ADHD - IEP ... ???

How do you know your son is a serious case of ADHD before testing? That doesn’t add up…. For some reason you feel he is displaying the lose symptoms of ADHD. Ok fair enough, May i just say to you, before you destroy his life forever, and his sense of self, before you have him tested, please please please take him to a real doctor. One that is not looking for an usdcientifically measurable issue. But one that is looking for something physically tangible. ADHD, is commonly a diagnosis made in error because no one thinks anymore to look for a physical reason for the behaviors. There are over 400 physical ailments that can cause the symptoms of ADHD. When taken care of, often the symptoms then go away with the physical issue. Please, don’t do this to your child till you have had him medically tested for all physical everything, if then nothing is found, go see the therapists and see what they have to say. Some of these things that masquerade as ADHD, are huge and critical. By having your child labled and medicated for something that doesn’t even register on the radar of legitimate scientists before looking for the physical problem that could be at the heart of his problem, you could shorten your son’s life or even cause his untimely death by overlooking something physical and not in point of fact an LD.

If you do decide to medicate which i suspect is the whole point, You should really stop and consider other options. The truth is the medications for ADHD are not as mild as they claim. The fact of scientific research clearly shows they are useful at best short term and in the long term they actually cause atrophy in the brain and what is more, they are very hard drugs. For example ritalin causes the same effect as cocaine. You wouldn’t give your son cocaine would you? Well if you let them perscribe him ritalin that is exactly what you are giving him, an enhanced cocaine, as that is how his brain reacts. What is more, ADHD drugs work the same on people with ADHD as those without it. They can not produce any legitimate science that backs up this diagnosis as a legitimate physical reality. It is all based on opinion. They like to promote the idea that it is genetic yet they can not even point out which half of the genome the defect falls in. Therefore passing it off as genetic is a down right falsehood until they can provide something to substantiate the claim. Studies from Harvard show that 30 minutes of recess each day even lowers the rate of diagnosis of ADHD in children by over 40%. Which kinda tells you something…

Perhaps your son does have an LD though, Perhaps it isn’t ADHD, Perhaps it is…. Perhaps it is something physical…. But, many children with real LDs react to them behaving like they have ADHD when it is just frusteration with certain difficulties. In which case medicating them is a bad idea as you won’t be dealing with the real issue even still…

Hmm, well this is the nature of having an LD child. They seem to think that all of us are just guinea pigs somehow less than others and to be used for their experimentation. The fact is they claim to always have our best interests at heart but it is all a lie. THey want to use us. To promote themselves in their feild. So that when they have learned enough studying us and experimenting on us in any one of a trillion ways including messing with the IEPS and 504s, that they can go and earn a massive amount of money for their special information, gotten from our blood sweat and tears. Which is why when i am a parent, Any shrink that wants to see my child or any school that expects my child to attend it, will have to pry my child from my hands after killing me and decapitating my body. Because they don’t really care. They just want to see what works not for your child but for how much they can sell their brand of ADHD help for.

Good luck with your issue. And please, i am begging you, get your son checked out physically in major detail before you do this. I was labled ADHD for years. It turns out, I had a vitamin B deficiency and an iron deficiency, couple that with very real dyslexia…. But there are multitudes of things that masquerade as ADHD. Don’t be duped! Look into that last. First make sure it is nothing super serious.

To get back to your original question. The school cannot diagnose ADHD. Does he have other issues beside the ADHD? (Some kids with ADHD have comorbid conditions e.g. dyslexia.) The school also will not diagnose dyslexia.

What the school evaluation will do is to see if your child qualifes for servies based upon specific criteria. Here is an article at LDonline that might be beneficial:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6086

With regard to the 504 Plan, you state that the resource specialist removeded 12 items from his 504 plan. Was a new 504 plan then instituted less those 12 items? When you say they are not implementing the 504 plan, are your referencing the 12 items that were removed? Is your child experiencing any difficulties since those accomodations were removed?

What accommodations were removed and of the 12 removed are theare any that you feel your child still requires? Can you substantiate the difficulty that your child is experiencing since those accommodations were removed? Keep any copies of tests, homework, schoolwork that demonstrates your point.

This article should also be very informative:

http://www.ldonline.org/adhdbasics/school

Best Wishes.

[quote=Mandi]How do you know your son is a serious case of ADHD before testing?[/quote]

My son has been tested. We know for sure that he has ADHD. I guess it’s possible that he does have another medical issue we don’t know about. That is why we are having my son tested even more ….

