I also don’t want to hijack the thread. For those of you with children with slow processing speed, at what age did you realize this? (A lightbulb is flickering here). For those with full evaluations, how often did you re-evaluate your child?
@SlackerMomMD I honestly didn’t realize my son had processing speed issues until the testing revealed it. Then it was, duh, that explains a LOT. He always wrote very slowly, but he has poor motor control and right side weakness (he is right-handed). I thought his speed issues were due to motor control.
My ds has had several complete neuropsy evaluations. His first testing was done by someone with no experience with Aspies or 2E children. The results made no sense. Finding a professional experienced with his issues made a huge difference. (For example, recognizing that our ds has high anxiety, the tester spent time just building a rapport with him so that he didn’t simply shut down during the testing which is what I assume happened the first time bc the results are not even comparable.)
Keep in mind that most insurance companies will cover testing for diagnosis and treatment purposes. If the focus of the evaluation is to apply for accommodations in college, that may not be considered medically necessary and may bot be authorized/covered under the healthcare benefit.
@PNWedwonk - if your child’s visual disability is a medical condition, and might need large print or a similar accommodation, and it is not a learning disability but a medical disability, the treating doctor may be able to provide the documentation you need.
Re. my son’s background: Yes, he was homeschooled, but was dual-enrolled the last two years of high school, going full time to the community college in his senior year.
As far as previous accommodations and disabilities:
His vision disability is a physical one-severe convergence insufficiency. His eyes don’t converge, making reading tiring and painful. He had surgery on one eye in Dec. of his junior year, and for a few short months, he could read easily and quickly. But as the doctor said it would do, his eye moved back out. The doctor would like to do surgery on the other eye, but my son isn’t agreeable to it at this point. And unfortunately, he will have to have repeated surgeries, since the eyes will slowly loosen up and move out (basically, he cuts a muscle and tightens the eyes, so initially after surgery, my son is somewhat cross-eyed).
He has diabetes (T1).
He has/had a diagnosed math disability, documented by a private psychological tester with an achievement test done at age 10 1/2 and repeated at 12.
He has slow processing, diagnosed by the IQ test as well as an anecdotal letter from his psychological counselor.
With these issues, he received time and a half on all standardized tests, breaks as needed, and a keyboard on the SAT, etc. At the community college, he was granted time and a half on tests, and breaks as needed (for the diabetes), but nothing relating to slow processing or vision disabilty. At the community college, those were based on math disability and diabetes.
My son chose not to use the accommodations at the community college. What would have been a better accommodation for him was to not have to do so many math problems for homework. That is where he is so slow. I don’t know if that kind of accommodation-either fewer problems or extended time on assignments-can be had at Penn.
He did a pretty good job of self-advocating with both the disability office and his professors. He always told them right away he was diabetic, but he didn’t talk about his other disabilities. I hope he will continue to self advocate at Penn. Hopefully, he will see it as necessary to his survival/success.
I have never heard of insurance paying for IQ and achievement testing even when looking for disabilties. However, that was when my son was a minor. Perhaps now that they can’t say, “contact the school disctrict”, they would be willing to pay. I will call them and ask. Meanwhile, we are on a two month waitlist for testing at the local state university. They’ve asked for us to bring in previous testing, so I’m hopeful that will help them understand that my son is very intelligent, but has some disabilities, and will test him accordingly.
The only tester in our area (which is kind of crazy, given that we live in a large city) familiar with 2E issues, the one that tested him before, has a huge wait time and is very expensive. My dad paid for it last time, and I’m sure it’s even more than it was then (around 3K for everything). At this point, I’m willing to try to local state univ since it’s so inexpensive.
PS. To answer the question about the ophthalmologist, if he/she writes a specific diagnosis and accommodation, I think a college might accept that, at least that’s what I’m hoping. Penn has very specific forms for the doctors/psychologists, etc. to fill out, and it has very specific questions on the disabilities and how it affects the student. It’s worth a shot.
Never realized it until she had the testing right before age 14. It was a relief to get the diagnosis–there was something quantifiable that explained why academically she’d been falling off the rails. Classic story of a bright kid being able to cover up the issue by brainpower for awhile until the work just got too demanding.
Only did the full eval once; after that, our health insurance (an HMO) had her diagnosed and documented as ADHD. For a younger child having the evaluation, we might have needed to do a full re-evaluation later. We’d actually done a psychological eval a few years earlier, saying there was no need for us to pay for the academic/intellectual eval because “obviously” this child was bright and capable and had no intellectual deficits. Oops.
FWIW: the evaluation process was through a private “educational placement” consultant. The people we worked with handle kids with LDs, kids who are 2E, kids who need to go to a theraputic boarding program, kids with serious emotional issues–an enormous range. It was expensive, not gonna lie: the testing itself, plus the time that the consultant (a licensed therapist) spends talking with the kid over multiple sessions.
@sbjdorlo - the fact that your son qualified for accommodations in the past will be helpful, but if I understand correctly, the accommodations were based on the math disability (thats an LD) and the diabetes (thats a medical disability). Learning disabilities and medical disabilities will have different sets of documentation required, as you know, as its clearly spelled out on Penn’s website It would seem that the slow processing was likely described in the report and associated with the LD, as a math disability alone might not qualify for time and a half or use of a computer. If his vision affected his fine motor output (on math or written language materials) then I can see where those accommodations would tie in.
