Can the school psych diagnose Aspergers?
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| Sat, 06-10-2006 - 1:18am |
We are in a dispute with our school. They say he's normal, and we (parents) are causing the problem. We have a private psychologist who diagnosed ADHD and Aspergers last year, private doctor who diagnosed ADHD and impaired social coagnition 2 years ago, private OT who diagnosed SID 2 years ago, different school psych diagnosed ASD PDD-NOS 2 years ago.
Last October they exited him from services and (long story short) we got services back and got them to pay for an IEE this spring. After stalling to meet with us about the IEE results, we alleged a complaint and they finally met with us and listened to the private nuropsychologist, who diagnosed him with Aspergers and Communication Disorder.
Now the school wants to "re-eval" him now for Aspergers. Can they do that? Is this legal? I don't want this school psych anywhere near my DS. I feel like I'm running out of options. The school is a Goliath and I feel like David.
Help!
Paula

Hmmmm, let me see if I understand. You have not agreed to thier testing and asked for an IEE right. Was it the results of the IEE that said AS and they are trying to refute it again?
This situation is particularly confusing. Do you have an advocate or the means to get one? I think it would be a good idea in this case.
I am a bit confused and I would ask stephanie over at the IEP board to be sure. To my knowledge schools cannot diagnose medical disorders, however they do test to determine educational category or educational diagnosis of autism. However, Aspergers is not an educational category. Typically it falls under autism or it may fall under OHI if you have a medical dx and it is affecting him at school. So without the IEE being involved I could see the school testing to see if he qualified under autism and as part of that doing tests to see if he has issues consistent with Aspergers. However, since he already has a slew of testing I think a review of those tests and maybe adding the ADOS if he hasn't had one should suffice. I wouldn't want her to redo all tests. In fact redoing some tests within I think 1 year is a big no no. It makes them invalid.
Now adding in the IEE factor, I would think the school would have to accept that if it was done through the schools if it was a true IEE.
In a true IEE (to my knowledge, again check with Stephanie) you reject thier test and ask for an IEE. They give you a list of accept folks to do the IEE which have to be impartial or not district employees. I believe you can choose someone not on that list but it must be approved by the district (so they can check that persons credentials etc). Then the school pays for the IEE. The IEE then becomes the accepted evaluation by the school. If the school disagrees with the results then they can go to due process.
So my thinking here is that if you have had an IEE done that the school paid for and they want to do testing again then I would say no and ask for due process.
If it is just outside private evals, they don't have to accept those as thier testing. They do have to look at them and consider them but they can do thier own tests. IF this is the case and you don't want this person testing then I would request someone else do the testing and if need be send a letter to the director of special ed about it.
Renee