Special Education Law Blog

No Fundamental Right to Read

I know there are so many things going awry these days and rights that were long recognized are being plowed over, and here is the latest example in Gary B. v. Snyder. Download No Fundamental right to read_decision. Some how you are expected to participate in society and have any kind of education without learning to read. We will apparently need a law to state the most fundamentally obvious points that participation politically requires reading, and if a meaningful floor of education is not provided, especially to the poor and people of color, that is a problem and represents an effective disenfranchisement.

Stuttering and Related Disorders

It is difficult enough for young children to be faced with a significant speech impairment like stuttering. As discussed in this blog, the effects of stuttering are often co-morbid with other learning issues. Most children who develop a stutter in their pre-school years fortunately outgrow it.  The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders states that some 3 million Americans stutter.  Stuttering usually develops between the ages of 2 and 6 while language skills are rapidly developing and a child’s linguistic, motor, and emotional capacities are lagging (the so-called Demands and Capacity Model). As a result, approximately 5 to 10% of children will stutter at some point in their lives.  The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association reports reports of remission rates vary from 6.3% all the way up to 80%.  (The large disparity may reflect the manner in which data was collected.)  Boys are affected 2 to 3 times as frequently as girls.  Some data that suggest that African American children may stutter more frequently than whites.  For those persons whose fluency does not resolve, stuttering can interfere with school, employment, and social milieus and lead to frustration, embarrassment, or anxiety.  The worst cases can result in the creation of self-doubt and bullying.   People who stutter know what they want to say.  They simply can’t always get past the repetition of sounds or syllables or blocks associated with the disorder.  Thus, diagnosis and treatment are imperative.

Teaching Your Child to Read: Read 180, System 44 and Beyond

It is remarkable to me how many IEPs provide for reading programs that are not individualized to the student’s needs and do not produce meaningful results.  A one-size-fits all approach simply doesn’t work for students with reading disabilities.  What may be an otherwise perfectly acceptable reading curriculum often is inadequate to meet the individualized needs of a particular student.  More and more frequently I am finding myself attending IEP meetings for students who are repeatedly failing to meet their IEP goals and am confounded by the insistence of the IEP team to continue implementing a program or curriculum that is clearly not working for the student.  This posturing is denying the student access to FAPE, or a Free Appropriate Public Education.  In many instances, students with specific reading disorders, such as dyslexia, are slotted into a specific reading program for intervention that isn’t even designed to address their needs.  What is provided to the student is based on expediency, availability of programming in the district, and not the needs of the student.

When Your Child Has Dyslexia

Parents frequently tell me that their school districts refuse to recognize their child’s diagnosis of dyslexia.  One school psychologist defines dyslexia as “simply a fancy word for a disorder that involves reading.”  Other parents are told by their districts that dyslexia is merely an umbrella term for a reading difficulty or a medical diagnosis that is not relevant to specific planning for the child in his or her IEP.   These parents are often frustrated and confused when schools won’t even insert the term “dyslexia” anywhere within the IEP.  But guidance from the Department of Education makes it explicitly clear that dyslexia is recognized by the IDEA. An October 2015 “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education states: “there is nothing in the IDEA that would prohibit the use of the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia in IDEA evaluation, eligibility determinations, or IEP documents.”  Why is this letter so important for students with dyslexia, dyscalculia, or dysgraphia?  Because calling a duck a duck may be needed not only to ensure that students with dyslexia are deemed eligible for special education services but also that they receive appropriate remediation for their dyslexia.

When Does an Assessment Test Become Obsolete?

The IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) pretty carefully lays out the ground rules for a special education assessment.  Among the various regulations related to administering a case study evaluation are that assessments “are used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable; are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and are administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.”  We bring this up because the fifth edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), one of the mainstays of cognitive testing for children, was released this past fall.  So does the existence of a newer edition of such a standard battery render the previous edition of the WISC no longer valid?  It’s a good question, because not even professional psychological organizations appear to agree on at what point a previous edition of an exam becomes obsolete. Moreover, as a practice point, we have won cases based on the fact the district knowingly or carelessly made decisions based on outmoded test instruments.

