[blindkid] Gifted testing

Wed Feb 1 19:55:08 UTC 2012

I think you are right on track as well Gina, only be careful when we start talking about legality with the school. If the wrong thing gets said they can abruptly stop cooperating and it can come to legal measures. That can become a huge hassle.

I agree that it must be illegal, and I suspect that a legal battle would end in the child's favor, but far better to avoid those steps if the school can be made aware of possible accommodations they could use to solve this more informally and they will comply. Frankly, they may also think (no reflection on this particular child, Hannah) that a blind kid isn't going to be "gifted", so why bother? Well, the reasons are at least two-fold. This child may indeed be gifted (or may test as gifted in the future), but also the child needs to be treated like the rest of the kids. I think this is the first thing they need to hear, and maybe (hopefully!) the school will start to catch on....

Our daughter is also the only blind child in a typically sighted, main stream student population. Fairly often, I think foolish things like this come as out of ignorance as much as (or maybe even more than) laziness on the school's part. It can even be fear. I have seen teachers who are clearly afraid, not of our daughter as such, but of not having any idea how to teach her, and not realizing that there are specialists (TVI's and O&M's) who are going to appear and offer assistance in dealing with all of this. (This was specifically stated one in a meeting at school. It was very surprising, and perhaps not the wisest choice on this teacher's part.)

I think there is even one further level of the blindness fear in schools though-- people are afraid of becoming blind themselves and sometimes, you hit people in schools to whom that applies so much that they really have no idea how to confront any matter related to blindness. If you run across that, you may find people going to all sorts of measures to excuse our kids from things which the frightened adults are trying to avoid themselves. Does that apply in this case? Who knows, but maybe it is a thing to keep in mind when one is trying to determine what is in the mind of a squirming administrator opposite your ring-side seat at your next IEP?

I think it was Dr. V here on the list who pointed out a while back that he goes out of his way to make the IEP feel as personal as possible. Bring a photo of your child and have it out to be seen in the meeting. We often tell personal anecdotes about Kendra in meetings. Get these people to WANT to help if possible. Only if and when that fails do you throw the legal card. (But absolutely, throw it if you must.)

On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:12 PM, Gina Ouellette wrote:

> Hi Laurie,
> 
> I am a school psychologist at a state school for the blind and not a parent of a blind child, so this is just my own two cents. I have to agree with everyone else... In my humble opinion the school needs to know from day one that you want your daughter to be treated like everyone else. I think that if you allow your daughter to be exempted based on her vision impairment alone it will send the message to the school that you're willing to bend when something is "too hard" to adapt. 
> 
> The fact is that the teachers know the students well by this point in the school year, and they probably have a good sense of which kids may be "gifted." Imagine the outrage if they got to pick and choose which kids got to take the test and which didn't. That would not be fair, and neither is disallowing your daughter to take it based on pre-conceived notions or the "hassle" of adapting the test. 
> 
> You can also talk with the school psychologist at the school about what he or she could do to help assess your daughter in a similar way to the way she would be assessed with the gifted test. He or she may also be able to help the TVI, principal, and/or head of the gifted program to figure out how to best adapt the test.
> 
> The key is to do some more research and go in with a well-versed argument about why it is inappropriate to exempt her. You should also talk about the legality of it. As you know, your daughter is protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (even more so than IDEA) and must have equal access. That is really the silver bullet--it is completely illegal for them to not accommodate her or give her access to something that her sighted peers have access to.
> 
> Good luck. It's a sticky situation, but as someone else pointed out, you will be defending your daughter's right to access for many years to come.
> 
> Best,
> Gina
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of L
> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:52 AM
> To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List (forparentsofblindchildren)
> Subject: [blindkid] Gifted testing
> 
> Hi all,
> So my 5 year old is in a regular kindergarten class.  The SCOPE program (gifted) has been coming into the classroom and working with the students and hannah's VI teacher and aide have adapted all materials for her.  Well, now they will be testing ALL kindergarten students for the program.  The test is not allowed to be altered in any way and they have no version for blind students/low vision.  I was told it is a very visual test.  The principal has stated that Hannah is not to take this test at all and they want me to sign an addendum to exempt her from this test.  This is not necessarily an issue I really want to fight right now, because I don't think Hannah will qualify at this time for gifted services.  BUT I feel that it is completely unfair that they just want to exempt her from the test when all the other students are taking it.  I also don't want to say okay and exempt maybe this year and next year while she is still learning all her  braille, but what if in the future I feel like she should take it and they say "well you always exempted her before..."  Any thoughts?  Thank you!  Laurie Wages (Hannah's mom) _______________________________________________
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