Sometimes they really ARE trying | Autism PDD

tzoya

I hope he gets some help real soon in reading:)

It is nice when the system works for you and not against you. I know your son is in the best hands:) Good luck!

The problem is that there is only ONE research-based, peer reviewed reading program that is age-appropriate (he is going on 17) and is shown to work with reading comprehension issues in a student with language issues and ASD -- Lindamood-Bell Visualizing and Verbalizing. The school district is actually WILLING to bus him to the LMB Center and pay 0/hr. there and bus him back. Problem is, it's an hour and a half away. After a 5.5 hour school day, going to that center would DOUBLE his day 4 days a week! Really impossible. There is another center that is not LMB but offers LMB (the one that called) but even THEY can't get instructors until after 3 since they depend on employed teachers (LMB has instructors there all day every day since they hire fulltime staff). So my son arrives at the HS (where the instruction will take place) at 2:30 and he can't be taught until 3. My suggestion was to arrange for a special education teacher to work with him on something else -- even lifeskills lessons in the lifeskills room -- until the reading teacher could arrive. The school district has already AGREED to 300 compensatory hours of education and I don't mind if some of those hours are used on things other than reading. I'm going to give them a week before I start riding them again.

tzoya - You said that LMB was the only research based, peer reviewed reading program that is age appropriate for your son. I'm curious if that would apply to a child in middle school, 5 years younger than your son. Do you know if that is the case?

We are having a comprehension issue as well and what they are offering him is a book to work on at home with us. It is called Jamestown Readers. They are little books and have grade level reading passages with comprehension questions. The first one she is sending home is "Making Inferences". Are you familiar with this program?

This is the link for the program, but in looking at this my concern is that even the first level is geared to a reading level of grade 4-6.

http://www.glencoe.com/gln/jamestown/reading_skills/comprehe nsion_skills.php#info

His Passage Comprehension on the Woodcock Johnson was grade equivalent of 3.1, Word Recognition was 5.9 and Reading Fluency was 8.4 (he is in 6th grade btw)

The Verbal Comprehension Index subtest of the Wechsler was 6th percentile.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Some of you may remember that I recently mentioned I might have to go to a Hearing to get my District to implement an agreement that they made last March! It's about after school reading help. My son STILL has not gotten any help nearly 10 months after the agreement was put in writing. I wrote up a detailed Hearing Request (not easy to do properly) and had a lawyer at the advocacy organization I work for look at it and approve it. I was going to do the final edit on my day off (Fridays) but decided to make an appointment with the IEP Team chairperson, in person and alone, for one last shot. She and I get along well and it truly disappointed me that I was being forced to go to Due PRocess over something that was already AGREED to. While I was in her office, she got a random phone call. Low and behold, it was from the very outside reading service that I was going to ask that a Hearing Officer order. Turns out that even THEY couldn't accomodate our request. Seems that in our area the after school reading teacher are all fully employed with various school districts during the day and the earliest anyone could start working with our son is 3 and the latest he could start is 2:30 (long story). Anyway, I was there when the "evidence" called in and the District lady's story was verified. I made a suggestion, given these circumstances, that they are looking into. But my point is that they were actually telling the truth and that HAVE been trying. It seems RIDICULOUS that they can't get the service for our son at the time it needs to happen, but that's the gosh darned truth. I'm so glad I tried one last crack at advocating instead of going ahead with Due Process. I now believe (at least for the moment) that he WILL get what he needs if we keep on looking.

Wanted to post this to give you some perspective on one family's advocacy v Due Process experience. The story is not finished. I will post The End when it comes.

That is good to hear.I actually logged on this board to look for an update.
It would be better if they found an appropriate place where he could start
services right now but I am always encouraged if they at least don't fudge
the truth.
I had started the original post because after 8 weeks the school had not
started services or even gotten themselves a copy of the IEP.
I wrote a number of letters to which I got responses like ' I should not
worry because everyone is so open to and eager to help' my son. I think
the problem in our state is that they figure that the I in IEP stands for
Inteded. And they are actually all very nice and love to process with you,
but it never leads to any action.
But I will take your example and walk myself into the district office and
see what happens. I wanted to add that we will be adding a modified version of LMB to my sons
schedule next year. My son is already reading in Kindergarten so I want the
comprehension piece to be there. We are starting Fast Foward right now.
I have talked with several parents who have used both with their asd kids
with great success. I want to say that they started their kids at about 3rd
grade. The LMB person I will use was trained by LMB and used to work for
our school district. She is in great demand and has aout a 3-6 month
waiting list.

We used Fast Forward for our son when it first came out and got a big increase in receptive language at the time -- and it stuck.

The law now says that the methodologies that must be used with IEP kids have to be RESEARCH BASED. That means that there must be scientific evidence that the particular methodology works for the issues your child has. The way to find this out is to request to see the research. Some programs have excellent research showing they help with decoding, for example, but those programs won't help with comprehension. REading comprehension difficulties are most common in ASD and the hardest to address. As the child ages, there are fewer and fewer reading programs that are appropriate. When my son was coming up, kids in self-contained classes were really not expected to learn to read well, so those classes got the dregs. Our District used an excellent, research-based reading program with these kids -- Edmark -- but that program just really got them started reading. Once my son reached a second grade reading level, the District slacked off. They all just assumed that that was his limit. Legally, that can no longer occur. So ASK about the research for the methodologies used with your child.