Friday Follow-up

There is news about a couple of issues we've discussed in recent blogs, so we're taking a moment to bring you up to date.

Free Metrocards for New York City students were threatened by budget cuts, an issue we addressed back in January of this year. The loss of free transportation to and from school would have hit low income families particularly hard and students and families protested this loss in a number of public venues, including a student march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Today's New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which issues the free passes, is near a deal with New York State which would require the State to contribute $25 million that would ensure that the free student Metrocards would remain available.We hope the dysfunctional New York legislature can keep this deal on track so that students and their parents are not penalized by the MTA.

Another issue we explored recently was a series of proposals from the New York State Board of Regents, the governing entity for schools in New York State, that would make changes to how special education services were provided to students. The Board meets again this coming Monday, June 21st and has just released its agenda and proposals. While it is not clear that the Board is making changes to VESID, which is the arm of the State Education Department that has been responsible for special education, they have proposed a number of important changes, which include how teachers are alerted to the contents of IEPs, changes to class sizes in certain situations, and removing limits on the size of speech and language groups. Parts of these meetings are accessible to the public via webcast, although it is not clear if the webcast will cover discussion and resolution of these important issues, which appear to be part of subcommittee discussions.

Colleges that Don't Require the SAT/ACT Exams

"Are there any college programs that don't require either the SAT or ACT exams?" a parent asked recently."My son has learning difficulties that make it difficult for him to get any sort of decent score, even with accommodations such as extended time. But I know that if he can get into a college that he can do okay."

There are hundreds of such programs and the best place to find them is on the website of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, generally known as Fairtest. Fairtest's mission goes far beyond helping students and their parents find colleges that don't require standardized tests for admission. They also work on the elementary and secondary level, seeking to "end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial."

The Fairtest list presently includes over 800 schools, none of which require SATs or ACTs for all entering students. However, these schools will require such entrance exams for some students, such as international students, or some students who don't meet their grade criteria. In addition, these schools may use standardized tests for placement purposes, for example, permitting students with a score above a particular point to "place out" of a beginner level course.

For students for whom college admissions tests are a barrier to continuing their education after high school, the schools on the Fairtest list -- and they include many excellent programs -- may be more flexible options for consideration.

When to Take on Your School District

Parents often ask what they should do if they don't get what they want from their child's school. Do they fight? Do they accept what the school is offering? How can they decide what is the right thing to do?

The excellent website Wrightslaw deals with this very issue in their newest newsletter, looking at what issues parents need to consider when they are trying to decide whether to "Settle or Fight?"

The answer to the question is different in every circumstance, but there are some basic principles that families should consider when faced with this issue. The first is to understand what they can expect their child's school to do for them. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) only applies to students who have been diagnosed with specific disabilities and that require special education services because of such disabilities. So, even if your child has a disability, the school may decline to classify him or her as eligible for services under the IDEA (although he or she may be covered under another law known as 504) if your child is doing well in school. The standards for this determination are shifting and some states are more difficult to deal with than others.

Even once a child is classified as eligible under the IDEA, you may not be satisfied with the services set out in your child's IEP. Here it is important to remember that the standard of education the school must provide your child is not optimal but appropriate, sufficient to permit your child to advance from grade to grade. As parents, we all want the best for our children but, unfortunately, schools are not required to provide everything we think our child should receive.

We encourage parents to think about whether their child's IEP is not adequate, or is not being properly implemented. If the IEP on its face is a good one, sometimes going back to the head of the IEP team and pointing out the school's failure to do what it promised can help get things on track. But if the offer of services is substantially short of what you believe your child requires, that may be a situation where you need to appeal to a Hearing Officer or State Review Officer (depending upon your state) to seek additional services or a different placement for your child.

Then there is the unpredictability and expense of litigation. Appealing to a Hearing Officer requires compliance with specific rules and is somewhat like a trial. We always suggest that parents use an attorney or an advocate if they are going to do this. One resource for finding an attorney or advocate is the website of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, COPAA. Parents who have decided to fight for what their child requires have helped carve out important new rights for children who struggle. There is much to consider when parents are deciding what to do and often a skilled attorney or advocate can help lay out the potential costs and benefits.

Get Off the Sofa!

Parents of college students have one more reason to try to get their sons and daughters off the sofa this summer. Even when the economy makes summer jobs problematic, sitting around while on vacation can not only impact a parent's patience, but the student's grades as well.

A study out of Saginaw State University in Michigan,  presented at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine looked at 266 undergraduate students and found a link between higher grade point averages and at least 20 minutes of vigorous activity each day. The study controlled for factors such as gender, race, and academic variables (including major, since the researchers posited that majors in fields such as kinesiology would be more likely to be active). The researchers determined that those students who met the higher activity levels had GPAs .4 higher than those who did not exercise.

Studies of younger students have shown the correlation between exercise and academic performance, but the focus on fitness in college students has not been looked at as extensively. We looked last year at the impact of fitness on a group of over one million military recruits in Sweden and on a relatively small group of American 7th grade girls, both of which groups showed distinct correlations between physical activity and cognitive performance.  This new study reinforces what research has told us about other age groups and hopefully will inspire college students - and all students - to get moving, both this summer and all year round.

Photo Credit: Mike Baird at Flickr.com

All Input, All the Time

How wired up is your family? Do any of you have your Blackberry or iPhone at the dinner table? Can you ignore a vibrating cell phone in your pocket while you are in a meeting? When is the last time your entire family spent a day together without electronic gadgetry? Can't remember? You may find the extensive piece in today's New York Times on the impact of modern gadgets on families and on individuals' brains to be of great interest.

