New diagnosis of ADHD

[DolphinFiji]

Hello Parents, my 11 year old daughter was just diagnosed last week with ADHD impulsive type after a series of neuropsychological evaluations. She is being treated with medication for existing anxiety for a little over a year now as well. She started middle school this year and even though she continues with an IEP, she is struggling, especially with aggression in the classroom. We now have a manifestation meeting with the school district because of the amount of times she has been pulled out with consequence of in-school suspension. I disagree with the suspension and called another meeting last month where the school PhD is developing a crisis plan and revising her behavior plan to best support her. But then she had another aggressive behavior leading to 2 in-school suspension days and this meeting on Tuesday, which I was informed about on Friday. I am at a loss on how else to best support her. We live in New York State. I was hoping to reach out to a parent advocate to support us in this meeting on Tuesday, but I just do not know where to start. Do any parents know of a parent advocate or any resources?

Thank you.

[Momtrying]

I’m sorry you guys are experiencing this tough time! Are you going to start her on medication for the ADHD diagnosis? That might help a lot with her outbursts and aggression.

[Mamamichl]

hello. My stepkid was diagnosed in kindergarten and was taken to special education room for all of their elementary school. They then transitioned to mainstream in 5th grade. 6th was Covid but he struggled with academics through the first year back in school face to face, and is doing well in 9th grade now. Has your kid had the opportunity to learn coping strategies through special ed schooling or through counseling? If so, then talk regularly about her feelings and what she could have done differently and what coping strategies would have worked for her.

You can also talk about how the IEP may need to be adjusted for her behavioral issues and ask for a behavior intervention plan adjustment. If the school puts all of the blame on her, explain that you feel she is getting set up for failure with iss that often. It is possible that she needs to do online schooling so that other kids don’t tick her off and she can focus on academics. You are doing a great job on checking the iep behavior goals. You also need to ask the school to have documentation of how they are following the IEP. Legally they have to follow it, and if something isn’t being followed in it, they have a problem. I would go over the iep with your child and ask for instances where they are or should have been following the iep goals.

Does your daughter think she is being bullied? I think legally federally all schools need to have a third party agency to assess bullying situations. You can call the district office to see what that agency is, and even see if you can talk to the special education director in your district. I work in special education and technically parents need to pull the reigns on these situations, but they have to ask the right people and the right questions.

You can also contact your county’s esd or isd (education service district, intermediate school district). Those are the people that actually train the school district staff on safety programs (de escalation and restraints). They are also the ones that determine if the school is in compliance for special education.

[SurvivorFan]

I am in MN so not sure how your IEP is written out, but on one of the last pages of my sons iep it states we can contact someone through an organization called PACER.

This was extremely helpful to us recently when we needed guidance with some of what you described above. No suspensions but some aggressive behavior while we were trying different meds for mood and they were wanting to put him in another school. I needed to understand our rights and they helped me with just that and also what language to use when talking to my sons team. They also offer to come to IEP meetings as a support.

PACER is MN only I believe but maybe you have something like that in NY? If you don't see it on your daughter's IEP you could contact her behavioral health physician and I am sure they would have the contact info as ours also offered this suggestion to us. Hope this helps.

[Aspen797]

Every state has a federally funded parent resource center to educate and offer resources for parents of students with disabilities. Some offer advocacy directly, but all will offer referral. Find yours here: parentcenterhub.org/find-yo....

Every state also has a nonprofit, federally funded disability rights law office designed to legally advocate for and protect the legal rights of people with disabilities ( including students). Find yours here: ndrn.org/about/ndrn-member-....

The federal office of special education has recently focused heavily on discipline of students with disabilities and on the critical importance of school’s using positive behavioral interventions and supports, relying on behavioral assessment tools such as functional behavioral assessments and developing behavioral intervention plans based on these assessments. They also emphasize that schools must adhere to the legal protections under the rehab act and IDEA. A detailed guide from them is here: sites.ed.gov/idea/files/qa-....

A great book I highly, highly recommend is The Behavior Code by Jessica Minahan. She has recorded talks and podcasts and journal articles online that you can look at too. A link to some freely accessible articles she’s published is here: jessicaminahan.com/publicat...

She explores how a lot of ‘bad’ behavior is due to anxiety and how critical it is to get to the behavioral root of the behavior in order to develop a replacement behavior that will work. There is a science to changing behavior and she nails it in a parent friendly and understandable way.

Sometimes a school’s well intentioned response to a problematic behavior can actually worsen the behavior or cause it to persist (one example— a student acts out when required to write and is removed from the class, alleviating the writing requirement, and reinforcing the behavior). A well done FBA over an extended period can identify events leading up to the behavior and what occurs after the behavior to try to find what is setting off the behavior or reinforcing it and what alternative behavior could be taught and reinforced that meets the same need of the student but is socially acceptable. More detailed info on FBA’s and behavior plans is here: iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu.... All kids do well if they can. Hang in there.