childhood collective

Tue, Jun 20, 2023 8:08PM 1:04:23 SUMMARY KEYWORDS adhd, school, child, parents, iep, kids, teacher, accommodations, executive functioning, support, laurie, evaluation, struggling, recess, medical diagnosis, talking, work, classroom, challenges, training

01:00-04:17 Welcome, Katie and Laurie, I am looking forward to talking with you today about out of thebox school accommodations and other lesser known Special Education IEP tips, specificallysupporting students with ADHD. So welcome, and thank you.

04:17 We're so excited to be here. I love you for having us. 04:21 Yes. Let's go ahead and just introduce yourselves to folks that are listening. So they have alittle bit of background on who you are and how you help strategize in the world of specialeducation. 04:35 Yeah, so I'm Laurie long. I'm a child psychologist and I have a private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona. And in my private practice, I specialize in evaluating students for ADHD and autismand learning disorders. I also specialize in independent educational evaluations through mypractice, which I'm sure will kind of talk a little bit about up today. But anytime a child isstruggling at school, I can kind of go in and provide recommendations and kind of an outsideobjective, kind of look at how a student is doing in educational planning for that student. But are We're here today because I also have the childhood collective with Katie and Mallory. And we found that a couple years ago, because we really saw parents of kids with ADHD, kind ofstruggling to find science, back resources and strategies, and we put together courses to reallyhelp parents have easy, simple strategies to implement at home to help, you know, develophappy and independent kids with ADHD, both at home and at school. So that's kind of what we do through the childhood collective. 05:54 Yes. And I'm Katie Severs, and I'm a speech language pathologist. And I actually got connectedto the ADHD world because I grew up in a family with a lot of ADHD, and really just have a hugepassion with executive functioning and supporting kids and adults with challenges withexecutive functioning. And so I worked in private practice for about 11 years as a speech pathologist. And it seemed like in private practice, you see whoever walks through the door,but I just would always gravitate towards those families with ADHD and kids who reallyconsistently struggled with executive functioning. And the last probably about six years, I transitioned into private practice as well. And with a psychology office, and so I was actuallyworking with Lori and Mallory at one point. And I would come in as a speech languagepathologist and help with these assessments, right. So the psychology team is looking at diagnostics, those kinds of things. But there's a lot of areas that kids with ADHD can have difficulties with language, executive functioning. And these are all part of the speech language pathology scope of practice. And so I got really into those types of evaluations and treatment.And that's actually one of the ways that we all connected back in the day. And so none of us work at that practice anymore. But it's just such a fun memory. And I think that that's where, as a team, we kind of all bring different areas of expertise. So Laurie was a very strongbackground in testing and school based supports, I bring the executive functioning piece andkind of the nuts and bolts of like parent behavior training in, you know, therapy, and thenMallory has a ton of experience. She's not here with us today, but she's another childpsychologist who has a lot of experience with parent training. And she's trained in PCIT, that model and that kind of thing. So together, we've created online courses to support families athome and at school, and everything we provide is completely geared towards

07:52 ADHD. Yeah, and and just to elaborate, Mallory and I are both school psych, like ourbackground and training is in School Psychology. So all of our training was really on educationalpsychology and how to support kids in the school setting. 08:13 It's so fantastic that you offer this service. And as you said, a couple of words I was like, yes, yes, yes. In terms of like, easy, simple team approach. Yeah, it should be that across the board all the time. And I always say that, like, it just should not be this hard for parents that are justtrying to navigate a world where the language, especially in a school system, or public schoolsystem, in the world of special ed is just a whole different language. And yes, and I always say that, you know, if it's your baby, it's this fear and love. And then you're trying to learn a newlanguage and navigate things and you don't always know what you don't know. So I love that you, the three of you make things easy and simple and take that team approach. 08:54 Yes, yeah, the the language of the school setting is so confusing to parents. And so manytimes, even after I meet with a family and kind of review some of that with them, they will go toa meeting and they're like, they kept saying these terms and like, I don't know what this means. And it's just it's very confusing and it's it's hard to understand the laws and so it'sparents need this information to be able to navigate supporting their kids at school. 09:23 So let's take a look at kind of where this all starts. So if I have a student my child has ADHD isthe school responsible for identifying and referring kids with ADHD to special education is theparent what does that mean? And how do they do that? 09:41 That is that is a loaded question. I love it. I 09:48

