Square Peg, Meet Round Hole

So we've all seen the cartoon at left, explaining why it's silly to force those of different abilities or skills into the same molds. I recently came across this very conundrum during a reevaluation for the Committee on Special Education (CSE) for a fourth grade student.

Z has been struggling for a long while, and is actually supposed to be in sixth grade but has been retained twice (almost three times, last year he was promoted mid-first quarter due to his age). Z has some severe language deficits that are really impacting his ability to read. He has extreme difficulty with decoding--confuses and substitutes sounds, reverses/transposes letters while reading and writing (i.e. will say "substitute" as "suditute" or "supitute"), doesn't retain learned sounds and sight words, etc. Z has been through the same, basic, 1st grade level reading program for two and a half years, and has made little lasting progress. He's practically memorized it, but can't translate it into classroom use in the subject areas, like science and social studies, and doesn't have the knowledge base and skills to move on to the next level. As the fourth grade curriculum becomes more challenging, he's stagnant. To say he's frustrated is an understatement.

So if everyone can learn to read using decoding and phonics, why can't Z? And why are we still instructing him using the same program he's already failed at twice? Because there isn't anything else available. In my building, we follow one to two district endorsed reading programs, all of which focus on phonics. Z is placed in an Integrated Co-Teaching classroom with two awesome teachers (he was in a model classroom last year, too), so he's received a great deal of individualized and small group instruction. His teachers have supported him in so many ways, and yet he still struggles. To say we're defeated is an understatement.

At his CSE meeting, we scratched our heads about what special education services we could provide for Z. Clearly, the Integrated Co-Teaching setting, despite his wonderful, attentive teachers, was not meeting all of his academic needs. We discussed placing him in a 15:1 Special Class, which in my district is for students with severe learning abilities who need more adult attention to achieve learning standards. We were hesitant, knowing that if he left our building for another placement, we couldn't guarantee that he would have a classroom with a high level of intervention, like he was getting from his two teachers (one would hope, but we can't assume). Unfortunately, we didn't have a good answer, a good place, or the right program to fit a kid like Z.

In the end, we did decide on a 15:1 Special Class, but it wasn't a comfortable one. His special education teacher in particular broke down in tears, knowing that despite providing a lot of support to Z, we didn't have what would be able to help him take off academically, especially with reading. It may be that the 15:1 won't either, but we're hoping that a very specific, detailed Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and a self-contained class will be able to provide him with more varied programs and curricula to draw from, so that he isn't sitting decoding CVC and CVVC words, like "cat" and "roar" for another year.

How do you support kiddos that don't fit the approved curricula and programs used in your schools, when there may not be the man power or budget for other options?

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Attendance Counts at the CSE Table

The new mantra and push in my district this year is "Attendance Counts." Last year, my principal organized an "attendance team" to combat chronic absenteeism at my building, but we were understaffed and overbooked with other responsibilities to be effective (plus I think only two of us were actually doing the work). Everyone at the district level realized the HUGE problem attendance is, but like our building, the district was not adequately staffed and prepared to deal with the problem. I referred a slew of attendance problem kids to the attendance office downtown, and little was done about it because one woman was trying to deal with the attendance problems of thousands of students. Sounds quite effective! (/saracasm)

Over the summer, the district hired some Attendance Teachers and developed a relationship with Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, who has worked extensively to improve attendance in schools in New York City. She will be the keynote at our district's "Attendance Counts Summit" in November. I will likely be attending the summit and will have more information to share then about the district's new attendance initiatives as they come into fruition.

As educators, we know attendance counts. Kids that don't come to school aren't exposed to curriculum, fall behind, get retained, drop out of school, etc. Not to mention what some of them get into when they're not in school (if mischief gets made in the hour after school ends, think about what happens when all the non-attenders are roaming around all day).

Attendance has important meaning to members of the CSE team, in particular school psychologists, who are making special education eligibility determinations for kids. Over the summer, I mentioned that I was assigned over a dozen cases to evaluate by one of the associate superintendents, because the students were all having varying levels of difficulty, had been retained several times, and were much older than they should be for the grade they were in (and were at risk of not finishing school by 21). The more I reviewed the records of these cases, the more I realized that many of them had been retained in the first place due to chronic attendance issues. Here's where an uncomfortable wrench gets thrown in: can we say that an underachieving student has an educational disability requiring special education services when they are not in school to have access to the curriculum? The NY State Part 200 regulations tell us:

A student shall not be determined eligible for special education if the determinant factor is:
      (i) lack of appropriate instruction in reading, including explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency (including oral reading skills) and reading comprehension strategies;
     (ii) lack of appropriate instruction in math; or
     (iii) limited English proficiency. [Part 200.4(c)(2); emphasis mine]

A lack of appropriate instruction basically means anything that has kept a student from getting a good education, poor attendance included. In short, if a kid is struggling in school but has a chronic attendance problem, we cannot call that student educationally disabled and eligible for special education services because they have not been exposed to appropriate instruction.

