Bag of Tricks
Last week I shared that we filed for a due process hearing. We felt that our district had violated Travis’s rights to a free and appropriate education.
In the meantime, Travis was set to begin his four week ESY (Extended School Year) within our local district. Remember our special education director stated that Travis needed to have an 80% success rate behaviorally, socially and academically to come back to school in district. The director said that it was agreed on by the IEP team.
Tracy and I attended the IEP meeting and this success rate was never discussed. Maybe they held another meeting without inviting us? Maybe he just added this after the meeting? I cannot say for sure. What I do know is that there is no mention of it in our copy of the IEP.
And he also said that even if Travis did meet that success rate the decision for Travis to attend his local school would not be based solely on his ESY performance.
I also wrote previously that we were given two options for Travis’s ESY. Travis was just finishing up fifth grade. We chose the option at the elementary school with other fifth graders. And with a special education teacher.
The director had advised that we choose the middle school option. Because it was at the middle school. That did not make sense to me because it was for middle schoolers that were not ESY students, they had classwork they needed to complete to finish a class they had taken. And the teacher was not a special education teacher.
We were able to meet the special education teacher for Travis’s ESY before it began. She was awesome! As she discussed the program she spoke directly to Travis. (This is not as common as you might think.)
She told him that she had heard that he liked science, then asked him if he would be willing to help the other children on science projects. His face brightened.
She asked him what type of books he liked. He told her that he liked the Goosebumps series. She asked him to bring his favorites in to school. He also told her that he had a book, Kid’s Concoctions, that he really liked. She suggested that he bring that book in as well. And help her to pick some projects for the group from it.
He shared with her that he also liked music. That we were planning on getting him a guitar. She told him that if he got it before the four week program was finished he should bring it in and play it for everyone.
She asked him what else he liked. He asked if they could have a pet day. He explained that each student could show their pet and tell the class about it. She replied, “Can you help me organize it?”
As I write this tears are welling up in my eyes. And I am sure that they were back then too. I was impressed with her engagement with him.
And guess what?
Even with a few rough spots Travis averaged an 86.5% success rate during his ESY experience.
And I am sure this teacher had a great deal to do with Travis’s success.
In his book, What Do You Do With a Child Like This?, Inside the Lives of Troubled Children, L. Tobin states, “You may teach successfully for years and never encounter a truly troubled child.
But sooner or later, a special child will walk through your door and you will find yourself saying, what do I do with a child like this? This child may not respond to rewards, and may seem indifferent to consequences; he may even reject your compliments and seem intent on making enemies rather than friends. Confused, you will recognize that all of the techniques that you’ve used effectively for years fail to reach through to this particular child.
How to begin? You must dare to start over. You must search through your lifetime of knowledge, memories, and understanding to stimulate the creation of a whole new bag of tricks for reaching this child. You will pull new ideas from this bag of tricks until you find the key to this child, for this moment, and receive a richly rewarding glimpse of the joyful child within.”
I believe that this teacher reached deep into her bag of tricks.
Travis had a daily progress monitoring report where he was measured on the following:
Follows directions across environment and people.
Begins activity.
Completes activity.
Controls outbursts with assistance.
Stays in designated area.
Hands/feet to self.
Tells truth/honesty.
Leaves other’s things alone.
Kindness towards others.
Travis’s first week was his lowest scoring week at 81.4%. He did have two days that week lower than 80%.
Scores were given for each of the nine behaviors at seven different time intervals. This is important to note because he could have a rough spot for twenty minutes without that ruining his outcome for the entire day. As I think I have mentioned before, in the past staff would focus on the rough times and forget there was some good stuff too.
And it also important to note that how a rough spot is handled by staff can set the tone for the rest of the day. Based on his performance it is clear that the ESY staff was successful in handling Travis’s rough spots.
There were times during an IEP where the team would discuss an incident, such as Travis throwing something, for several minutes. I would have to raise my hand and ask if we could move the discussion to what may have caused the incident. Was it sensory driven? Are there some changes we can make in his environment to keep him from becoming so frustrated?
As Travis attended the four week ESY program we were moving forward with our complaints for the due process hearing. Travis’s first IEP labeled Travis’s disability as Significant Identifiable Emotional Disturbance, (SIED). We agreed that Travis had emotional issues. His birthmother had shared with us that her family struggled with mental illness issues.
