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School accommodations for OCD?


SKL
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I'm reading that OCD can impact school performance as well as behavior.  What school accommodations are typically given for this kind of diagnosed issue?

In our case, I can see how OCD symptoms (like needing to re-write a correct, legible answer) suck up time, and how distracting thoughts affect classroom focus.  Even before the diagnosis, some teachers were giving extra time on tests, but not always enough.  I understand that there have to be limits.  But what does this look like?  Should there be an IEP or a 504 or both?

Kid has been an A/B student, but this has trended down in the past couple years.  Still keeping about a B average, but with a lot more time and effort than normal.  School testing generally places her about average IQ with achievement scores that vary widely.  She has trouble with complex math reasoning; now I'm not sure if this is a learning disability or just OCD-related focus issues.

What would you tell teachers about the situation?  She has a big math test the rest of the week - mostly "story problems" - and she's worried she will bomb it.

Also, at home, what are some ideas for how to respond to the issues that affect school work?

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One of my kids with OCD was in brick and mortar school last year, 5th grade, with accommodations that took the OCD into account.

She had an IEP, they qualified her primarily with her anxiety diagnosis though she had a couple of other qualifiers as well. Accommodations included extra time on assignments/tests, being allowed to test separately in the resource room if she wanted, not being required to do homework (she still mostly did it, but she was allowed to not do it--because she was having nightly hours long meltdowns from the associated anxiety/stress); a signal she could give her teacher if she needed to take a break and step out of the classroom.

Mostly, it was helpful to talk to the her teaching team and keep them informed on what was going on. Knowing the diagnosis, knowing some of her manifestations, allowed them to be more patient and supportive with her. She had a really supportive teacher.

Even so, I brought her back home this year largely so we could really focus on mental health.

Edited by maize
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I would tell the teachers you have just started down a path you think will lead to an OCD diagnosis.  Or that you basically have an OCD diagnosis.  
 

Very soon or possibly right now, you can ask the counselor for a piece of paper saying she is diagnosed with OCD.  That person can also write down suggestions.  That might be — the new person you are going to see next?  
 

Then I would call the office and say this and ask to make an appointment to talk to — I would expect them to say either a counselor or social worker.  But they will know and can make you an appointment with someone.  
 

Does your daughter want you talking to her teachers?  
 

My son would not want me to talk to teachers.  He would be more comfortable with me talking to a counselor and then the counselor talking to his teachers.  He is like that.

I would not want to make her upset though if she would not want you to, or if she would want a little time.  Also maybe the counselor thinks she can talk to the teachers herself.  
 

It depends some on just what is going on, but it can be something where the counselor talks to your daughter about talking to the teachers herself.  
 

It just depends.  I think you are beginning a process and some of this will take a few weeks.  
 

But I think it’s a good time to have a conversation with someone at school, find out their process, find out if you are going to take documentation in and what it would consist of, etc.  

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Really I think you will be finding out as your daughter goes to her next appointments, things to try, etc, and then a lot comes from seeing how things go and adjusting.  
 

I would ask that person to recommend a book or website, and see if you can talk to that person or come in at the end of appointments (if you aren’t there the whole time).

No first-hand experience with OCD, this is more — how I think things can go in general when there is something going on and it’s time to bring it up at school.  
 

 

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There are no official accommodations (that you can ask for on college testing, etc.) without psych evals. If you can't afford private evals, you can go through the ps. They can easily diagnose the anxiety, because it's simply a form. Technically they should be compelled to examine the ASD question too, running pragmatics. Occasionally you'll even have a school with an ADOS-trained team. And if they botch the evals (which on ASD they almost assuredly will), you can file a dispute and request independent evals. If pricepoint is holding up the psych evals, that's how you make them happen.

And yes, given her age and the seriousness of the disability, you need official paper trail and psych evals. Now would be a good time because you can run them, have the paper trail in place for college testing and have her used to self-advocating, and then just update before college. At that time she'll be 17 and they'll do career counseling with her too. That's what we did. That 2nd round we did through the ps for free, creating just enough paper trail to get her college stuff set up. But first evals, you want privately if possible to get more thorough evals. If you can't do them privately on your own, then you've got the process I outlined above, state medicaid, whatever you can make happen.

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7 hours ago, SKL said:

School testing generally places her about average IQ with achievement scores that vary widely. 

What school testing? You mean standardized testing or was she evaluated for suspected disabilities at some point?

Testing on a dc like this could be wildly inaccurate, given the level of stress she had. A psych can calculate a GAI and adjust for low processing speed, etc. She might end up with accommodations that aren't on your radar yet.

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7 hours ago, SKL said:

What would you tell teachers about the situation?  She has a big math test the rest of the week - mostly "story problems" - and she's worried she will bomb it.

