Music Majors and PSAT/SAT/testing

College Majors Music Major
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Read up on 504 plans, which come under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law. Migraines (and other health issues) would be covered under that, not SPED. Your principal is quoting the language on a 504 Plan application, about a “Major disability that affects daily functioning and life skills.” Your daughter’s migraine IS affecting functioning. He should not be forwarding anything to the Director of Special Ed. Usually the 504 coordinator is the principal: can you ask him directly who the school’s 504 coordinator might be?

In terms of learning disabilities, schools often resist parent requests for testing. They like the request to be made by a teacher. However, you can indeed request an evaluation. Once that is done, as least in our state, if you disagree with it, you have a right to further testing paid for by the school. That said, many people opt for private evaluations in the first place. If the evaluation is for the effects of migraine or other health issue (such as,for instance, stroke or brain injury) then it is medical, not behavioral, health insurance that deals with coverage.

I don’t know how far you want to take this. One of my kids has a life-threatening condition that I needed to get accommodated in school. We mainly did not want teachers and others to misunderstand her absences, but the accommodations she received were very helpful. For instance, if she was absent, teachers sent home a package that included assignment for the night, what was done in class, any written materials handed out, notes from class, and any tests given. Your daughter may not need extensive accommodations, but she has a right to whatever allows her to take care of her health while also working at her best level in school.

You can hire an lawyer or advocate. Sometimes one meeting with a lawyer will be all that is needed. You then tell the nice principal that you got some suggestions from a lawyer you met with for informational purposes, and smile. In our state, the Federation for Children with Special Needs has free advocates. You can also call the Federal Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights.

I cannot tell how much of an impact migraines have for your daughter, in terms of daily life, but it sounds substantial. I also cannot tell if there is cause for requesting an evaluation or if your daughter’s uneven performance is from the migraines or other neurological issues. I cannot tell whether it is worth talking with the “nice” principal to explain your thinking. A 504 plan does not cost the school anything. It does not involve services, other than the school nurse and accommodations by teachers. Sometimes people don’t fight a school for fear of losing relationships that are helpful to the child. But sometimes it doesn’t have to be a fight.

if your principal is pleasant, as you have said, perhaps he just needs to be educated. It can be awkward for a parent to educate a principal (and teachers). The principal or 504 coordinator needs to be a strong advocate for the child and that requires that they understand the diagnosis. I would try to talk to him, and then, if needed, hire an advocate of some sort. But in our case, as I said, I had no choice.

In our experience, neurologists and other doctors often do not understand the law on disabilities in regard to education and don’t really know that much about 504 plans or accommodations. We have brought forms to doctors but mainly write accommodation lists ourselves in letters for the MD to sign. The neuro can explain migraines’ impact, and also explain the need for rest with a migraine in order to recover. many people do not understand migraines.

You have the option of doing nothing too. Nothing wrong with that but it means accepting things as they are. Accommodations in high school will make it possible to get SAT accommodations and will also make college or conservatory accommodations easier to obtain, but kids get diagnosed in college all the time and you can start off with the disabilties office concerning migraines with a doctor’s letter no matter what happens in high school.

At the college level, the standard for accommodations is different. Things are changing because some people go to court. One young woman couldn’t finish an exam because she took a pain pill during the test, due to a migraine, which affected her grade. She went to court and won. I was surprised actually. A lot of these things are progressing due to new precedents being established in court.

Now you know more than you wanted to I think!!

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I am sorry you’re having trouble getting help.
It’s worth the fight IMHO as it will smooth the way.
I will say that while I agree that the school should be paying for the test, that it is also possible to get the test privately, pay cash, and then submit the results for a 504 if warranted. I realize that is not optimal financially speaking. It is what we did since we had no avenue to get insurance to cover it at the time and mcson was already at college and time was of the essence.

In our case, there might otherwise have been a scholarship at stake worth many times the cost of the testing and ultimate treatment. But in retrospect, the real value was the validation, and subsequent strategy it gave mcson. He’d always felt that somehow certain things seemed more difficult for him than other people. Once he understood what was going on, he came up with lots of work-arounds. eg. When looking at volumes of data in a spreadsheet, he has tracking difficulty (corroborated by the testing) so now he writes little programs to check against himself for error. Or he’d as a teenager been overwhelmed learning to drive so never went for his license. When he realized it was largely due to his divided attention issues, he took private driving lessons with someone who specializes in training those with neuro issues and got his license. In his case, medication also helped a great deal. Through CBT, he’s been able to develop some methodical systems for time management and planning his work that have been invaluable.

