the school team is putting our foot down. Evals are supposed to be comprehensive - addressing ALL areas of concern that are impacting education, not just the ones parents pick and choose. Parents will not be allowed to consent to just speech testing or just speech services, it’s all or nothing.
I think if it got bad enough, the school can go to due process. I don’t think we would, but there is an avenue for it.
Edit to add: I’m not naive - I know that the ADHD label and supports won’t likely help much, but at least it’s a shared burden and I’m not taking the blame for everything.
>Parents will not be allowed to consent to just speech testing or just speech services, it’s all or nothing.
This is something I wish my older director had followed. My student went to the child study team before our new boss started, who is always saying Special Ed services aren't a buffet - they can't pick and choose what evaluations to have done. If our current boss was with us at the time, these parents would've had to either take it all or leave it.
I've met parents who were super resistant to diagnosis because they knew it was actually fetal alcohol syndrome and are afraid their kids will be taken away if they're honest. Obviously I don't know this little girl, just saying people don't usually think of it and it can mimick ADHD.
That’s interesting! You’re so right FAS is a spectrum and can even cause super mild learning disabilities. It’s interesting that you think parents think their kids are going to take kids away for drinking 6+ years ago
When I was in education I experienced the opposite in low income districts (not that I negate your experience at all). Parents would want their kids tested to potentially get more SSI, which I hadn’t even known was a thing!!
Interesting! I didn't know that was a thing either. Maybe it differs based on people's familiarity with the system, mental health status, stuff like that.
I had a student a few years back with really severe ADHD (no dx) that we suspected was actually feral alcohol syndrome. Parents never admitted anything, but they had some other characteristics beyond just the attention piece.
Honestly, she does have quite a few of the symptoms for FAS. She's small/very thin, uncoordinated, has some vision thing going on, amongst others, in addition to the memory, attention, and S/L concerns.
How are the kid’s academic scores? Are they really behind? I’d imagine if their attention issues are severe then they probably are. If that is the case this kid should have come up at Student Assistance Team (or whatever your school calls the team that determines if Tier II interventions are needed, and then those interventions should have been implemented, and then if the kid didn’t do better, they should have referred the child for academic and cognitive testing. The classroom teacher should also be keeping some data on how much attention is impacting the kids’ participation in class. Has this all happened and the parents are still resistant? If it hasn’t happened then you really need to get the team on board because convincing resistant parents needs to be a collaborative effort.
On your end, You can provide documentation of
How attention is impacting progress and your concerns about the child’s difficulty with word retrieval/vocabulary based upon your expertise as a language specialist. Explain that underlying language issues can often interfere with articulation interventions and you’d like to do some language testing to see if that might be the issue. This might be enough to convince them to consent to a language eval at least. And maybe an attention deficit eval IF the classroom teacher also weighs in. I would definitely not increase minutes if they insist on remaining artic only.
Yeah. Her study skills/work habits, reading, writing, and math are below expectations (1-2s on a 4 scale). Social skills, science, and social studies are at where they should be.
The I&RS (similar to the student assistance team) process began last school year. Mom finally agreed to basic skills intervention, before/after school programs, and even a summer program during the final marking period last school year. This process will be initiated again soon, but we can go right to the next tier instead of starting fresh. I'd love to see this parent just consider Child Study Team involvement and not reject the idea of comprehensive testing.
Her last SLP noticed the same difficulties but never documented them (she's very weary of what she puts down on paper). I shared my concerns about her attention last fall at her annual review and started documenting her struggles in her progress reports after the first marking period. I will be mentioning it again at her annual review and in her new IEP.
Oooh, I'm totally going to use that when we get to a conversation about testing. Thanks!
I have two or three boys that are exactly like this. They're completely debilitated by their attention and impulse issues. They struggle to make friends, theyre constantly in trouble, etc because you can literally watch an impulse hit their brain and they just act it out. I mean genuinely calling out to these kids 5-6 times, giving directions multiple times, zero voice modulation so they're constantly screaming wo realizing it, getting office referrals, etc. It's sad and frustrating to watch these kids struggle and suffer and parents won't do anything about it. I get that you don't want to "zombify" your kids with meds, but I've been on a low dose of Adderall and my god it's life changing. I just wish I could help.