Sorry, this is ps or private? Some private schools work with the local public schools to implement IEPs and 504s and bring in intervention. Many do not. So that will depend on the school. If it's a cs and they call anxiety sin, then obviously going into the classroom and saying she got an anxiety diagnosis will NOT be helpful and will only subject her to bias.

If she's in the ps, you make a formal written request for evals and get the IEP/504 eval process going. 

The other issue here is PRIVACY. You're going to want to be very careful who you say things to. Privacy is a big deal. 

If she's having *anxiety* then how about a low tier intervention? Not only mindfulness, but what about if she tried some chamomile capsules or valerian? My dd was just saying she uses a time release valerian that she likes. Don't try that first thing on the morning of the test obviously. Or google for some mindfulness strategies for anxiety (breathing, etc.) and see if she can learn one or two to try during the test. Those are immediate options while you work out this larger picture.

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In our school, accommodations such as extended time on tests (50% more time than given the rest of the class, so if the class was given an hour, extended time would be a total of 90 minutes), reduced homework, reduced in-class work (for example, show that you know the math in the first ten ?'s, get graded just on those problems). These are typical in comparison to other schools that I've been at.

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In my school, kids with anxiety have access to extra breaks as needed, either just to take a walk in the building, or to go to a trusted adult's room (usually mine or the behavior analyst). They can also leave class with their work and work in an alternate location (like my office or the behavior analyst's room). We have one kiddo with anxiety who needs to be left alone when anxious, so the adults in the school have all been instructed to not speak to him if he's pacing the hallways or taking space in a quiet room. His 504 is very specific about his need to re regulate on his own. I think accomodations can vary depending on state and school - we are a small school in a small state and are able to be flexible with accomodations for kids.

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You are switching from private school this year in 8th grade to public school for high school, yes?

I would ask the psychologist that you meet with next for a letter that states the OCD diagnosis and says that it has been affecting her schoolwork, and that the psych recommends that the school tests her for learning issues in order to create appropriate accommodations for the classroom.

Then submit that letter to the PUBLIC school, along with a written letter from you requesting evaluations, due to issues that affect her classroom performance. This will trigger the legal time frame for the public school to run the testing and decide whether she needs an IEP or qualifies for a 504.

I think she should qualify for a 504 at the least.

Part of the process for the public school will be determining what kind of accommodations she has already been receiving. Your current private school and/or teachers should provide information regarding this.

Because you need the current school to provide information, it is especially important for you to contact the high school NOW and get things started with them. Once you leave the private school in May, the school may decide they don't have an incentive to cooperate as much with the public school process, but as long as she is a student there, they are legally bound to participate in the IEP process with the public school.

Plus, you will want things to be set up properly for her from Day One at the high school, instead of having her flounder for the first semester or first year.

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As far as what to do for the remainder of her current school year, again, ask the psych for that letter, and then you can take it with you to the school and discuss whether they can provide her with additional supports.

As for the difficulty with complex math concepts -- this can signal a learning disability. This is the kind of math disability that my son has. And it's tricky sometimes for teachers to recognize it. But it will become a greater barrier the more advanced that the math classes become.

So, for example, even though we kept talking to the school about DS's math disability, they thought he was doing fine and was on track for algebra. He is in a prealgebra course this year in 9th grade, and in October, I asked the teachers what would be the next step if he was not ready for algebra next year, and they gave me a perplexed look and said that algebra was just the next step and they didn't think it would be a problem.

Now, in February, we had a parent teacher conference, and they TOTALLY see that he is struggling, and they are NOT recommending algebra for him for 10th grade.

Algebra can be the great divide (as someone else just said in a PM to me!). If she has problems with math concepts, she might just find algebra to be really much harder than prealgebra but be able to make it through. Sometimes people manage algebra but then find geometry to be harder (especially if there is a visual spatial component to her difficulties).

I would request for the public school to test for a math LD. That way you will know, and she can get better support in the classroom, if needed.

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The tricky thing about math is that schools have students for whom math is just not their thing, and they get through their required classes with Cs, maybe. And they are just the average students.

And then there are the kids with math LDs who have trouble doing calculations, and that's a little easier for teachers to be able to recognize. DS's teachers mentioned this during our conference, that lots of the kids in his class just are working at a lower level, because they have problems calculating and following and remembering the steps for the problems.

But DS is different. He does not master the concepts, but he can calculate. He does have trouble with multi step problems. But his main problem is that he does not master concepts. Sometimes he can get enough practice that he can get through a certain type of problem, but then if the class does not keep practicing that, he forgets it, and the next time that that kind of problem pops up, he again cannot do it.