[quote]If you do decide to medicate which i suspect is the whole point, You should really stop and consider other options. The truth is the medications for ADHD are not as mild as they claim. The fact of scientific research clearly shows they are useful at best short term and in the long term they actually cause atrophy in the brain and what is more, they are very hard drugs. For example ritalin causes the same effect as cocaine. You wouldn’t give your son cocaine would you? Well if you let them perscribe him ritalin that is exactly what you are giving him, an enhanced cocaine, as that is how his brain reacts. What is more, ADHD drugs work the same on people with ADHD as those without it. They can not produce any legitimate science that backs up this diagnosis as a legitimate physical reality. It is all based on opinion. They like to promote the idea that it is genetic yet they can not even point out which half of the genome the defect falls in. Therefore passing it off as genetic is a down right falsehood until they can provide something to substantiate the claim. Studies from Harvard show that 30 minutes of recess each day even lowers the rate of diagnosis of ADHD in children by over 40%. Which kinda tells you something…[/quote]

I waited long enough before my son started taking medication (Concerta). The medication is helping him, although my son still needs intervention from the teachers and other staff.

[quote]Perhaps your son does have an LD though, Perhaps it isn’t ADHD, Perhaps it is…. Perhaps it is something physical…. But, many children with real LDs react to them behaving like they have ADHD when it is just frusteration with certain difficulties. In which case medicating them is a bad idea as you won’t be dealing with the real issue even still… [/quote]

There are other issues … which is why we need the school to evaluate my son and set up an IEP.

[quote]Hmm, well this is the nature of having an LD child. They seem to think that all of us are just guinea pigs somehow less than others and to be used for their experimentation. The fact is they claim to always have our best interests at heart but it is all a lie. THey want to use us. To promote themselves in their feild. So that when they have learned enough studying us and experimenting on us in any one of a trillion ways including messing with the IEPS and 504s, that they can go and earn a massive amount of money for their special information, gotten from our blood sweat and tears. Which is why when i am a parent, Any shrink that wants to see my child or any school that expects my child to attend it, will have to pry my child from my hands after killing me and decapitating my body. Because they don’t really care. They just want to see what works not for your child but for how much they can sell their brand of ADHD help for.[/quote]

I was labeled a bad person when I was growing up. I guess they just didn’t know about ADHD back in the days. I grew up believing that I was a no-good for nothing kid, who was rude, disruptive, disrespectful, didn’t care, lazy, and so on ….

[quote]Good luck with your issue. And please, i am begging you, get your son checked out physically in major detail before you do this. I was labled ADHD for years. It turns out, I had a vitamin B deficiency and an iron deficiency, couple that with very real dyslexia…. But there are multitudes of things that masquerade as ADHD. Don’t be duped! Look into that last. First make sure it is nothing super serious. [/quote]

My son will be visiting many doctors … So far, all the tests they have done are negative.

[quote=Anonymous]To get back to your original question. The school cannot diagnose ADHD. Does he have other issues beside the ADHD? (Some kids with ADHD have comorbid conditions e.g. dyslexia.) The school also will not diagnose dyslexia. [/quote]

My son also has hypoglycemia really bad, along with serious emotional trauma, which can cause problems at school and home.

[quote]What the school evaluation will do is to see if your child qualifes for servies based upon specific criteria. Here is an article at LDonline that might be beneficial:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6086

With regard to the 504 Plan, you state that the resource specialist removeded 12 items from his 504 plan. Was a new 504 plan then instituted less those 12 items? When you say they are not implementing the 504 plan, are your referencing the 12 items that were removed? Is your child experiencing any difficulties since those accomodations were removed?[/quote]

The items that were removed from my son’s 504 Plan were important, and I will be requesting that they put those items back in my son’s 504 Plan.

[quote]What accommodations were removed and of the 12 removed are theare any that you feel your child still requires? Can you substantiate the difficulty that your child is experiencing since those accommodations were removed? Keep any copies of tests, homework, schoolwork that demonstrates your point.

This article should also be very informative:

http://www.ldonline.org/adhdbasics/school

Best Wishes. [/quote]

School is out for the summer, so we will have to wait until August to make changes to my son’s 504 Plan, at which time we will also be meeting to start the process to have my son evaluated and set up an IEP.

I am really glad to hear you are doing a full spectrum of research to find out what is going on.

My only concern, is that you are medicating a child. Please let me explain something that they won’t tell you. The brain, is still growing in children. As the brain grows, different cognitive skills develop. These shrinks, their test for ADHD consists of a questionare and observing some behaviors. They are not willing to allow for any information to enter into the test that would in any way detract from the categorical fact, (that is not a fact till after the tests) that would indicate a child does not have ADHD. Medicating a child is just in my opinion a horrible idea. Because until the brain is done growing it is kind of fairly impossible to say it isn’t functioning properly. It is like saying….. Hmmm…. trying to find an analogy…. Ok, you are making scrambled eggs. It is like saying the scrambled eggs are bad when you haven’t even cooked them yet. You can’t really establish that without having a sell by date.