09:48 feel like we're both like okay, let me roll up my sleeves. Let's 09:51 get in there. Let's do it. 09:54 You know, the, the schools are responsible for identifying kids with a HD and supporting them.Yes, absolutely. However, the schools do not typically provide a medical diagnosis of ADHD. So that's why it's very confusing for families. But just because they might not necessarily providethat medical diagnosis, they school psychologists have a lot of training in ADHD, it's the mostcommon referral that comes up in the school setting and in private practice among kids, sothey're very familiar and have training with ADHD, they can do evaluations to identify if that'simpacting them in a school setting. However, you might go to one school, and a schoolpsychologist might say, I can't evaluate this or provide supports until you get a medicaldiagnosis. And another school psychologist might evaluate and say, No, we suspect that theyhave ADHD, or they might even diagnose it. And they'd provide an individual education plan or a 504 plan to support students. So honestly, you know, I see a variety of ways that schoolsidentify kids, and it's not consistent. And that's why again, it's a very frustrating andchallenging process to navigate for, for parents. 11:21 Why is that? Why why is there not a consistent form of that in terms of if you have a schoolpsychologist within the training and be similar that they could then do that? What is thedifference that you've seen? 11:35 The training is similar, but the process and the goal of a school based evaluation versus amedical evaluation is different? So the goal of a school based evaluation is to evaluate astudent to identify are they meeting the criteria for these kind of administrative categories thatwe've developed in the law to say a child needs help or services at school? And that's really thegoal of their evaluation. Does a child needs supports and do they meet the criteria, theseadministrative criteria, the administrative criteria sometimes align with a medical diagnosis,but they sometimes don't. So for instance, specific learning disability does align with a medicaldiagnosis of a specific learning disorder, they're fairly similar, and they have similar names. But at school, when we look at eligibility for special education for ADHD, a lot of times it's thiscategory of Other health impairment, which is very odd and confusing to parents. So there is no ADHD category at school, which makes it very challenging again, for the schools. Their Their goal is to look at do they meet the criteria for this category, they their goal is not to give you amedical diagnosis. So I guess part of it is, what their purpose is in a school setting. And it's different than than providing a medical diagnosis.

13:07 And that being said, we believe that if a child is given a diagnosis of ADHD, a medical diagnosisof ADHD, a piece of that diagnosis is that this affects them across all areas, right in multiplesettings. And so when we look at is it having an educational impact? That's where we start toget into kind of, I wouldn't necessarily call it a gray area, but it seems like there's room fordebate. And that becomes like, Okay, this child, if they do have a medical diagnosis of ADHD,they're going to have difficulty with executive functioning across the board. And so even if their grades are doing fine, and again, we can kind of like parse that out, like, well, our a's and b'sfine, what about C's, but really, that's not the only criteria that we want schools to be looking at. And so it's kind of like a difference when Lori's describing, this is what the system iscurrently set up to do. And then there's kind of like, our ideal world where we would say like,yes, kids with ADHD do need support in the academic and in the school setting for all sorts ofthings, including, and mostly linked to executive functioning. 14:11 And that Oh, H AI is a big category, right? It's a huge umbrella, that not everybody is reallyclear on that, you know, that may be sitting at the table in terms of a parent or so forth. And you know, you could have somebody with ADHD under OHR, and you could have somebodywith a, you know, 14:29 cancer. Exactly, or yeah, yes, there's 14:33 just so many in that umbrella. And, and to think about that, and you're right in terms of theeducational impact, because many parents will say, Oh, well, their grades are fine. But what is your right What does fine look like and where is that impact? Right? All right, a year when youknow all I'm always like bell to bell bus to bus where you know, transitions, recess, lunchroom,where are these executive function? Where's the attention? Where's the impact that yes, oh,They their grades are fine. But how much energy and effort and time is going into? Yeah, yeah, 15:05 well that and I think a lot of kids will look fine. And I put that in quotes at school, and then they come home. And it's like, as parents, we see the complete meltdown, right? Like they haveexpended every ounce of energy, and then some while holding it together all day at school.And if we're able to give kids better supports, then at school, then they don't come home. So exhausted and drained. Right? 15:31