His math classes over the past few years have been working on prealgebra concepts enough that he has some basics of prealgebra down. But he cannot apply what he has learned to higher level problems. This is why there algebra is turning out to be the great divide for him, where the school is finally recognizing that his disability is impeding his progress.

If your daughter is the kind of math student who can muddle through and get Bs and Cs, the teachers are NOT going to be suspecting a math disability.

YOU will need to be the one to insist that the school test for it. If you can get her current math teacher to write a note saying that there have been difficulties, and that s/he thinks an evaluation would be helpful, that could be helpful. But you can make the request without teacher support, especially since you will have documentation from a psych saying that OCD may affect her classroom performance.

The school really has the obligation then to evaluate, to make sure that there is not ALSO a learning disability. The trouble with math concepts is NOT related to OCD the way that other math issues perhaps could be, so it merits evaluations.

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The school system has refused to test her any further for math.  She gets good enough computation results that it averages out the bad concept results.  They don't care about the fact that concepts and computations are completely different things.

However, the high school may be willing to do a comprehensive assessment given the new OCD information.  I will see what the psychologist says about it.

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Be prepared to hear the doctor or therapist advise against extra time to accommodate OCD behaviors. Very roughly put, the idea is that giving her extra time on a test because she wants to rewrite answers is the wrong approach, because it validates the idea that rewriting perfectly acceptable answers is important. Giving it that much importance will reinforce the idea that it's something she needs to do, which is the opposite of what you want. 

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When I was in the classroom, the most common written accommodations I saw for OCD kids had to do with allowing them to have things like fidgets or gum in order to distract from particular repetitive behaviors. I did see some extra time ones on IEP's, but not often that I can remember, honestly. 

Practically speaking, when perfectionism comes into play, there's a really complex balance between giving extra time and forcing kids to just do it and not do perfect work. Perfectionists, in my experience, tend to shut down and don't do work at all. And if you give them an inch, they'll try to take a mile. But I don't think being draconian with kids helps anyone... so it's complex. I don't think IEP's reflect that sort of balance very well overall.

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7 hours ago, SKL said:

The school system has refused to test her any further for math.  She gets good enough computation results that it averages out the bad concept results.  They don't care about the fact that concepts and computations are completely different things.

However, the high school may be willing to do a comprehensive assessment given the new OCD information.  I will see what the psychologist says about it.

Which school -- the private or the public one?

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11 hours ago, Storygirl said:

Which school -- the private or the public one?

Both really.  Though the public school did give me a new name to complain to, my daughter asked me not to keep pushing it.

The high school psych did indicate that if we got a mental health diagnosis, they would provide a comprehensive assessment to figure out what she would need in high school.  I emailed my latest sped contact at the public school to see what they say about that, now that a psychiatrist believes it is OCD.  (Not sure what documentation of formal diagnosis I would need.)

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2 hours ago, HeighHo said:

 

Does the current school have the resources to remediate, or are you expected to hire a private tutor?  

Its past time to talk with the high school guidance counselor.  Must get ball rolling so student is placed correctly for next year.

Current school is kindly providing some help, but not much.

She is keeping up OK for now with hard work.  She will be placed in regular classes next year.  All 9th graders take algebra unless they are either honors math or special ed.  We are not so far behind that we need special ed math classes.

I foresee a lot of math work over the summer though.

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13 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

 Also inquire about an Academic Support class which is not restricted to special ed but its a period daily where they can get help with any questions in a small group setting.

Our schools have this, but it is for students struggling far more than SKL's dd (with lower level work). It's not restricted to special ed, but in reality it's basically a special ed class. It's also usually seniors, maybe juniors, that they are trying to push, pull, and drag to graduation/completion. I would definitely want to see support classes and/or study halls in person before signing up for them, or at least ask around quite a bit. I would definitely be trying to connect with other parents if OP doesn't already know them. 

Daily math help: that would cost a fortune where I live, but we do have free online tutoring provided by the library system. I think they use Brainfuse. That might be something to check. 

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19 hours ago, katilac said:

Be prepared to hear the doctor or therapist advise against extra time to accommodate OCD behaviors. Very roughly put, the idea is that giving her extra time on a test because she wants to rewrite answers is the wrong approach, because it validates the idea that rewriting perfectly acceptable answers is important. Giving it that much importance will reinforce the idea that it's something she needs to do, which is the opposite of what you want. 

Yes, this! I have OCD and am thankful there were no accommodations like this when I was in school. Just speaking for myself, it would have been the opposite of helpful - it would have made the OCD more firmly entrenched.

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School psych for k-8 is suggesting the current school "team" come up with and document in-class accommodations to carry over to the high school.  She said she was at my kids' school today and asked a few teachers (not including the math teacher) how she was doing academically, and they said fine.  She will be there again Tuesday and offered to mention something to get a "team" discussion started.  I told her I need more time to think and will email her about what, if anything, I want her to say to anyone on Tuesday.