But we knew in our hearts that there was more to his story. We believed that he had a learning disability and we believed that Travis was also on the autism spectrum. When the district placed Travis in his first out of district placement they told us that they were going to contract with that district to perform an autism evaluation. We were told that our district did not have the staff to perform that type of evaluation.
And if you have been following our story, you will remember that we were told at every monthly treatment review meeting that the evaluation was four weeks out. Month after month. And two and a half years later it had not been performed.
As part of the pre-hearing process we met with the district. Our attorney brought up that she was horrified that this evaluation had never been completed. Much to my surprise the attorney for the district said they would get it scheduled immediately.
It was agreed that the evaluation needed to be performed by an impartial specialist. Someone without any knowledge of the ongoing challenges with our district.
As part of the evaluation process Travis was observed during his ESY attendance. He was observed by two different specialists. One of them was a Special Education Consultant and also an Autism Specialist. The other was a Neuro-Psychological Doctor.
Travis was not aware that he was being observed specifically. There were seven children in the classroom. (Turns out that Travis is not the only child in our district with his level of needs.)
The evaluation also consisted of several visits to the office of the neuropsychologist where she performed a battery of tests.
Most of the findings included territory we were familiar with. The following are some excerpts from the sixteen page evaluation performed by the Neuro-Developmental team:
Travis was difficult to manage and resisted schoolwork.
His teacher was most successful with him by being calm, firm and persistent about getting a task done.
Travis needed individualized support for all work.
Travis needed constant redirection.
The same evaluation lists the following as Diagnostic Impressions:
Travis continues to meet criteria for ADHD. His problems are in the severe range and have been nonresponsive to medications.
Travis’s cognitive and academic profile also indicates dyslexia secondary to a weakness in auditory memory. These auditory working memory deficits impact reading, writing and math facts.
Travis has sensory integration disorder which is also severe. Travis has extreme sensitivity to sound and light which will make a classroom difficult to manage. He is also sensitive to smell and irritated by unexpected touch.
Travis does have a disorder in social reasoning that would meet the criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. (PDD-NOS places him on the Autism Spectrum.) He is perseverative in his thinking, has poor social perspective taking, and is very immature socially.
His profile does have many characteristics of an Autistic Spectrum disorder.
Travis has difficulty with mood regulation, particularly when over-stimulated and stressed due to learning problems. He is a hot tempered kid who uses the threat of aggressive behavior to manipulate a situation. He does not realize the negative impact this is having for him. He is only aware of the short term goal of getting out of a task. This tendency to act aggressively without understanding the consequences is part of his autistic spectrum disorder.
Sensory processing disorders can contribute to controlling and difficult behaviors, but I (the doctor) also think that Travis’s mood issues will need ongoing psychiatric monitoring.
And she was right about that. Travis continues to see his psychiatrist regularly.
This is a lot of stuff for one child to face. Any one of his diagnoses would make life difficult. But all of this together makes it nearly impossible for him to cope in this world. We cannot forget the child under the diagnoses.
And I believe this is why Travis imagines that he is not of this world. That he is from another world. An imaginary world. A world in which he is a bad-ass. Where he slays dragons and evil forces. When life deals him an especially hard card, he puts himself back in this place. A place where he can cope.
His current therapist gets this about him. And speaks to him in a way that gets through to him. Gives him examples of times he should put on his armor or use his shield to protect himself.
And this is why I believe he loves video gaming. Because he is slaying an enemy and earning a higher level. Gaming is something that he is good at. He can remove himself from this harsh world.
The specialists come up with recommendations for our district to put in place in order to provide a successful learning experience for Travis.
Our district makes the decision to accommodate Travis and allow him to go to his local middle school.
But you know what I am thinking? They know they screwed up. Turns out he is on the autism spectrum. Something we begged the school district to take into consideration. Something we asked again and again to be evaluated. And as an “expert”, something the special education director should have recognized.
And the neuropsychologist shared with us that “day treatment” programs are the absolute worst place you can place a child with Travis’s needs. And the director should have known this. Did he?
If you read my last blog you are thinking, come on, get to the part where you tell us what the district asked you to do!
They asked us to drop the due process complaint. With prejudice. This means that we would be barred from filing another case on the same claims. The case is dismissed for good and cannot be reopened.
Come back next week to find out what happens next. Can this story get any more complicated? Hmmm.
“To be effective, you must dare to start over, to search for a whole new set of tools to reach through the facade of misbehavior to the troubled child hiding within.” - L. Tobin