His testing is very out of date and if he is going to request accommodations based on a learning disability (the math disability and whatever LD was associated with the processing speed issue and motor output issues), you will definitely need an updated, comprehensive neuropsych or ed-psych evaluation. If the request for extended time or use of a computer is due to his visual impairment and need for frequent breaks due to T1 diabetes, then you may only need the medical documentation. But remember, he will only get the accommodations that are supported by the documentation. If you use the med documentation only and then later he wast to see if he qualifies for taking only one final a day (due to an LD, not diabetes) the supporting documentation may not be there. Be proactive.
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek. @SlithyTove I’m asking about my 12-year-old son. He was fully evaluated by a psychologist through a school specializing in educating bright kids with LD when he was in 2nd grade (it cost a very pretty penny, done over 4 or 5 weekends - it was pretty hard for him to keep returning for 1 or 2 hours of testing). He has ongoing therapy/tutoring, mainly for executive function issues. I never thought to ask about processing speed but if I understand @jym626 correctly a slow processing speed is a symptom of an underlying issue. I guess we need to get him re-evaluated now that he’s in middle school.
Yes @slackerMomMD the processing speed symptoms are typically associated with something else. It in and of itself is not a diagnosed disability. The diagnosed disability has to be an ICD or DSM diagnosis.
Silly question @jym626 - when you say ICD diagnosis - do you mean an official ICD-9 or ICD-10 code? Or is ICD an actual medical condition?
ICD coding. Its now the ICD-10 though there’s talk of the ICD-11 coming out soon!
Personally, I like, and have always preferred, the ICD codes. That keeps it clearly on the Medical coding side of the house. The DSM codes fall under mental health, where the may or may not belong. And, The ICD didn’t do away with Aspergers or Pervasive Developmental Disorder. Just because a group who rewrote the DSM decided to do away with these or subsume them elsewhere doesn’t mean they simply went away. Oh, and the DSM codes are really just a subsection of the ICD codes.
Right, @jym626 . This is why we’re on the waitlist for a complete psych eval at the local state univ. They will do IQ test and achievement test, which is what Penn requires, along with a battery of other tests. I plan to have my son go in with “full guns”, so to speak, in order to get every possible accommodation. I was thrilled when I found out the waitlist was only 2 months, and the cost was only $400. I contacted UCLA’s psych clinic and the wait time is a year.
I’ll still contact my insurance, which is a PPO, and ask about eval. If I’m understanding correctly, if you’re looking for an eval of ADHD, insurance seems to pay for it, correct? My son was actually diagnosed by his counselor and a previous psychiatrist with inattentive ADHD, but neither of us really think it’s accurate. The private psychologist found no evidence of ADHD back when he was tested. The only thing I can think is that puberty brought the changes, but I’m not convinced of the ADHD diagnosis. My oldest son, yes. Fits him to a “t”, but not this son.
@sbjdorlo As people have said contact the Disabilities Office at Penn. I don’t know Penn’s policy but I will give you a couple of general tips from my experience at a different Univ.
- Get your son to sign a FERPA waiver in case you need to advocate for him
- If your son is granted accommodations make sure he alerts each and every Professor ASAP with the proper form. Professors don't like to be alerted to changes they need to make at the last minute.
@sbjdorlo - whether or not your insurer will cover an eval is determined by many things: The specifics of your carrier and your plan, whether it meets medical necessity, whether ADHD (if that is the diagnosis) is covered and if so is it under their Medical or MH services. There is no easy answer to your question. And, often if they cover, they may cover a limited # of hours or may pay 30 cents on the dollar.
Who keeps a copy of FERPA? I always wonder how that works in real life if a student signs one. My oldest signed it, but we never had to deal with his health issues, as he took care of everything himself. But this son will be different.
We’ve had a number of conversations with the disability office. My dh met with our contact in person and I had an hour long phone conversation last year. We will definitely be contacting them again after we have all the documentation.
Hopefully its scanned into the students electronic file and/or kept in the disability office, but the easy solution is to have your child send you an electronic copy.
At the University where I work the waiver is kept in the Student Records office - generally called the Registrar’s office… Obviously depending on the system Penn uses it could be somewhere else.
Good point, Dolemite. If the student signs it as part of their overall freshman orientation/admissions stuff, then its probably in the registrar’s office) and hopefully electronically copied). If the student fills it out at the Disability services offices, they might keep the hard copy there. If its filled out at the Campus Health services office, well, it might be filed there. That why if there is a way to electronically scan/keep it for easy access, thats helpful. If you call one office and they say “I will need a copy of the FERPA” you can easily respond with “I have an electronic copy. Let me email that to you right now”.
Any testing done at ages 10-12 is very old news now, and won’t be considered current by the disabilities offices which typically want to see testing down within the three year window prior to enrollment.
That your son had no accommodations at the CC and did fine would not be a fact that would support the need for accommodations moving forward.
You are also discussing two separate issues…educational accommodations, and medical accommodations. The disabilities office deals with both…and sometimes there is overlap…sometimes there is not. For example, not every student with T1 Diabetes requires educational accommodations. And when they do, this has been well documented using educationally relevant assessment…not simply a “he has T1 diabetes”. Same is true for the vision issues you are describing. The educational impact would need to be well documented.
For educational accommodations…you need data to support educational accommodations. And this does NOT always mean just a diagnosis…because simply having a diagnosis doesn’t mean that certain protocol is necessary.