I am an archaeologist. One of my interests is the human brain and it’s development. Which is part of why i am so troubled that they never discuss this about the brain and its development with parents before they go pumping these children full of these drugs.

I also personally as an archaeologist have trouble with 2 things that have nothing to do with eachother and everything to do with eachother. The first is creationism. The reason i have problems with that is that though God is a debateable matter the evidence of a physical nature is everywhere proving that all life evolved slowly over time into it’s current state. There is however no physical evidence for the creationist god did it hypothesis. So i have to dismiss that. Any rational person would. Which is why i have trouble with ADHD. As a rational person that makes decisions and holds views based on the physical evidence, ADHD, is called a disorder because there is no evidence of any kind to legitimize it. Except the so called evidence of behavior. Which these specially trained specialists who make a fortune off of terrified parents and the pharmaceutical companies at the same time claim to know all about. The problem is, there are a billion ways to read a behavior. There is nothing legitimate here to measure. I am not alone in my concerns about the possible illegitimacy of ADHD. That being said, please keep in mind as i always do, i have also seen no categorical evidence of a physical nature that disproves ADHD. For me, i would be very wary of any doctor that wanted to pump my child full of a class 2 drug based on a test that required no physical matter for testing and which as part of the methodology only admits evidence in favor of a diagnosis of ADHD. It is a kangaroo court in every respect.

My husband holds a PHD in physics from Helsinki university. We are in Austria for one of his post docs. There is not 1 doctor or grad student in his department who has read about the diagnosis methodology of ADHD that finds it to be meeting the standards necesary to qualify as a scientific test. It isn’t based in science. You are the parent and i am just putting out information that most people don’t realize. If you have trouble like me, believing in creationism for example due to the lack of evidence if you don’t have very real reservations about medicating your child for a mental disorder that is diagnosed non scientifically and is medicated on that basis with some very dangerous drugs then…. I dunno….

Unlike the field of LD specialists i do not misrepresent myself. I am not a scientist. My husband is. I studied humanities. That is what archaeology qualifies as. It is in all technicality just a humanity that utilizes huge amounts of science as a tool to uncover information about the past. So in that respect i am constantly using and looking at science which doesn’t make me a scientist but it does make me aware of the scientific method and what meets it and what doesn’t. I am really hoping, that you will read this and think about it. Because these medications you are giving him could alter the way his brain develops. Which is why i disagree with your statement that you have waited long enough. Long enough is age 26ish when the brain is done developing naturally. You don’t have to agree with me. I am just asking you to think about this information and to perhaps ask your specialists some more questions and maybe the information will inspire you to ask more questions and find more answers for yourself.

It is a really good idea to have your child tested for other things because many of those other LDs are very real. And if he has one or more, it may just be that and his handling of that that theya re reading as ADHD. And if that gets straightened out possibly the behavior issues will go away as well.

Have you had him tested for vitamin deficiencies? Because they thought for years that i had ADHD. Then one day in my late 20s they did a blood test that showed i was low super low to the point that i should have been practically full on schizo from my vitamin deficiencies which would have taken years to reach that point. If i were you i would look at that because if that is the problem it is totally fixable. I know because i fixed it.

I really think though that youa re very wise to get him tested for other things. I think you might uncover there what is really going on. Because based on the lack of physical evidence for ADHD i have to be dubious about it’s legitimacy. Knowing what i know about the brain and how it came to be as it is… I have to be dubious.

Keep looking for answers…. Because they are out there somewhere. Dunno if ADHD is an answer or not, but it seems you have chosen to accept it and perhaps you are right to do so. But don’t ever stop asking questions and checking on the information you are given. When i was 16 they told my mother ADHD mutates into the ebola virus and then it mutates into AIDS, and that that is what would happen to me if i didn’t take pills. My mother is a sweet kind person but she is completely clueless about science. She did what they told her was in my best interests and they missed a vitamin deficiency that could have just as easily been a mahjor heart defect for all they knew while they were pumping me full of psych drugs. I am telling you all this, because you are your child’s last line of defense. And often these specialists are making a proffit on both sides which really kind of creates a conflict of interest which they do not generally feel any ethical requirement to tell to the patient. There are alternative treatments for ADHD. Including, herbal treatments and behavior modification therapies. (No i spend all day on science i am not going to include bach flower remedies or homeopathy in that list.) So good luck and i hope you really read this and think about it. That is all i would ever ask is that you think about this information and that you look for more clarification both from experts and by perhaps taking the time to read some on your own.

vj….,

I have read your posting and the postings of the various responses. I wish to comment on some misconceptions of those who have responded to you.

1) ADHD is not a disability as defined by the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 2004 as amended and revised. ADHD is identified within the disability category of Other Health Impaired. This was also made quite clear in a Joint Memorandum authored by the US DEpartment of Education in 1995. As IDEA has been reauthorized in 1997 and then in 2004, this position has not changed. Local school divisions are quite informed as to what it is, how to assess it, and diagnose a child with ADHD within the proper and appropriate disability provided by federal regulatons.