All those things that flowed from the dx were positive things that improved his confidence and self-management, so it was money well-spent.

23

redeye,
I am a special education advocate and this makes me so ANGRY. What the school is doing is outright illegal!!!

I am glad you pointed out to them that they are legally required to evaluate.

The school wants to just push your daughter through and since she is close to graduation and will graduate they are simply trying to ignore the law so that they do not have to do any extra work.

As for forwarding your email to the director of special education. That is fine. The sped director would be the one who would be in charge of evaluation.

Compmom, at this point it is unlikely that the school would provide this child a 504 without a thorough evaluation. Although the child has a legal right to a 504 and specific accommodations, the school is obligated to investigate all areas of potential disability and they would (especially in the current sped climate) want to have data to support what ever accommodations they are providing for the child.

As Kmcmom said most teens/young adults have a positive response to getting evaluated and respond as her son did by saying “Oh that explains it…it wasn’t all in my head…I am not just lazy.” And most find that once they understand the issue they are able to learn strategies that make it better.

I have one son who has major LD issues that made it impossible for him to learn. Many people including well meaning teachers and special educators attributed his failure to succeed at school to laziness or lack of discipline or some other personality flaw. Fortunately we had testing and outside professionals who knew better. This child who literally could not pass a single HS math class is now in graduate school in mathematics. But getting there did not happen without a lot of intervention and hard work on his part and the part of professionals who worked with him to overcome his LD issues.

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The 504 is the fastest way to get accommodations for the migraine issue, specifically. All that is needed is a documented diagnosis by a doctor.

The possibility of learning disabilities is important too of course. But this young woman is on meds that affect cognition and has very frequent migraines that also affect cognition- between a rock and a hard place. Getting those under better control before the evaluation might be better.

The immediate issue was unevenness in standardized test scores. A 504 in place with a documented diagnosis would enable her to get accommodations on the SAT’s etc. Although it can take 6 weeks+ from the time of application.

This principal is ignorant. He may be “nice” but I agree his actions are illegal. Nevertheless, in my experience, some parents resist fighting with the local school. I think it is easier with an advocate.

The priority, soon, will be getting accommodations in college. For that, again, a documented diagnosis w/letter from MD will suffice for migraines. No medication will control migraines 100% and support is merited and needed. For learning disabilities, executive functioning issues and the like, a neuropsych. evaluation within the last 3 years is needed.

My kid never did an evaluation because her accommodations for medical reasons were sufficient for any problems that arose. That might be true in this case as well, at the college level anyway. The parent would know.

p.s. editing to add that you can spend all kinds of money on a neuropsych. evaluation but if she has a migraine that day, it will be wasted!!

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Today’s news was good. I received an e-mail back saying they want to set up an appointment to meet with us and she would probably be eligible based on her Migraines alone for a 504 plan. The. Special Ed director was not familiar with her file and had no idea this was an issue! I had assumed when I requested an evaluation and said I had concerns with testing and they so quickly shot me down that they had at least looked at her file, because I always kept the school up to date on any changes in my children’s health, medications, diagnosees etc. The reply after I spelled out that I knew some of my rights was for me to call in Monday and we will set up a meeting right away! Thank you all, so much. Compmom I used a lot of the language you recommended and it got their attention! So onto next week!

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That’s great! You can find resources yourself but here are a few from a quick google:
http://www.come-over.to/FAS/IDEA504.htm
http://chronicaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sample-504-Plan-for-Migraines1.pdf
http://chronicaction.org/tag/504-plans-for-students-with-migraines/

As you can see, it is not uncommon for a parent to write the plan so that all the accommodations you might want are on there. Much better to have too many listed than too few:

Good luck! So glad they get it and are being helpful…

27

See, this is what I love about CC. Such a great group of people always willing to help, support, and provide encouragement and advice.

28

You should also consider Oberlin. Great liberal arts and a conservatory. Grades/test scores are part of the equation, but far less important than the audition.