I don't know what to say.  I am really just trying to figure this out.  Maybe she doesn't need anything, or maybe if I do nothing then I will regret it later.  I have no guidance other than you guys!

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I think what the school psych is suggesting would end up being documented as a 504 plan. Accommodations without special education intervention can be done through a 504. When an intervention teacher is needed, or when extra services, such as speech therapy (not just for speech, but also for communication issues), are required, then an IEP is necessary.

What kind of help do you think she needs? If she does not need academic intervention, a 504 could be sufficient.

For example, my daughter with dyslexia has accommodations for the dyslexia but does not get intervention help for it any more. She does get some intervention for math, so she still has an IEP. Once she meets her math goals, she may drop down to needing only a 504.

My son, however, has a lot more needs. He needs intervention help across all academics. In our high school, intervention looks like this: DS's academic classes have both a general ed teacher and an intervention teacher in the room. This is called a co-taught class. He does not get 1:1 help in class (except he has some great English teachers who do provide that) but just has more frequent check-ins from the teacher during class. There are other students in those classes who get this check-in intervention help, as well. He has certain accommodations also, such as getting copies of notes, because he is horrible at note-taking. He has specific goals to work on in his IEP, and the intervention teachers will pull him out of his study hall (a special academic assist study hall) for these sessions. He also gets weekly sessions with a speech therapist during his study hall. Because he has an IEP, the school must assist with transition planning for what happens after high school, and there are a number of things related to that that we interact with the school about.

So, two kids with IEPs, but really different needs. I will be okay if DD's IEP drops to a 504, but it would disastrous for that to happen for DS.

Students can have learning disabilities or other issues, and if they are keeping up in the classroom, the school does not have to offer an IEP.

So if you think that she only needs accommodations and not intervention help, what the high school psych suggests might be okay. The issue is that you will not be answering the question about whether there is a math disability. To be honest, the school may not be the greatest at figuring that out for you. They only look at whether the child can be appropriately educated without intervention (using the data from testing and teacher input), and they will not look for the root reason for the problems.

If you want to know the root reasons for her problems, you will need to get thorough private evaluations. The school just won't provide those answers for you. They will only investigate to see if she can keep up with the classroom work or not. As long as she is doing average (Bs and Cs), the school will think she is doing fine. DH and I have spent a LOT of time explaining to schools and teachers what DS's root issues are and what his LDs look like, because the teachers honestly cannot see it, much of the time. They just see the grades and have opinions about the student's effort, but they can't discern whether there is disability (except in some obvious cases, where they might alert parents that there is a problem).

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I know that is not a great answer. Here is the thing. You have the right to request evaluations, saying that you suspect a disability. You MUST request it in writing. Just talking to the psych or someone in the special ed department is not sufficient. They can have any conversation about things with you that they want and make any suggestions that they feel like. But once you submit that WRITTEN request, they have a legal obligation to either give you a definitive YES we will evaluate or NO we don't think there is a need.

Right now, her teachers seem to be saying there is not a need, and the school will take that opinion over yours. I'm sad to say that, but it's true. If her current teachers say that she is doing fine academically, it will be hard for you to get the public school to evaluate her, unless you have some other documentation.

That is where the new diagnosis can be key. They already told you that they might evaluate if she gets a psych diagnosis, right? And now they are backpedaling and saying that they don't think it's needed, really.

You can either accept that and ask for a 504. Or you can hold firm and make a written request for school evaluations. Or you can go get private testing and take it back to the school as proof that she needs to be tested by the school.

Personally, it sounds to me like you will get the best answers from private testing. If you already have some test results (didn't you get some done a couple of years ago), and if you feel comfortable doing so, you could post some of the numerical results over on the LC board. People there who have had their kids go through testing sometimes know how to interpret some of the results and might be able to say, "yes, looks like a problem in those scores," or "those scores aren't low enough for the school to care, even if they are having an effect on her."

I've found that to be helpful.

Just so that you are aware, it's possible to have testing that shows low scores in some areas, but for those scores not to be low enough to trigger extra help from the school. This can be a frustrating place to find oneself. It happened to us with our younger son (not the one I mentioned in my post above).  He ended up with a 504 but not an IEP.

Based on what you have said about her before, I would predict that your daughter's educational testing would show that she has high verbal scores but lower performance scores. I'm predicting that, because many of her issues remind me of what we see in my son (although not to as severe an extent). I could be wrong!! But there are clues in testing scores, and sometimes the other moms on the LC boards can point them out and explain what they might mean.