2) Dyslexia is included as part of the identifying criteria for SLD. I refer you to Section 300.8 of the federal regulations that will provide this definition.

Hope this helps.

DRHD

I know this is a late response, but I’m new to the forum. I am not new to special education, however, I have been a special educator for 12 years, and I have to disagree with some previous posts.

I have worked with many children with ADHD in my career. While I do agree that medication is not always the answer, if a child’s ADHD is severely impacting their learning, medication can and will help a student with ADHD (if it is their primary disability, the IDEA recognized disability in schools is Other Health Impaired). Students that have severe ADHD do not want to misbehave or not attend; they are physically unable to. It appears as if they are being run by a motor. And using numerous behavior interventions will not work in these cases unless their ADHD is being managed by a medication.

And while stimulant based medication will effect a person without ADHD with an “upper” effect, a person with ADHD, will respond to the stimulant as almost having a calming effect which assists in being able to stop impulsivity, hyper behavior and provide an ability to focus. The ability to focus on classroom instruction, will lead to retention of the skill set needed to do class assignments. Which will eventually lead to less frustration and the most important effect of a child feeling successful and comfortable in their education.

Vj…,

I have read your initial posting and the several responses you have received. Much of the advice you have been getting is lacking at best and I would recommend that you be circumspect about much of what has been suggested. The old saying is “advice is cheap” could be applicable to what I have read in several responses to your post.

However, I have several thoughts of mine own on your posting. Please note as follows:

1) The use of medication is always a parental choice. My counsel to you is to work very closely with your physician and include your child’s teacher(s) to assess the choice to medicate your child. I have often used the analogy as I have counseled with parents about their concerns for medication therapy as relating it to wearing glasses.

If I have dificulty reading because of poor vision, I will likely need an intervention such as reading glasses in order to permit me to enjoy the same book as those who can read without the need for glasses. The point of this is that mediication is but one alternative to enable your child to equalize his strengths and to minimize his weaknesses within the learning process. There are children in our schools whereas medication has been the difference between success and failure. Medication therapy has more benefits than limitations but it must be undertaken very intentionally and thoughtfully and established as a viable course of action with your physician and the school personnel who teach your child. So my advice is not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet”.

2) A 504 Implementation Plan is not a minimal document by any stretch. It’s impact and existence is also not a menial issue. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended brought forth equal access and equal opportunity for individuals who have been determined to be “otherwise qualified handicapped and/or disabled”. These requirements are applicable to elementary and secondary education and entities that receive federal funds. It is clearly civil rights legislation and protects the civil liberties of those children so identified. Therefore, to be determined a child with a 504 disability there is a plan required that will describe what is necessary for the child to achieve equal access and protection withiin the day to day school/learning process. Then to not follow a 504 Plan is in effect a violation of a child’s civil liberties as the child is being denied his equal opportuity to learn as would be afforded to all others who are non-disabled. School personnel for the most part do not have a grasp of the serious implications of a 504 disability and therefore 504 procedures are often grossly mis-implemented. The penalties for non-comliance in a 504 issue are potentially enormous.

3) I would strongly suggest that you bring your concerns to your building Principal and if you do not obtain satisfactory responses then take your concerns to the supervisor/director of special education. This is a proper chain of command. If all else fails, then take your concerns to the Division Superintendent of Schools. Finally, with the requirements of 504, you do have appeal and complaint rights. You may wish to ask the special educaton administrator to provide you a copy of the local school division policies on 504.

Hope this is helpful to you at this juncture. Please keep me posted on your progress with your dilemma.

DRHD

Hi, mom of the ADHD child. I have read some of what you said and what was said back. I hope things have been going well with you since you posted your original questions. I’m pretty sure that a medical diagnosis of ADHD will qualify your child for an IEP, because I have had students with IEP’s who had a medical diagnosis of ADHD. Your pediatrician will be able to write up a diagnosis if you don’t already have one. Good luck to both you and to your child. My son had dyslexia and I remember having to get a little pushy to get what he needed, but he is 24 now and reads very well and has a job and is happy, so I think for you there is also hope. Miriam Deen

Miriam.deen,

I would not be so certain that because a child with ADHD will qualify as a child with a disability under IDEA in the OHI category. Your response is a bit misleading to the parent. Not trying to be critical of your good faith response as a teacher.

The child would have a greater potential of being identified under Section 504 as compared to IDEA. The criteria within IDEA are vastly different compared to that of 504.

DRHD

It is my understanding that your child’s ability to receive an education would have to be affected in order for him to have an elgibilty ruling. ADHD is not the single factor that makes him/her eligible for an IEP.