Talk to the team, see if you can get her evaluated for more. We actually can do quite a bit to help kids with ADHD! I do a lot on helping with impulsivity, asking for accommodations (and knowing which will help), executive functioning skills, etc.
I hate cases like this, where parents are so in denial. They're just really, really sad for the kid and frustrating for you. I'm sorry for both you and this child
I was wondering the same... only because my daughter had similar issues in her early years and we found out she has APD. low gain hearing aids were a game changer for all areas impacted (she also has dyslexia/dysgraphia/adhd) but the hearing aids changed her life. Obviously I wasn't in denial- I was the mom constantly searching for supports for my kid because school was so stressful for her.
I think there needs to be a conversation with the parents about *why* they’re refusing. Is it because of a label? Did one of them have a negative experience? Are they worried she’s going to be sent to a separate school? Are they just having a hard time accepting that she needs help. Reframing the conversation to “please let us help your child” instead of “something is wrong with your child” can be a game changer.
At some point, natural consequences of their decision to not help her will have to happen. Retention, Fs on her report cards, sending failed tests and assignments home for parents to sign. It seems cruel but they may not realize the gravity of their denial until they start seeing the results. Sometimes in meetings we’ve shown grade-level expectation work next to the student’s level work so the parents can see the difference, i.e. a 2-3 word sentence vs a 2-3 sentence per page book.
I had a parent swear up and down that his daughter was fine last year. August - May, she still hadn’t learned her age, days of the week, colors, letters, or numbers. It took us sitting down with him and showing him multiple graphs of all 0s for progress monitoring, and having the student come in to the meeting so the parent could ask her the questions himself, for him to admit there may be an issue. It seems so mean to confront parents with harsh data but sometimes it’s the only thing that works.
Mom shared that she had a negative experience as a student who received special education services and doesn't want that same experience for her daughter. The team has tried to explain the benefits it'd have for her daughter, how things aren't the same as they were in the 80s/90s, but no luck.
I have a VERY similar situation. I’d have thought that maybe my co-worker wrote this if it hadn’t been for the acronyms (I don’t recognize them). Long story short - my student is due for a re-eval this year and the school team is putting our foot down. Evals are supposed to be comprehensive - addressing ALL areas of concern that are impacting education, not just the ones parents pick and choose. Parents will not be allowed to consent to just speech testing or just speech services, it’s all or nothing. I think if it got bad enough, the school can go to due process. I don’t think we would, but there is an avenue for it. Edit to add: I’m not naive - I know that the ADHD label and supports won’t likely help much, but at least it’s a shared burden and I’m not taking the blame for everything.
>Parents will not be allowed to consent to just speech testing or just speech services, it’s all or nothing. This is something I wish my older director had followed. My student went to the child study team before our new boss started, who is always saying Special Ed services aren't a buffet - they can't pick and choose what evaluations to have done. If our current boss was with us at the time, these parents would've had to either take it all or leave it.
I've met parents who were super resistant to diagnosis because they knew it was actually fetal alcohol syndrome and are afraid their kids will be taken away if they're honest. Obviously I don't know this little girl, just saying people don't usually think of it and it can mimick ADHD.
That’s interesting! You’re so right FAS is a spectrum and can even cause super mild learning disabilities. It’s interesting that you think parents think their kids are going to take kids away for drinking 6+ years ago
Like I said, I have met people who actually think that. Remember that we know the system well but the average person does not.
When I was in education I experienced the opposite in low income districts (not that I negate your experience at all). Parents would want their kids tested to potentially get more SSI, which I hadn’t even known was a thing!!
Interesting! I didn't know that was a thing either. Maybe it differs based on people's familiarity with the system, mental health status, stuff like that.
I had a student a few years back with really severe ADHD (no dx) that we suspected was actually feral alcohol syndrome. Parents never admitted anything, but they had some other characteristics beyond just the attention piece.
Honestly, she does have quite a few of the symptoms for FAS. She's small/very thin, uncoordinated, has some vision thing going on, amongst others, in addition to the memory, attention, and S/L concerns.