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For example, if she has a low processing speed, that can indicate that an extra time accommodation would probably be helpful to her. I know that others have pointed out that extra time can be a poor choice with OCD. I don't have experience with OCD, but if part of her slowness is due to slow processing, that is important to take into consideration.

The kind of danger with agreeing to go along with accommodations without testing is that you don't really know what the issues are. And if you agree to not test, then you are giving up an opportunity to get more of that information.

Unless you decide to get more private testing. If you think you are likely to go that route, I would ask the people at the high school what happens if you agree to accommodations in a 504 now, but then collect more information later that may indicate a need for an IEP? How willing will they be to revist the idea of testing? Or, once she has a 504, will they just be firm that that is enough?

I would confirm, by the way, that what the psych is suggesting regarding making a list of accommodations, would be documented in a 504. That is the legal document that would ensure that all of her teachers must give her the accommodations. It does little good to have some teachers do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and to have others refuse. There must be a 504 to ensure that all will comply.

 

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I think the psych today didn't get the whole picture since she did not talk to the math teacher.

Maybe my email back to her will suggest she talk to the math teacher.  Not sure whether or not he would recommend more academic testing.  For better or worse, she did well on the fall "MAP" tests in math, though that was unusual for her (in math).  She also does fine on the homework, because she takes a lot of time and I usually review and supervise corrections.  On tests, she doesn't usually do great, but the teacher allows kids to do test corrections to improve their score, so it helps her to keep a decent average.  But anyone watching her actually trying to do a multi-step problem on her own would see what I'm talking about.

I gotta get on a conference call.  I'm still working this OCD stuff out in my head in between work deadlines!

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So back after the conference call and other stuff.

(Except I just heard now I have to go to dinner.)

I keep changing what I'm typing kuz I really don't know what I want.

I was hoping others had some experience with specific solutions.

I feel like asking the teachers to brainstorm will go nowhere and just leave me and my kid looking stupid.  Sigh!!

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I am a high school classroom teacher with a student with an IEP for OCD and a mom of a kid with several OCD.

 

My student has 50% extended time and the freedom to go to her counselor's office whenever needed.  As a mother of a child with severe OCD, there have been a few times when I could tell that my student was struggling with on OCD obsession but she has never requested to leave and never used her extended time.

As a mother I would say that as you lean what your daughters obsession/compulsions are you will be able to decide what accommodations she might need.

My daughter was never affected academically by her OCD.  Looking back she began exhibiting signs of OCD around age 7, she was homeschooled k-8th grade, went to college after 8th grade, graduated from college at 18, began a math Phd at 19, was diagnosed with OCD at 20, left the math Phd at 20 and began a special ed masters graduated with her masters at 21, and now teaches adapted curriculum in a high school. She is currently 23.

Her OCD manifests primarily as contamination OCD but with food rather than germs as the contaminant. She obsesses that her hands that she has washed many times have food particles on them still and that they will rub her eyes and get them in her eye and something horrible will happen. She cannot stand to be touched with "dirty" hands.

She also deals with obsessions about "evenness" One shoe is tied tighter than the other, someone touched one arm but didn't touch the other...

She has a lower level of scrupulosity, and a lower level of "harm" OCD. (obsession that she may accidentally hurt/kill someone or herself.

The gold standard of treatment is ERP, basically doing the thing that you are afraid to do and avoid the compulsion to "fix or undo it" until your brain realizes that nothing horrible will happen. She was absolutely incapable of ERP until we found a med combination that lowered her OCD obessions/compulsons to a level that allowed her to fight back.

as a result of her food related OCD she has had 4 relapses of anorexia, but her meds and then ERP have changed so much.

She is very successfully employed, has great friends and is engaged to be married.  Most people will never know that she has OCD, her friends know and are used to her little oddities, her fiancé is amazing with her. Last week they went on a hike and she was stressed about a work situation so her OCD was on high alert. She stopped 4 times in about 1/4 mile to retie her shoes so they were even. He finally stopped and said "If I tie them, they can't be uneven" and knelt down to tie her shoes.  She said they were still uneven but she could handle it and had a great hike.

A lot of words to say that she may need accommodations for school and she may not.  You will learn a lot in the next few months and that may help you to decide.

Good luck, it can be a wild ride but there is hope. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

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I have no experience, but would recording a video of a homework session possibly be helpful?  Do her math exams reflect the original grade, before corrections, so you could go back and make a spreadsheet that shows her true exam scores?  No idea if those suggestions are helpful, so ignore me if they aren’t!  

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I agree that you should ask the psych to observe math and talk to the math teacher before making any decisions,  because of the bolded comment below. Tell the psych that multi-step problems are a specific concern.

Algebra and higher math are ALL ABOUT multi-step problems, so this is a major deal, and the psych needs to know that you would like it to be evaluated.

