This is so strange...

[Heathermomster]

As some of you may know, my 17yo works with a CBT for EF work.  He also worked with a ped PT two years back and finally learned to swim and sit at a desk properly.  He started playing football last year and is currently in pre-season practice.  He was diagnosed with the SLD of written expression on his 8th birthday and has typed everything except math since he was aged 11yo.  The boy never lifts a pencil except for math.  We have not attempted handwriting practice with any consistency in maybe 4ish years...I genuinely cannot remember.  DS has maths and reading SLDs and is 2e...SOO...

 

Based upon son's recent ACT results with the time accommodation, the CBT informs me that DS will likely lose his SLD of written expression diagnosis...When the CBT told me that, I blew a fuse.  I asked him why he would make that assumption based upon an accommodated exam?  CBT believes that DS has improved enough to lose the diagnosis and new testing will decide.  I was flummoxed at the time and never asked him about the SLDs for reading and mathematics.

 

Understand, I have been sitting on this news and looking at my child now for 3 weeks.  DS genuinely has not picked up a pencil and written with a purpose in years.  On Monday, I handed him a huge paragraph and asked him to copy it.  DS copied the paragraph in a very short time and it was legible.  Now, we are back to cursive practice in anticipation of him losing his dysgraphia diagnosis.  Things are looking iffy at this point, and I have no idea how I feel about that.

 

I'd appreciate some thoughts.  DS will be retested during his senior year of high school in prep for college accommodations.   Can one lose all of their SLDs?  Processing speed was measured last at 15%.

 

Thank-you,

Heather

[PeterPan]

Retained reflexes can underlie dysgraphia. I guess just roll with it and be glad he's improving! I'd use a different psychologist for fresh evals if you have to do them. If you don't HAVE to for college I wouldn't.

Edited May 11, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

Our college wanted in the last 3 years. Maybe you can squeak by? I'd go back to the psych who previously diagnosed the SLDs and let him decide.

[Lecka]

I think it is good you have a heads up I guess?

 

I had a shocker with my 12-year-old now doing fine on "copying shapes and figures." How did it happen? No idea. He has had OT (including retained reflexes). He has also matured and even OTs tell me they see kids improve with age.

 

However with my son in public school, what I am seeing (in two places) that when all kids need is to type, then typing is seen as something that is easy and very reasonable.

 

I know there may be specific times when typing is only allowed if there is an accommodation, but in general I am hearing that typing is very easy to come by.

 

Keep in mind that copying a paragraph and composing and writing a paragraph are two different things. My son's handwriting is very different between the two.

 

Overall I think that for the most part -- either way typing will be an easy option most of the time.

 

For those other times -- I hope he still can qualify for accommodations if he does do worse without them.

 

But I think you will need to experiment and see how he does worth handwriting, and that will give you some direction.

 

I am glad you got the heads up, though!

[Storygirl]

That is interesting!

 

A counselor at the dyslexia school mentioned to me that since only one qualifying criteria goes on the IEP, if ADHD is present, it is better to try to have the qualifier be OHI instead of SLD. Because people can improve out of their SLD qualifier, but someone will always have ADHD.

 

So it seems it is possible, and the dyslexia school has probably seen it happen, which is why she mentioned it to me.

 

DS13 was diagnosed with SLD written expression at age 9 buy the NP, but the school did not give him the SLD label in his IEP. I really didn't think of him as having lost the SLD; I just assumed it was something that people look at in different ways, so that someone could diagnose it and another evaluator would decide not to.

 

Because at age 10 a different NP did not give the written expression SLD to DD11 with dyslexia. But at age 10 1/2, the school DID. She had not improved at all in those six months, but they were considering different things. The school gave the label because her spelling was so poor that it rendered some of her writing unintelligible. The NP saw that but considered it an aspect of the dyslexia under SLD reading.

 

I agree with Elizabeth to have his testing done by someone other than the CBT (if they even do testing), since they seem to have formed an opinion already.

 

It also sounds like your son has really improved. The tricky thing is that maybe he could get by without typing accommodations in college and produce good work. However, if the writing causes a lot of fatigue, that will affect the output. My daughter's tutor is dyslexic; she is an intervention teacher and can read and write well, but she says she used her accommodations for college classes, because even though she could read the material, it caused her a lot of fatigue.

 

So even if he has improved, if there is a way for him to keep the accommodations for college, it would be great.

 

Could you do the testing soon? Then if he loses it, he would have more time to practice before college. I don't know if I would have him practice too much before the new testing is done.

[Storygirl]

I agree with Lecka that handwriting can vary depending on whether the person is composing or copying. DD11 can have absolutely beautiful handwriting when she is copying. But when she is writing her thoughts, it is horrible.

 

I think you could ask what testing psychs do to determine the diagnosis. I'm not sure there is a standard tool??? If they have choices about what to evaluate, choose a psych who will be sure to see the areas of struggle and not just the areas of improvement.

[OneStepAtATime]

I agree, maybe go with the flow on this and I agree if you have to get a new evaluation maybe go with someone new and see.  Maybe all this time and effort in various other areas have truly paid off and your DS has made significant improvements in handwriting too, even if handwriting itself was no longer being targeted.  

 

FWIW, DS has usually had pretty, or at least very legible, handwriting if he was copying from something nearby and the source was in large type written printed text and he was allowed to write veeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy slowwwwwwwlllllllyyyyyyyy.  If he is copying from far away, copying from someone's handwriting, having to write at normal speed or writing as he thinks of ideas it is a vastly different story.  

 

You might see how his handwriting is if he is writing out his own ideas, not copying a preprinted passage.

[Heathermomster]

Ok, I'm going to have him handwrite fresh paragraphs. I am not using the CBT for any additional NP testing. I suppose with low processing speed, he'd still qualify for extra test taking time.

 

If DS were to dual enroll today at the local CC, he could use his current np report which expires in August. DS hopes to move off and attend college elsewhere, so he will have to be retested for college accommodations.

 

During the intake interview for testing when he was 11yo, the tester actually stated that he was unlikely to be dysgraphic. After testing, she assured us that he was. I guess I should not freak out. His comments were just unexpected.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Heathermomster

[Lecka]

Part of this I think is there can be a cluster of symptoms people are used to seeing, and when pieces of the cluster have been successfully remediated, they are confused why they aren't seeing the other parts of the cluster.

 

My 12-year-old got that some with reading.... for a speech therapist or an OT, they know that when they see certain things with a kid, that kid is usually also a struggling reader. Well -- unless they get reading remediation! And it goes well!