That's right. That's right. So if we could just for a second, and then we're going to kind of comeback to what that support would look like, can we transition to a school based evaluation versuslike a private evaluation? What is the difference there? Because parents are always asking, youknow, Oh, should I go through the school to have my child play with it? Should I pay outsidemoney to have my child evaluated? What is the difference? 15:58 That's a such a great question. And there isn't like a great straightforward answer, we usuallyrecommend if your child is really struggling in the school setting, and that's like thepredominant challenge that you're facing right now, I would say move forward with that schoolbased evaluation. If you're seeing symptoms related to ADHD, and you have concerns, I'd say do both. Because again, many schools want to see that medical diagnosis to be able to providethe supports 504 plan or an IEP at school. So I would say if you can do both, try and do both.But maybe start with the school, if that's the main issue, if you're finding that most of yourchallenges are related to homework, and things at home, and you need those supports rightaway as a parent, maybe go the medical evaluation first, to get some of those resources inplace if school isn't the main issue. So I think that's kind of a simple way of putting it. But I would say, if there's a concern about ADHD, you really kind of we would recommend that youdo both. 17:16 Can you tell us some of the importance of students being evaluated either with medication orwithout medication? 17:23 Yeah, that's a that's another great question. I when you're talking about this is my personalopinion and other psychologists might have different opinions. But what I tell parents, whenthey come into testing with me is if, if you're, if you're questioning if your child has ADHD, sothis is their, you know, their first kind of full evaluation. So many of our kids with ADHD have gone to see a pediatrician already, right. And a pediatrician can diagnose ADHD, but what wefind is that many kids with ADHD have other co occurring diagnoses. In fact, 80% of kids with ADHD have other diagnoses, including anxiety, or depression or learning disorder, like dyslexia,or autism. And so that's why they're coming for a more comprehensive assessment. So some kids that I might see in private practice, I've already seen the pediatrician who's maybe givenkind of a brief evaluation and diagnosis and said, try the medication. Right. And that's a lot of times the only kind of recommendation parents are getting is here's the medication. So maybe they've started a trial of that. If the parents are kind of like, I'm not sure if it's ADHD, or if it'sautism, or if it's a learning disorder, but the main issue, why they're having trouble focusing, Ialways tell parents, I want to see them without medication. Like, if that's if the question is, dothey have ADHD? And that's the main question parent comes to me asking, I don't want themon medication. If we're looking at initial school supports, and they have not had an evaluationat school, I wouldn't recommend giving your child medication on the days that they're beingevaluated at the school. Okay. And that's just that's not just my recommendation. There's a letter through the Office of Civil Rights. It's called the Dear Colleague letter. And so basically, if you're a parent of a child with ADHD, and you're listening, you're saying, yeah, it's been reallyhard for me to get supports at school, you are not alone. Because the Office of Civil Rights had1000s of complaints over a five year period, to the point where they they wrote this letter toschools saying, there are so many things that we're seeing, you're doing wrong and you'reviolating kids rights, and we're gonna list out guidelines for you. So this letter is really, reallyimportant for parents to know because it lists out kind of what should be done In the schools forkids with ADHD, and one of the things that they recommend in that letter is not evaluating kidson medication, because sometimes kids will be on medication. And you're like they're doing great. But that's, that's not always going to be the case. And the medication might not always be working. And that's not good for the initial evaluation of what they need. So that was a recommendation to within that letter. When we're looking at