Will the current math teacher be able to confirm the trouble with multi-step problems? Our experience is that some math teachers are great at seeing the details of how kids are doing, and others are not.

If you think that the math teacher is not going to be able to confirm the issue, be honest with the psych about that. Tell her that she may not get the full picture from the teacher, but that if she takes a few minutes to sit with your daughter while she does some multi-step problems, she may get a better idea from her own observations.

In our experience, the classroom observation part that the school psych did was from a distance, just kind of watching from the edge of the room to see what was happening, and that none of the students would be aware that she was watching one particular student.

Let her know that that might not be the kind of observation that will allow her to see the problems you are talking about. Maybe your daughter can be called to the office for a few minutes to work with her privately. The psych may not agree to do that, but it is worth asking for, before you will agree that full evaluations are not needed.

21 hours ago, SKL said:

I think the psych today didn't get the whole picture since she did not talk to the math teacher.

Maybe my email back to her will suggest she talk to the math teacher.  Not sure whether or not he would recommend more academic testing.  For better or worse, she did well on the fall "MAP" tests in math, though that was unusual for her (in math).  She also does fine on the homework, because she takes a lot of time and I usually review and supervise corrections.  On tests, she doesn't usually do great, but the teacher allows kids to do test corrections to improve their score, so it helps her to keep a decent average.  But anyone watching her actually trying to do a multi-step problem on her own would see what I'm talking about.

I gotta get on a conference call.  I'm still working this OCD stuff out in my head in between work deadlines!

 

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If she's a middle school age student who is maintaining a B average, the chances are good that you'll have a very difficult time getting an IEP because currently a "lack of educational impact."  Getting a 504 plan with accomodations should be straight forward if she has a diagnosis. Typically the diagnostician would prepare a report to give the school stating the diagnosis, along with recommendations. 

 

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4 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I agree that you should ask the psych to observe math and talk to the math teacher before making any decisions,  because of the bolded comment below. Tell the psych that multi-step problems are a specific concern.

Algebra and higher math are ALL ABOUT multi-step problems, so this is a major deal, and the psych needs to know that you would like it to be evaluated.

Will the current math teacher be able to confirm the trouble with multi-step problems? Our experience is that some math teachers are great at seeing the details of how kids are doing, and others are not.

If you think that the math teacher is not going to be able to confirm the issue, be honest with the psych about that. Tell her that she may not get the full picture from the teacher, but that if she takes a few minutes to sit with your daughter while she does some multi-step problems, she may get a better idea from her own observations.

In our experience, the classroom observation part that the school psych did was from a distance, just kind of watching from the edge of the room to see what was happening, and that none of the students would be aware that she was watching one particular student.

Let her know that that might not be the kind of observation that will allow her to see the problems you are talking about. Maybe your daughter can be called to the office for a few minutes to work with her privately. The psych may not agree to do that, but it is worth asking for, before you will agree that full evaluations are not needed.

 

This is standard practice for psychs making classroom observations. I teach this age group, and to be candid, most of the time they don't observe what I need them to see, unless it's a kid who is extremely distractable or literally physically can't stay still. 

On 2/28/2020 at 1:59 PM, SKL said:

I think the psych today didn't get the whole picture since she did not talk to the math teacher.

Maybe my email back to her will suggest she talk to the math teacher.  Not sure whether or not he would recommend more academic testing.  For better or worse, she did well on the fall "MAP" tests in math, though that was unusual for her (in math).  She also does fine on the homework, because she takes a lot of time and I usually review and supervise corrections.  On tests, she doesn't usually do great, but the teacher allows kids to do test corrections to improve their score, so it helps her to keep a decent average.  But anyone watching her actually trying to do a multi-step problem on her own would see what I'm talking about.

I gotta get on a conference call.  I'm still working this OCD stuff out in my head in between work deadlines!

By not great, do you mean lower than a C average?  Also, is the school using an ABCD grading scale, or are they using standards based grading? 

 

5 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I agree that you should ask the psych to observe math and talk to the math teacher before making any decisions,  because of the bolded comment below. Tell the psych that multi-step problems are a specific concern.

Algebra and higher math are ALL ABOUT multi-step problems, so this is a major deal, and the psych needs to know that you would like it to be evaluated.

Will the current math teacher be able to confirm the trouble with multi-step problems? Our experience is that some math teachers are great at seeing the details of how kids are doing, and others are not.

If you think that the math teacher is not going to be able to confirm the issue, be honest with the psych about that. Tell her that she may not get the full picture from the teacher, but that if she takes a few minutes to sit with your daughter while she does some multi-step problems, she may get a better idea from her own observations.

