It was the night of our son’s first grade parent-teacher conference, and my husband and I were expecting a quick chat about how well our son was doing in school. We were surprised when the teacher pulled in our school’s Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) with bad news; despite speech services three times per week since kindergarten, he simply wasn’t showing any significant improvement.
The classroom teacher was concerned because she often couldn’t understand what our son was saying. She knew that in the coming years, he would increasingly need to speak in front of the class, including reading aloud and public speaking.
We could see ourselves how our son’s articulation problems were impacting his self-esteem; asked to repeat himself, he would too often give up and keep quiet instead. Too many people weren’t seeing who he was and what he was truly capable of.
The SLP’s hands were tied — she couldn’t offer any further intervention, except with something called an “IEP” granting additional services. But his teacher told us there was no way he would be granted the extra help at school, because his grades were “too high”; he was at or above grade level in all subjects.
The teacher recommended a local business where we could get private speech help — at a cost. I went home to research our options and learned that private speech therapy was expensive, and in our case insurance would not cover it. I had a toddler still in diapers. We simply didn’t have the money.
Up until then I hadn’t really questioned my decision to be a stay-at-home mom, but realizing that our single income prevented us from providing something our son really needed broke my heart. I was overwhelmed by the prospect of finding a way to provide my son the extra help.
My mind went back to the Speech Language Pathologist’s mention of an IEP. I had heard the term before in gifted discussion groups, but I didn’t really know what it meant or that it might apply to us. I had never heard of an IEP in relation to speech.
I learned that an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, is a document outlining special education services that a school must provide to disabled students. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law which requires special education students to have an IEP, and for the schools to provide the individualized education outlined in the document.
Fortunately, a friend with experience in special education encouraged me to seek an IEP despite the classroom teacher’s opinion that we shouldn’t bother. Even if our son wouldn’t qualify for services, she said, the battery of tests that the school district would be required to conduct would provide us with valuable information.
Still, I was apprehensive about ignoring the teacher’s opinion and requesting an IEP anyway. Before contacting the school district to request the testing, I decided to do some research and seek additional opinions. I discovered that the teacher was mistaken.
But she wasn’t the only one under the impression that gifted kids, or those with adequate grades, are ineligible for IEP services. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has addressed this issue multiple times. In 1995, an inquiry letter, known as “Lillie/Felton”, asked of the OSEP:
“May a child who has an exceptionally high I.Q. and is achieving at age level, but not ability level, be eligible for special education as specific learning disabled (SLD)?”
The OSEP’s response includes the following assertions:
“There is no categorical exclusion for children with high IQs in Part B…”
“Each child who is evaluated for a suspected learning disability must be measured against his own expected performance, and not against some arbitrary general standard.”
“…underachievement is measured against the student’s own ability, and not against a normative performance standard.”
“…a child’s educational performance must be determined on an individual basis and should include non-academic and academic skills.”
Read more on the Wrightslaw website.
A 2010 letter from OSEP declares:
“The IDEA is silent regarding “twice exceptional” or “gifted” students. It remains the Department’s position that students who have high cognition, have disabilities and require special education and related services are protected under the IDEA and its implementing regulations.”
and
“…we believe that the IDEA and its regulations do provide protections for students with high cognition and disabilities who require special education and related services to address their individual needs.”
Read the entire letter here.
A 2009 brief from SPEDWatch states that:
“Nowhere in any law, regulation, or policy is it stated that high intelligence disqualifies a student from eligibility for special education (i.e., having an I.E.P.). In fact, Congress emphasized this by including the following language in the most recent reauthorization of IDEA:
‘Each State must ensure that FAPE is available to any individual child with a disability who needs special eduation and related services, even though the child has not failed or been retained in a course or grade, and is advancing from grade to grade.’“
At ASHA.org, I even found information relevant to my son’s specific need:
“Q: Can a school district deny speech-language pathology services to a student with a ‘mild’ articulation disorder if the district decides that the disability does not ‘adversely affect educational performance’?
A: State and/or local school education agencies may apply different interpretations to ‘adversely affects educational performance’, however, they cannot deny a child with a speech or language impairment services under IDEA just because they do not have a discrepancy in age/grade performance in an academic subject-matter area. If acquisition of adequate and appropriate communication skills are a required part of your school’s academic standards and curriculum and considered to be a basic skill necessary for all children attending school, then children with a speech or language impairment have a disorder that adversely affects educational performance.”
My son’s grades weren’t suffering, but his academic experience certainly was, and I wasn’t going to wait until his grades started to dip, too. Armed with evidence that he could be eligible for an IEP, I pressed forward.
I contacted the school district to request testing for an IEP. Shortly thereafter, I was contacted by the school psychologist. The psychologist questioned me about what I was “hoping to achieve”, and demeaningly stated that “parents think we can wave a magic wand for extra services.” I felt about two inches tall.
Fortunately, having already requested the testing, federal law had taken effect, and the district was required to complete the testing process whether they thought I was That Parent, or not.
When the testing was complete and it was time to meet with the Committee on Special Education (CSE), I was very nervous. I would be in a room with educators and district personnel, including the teacher who had recommended against even attempting this process, and the psychologist who thought I was wasting everybody’s time. I didn’t have the money to hire an advocate to accompany me.
As it turned out, tests revealed that my son was more profoundly intelligent than anyone realized, and more profoundly disabled. In short, he was twice-exceptional — gifted and disabled at the same time. His articulation was so bad for his age, that there was no question — he would qualify for special education services after all. I was right, and everyone in the room realized it.
The SLP was able to increase the number of therapy sessions per week, and we finally began to see improvement. The IEP also afforded me the opportunity to sit down annually to discuss my son’s progress with his classroom teacher, the SLP, and the school psychologist.
Now, three years later, my son’s articulation has improved so dramatically that people can understand him most of the time. Though his articulation is still slightly below average, we were able to end his IEP this year because his needs can be addressed without the additional special education services.
Many states offer “Gifted IEPs”, which provide academic differentiation for gifted students. Unfortunately, New York is not among them. However, if you have a child in New York who has great grades but also has a disability that requires services, rest assured that federal law is firmly on your side.
For further resources on this topic, I highly recommend the Wrightslaw website.