<p>kmcmom13–thanks for a very good post. Because my D’s high school is flexible, she has always been allowed extra time to take tests, which is why she has a 4.0. She uses a calculator in math because she can’t remember numbers, such as multiplication tables. The state requires yearly assessment exams, which she passes but takes twice the usual time, but there are no time limits. She does not need extra time for all tests. The PSAT will be the first exam she’ll face with a time limit. Her school is one of the top public schools in the country, and is rigorous. She takes algebra pass/fail because she does not understand it, and soon forgets what she does learn. She is top of the class in English and history, but she takes about five times longer to do her homework than her peers. She is getting very little sleep due to the many hours she spends on homework, and of course regular practicing.</p>
<p>Yes it would help her to have accommodations, but my D has to be willing to go through the process. She has a lot of bad memories of “special ed” from elementary school.</p>
<p>DD’s issues were not discovered until she went to college. It was her voice teacher that noticed her processing issues and asked us to have her tested. We did and starting in her sophomore year she had testing accommodations that made a lot of difference. It is not impossible to get accommodation in college if not tested in HS. And often even if you had HS accommodation, they require retesting to verify for college. But understand if there is a struggle in HS , it will be worse in college. There will be no off the books accommodation in college. </p>
<p>It was things like language and theory that were issues for her. Getting the numbers into the right place for math was an issue too. she did fine in HS and pretty good on SATs, better on ACTs. But for college, the extra test time and separate procedures she needed were critical to her success. </p>
<p>She should get tested and learn to self advocate in HS where she has a safety net. DD had to learn by herself in college. It is not “special ed”. It is leveling the playing field. If she needed glasses would she refuse because it was special? She has to think of it in the same terms as needing glasses to read. She needs time and maybe some process accommodations to test. .</p>
<p>Woodwinds, I know exactly what you must be going through in terms of all the extra time it takes to do homework, since we all “bought-that-T-shirt”, so I’m just going to send you hugs and let you know all the extraordinary effort required on both your D’s part and yours really CAN pay off. If you can access things such as cognitive behavioral therapy, etc. to help with time management/organization etc. you may also find the workload improves to a degree. My son did that in college and it’s really helped train the executive function part of the brain in his case.</p>
<p>Singersmom07 makes excellent points as well. It takes time to learn to self-advocate, but it’s critical (and of course, works best with the hard documentation required.) Your HS sounds really flexible. Maybe someone your D is close to there could explain that it’s not like “special ed” and that it really is necessary to better “fit” the instruction to her learning style. Eg. that the school ALSO wants her to show her best performance. Best wishes with the road ahead.
Cheers, K</p>
<p>Woodwinds, is there a Guidance Counselor that your D could speak to? Have a processing problem or an LD is NOT the same as “special ed” classes, which usually consist of students who have more severe problems requiring intensive one-on-one attention. Kids who need extra time on certain tests will most often take them in the Guidance Office, simply not reporting to class or leaving quietly when they need to. As for the standardized tests for those getting extra time, those are always given in a separate area due to the needs required. Some kids need questions read to them because they are auditory processors, while others may have disgraphic problems and either need a scribe or use a computer so that their answers can actually be read! My eldest son was such a kid, and his ADD(without the H) and his problem wasn’t identified until the middle of his junior year in high school, and then, by a great guidance counselor who had done her dissertation on ADD-gifted students. He went on to get perfect scores on his ACTs and now holds an excellent job with Microsoft, but how much easier it would have been for him had his needs been identified earlier.
The top conservatories require intense theory courses, and those with sequencing problems will not do well unless they get needed accommodations. There are also academic requirements; a full compliment of those are required some places, and include at least one math course and a science class, along with the humanities courses. So, you can see that there are things beyond high school to be considered. Your D is lucky as she goes to a school who does what it can for her without formal identification of an LD, but no conservatory is going to let her take theory (and those later classes, such as Form and Analysis or Counterpoint are really tough) as a P/F option. Hopefully, you can get her to see the bigger picture and help her to advocate for herself while you work on her behalf. This is a good time of year, especially if you can find a good pediatric neurologist or the like who does testing, so that she could simply slide into classes next year with no fanfare to make her feel “different”.
It’s not easy, but we knew that from the beginning, didn’t we? And then, they picked music…! Best of luck to you and your D.</p>
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I just wanted to corroborate MezzosMama’s excellent post. This is exactly what happened in our case, and p/f is NOT an option for degree-required courses (we tried). The really amazing part is our son went from struggling with intense theory to LOVING it and near perfect performance in intense theory, thanks to a combination of accommodations, a cbt coach, an outstanding professor at a school that really supports students with LDs, and medication – in two years! What he once viewed to be a “deficit” he now views as a “strength” because somehow he found the Rosetta stone. I can’t stress enough how gratifying it is to see that happen to your child! …Or the difference that has made in the caliber of his compositions!</p>