In our experience, the classroom observation part that the school psych did was from a distance, just kind of watching from the edge of the room to see what was happening, and that none of the students would be aware that she was watching one particular student.

Let her know that that might not be the kind of observation that will allow her to see the problems you are talking about. Maybe your daughter can be called to the office for a few minutes to work with her privately. The psych may not agree to do that, but it is worth asking for, before you will agree that full evaluations are not needed.

 

I may be wrong on this, but I don't think our school psychs can just call a student down and have them do math problems so they can observe. With adequate justification, they can do testing with written permission of the parent. This may not always be the case, but I'm pretty sure ours follow protocols on testing. 

One other thing you should be aware of is that schools have a set process before most students in this age group would get an IEP for math, and that's even with students that we teachers know for certain need one. (Yes, it's frustrating!) Frequently that process takes upwards of a year and involves the student receiving support at specific levels to see if that helps build skills first. If your district is using this process, then struggling, low testing students would go through the process outlined here: 

https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/educational-strategies/mtss-what-you-need-to-know

Like I said above, getting accomodations for a student with diagnosed OCD should be easy. Does the school offer any after school academic support where she could get extra math help? 

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All I'm really super clear on right now is that my kid needs more help with math concepts / problem solving.  I think that is separate from the OCD stuff, but I could be wrong about that.  It is possible the OCD stuff is making it hard to hold focus long enough to solve a multi-step problem.  My kid is not a genius to begin with, but she is able to learn with enough guidance and practice.  She also needs the confidence and stamina to power through and get it done.

My current, early thinking about the OCD itself is that I guess I just don't want her penalized for being slow.  I understand the argument that giving extra time can encourage the OCD behaviors and make them worse.  But expecting 100% completion within the standard time is gonna mean failure.  That can't be the right answer.

I have lots of ideas, but I see downsides to all of them.  Like only being graded on the questions she finishes - but once she knows this, she'll just do the ones that are easy for her and leave the rest.  Or maybe she would have to finish 3/5 of the questions in each section.  She would still have to learn the stuff.  But I don't think the teacher would go for that on an informal basis; in fact, he might be seen as unfair to others if he did ....

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I don't have great advice.  I was actually able to get my kid an IEP while we were homeschooling second or third grade based on her neuropsych scores for learning disability.  The school did some surface level testing, but it wasn't a real fight.  She kept an ISP when she went to private school, but pretty early on it was "consult only" because she hated the intervention teacher.  She did well in school, although we got Wilson tutoring privately.  Because we had the ISP, it was an automatic thing when we went to public school to give her an IEP, although they wouldn't give her the only accommodation I asked for (not counting off for spelling in work that isn't take home where you can get an editor).  Teachers have informally not counted off for spelling, so it hasn't been an issue, but I want to revisit that before she starts high school.  They focused primarily on things like small group testing and such, which she really didn't need or in most cases, want.  They had ideas about what she needed before they met her, just looking at her testing and diagnoses.  And because of the trajectory of the private school versus public and my insistence, she was in honors classes rather than regular co taught classes.  (My logic was that while she has these learning disabilities, in practice, the biggest danger is her tuning out and ignoring what's going on.  She doesn't suffer fools or bad behavior well.  She'll just pull out a book and ignore everything going on, including the teacher, if it's too chaotic.  In our district, the honors classes have by far the least behavioral issues.  So, even though she cannot spell to save her life and has some major issues with math, I wanted her in honors.)  She's actually not getting any direct services, other than homeroom in the special ed room because it's smaller and less crowded.  Her seventh grade year, the year she started, for most of the year her homeroom was just her and the teacher.  She's actually done way better in algebra than she did in math leading up to it.  She says algebra is just logical.  She has requested her small group testing a handful of times, when kids were being loud and crazy.  She doesn't have the choice for small group for standardized tests, but for classroom tests, it's up to her.  

I actually am kind of shocked that they've let her remain on an IEP without any real direct services, but the difference with kids in public school when there is a crisis between kids with and without an IEP is dramatic.  My older kid didn't have an IEP, and when she developed debilitating anxiety that led to her not feeling like she could keep herself safe at school, I went to the guidance counselor.  They were like, "Well.  Nothing we can do.  If the psychiatrist says she needs homebound, then we can do that, but other than that, she just has to figure it out.  She could go to the school for drop outs, if she wanted."  She had all A's in honors and AP classes and perfect scores on standardized tests, but they would not work with us at all to keep her in school.  So we didn't feel like we had any choice other than to pull her out of school.  It was a horrific disaster.  