20:26 more like speech and language, or those kinds of things, Laurie, like if you're looking at testinga child's academic performance, and let's say they've been on medication for a few years, thenyou typically would recommend that they do have whatever medication they normally havesimilar to Latham, you would want them to wear their glasses or those kinds of things. 20:44 So I think the other situation that I might come across in private practice, like what Katie issaying is you have an established diagnosis of ADHD, the school has recognized it, you haverecognized it, you're not questioning if they have ADHD, it's a parent. Your question is, Doesmy child have dyslexia, or a reading challenge or a math challenge, and I want to look at that,then I would say, have them take their medication, because then I'm going to get a betterassessment of like their actual skills and not attention challenges that go along with that. 21:17 And I do think it's important for parents that are listening, if you're going through the processright now of an evaluation to talk to your evaluator, because they might say somethingdifferent. And regardless of how you decide, it makes sense for them to put that in the report.So whenever I would test kids with ADHD, and they were parents would say, Oh, they're not ontheir meds today, or they are, I would write that in the report just to document it. And similarlyto like, if they said, Oh, he didn't sleep last night at all, I would document that in mybackground, too, just because that is a mitigating factor. And we want to know, a better pictureof what was this child? Like? What what did they look like when they came in that day? So Ithink it's sort of like, those are great recommendations, and then just talk to your evaluator,because, again, everyone might have different, different sauce. 22:05 It can be so overwhelming, right? As you're talking, and we're talking about it, you know, it'snot straightforward, right? So it's never just ADHD, you know, you talked about CO occurringmedical barriers or other diagnoses that go hand in hand. Where would a parent start? Like, where do you even start, when you're feeling overwhelmed, and you see your kiddos strugglingand melting down? Or any of these things? Like where would a parent start in terms ofdeciding, you know, who do I speak to first? And how do I prioritize?

22:41 i Yeah, oh, go ahead. 22:43 Well, I was gonna say, if you're thinking of school, like that the child is struggling at school, wetypically start with talking to the teacher. And if you know that your child is maybe hasdifficulties with attention, let's say they don't even have a diagnosis. But you know, oh, man,pre K was rough, my child was always moving around on circle time rug, and it's going to bedifficult, we always recommend just starting to establish rapport with the teacher right off thebat. So we don't want to wait until things aren't going well. But checking in, you know, regularly. And it can be as simple as just hey, how's your week going? I wanted to check in onmy son and see, you know, how things are going, he was so excited to tell me about theirproject that they did last week, you know, and keeping that rapport building that rapport andkeeping it going. And then starting with a conversation with the teacher. And depending on how that goes, typically, we would then request a school meeting. But I don't know if I'm answering your exact question. So were you thinking like, where would a parent start if things aren't going well at school? 23:42 I think just in general, I mean, I think if you're talking about CO occurring. If you're talking aboutthe CO occurrence of say ADHD and anxiety or a learning disability, and as a parent, you seeyour baby's struggling, you don't really know how to suss out what could be what, yeah, how doyou know are what is there any one thing and maybe not that you could tell a parent toprioritize in terms of if I'm going for an evaluation? How do you kind of start that conversation? 24:15 Yeah, I think if you're kind of suspecting that it's ADHD, talking with your pediatrician and, andkind of getting an appointment with them is always a good place to start. Your pediatrician should know your child pretty well. Like they followed them for a long time. And you usually have a good relationship with them. And they can a lot of times really support you and maybe help figure that out. I think parents do need to know I see many kids who go to a pediatricianand maybe like, didn't evaluation and the teachers, for instance, wrote on that evaluation thatthere were significant concerns about reading, but nothing there was no follow up with that,right. So pediatricians aren't always at, you know, educated about dyslexia, or who tests forthat, they have to know a lot about a lot of different areas. So like, they're not going tonecessarily know that, but they can refer you to some, you know, a psychologist thatspecializes in that. And they usually have good referrals and those areas to say, I can maybehelp you if it's just ADHD, and that sort of the concern. But if you're also having, you're seeing your child worrying excessively, or you're seeing other emotional concerns, or you're seeingacademic challenges, you might want to see a specialist to kind of parse those things out, or atleast have a meeting with a specialist to see if that's necessary. You know, sometimes parentswill call me and I'll kind of say, it might, it might be worth just going through the school first, tokind of see what comes up there. Because it's a, it's a free resource to go through the school.And they usually do very comprehensive evaluations much more comprehensive than youwould get through a pediatrician who's just going to do a couple rating scales with teachers.

