Iep

[dharmamama]

Next week my dh and I are going to an IEP meeting for Desta, who is 12 and was adopted from Ethiopia a year ago this month.

Desta is currently in 6th grade, and dh and I are concerned about having her promoted to 7th grade. The work she does reflects a very poor understanding of the material she is taught, and we have some concerns about cognitive function due to her HIV status.

The school knows that we have these concerns.

What they don't know is that Desta has an attachment disorder and that she is very manipulative and has perfected the art of learned helplessness. All the reports that we get from her teachers state that she is so sweet and so friendly and that she works soooooo hard and always asks questions when she doesn't understand something.

To the uninitiated that sounds fantastic, but in reality it isn't because Desta uses her charm and her "poor, pathetic me, I really need your help" routine to avoid having to do things for herself.

So my question is, how much of this do we tell the school? I realize that it is very personal information, but at the same time, dh and I are afraid that Desta's teachers are getting a snow job and not realizing it.

dm

[dharmamama]

Anyone?

Anyone?

[Dar]

Well... one thing you might consider is that the Desta the school sees is not necessarily the Desta you see. Her behaviors with them might actually be very different, because the attachment issues wouldn't come into play in the same ways. It's also a different setting, wih more children her age, so perhaps she works hard there to be like her peer group.

I think it would be perfectly fine to say something to the teachers, like that you had noticed when you homeschooled her that she had a tendency to say she didn't know how to do things to get out of doing assignments, and it was great that she was actually working so hard at school. That gives them a sort of heads-up to not take everything she says at face value, but doesn't imply that they're easily-manipulated fools...

As far as moving her to 7th grade, is she making academic gains? Are her scores more than 6 months better now than they were 6 months ago?

And really, if her illness is affecting her cognitive abilities, then she may never be on "grade level" but that doesn't mean she should be held back... she'll just need accomodations and modifications, which she's entitled to.

Dar

[dharmamama]

Originally Posted by Dar

As far as moving her to 7th grade, is she making academic gains? Are her scores more than 6 months better now than they were 6 months ago?

No, and that's a big part of the reason we are concerned. She doesn't seem to have made any gains.

And really, if her illness is affecting her cognitive abilities, then she may never be on "grade level" but that doesn't mean she should be held back... she'll just need accomodations and modifications, which she's entitled to.

Dh and I had a meeting with her therapist and the therapist's supervisor today and we talked about that. I have a better understanding now of what an IEP is and what it would do for her, and dh is less inclined than he was to want her to be held back. (The therapist has worked with foster and adopted kids for over 20 years, so she has had plenty of experience with kids with IEPs.)

Your point, Dar, about them seeing a different side of Desta is a good one, and one that I need to consider. My main concern is that the things that they say about Desta are the same things that many others have said in the beginning of her involvement with things (she's only been in school 2.5 months), but as time goes on, Desta doesn't get any less helpless. Her Girl Scout troop and her drama troop teacher have noticed this, too. She remains charming and helpless and unable or unwilling to rise to even the most minor of challenges. It's a whole constellation of things and it's difficult to sort it all out ... which is why we are coming at it from a neurological, a medical, a therapeutic, and an educational angle ... we're trying to get a handle on what's really going on with her.

Thanks for your (as usual) wise advice.

dm

[blizzard_babe]

Could you talk to them about having graduated independence (or a more appropriate use of help) worded into her IEP? If she's using learned helplessness as a tool, perhaps the IEP committee can come up with a plan for helping her work towards independence on appropriately-leveled tasks.