I had this scenario happen to me recently with two of those summer cases, and it's a tough situation to be put into. One case, Y, was a chronic attendance problem last year and received direct instruction in reading and math due to deficits. She was at least two grade levels behind and wasn't showing improvement through "intensive" interventions in a small group setting. When I tested her, she had a super significant discrepancy between her verbal and nonverbal reasoning, suggesting a verbal learning disability. Although her poor attendance was still concerning to us, we classified her as Learning Disabled (although mom refused to sign for services, which is another story).

The second case, P, was more sticky. P was absent for 50 days in 5th grade and 55 days last year in 6th. His history of absenteeism was significant throughout his school career, and he repeated 3rd and 5th grades. He actually started this year repeating 6th, but my principal moved him onto 7th due to his age (he's almost 15--good call). P teeter-tottered in the "strategic" range of academics, about one year behind, and he didn't receive any interventions. He scored within the low average range on standardized achievement and IQ measures. We didn't feel confident classifying him even though he was behind, because his achievement and IQ were commensurate and his poor attendance suggesting he hadn't had appropriate instruction. What a hard decision to make, especially for a kid who is having some trouble.

Have you had a CSE case like Y or P? How does your school or district deal with attendance concerns?

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E= mc... huh?

The most common type of learning disabilities I see in my work are verbal learning disabilities, meaning that they affect the way a student reads or writes, listens, and/or speaks. These are the most widespread, largely due to the fact that they're easy to see. When a student has difficulty following directions, remembering information, reading fluently and comprehending classroom material, it's obvious to teachers that something's up.

Less common, or perhaps less often identified, are nonverbal learning disabilities. Kids with these difficulties often go unnoticed because they are highly verbal and on grade level in reading. However, they lack organizational skills, forget class materials and homework, have trouble with graphic material (graphic organizers, maps, graphs, charts, etc), and struggle with math. Some students also present with poor social skills and symptoms similar to Asperger's Syndrome. Academic difficulties become more pronounced as the students get older and have to deal with algebra, fractions, and all that other math nonsense (math was never my thing).

This summer, I worked with J, a student who was referred because he has been retained several times and is much older than he should be for the grade he's in. He's had some learning and behavioral difficulties, so I was asked to evaluate him to determine if he would qualify for special education. J is going into seventh grade and racked up oodles of suspensions last year. When I spoke to his teacher, she said that it seemed like J had "given up" and would try to get suspended so he could stay home. J was on grade level in reading and can read over 130 words per minute, but was failing math and lacked a lot of the basic skills needed to do more advanced math. Sounds like a job for Super Psychologist!

J did not attend summer school, so his mom brought him in for testing. When he entered our office, he removed his hat, necklace chains, and wallet chain and set them aside on top of a cabinet so they wouldn't "get in his way" during testing. He worked with our CSE chairperson doing achievement testing first, then I took him for cognitive testing. While working with me, J was well-spoken and articulate, polite, and respectful. I noticed right away that he had an excellent vocabulary and was able to verbalize his responses accurately and concisely. Most kiddos ramble without any direction, but J would nail an answer on the head in five words or less (made testing go by sooo much more quickly).

When J was working on nonverbal tasks, it was another story. On the first perceptual reasoning task, J had to put blocks together to replicate a printed pattern. He was so flustered and overwhelmed it was almost awkward to watch. He scrambled with the blocks, did trial and error combinations, and had little attention to detail. At first I attributed some of it to nerves, but as he did other nonverbal, visual-spatial reasoning tasks, I realized that he seriously lacked perceptual skills. He had trouble finding visual patterns and grouping pictures based on shared characteristics. Things that made me say, "hmmm."

When the scores were calculated, J scored within the average to high average range on all areas of cognitive testing, with the exception of perceptual reasoning. His perceptual score was so low that, when compared to other cognitive areas, a score profile like his happens in less than 2% of the population. On achievement testing, his math score was the pits, while reading and writing were age appropriate. J had trouble correctly identifying which operation (add, subtract, multiply, divide) to use on simple math problems, couldn't borrow/regroup, and struggled greatly with even simple word problems, let alone do algebra. What does all this mean? J had a classic nonverbal, math learning disability profile.

 

I have to admit, I totally geeked out. I had to tell everyone that might have even remotely cared or knew what I was talking about (who has two thumbs and is a loser? this gal). Being such a nerd, seeing a textbook case of something that was considered more "rare" in my line of work was kind of exciting. My CSE chairperson and I started putting together an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for J. We put in a lot of testing support and program accommodations for J to use in math and when taking math tests, such as extended time, use of a calculator, additional math examples, and simplified charts, graphs, organizers. These supports are designed to level the playing field educationally, so that with them, J can access the curriculum to a level comparable to his non-disabled peers.

J's referral to special education at the beginning of the summer was a bit of a fluke, but in the end, I'm glad that the referral went through, since we identified a kid who otherwise would've continued having difficulty unnoticed. Looking at J's past year of not-so-great behavior, it makes sense that he purposefully acted out to get suspended and intentionally had poor attendance, since he likely did not want to show that he was having difficulty, or wanted to be doing something difficult in the first place. I'll be very curious to see how J does this year with special education supports in the classroom. I also hope that he'll find positive ways to use his verbal gifts... if only my school had a debate club, poetry club, or other public speaking goodness!