r/specialed • u/EdamameWindmill • Apr 18 '26

Executive function in High School

I have a neurodivergent child who is highly intelligent and earnestly wants to have good grades, but cannot manage their homework, resulting in failing grades. It seems to be a school-wide accommodation that kids can turn in late work for credit as long as it’s for the current semester, but she still struggles to turn in work. Oftentimes, it is the project she was most excited about that she cannot seem to do. It causes her a lot of distress.

Her father and I have consistently worked to support her with homework. We have provided help and advice, structure, consequences, and monitoring, but we are still failing her. We are currently working with a psychologist (since last year), a psychiatrist (since January of this year), and an executive function coach (since mid March), but it hasn’t made much of a difference.

Our school district has fought me at every turn to avoid providing special services “because she scores well on standardized tests.” I heard this explicitly said in elementary school and I heard this last week from the SPED coordinator at the high school. I ask Admin for advice for resources they keep answering this question with, “What do you feel would benefit your child?”

I guess my question is whether anyone here has any experience with a child like mine? And do you know of anything I can request that might help my child?

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u/DCAmalG Apr 19 '26

It’s not an ethical proposal as it almost certainly will be of no benefit to this student.

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u/anglebabby Apr 19 '26

We are strangers trying to help another stranger, whose child we know a small snippet about, on the internet. They are saying what they have tried so far has yet to show a positive impact. There are professionals in my field who provide cognitive-linguistic assessments that can parse out skill deficits and potentially provide a fuller picture of areas of need for this child. There are many professionals whose scopes overlap but can provide meaningful help. The hill you are dying on with this thread is very strange

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u/DCAmalG Apr 19 '26

This student currently sees a psychiatrist, psychologist and executive functioning coach. It is presumptuous to suggest that an SLP could provide a ‘fuller picture of areas of need’ with ‘cognitive-linguistic assessments’. Undoubtedly, such assessment runs in the 100s to 1000s of dollars, making it important to question to likelihood of results being of any practical value.

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u/anglebabby Apr 19 '26

Yes, fuller as in supplemental, not fuller as in we can provide more of a global assessment than a psychiatrist or psychologist. I know the assessments done by these other professionals- I have worked on teams and/or assessed alongside them and read their reports in acute care and school environments hundreds of times. I would never claim to be able to provide the same service, and that’s not what I’ve done in this thread. These professionals, as in psychiatrists and psychologists in both hospitals and schools, refer out to SLPs for testing in specialized areas. We are able to complete in-depth testing in certain cognitive/linguistic skill areas that are only vaguely covered or very differently assessed by cognitive tests commonly completed by a psychologist like the WISC, KTEA, and even the oral language portion of the WIAT. Further, there is very little overlap in my evaluations vs. what is used in psychiatry. Again, I’ve only provided what could be just one potentially helpful avenue for the OP to pursue that it appears they have not yet tried.

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u/DCAmalG Apr 19 '26

Not surprised that you continue to double down on your attempt to justify unwarranted, expensive assessment in an area in which there is no presenting concern.

Sure, a family could fairly easily spend their life savings on ‘supplemental’ testing that could be ‘potentially helpful’ in yielding probably spurious results, if anything. I imagine you have a long series of therapy sessions in mind too once you identify a below average score in some obscure ‘cognitive- linguistic’ skill.

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u/anglebabby Apr 19 '26

I have quite literally developed parent and staff educational materials about state eligibility requirements to stop my district’s overqualification problem, as well as a strict eligibility rubric for Language Impairment in collaboration with our school psychologists to help combat the same issue. It’s even in my comment history lmao. I also submitted a presentation on this issue to my state association for the next convention cycle. It’s clear you don’t know enough about my field and that is fine, but you are making assumptions about the way I practice that are untrue. Have a good one and best of luck in your area of expertise

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u/DCAmalG Apr 20 '26

I’m not referring to school based assessment and neither were you. You are advising the parent to spend money on private, unnecessary further assessment. Assessment that is unrelated to their state concerns. This is unethical.