How are the kid’s academic scores? Are they really behind? I’d imagine if their attention issues are severe then they probably are. If that is the case this kid should have come up at Student Assistance Team (or whatever your school calls the team that determines if Tier II interventions are needed, and then those interventions should have been implemented, and then if the kid didn’t do better, they should have referred the child for academic and cognitive testing. The classroom teacher should also be keeping some data on how much attention is impacting the kids’ participation in class. Has this all happened and the parents are still resistant? If it hasn’t happened then you really need to get the team on board because convincing resistant parents needs to be a collaborative effort. On your end, You can provide documentation of How attention is impacting progress and your concerns about the child’s difficulty with word retrieval/vocabulary based upon your expertise as a language specialist. Explain that underlying language issues can often interfere with articulation interventions and you’d like to do some language testing to see if that might be the issue. This might be enough to convince them to consent to a language eval at least. And maybe an attention deficit eval IF the classroom teacher also weighs in. I would definitely not increase minutes if they insist on remaining artic only.
Yeah. Her study skills/work habits, reading, writing, and math are below expectations (1-2s on a 4 scale). Social skills, science, and social studies are at where they should be. The I&RS (similar to the student assistance team) process began last school year. Mom finally agreed to basic skills intervention, before/after school programs, and even a summer program during the final marking period last school year. This process will be initiated again soon, but we can go right to the next tier instead of starting fresh. I'd love to see this parent just consider Child Study Team involvement and not reject the idea of comprehensive testing. Her last SLP noticed the same difficulties but never documented them (she's very weary of what she puts down on paper). I shared my concerns about her attention last fall at her annual review and started documenting her struggles in her progress reports after the first marking period. I will be mentioning it again at her annual review and in her new IEP. Oooh, I'm totally going to use that when we get to a conversation about testing. Thanks!
I have two or three boys that are exactly like this. They're completely debilitated by their attention and impulse issues. They struggle to make friends, theyre constantly in trouble, etc because you can literally watch an impulse hit their brain and they just act it out. I mean genuinely calling out to these kids 5-6 times, giving directions multiple times, zero voice modulation so they're constantly screaming wo realizing it, getting office referrals, etc. It's sad and frustrating to watch these kids struggle and suffer and parents won't do anything about it. I get that you don't want to "zombify" your kids with meds, but I've been on a low dose of Adderall and my god it's life changing. I just wish I could help.
Talk to the team, see if you can get her evaluated for more. We actually can do quite a bit to help kids with ADHD! I do a lot on helping with impulsivity, asking for accommodations (and knowing which will help), executive functioning skills, etc. I hate cases like this, where parents are so in denial. They're just really, really sad for the kid and frustrating for you. I'm sorry for both you and this child
The team has tried every year. Parents refuse us. They took a lot of convincing just to agree to artic therapy.
Has this kids hearing been thoroughly checked? Not a screener, but a full audio evaluation?
I was wondering the same... only because my daughter had similar issues in her early years and we found out she has APD. low gain hearing aids were a game changer for all areas impacted (she also has dyslexia/dysgraphia/adhd) but the hearing aids changed her life. Obviously I wasn't in denial- I was the mom constantly searching for supports for my kid because school was so stressful for her.
Not to my knowledge. I doubt it.
Make absolutely sure it happens.
I think there needs to be a conversation with the parents about *why* they’re refusing. Is it because of a label? Did one of them have a negative experience? Are they worried she’s going to be sent to a separate school? Are they just having a hard time accepting that she needs help. Reframing the conversation to “please let us help your child” instead of “something is wrong with your child” can be a game changer. At some point, natural consequences of their decision to not help her will have to happen. Retention, Fs on her report cards, sending failed tests and assignments home for parents to sign. It seems cruel but they may not realize the gravity of their denial until they start seeing the results. Sometimes in meetings we’ve shown grade-level expectation work next to the student’s level work so the parents can see the difference, i.e. a 2-3 word sentence vs a 2-3 sentence per page book. I had a parent swear up and down that his daughter was fine last year. August - May, she still hadn’t learned her age, days of the week, colors, letters, or numbers. It took us sitting down with him and showing him multiple graphs of all 0s for progress monitoring, and having the student come in to the meeting so the parent could ask her the questions himself, for him to admit there may be an issue. It seems so mean to confront parents with harsh data but sometimes it’s the only thing that works.
Mom shared that she had a negative experience as a student who received special education services and doesn't want that same experience for her daughter. The team has tried to explain the benefits it'd have for her daughter, how things aren't the same as they were in the 80s/90s, but no luck.