26:07 Does every student with ADHD? Do they receive a 504? An IEP? Is there one or the other? Both?What does that look like for parents? 26:19 So they don't necessarily receive anything that's not like a given in the OCR letter that Lauriewas talking about earlier? It does state that at a minimum kids with ADHD should be on a 504?And I don't know, with your listeners that are on the podcast, do you think that they're highlyfamiliar with 504 versus IEP? Or should we be kind of like delineating what those are? Yeah,let's 26:42 talk about that. Okay, perfect. So 26:44 when we're looking at a 504 plan, 504 plans are going to provide accommodations. And so these are kind of different, we're going to, I think, get into accommodations and a little bit here.But these are different ways that we can support kids in the classroom, how they access thecurriculum, how they show what they know. So things like preferential seating, maybe lettingthem listen to an audio book instead of reading. And you can do accommodations for all different areas, not just ADHD. So a child who's having difficulty with reading, might needaccommodations, but they would also most likely need intervention. And those interventions are going to be on an IEP, that's an individualized plan that's designed for each childindividually. And that's kind of like in some ways, a higher level of support. So you wouldn't have an IEP and a 504. If you just need accommodations, those are going to be on your 504 plan. If you're getting intervention and accommodations, those would be on an IEP. What else would you ladies add to that? 27:46 Laurie, do you want to add anything?

27:49 Um, yeah, I mean, I think the the IEP is really for kids who need specialized instruction, whereyou're kind of saying, we need a specialist to work with this child, my child to develop theseskills in a specific area, whether that's a special education teacher, a speech languagepathologist or a psychologist, where they we recognize that they need specific intervention tobe successful at school versus just accommodating the the typical curriculum to kind of levelthe playing field for them. 28:31 And that's well said, and I think it's a great improvement. It is a great, oh, my gosh, let's try that again. That's a great information for parents to have, because I think when you're talkingabout acronyms, and IEP and 504, and, and what would provide my child with the most supportand having again, thinking about about and thinking about, not only learning barriers, butsocial, emotional, sensory, functional, and thinking about the whole child really comes intoplay, which kind of leads us into switching that focus to what accommodations exists forstudents with ADHD in a school and how can we be creative and not just use a drop down menubecause every kiddo is different? 29:21 Yeah, so I mean, there are so many accommodations, just to kind of list a few that we kind ofsee for kids with ADHD. You know, many kids with ADHD, they have to be moving to regulate themselves. We see many kids, not completing work, not completing homework and having to,for instance, sit out at recess for either a period of time or the whole recess. So we talk with families all the time about how you might need to put that in a plan. that's like not an option,because you're going to have more behavior problems in the classroom, if they don't have thattime to like, move their body, which helps them regulate themselves in the classroom.Sometimes that's like giving them breaks throughout the day to just move their bodies. So it might be like scheduling breaks to like water the plants or take a note to the teacher, or dovarious things in a classroom. So they're getting up to move their body in an appropriate way,versus like getting up to like, hit another kid, or randomly walking around the classroom ordoing things that maybe are disruptive, but giving them productive movement breaks.Sometimes it's, you know, chunking work, for instance. So kids with ADHD really have a hardtime, you know, regulating their attention for long periods of time, they can't focus for as longas their peers. So it may be breaking tasks into smaller pieces, and then giving them a rewardkind of at the end of that that they can work towards, that gives them a essentially a break. So they might have a little sensory break, or they might get to do a drawing activity, or they mightget to work on a project that's like exciting for them or research something. So you can getreally creative in kind of finding that child's interests and using those interests to kind of havelike that immediate positive consequence to motivate them through those like non preferredactivities. You know, preferential seating, so if they're seated near a teacher who can kind ofsee when they're zoning out, I mean, it's hard with a classroom of 30 kids and all even havekids and testing where like, I'm giving them assessment to look at their attention to auditoryinformation, and they'll just space out. And it's not noticeable at all, like you wouldn't know that their spacing out. The only reason I know is because they're not responding to the test, right.And I'm assessing that. But a teacher in a classroom of 30 kids in their teaching is hard to see them zoning out. So a teacher can kind of prompt them more often, if they're seated in front oreven see that they're kind of getting off task. So those are just like a few examples there. You know, so many accommodations that exist for kids with ADHD.