Programming for Twice Exceptional Students

Although it seems almost a contradiction, children can be both gifted and have special needs, such as learning disabilities.  Yet, because of their unique blend of talents and challenges, these students, known as “twice exceptional” or 2e students, can be difficult to identify and diagnose.  Often their combinations of intelligence and special needs mask each other, leaving the child performing at grade-level.  Other 2e children have been identified as learning disabled with teachers who may be unaware of the student’s high cognition.  Conversely, those students who are identified as gifted but not LD may fail to meet their potential, leaving them underperforming, frustrated, and often with significant emotional issues.  School districts may label these students lazy or unmotivated, and it can be difficult for parents to convince schools that the student has a disability that is affecting their performance in school. 

 “Giftedness” is not recognized as a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and it can be difficult for some families to obtain special programming for gifted children.  Where families live can make a difference.  According to the National Association for Gifted Children, only about half of states (28 in 2008-2009) had a mandate to identify gifted children.  How many of these states go further to identify those students who are both gifted and have a disability is unclear.  Some states, such as Colorado and Idaho, have clear policies with accompanying guidelines on their websites.  The National Association for Gifted Children has an interesting web page that provides data on gifted education by state, which parents may find useful.

Documentaries Accurately Portray Disability-Related Issues

Although there have been recent complaints that both actors and characters with disabilities are underrepresented on television, two excellent documentaries about disabilities have aired in the past year.  Journey into Dyslexia, which appeared on HBO in May of 2011, profiles students and adults who have dyslexia.  According to the HBO web page, many of the adult professionals who struggled to learn in school now consider their dyslexia a gift and a defining reason for their successes.   Critics called the straightforward interviews with the persons with dyslexia, including children, the most powerful part of the documentary, which was made by Academy-award winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond.  Among those interviewed are a professor at Johns Hopkins University, inventors, entrepreneurs, and consumer advocate Erin Brockovich.  Additionally, the HBO website accompanying this documentary is rich with information on dyslexia. Another documentary from the Sundance film festival on dyslexia is called The D Word.

RtI Guidance from NCLD

RtI despite its frequent inservicing and discussions appears to be an elusive topic for many schools. Parents need to understand RtI if they are to effectively advocate for a meaningful process to take place for their child. The following guidance is a useful guidance document from NCLD.

Forest Grove Case an Argument for Mediation

The Forest Grove, a case that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court and was decided for the parents, and remanded back to the lower courts for more adjudication, has finally resulted in a ruling for the school district. The 9th Circuit ruled that the student was placed in a residential placement for drug use which is a "non-educational need."   Download 0461_0001. 

I have trouble with this decision because many students who have not had their educational needs met or even evaluated, resort to drugs and that frequently is not the cause of the their educational issues. Even  more troubling is the magnitude of the fees expended on both sides so that there really is no winner in this case.  I imagine if the district had been willing to bend a little in mediation, reasonable parents and their attorney could have reached a compromise without spending over $750,000 in fees collectively for both sides

Dyscalculia Research Reveals Possible Cause by Amanda Windom

Current Biology recently published a study on the math disability, dyscalculia.  Dyscalculia, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, is a term referring to a wide range of life-long learning disabilities involving math.  Dyscalculia affects a person's ability to understand and manipulate numbers and may be caused by visual-spatial disability (difficulty processing what the eye sees) or language processing difficulty (difficulty processing what the ear hears).  Some symptoms of the disability include inability to balance a checkbook, difficulty estimating time and/or costs, and poor sense of direction.  In young children symptoms include difficulty learning to count or understanding how numbers relate to things in the world (ex. 4 dogs, 6 cats).

The researchers found, as reported by Time,  the exact part of the brain that is responsible for human's sense of magnitude, or more specifically stated by Dr. Roi Cohen Kadosh of  the UCL institute "...This provides strong evidence that dyscalculia is caused by malformations in the right parietal lobe..."  This gives hope that someday scientists may be able to develop a diagnostic tool for diagnosing and/or treating the disorder.

In the meantime there are many things parents and teachers can do to help children with the disorder. Some ideas include explaining ideas and problems clearly, ensuring student comprehends the problem, providing a quiet place to study, allowing extra time for problem solving, encouraging the student to ask questions, encouraging visualizations, and providing multiple real life examples.  As with other "invisible disabilities" it is critical to insist on in-depth evaluations to identify the issues and then write a good measurable IEP.