Twice, my younger kid with an IEP has had major issues related to her anxiety, which is not the condition that her IEP is for.  Once it was because they were mandating a certain way of using her locker, and she could never get the locker open.  (Having been to school to get her books when she was sick for several days, I couldn't get the locker open reliably either.  I think the issue wasn't her but defective lockers.)  Another time was when she won the school science fair and advanced to the city science fair.  She is on the spectrum and has severe anxiety.  She doesn't reliably ask wait staff for a refill.  The science fair part where she had to talk to a stranger about her project one on one terrified her.  She had a major panic attack, and the thought of having to do that again was unbearable for her and had led her to the decision that she would sabotage herself so that she never, ever accidentally won again.  Both times, because we had a contact person because of the IEP, we were able to solve the problem within 24 hours.  The IEP gives us a contact person who has authority to solve problems.  So I'm extremely pro-IEP, even if you aren't really using services or accommodations on it.  

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On 2/27/2020 at 2:57 PM, katilac said:

Be prepared to hear the doctor or therapist advise against extra time to accommodate OCD behaviors. Very roughly put, the idea is that giving her extra time on a test because she wants to rewrite answers is the wrong approach, because it validates the idea that rewriting perfectly acceptable answers is important. Giving it that much importance will reinforce the idea that it's something she needs to do, which is the opposite of what you want. 

A hundred likes to this.

 

Edited by Violet Crown
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16 hours ago, SKL said:

All I'm really super clear on right now is that my kid needs more help with math concepts / problem solving.  I think that is separate from the OCD stuff, but I could be wrong about that.  It is possible the OCD stuff is making it hard to hold focus long enough to solve a multi-step problem.  My kid is not a genius to begin with, but she is able to learn with enough guidance and practice.  She also needs the confidence and stamina to power through and get it done.

My current, early thinking about the OCD itself is that I guess I just don't want her penalized for being slow.  I understand the argument that giving extra time can encourage the OCD behaviors and make them worse.  But expecting 100% completion within the standard time is gonna mean failure.  That can't be the right answer.

I have lots of ideas, but I see downsides to all of them.  Like only being graded on the questions she finishes - but once she knows this, she'll just do the ones that are easy for her and leave the rest.  Or maybe she would have to finish 3/5 of the questions in each section.  She would still have to learn the stuff.  But I don't think the teacher would go for that on an informal basis; in fact, he might be seen as unfair to others if he did ....

HeighHo mentioned many of the same things that I would.

I will just add that a good teacher should be able to modify a student's work load without the entire class knowing that they are not doing the same thing as everyone else. It's common in the public school. Now, DS15 can and does have his work modified, but he does sometimes object to it, because he does not want to be different from everyone else. This has presented problems a few times that we have had to work through with DS15 and his intervention team.

Also, you might see if you can meet with one of the math intervention teachers at the high school, or at least email them. Or another teacher in the math department. You can ask any question that you might have, but there is a specific one that you should be able to get an easy answer for: "Do the math teachers in high school grade homework or check to see if it has been completed?"

At our high school, the math teachers assign homework but do not check it. This is because there are so many ways for students to cheat on homework nowadays that they found that students were getting all of the homework correct all of the time, but still were not doing well on the tests.

So now, the homework is expected to be completed by the students on their own accord, as practice, and is not checked. Students who don't practice don't do as well in the class, and the teachers have decided to let that be a natural consequence.

It's possible that math homework, therefore, will not be an issue for your daughter in high school. You may be able to work out with her each night whether she has done enough to learn what she needs to know, instead of having her do the whole assignment. Because she has some trouble with math, this will require you to work with her each night, though. I would not expect her to be able to decide on her own whether she has done enough problems (at least, my son can't decide that for himself -- he just wants to avoid doing the work).

If your high school does check or grade homework, then, YES, modifying the amount of problems or the time spent on homework can be an accommodation in a 504 plan or an IEP.

The issue becomes, though, how much practice the student needs to achieve mastery. If she needs a lot of practice, reducing the number of problems can backfire. So this can be tricky.

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And yes, ask if there are options for how to get through algebra. Our high school does not offer algebra spread over two years, but some do.

There may be a prealgebra class, even though it may not be called prealgebra. Ours is called AGS or Algebra, Geometry, Statistics. Another school calls it Algebra Prep.

Ask if the public high school (or middle school) has an algebra placement exam. My other son skipped up a grade last year, into algebra, and the school had him take a placement exam to confirm that he was ready.

I think a placement exam would be valuable in your situation. I would ask for one.

Finally, if she ends up in algebra, I think she would benefit from being in a co-taught class. This is a class that has an extra intervention teacher in the room, so there are two teachers. The intervention teacher should help ANY student that seems to be needing extra assistance, whether they have an IEP and are technically on the intervention case load or not.

Ask if she can be in a co-taught class, even if she does not have an IEP. It would be an excellent placement for her.

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