29

I had a talk with my daughter today because she brought up the fact that she didn’t want to be labeled as a Special Education student. She said she felt bad that she felt that way because while she understands there’s nothing wrong with Special Education, it made her feel “stupid”. I told her how getting a 504 plan would help her deal with her Migraines, a disease, that others don’t have to deal with and allow her or help her to do her best. I know she still feels uncomfortable about this. We have an appointment with the very popular Neurologist who couldn’t get us in until Feb 24th, but I’m calling today to see if we can get in sooner. Daughter admitted she is getting 3 migraines a week, and sometimes even without pain she’d get the dizziness or nausea. We’ve had a complete physical work up and it’s the same type of dizziness or nausea as when she gets the pain of a migraine so I think it’s all related. I asked her why she didn’t tell me and she said it was because she could handle them. I think she’s just developed such a high pain threshold she doesn’t even realize the adverse affects. She also gets about two major pain ones a month where school is not an option, but they’re usually on the weekends or after school, which is how mine were, almost a release after the stress of the week. Obviously not a good release. It has become quite apparent that our school is clueless when it comes to (quote) “those headaches”. At first they were very helpful, and they still want to set up a meeting but keep sending me e-mails about what she would need to “prove” to get any accommodations. Our Neurologist is great but we’ve never brought up the Migraines as an impediment to learning ( didn’t realize, except for absences). I know she needs a change in meds and but I’m worried about how long it will take to find something that works. Interesting to this forum in particular, I can only remember one time her music was effected by a migraine. Maybe the music in itself is a medication? She’s didn’t practice a few days because of a headache but the one incident was choral music and she literally couldn’t get out of bed. I think if it would have been orchestra she would have forced herself through it. Oh, and I’m also hoping the Neurologist will order the Neuropsych exam, I believe our insurance may pay for a good portion of the testing if she does and I’d rather have it done privately. Any of you remember (how could you forget I posted so much about it!) my asking about a GAP year? I think part of me knew there was something going on under the surface that needed to be addressed before college. I kept pointing to the music but now don’t think that was it. It would be really hard to deal with music school and three untreated migraines a week!

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redeye, your daughter’s music could indeed be helping with the migraines. It is not such a crazy idea. The brain is mysterious and maybe when she plays music she activates a part of her brain that shuts down the pain cycle of the migraine. My middle son has a complex neurological profile and many people who evaluated him told us he might never read for pleasure given how his brain works. But the more he played music the easier reading became. And by his junior and senior year in high school this boy was actually reading for pleasure even more than his siblings who did not have the same challenges.

Remind your daughter that a 504 is NOT special education. It is simply about accommodations. Everyone who wears glasses has an unofficial 504. We don’t bother writing them out because there is no need as it is obvious that if you need glasses you should be allowed to wear them.

31

Yes, tell your daughter that a 504 is mainly for medical problems. It is not “SPED.”

If her neuro-psych. evalulation reveals a learning disability of some kind, the picture will be more complicated. However, keep in mind that the neuro-psych. evaluation will be very much affected by a migraine if she has one that day!

Accommodations for the migraines may very well be sufficient for any other issue anyway. A neuro-psych. eval. can give good information about strengths as well. I told my youngest, who had one, that it was good information about her learning style and not only about diagnosing deficits.

I have severe migraines but never have any pain. Migraines are not headaches: headache is just one possible symptom. I cannot function for a few days at a time.

My daughter has both migraines and a seizure disorder (and some other health problems). She graduated from an Ivy and did very well ONLY because of accommodations. Like your daughter, she has always been reluctant to use accommodations and if given an extra week, will get a paper in the next day. She also learned to do things in advance in case she had a migraine or seizure just before a deadline.

The college staff convinced her that small nudges, such as a little extra time, or 3 classes instead of 4, meant that she could do the work at the level of her actual ability, like everyone else, and helped her understand the concept of a “level playing field.” It really is not fair for a student to take an exam while compromised by a migraine.

The summary of her college experience is “I finally found freedom by accepting my limitations.” In her case, a reduced courseload enabled her to thrive and flourish and contribute to the college community in a way that fulfilled admissions’ acceptance :slight_smile:

I have no doubt that her ability to compose is related to her neurological profile.

Finally- your daughter WILL find treatment that works. Get a copy of Migraines for Dummies and Carolyn Bernstein’s book too (she is a neurologist at Beth Israel). Lamictal is a great possibility. Depakote works but is a tough choice for young women. Verapamil, beta blockers, Diamox. Hormones (bioidentical progesterone cream for instance). Vitamin B2 and B6, magnesium, folate and other small additions can help too. There is a great migraine doc in Worcester MA. PM me if you want the name. Good luck!

p.s. I met a young woman whose college put all of her reading on a tv screen for her. She could do the reading that way without triggering a migraine. Reading seems to be a big trigger for a lot of people.