The article looks at current research on how the brain reacts to -- and is changed by -- the constant stimulation and multitasking that is part of contemporary lives. It looks at one father whose addiction to his electronic world has impacted his family and how difficult it is for individuals who are used to constant streams of information to put their sources of stimulation aside. What we found fascinating is the discussion of findings from teams such as the one at Stanford University's Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab. Researchers at the Stanford lab looked at individuals whom they labeled "heavy multitaskers" because of their use of gadgetry, and others who used these devices more sparingly. They found clear differences in the abilities of these two groups to focus on a specific task at hand. The heavy multitaskers were not able to focus on the question in front of them; they were distracted by other information. In contrast, individuals who made limited use of electronic gadgets could better focus on a particular question and scored better on lab tests.

The Stanford researchers did not determine whether the individuals who they labeled multitaskers had different brain wiring that predisposed them to function in a distracted way, or whether they had damaged their ability to concentrate by their heavy use of gadgetry. But parents who are considering their child's latest request for another computer, smart phone, or other device to add to their already substantial electronic collection, may want to think carefully about the impact of their decision -- and to unplug themselves a bit to be a role model for their overstimulated child.

Grade Retention

We are occasionally asked if we think a student would benefit from the “gift of time.”  In general, having students repeat a grade - grade retention or, as students will sometimes call it, being "left back"- is not an effective way to deal with students who struggle in school. As noted in a document from the National Association of School Psychologists, a review of the research in this area indicated that "For most students, grade retention had a negative impact on all areas of achievement (e.g., reading, math, and oral and written language) and social and emotional adjustment (e.g., peer relationships, self-esteem, problem behaviors, and attendance).

Still, school districts continue to use grade retention, often in response to the requirements imposed on schools by the No Child Left Behind law. Here in New York City, the issue of grade retention is sufficiently common that the excellent nonprofit, Advocates for Children has a series of parent kits with guidance on handling what they call "holdovers" for different grades. Essentially, for students who are not subject to state-wide testing (which occurs here in the 3rd and 5th grades) schools must look at several performance measures when deciding whether a student is to be retained,  including classroom performance, test scores, and attendance and students must meet standards in two out of three of these areas. There are exceptions for students with IEPs and for English Language Learners, but they are not automatic. Students in the 3rd and 5th grades must pass the state-wide tests in language arts and mathematics in order to be promoted. 

Until schools bring their policies in line with the research that indicates that grade retention is generally not a way to help students and, in fact,often  leads to lower self esteem and higher drop out rates without long term improvement in academic performance, parents will need to be proactive if they are concerned that their child is in danger of being retained. As the statement from the National Association of School Psychologists notes, "When faced with a recommendation to retain a child, the real task is not to decide to retain or not to retain but, rather, to identify specific intervention strategies to enhance the cognitive and social development of the child and promote his or her learning and success at school." That is why the answer is to understand why the child is experiencing academic failure, by means of a comprehensive diagnostic assessment, and to then develop and implement strategies to address the specific areas of academic breakdown and build upon areas of academic strength.

Parents may sometimes decide, for a variety of reasons, that grade retention is a reasonable choice for their child. But whether it is something parents want or something which is forced upon them by their school, one thing is certain. Retaining a child in the same grade will never be effective if that time is used to repeat the same lessons and procedures which didn't work the first time around.

Diagnosing Attention Difficulties

We read with concern the article in yesterday's New York Times about computerized devices designed to "test" for attention difficulties. This is the latest in a group of highly commercialized tools to "objectively diagnose" ADHD. The current research simply does not support these claims. They will be nice little profit centers for clinicians, because they require no labor--but won't replace clinical diagnosis as the gold standard.

Why?

• Attention is complex. For example, we know that there are at least three different brain systems involved in regulating attention-one to regulate alertness, one to regulate incoming information, and the other to regulate how we behave and how we work. Research is showing that what we call ADHD is really a group of symptoms with multiple causes, that may involve each of these systems in different ways to different degrees in different people. Also, children with attention problems often have other problems, called "co-morbidities". So, it is not likely that there will ever be a single "objective diagnostic test."
• When children have symptoms like inattention/hyperactivity/impulsivity, it is important to consider all of the possible causes, which consideration is called "differential diagnosis". That requires the kind of comprehensive assessment that we perform. Comprehensive clinical assessment remains the "gold standard" for diagnosing ADHD.
• We look closely at attention and its impact on learning-"Is inattention leading to calculation errors in math? Is the child missing details when listening or reading which is affecting her ability to follow instructions or understand what she is reading? Is impulsivity leading to behavior problems, poor organization of writing, reading and math errors?
• More often than not, children with attention problems have other things going on that might be affecting school and life even more (e.g. language problems, memory problems). They will not respond to medication. Frequently these other problems are causing more problems than the attention deficit. In fact, attention may improve once they are addressed.

So, it is our opinion that a comprehensive diagnostic assessment remains the "gold standard" for diagnosing "ADHD". Furthermore, even when ADHD is diagnosed, treatment will need to be individualized, since many, if not most, children with ADHD have other problems (co-morbidities) that need to be diagnosed.

With regard to Quotient, the tool mentioned in the Times article, we think more research is warranted to determine if there is a potential role for this kind of tool as an adjunct to the diagnosis of disorders of attention. We don't use Quotient in our practice and don't plan to in the near future. We don't believe, at the present time and based upon existing research, that it adds to or replaces a comprehensive assessment including data from home and school.