32:27 And I think that the main takeaway is that our goal for a lot of the accommodations is going tobe for kids with ADHD is going to be to support their executive functioning. So kids with ADHD, when we talk about executive functions, I know it's kind of like an obscure term again, but it'sreally the idea of like being able to make a plan and stay organized, the executive functionshelp us stay on track, they help us with our working memory, which if you have like sixdifferent classes throughout the day, you need so much working memory, because you gethome in the afternoon, and you're like, I have no idea what happened at nine o'clock in themorning, I find myself really struggle with this, I have post it notes everywhere to like, cuemyself and an accommodation for a child with ADHD might be writing everything down in theirplanner and checking in with the teacher to make sure that everything is written down in theplanner. So really thinking of what are those executive functions? And how can we supportthose because for kids with ADHD, a huge piece is things that are interesting to them. Their executive functions work a lot better when they're highly interested. So maybe if they're havingto write a report, they can choose the book that they want to read or choose something that'sof interest to them. But it really when we're thinking about it, it's like going back to what arethe main challenges and a lot of times it's executive function related. But accommodations look really different for the child that's muc h more hyperactive, versus like an inattentive child likeLaurie was discussing. And so we try not to say like, these are, you know, the bestaccommodations for every kid with ADHD. And we've tried to do it more like for a child who struggles with this, here are the accommodations that can be can be helpful, we actually havea free guide, that's all about accommodations. And we talk about like for a child who's struggling, for example, to take in auditory information, just listening all day long is reallychallenging. Here's five accommodations that can be really helpful for a kid with that profile.Because parents, that's probably one of the most common questions like parents, we get DMSevery day. I haven't 504 meeting today. Can you send me the accommodations that yourecommend? And it's like a really double edged sword because we're excited that families arelike, Yes, I need accommodations, but at the same time, it's like, really hard for us to say andso we're more likely to say here's 200 options. So when a categorized by needs, and then youknow, if you go to the table with all 200 The school is going to look at you like yeah, that's notthat's not happening. But when we really focus in like, Okay, what what are the individualchallenges that we're having, how can we support and I think you You said that because youmentioned like, how do we not have a drop down menu and I love that, like, I know for goals, Isupervise a lot of SLPs. And they're like, where's my goal bank? I'm like, oh, man,

35:11 I will not be providing a goal bank. But we need to be really personalizing this to each child.And it starts with like, Okay, what is going well, and what is not going well? What are theirstrengths and interests? And then how can we use those to really support? Yeah, and if you're,if you're a parent, and you just feel kind of lost in that process, there's a couple of ways of kindof working through that, you're not an expert on what accommodations are available for yourchild and, and might not be. And that's okay, you don't need to be going through the evaluate evaluation process or getting a comprehensive evaluation, typically, that person is going toprovide a list of accommodations that are tailored, you know, to your child, or what might behelpful for them. So that's one way of kind of getting advice on that, too, is sitting down with the team. And here's where your input is so essential, because you as a parent, know whatyour child is coming home and complaining about or saying this is hard for them. Whereas, you know, they're not necessarily telling their teacher those things. So you can come into themeeting and say, you know, for instance, I had a child who was, you know, in a, you know,older Elementary, who was sitting in the back in the classroom by a mirror, and all the girls inthe classroom, were coming back there all day long, checking their makeup and their hair. And he was coming home and saying, Mom, I am, I am so distracted all day, these girls are in themirror like checking themselves out, and they come back, they're like, 20 times a day, right?But he's not told the teacher that right? So you as a parent can come to the meeting and tellthem, hey, he's saying these things, can we seat him over here away from the mirror, so thathe can focus better. So again, you as a parent can come and say, These are the challenges thatmy child is saying like, this is hard. So let's problem solve, you know, what accommodations areavailable? I don't, but let's as a team kind of problem solve it and put our heads together to becreative about how do we solve this problem. And that's where the team school process can be really helpful. I think another thing parents need to know is teachers and a lot of schoolprofessionals don't understand ADHD. They just don't know what that is. They don't know what it looks like. I go to meetings all the time, where they will say, I don't think this child has ADHD.But then the teacher will be like, he just like he never starts his work. Like, and he's never completing, you know, I just see him not completing tasks in the classroom. Or he just neverremembers to, like, bring his homework home, or he brings it back to school and just neverturns it in.

38:06 Right. That's not ADHD. I love it. Here, it's not ADHD. 38:12 But my good, good again, we, I think, most people in the school and that's what parents needto know, I think a lot of times parents think, Oh, these people are really educated about ADHD,and your teachers, more than likely don't have any training in ADHD. They don't know what itlooks like, they might have a preconceived notion that it's a kid who's really hyperactive, butthey don't tie those things, those executive functioning challenges to their ADHD. And then that being related to it, 38:41 there's so much goodness that you are saying, one about the training. And then the other one about executive function. And I always tell parents that you can open up a little notes app onyour phone or Google Keep or whatever and just start on Mark, kind of where you see the areasof impacts for your child, like you said at home, again, in those executive function areas,whether it's the breaking down long term assignments, preparing for tests, note taking studyskills, whatever the initiation, task completion, any of those things, and then start to prioritizeagain, you know, what are the ones that major impacts because kind of back to what you had said, Katie, if I show up to a meeting, and I have a list of 200 things that are impacting my kid,that becomes overwhelming. So what what are the top three top five that are really you see asan impact? And then how can we again, work as a team like you have said, to support thisstudent, and then for folks that are listening? If your teacher does not have the training andyour child has an IEP, you can request for teacher training through an IEP to better educateyour teacher your child's teachers plural if they have more than one if they're in middle schoolor high school, and to better so they can better understand to your child and how ADHDimpacts your child because like anything, you know, ADHD looks very different for differentstudents. And that goes along to the comorbidity and all the things that go in to play. And so I think that education piece is really huge so that the teachers then say, oh, okay, now Iunderstand your kiddo. And now I know how to better support them.

40:25 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we have an online course that's all about supporting kids with ADHD in school. And one of the pieces of that is a handout that we created for parents to share with teachers. Because, again, I do I think that's such an important point that Laurie madebecause we have a pretty large following on social media. And we have a ton of teachers that follow us, and a lot of them are parents of kids with ADHD too. And so it's this kind of dual role that they're playing. And we talked to them all the time. And we did a poll recently, like, Hey, ifyou're a teacher, a general education teacher, which most kids with ADHD are in the generaleducation classes, what training did you get on ADHD in school, and every single teacher thatresponded like hundreds, if not 1000s of teachers said, zero, I had zero training in ADHD. And that's not an exaggeration. I'm Greek. So I love to exaggerate. But that is actually not an exaggeration that is fact checked. And it's true. Like, I think that we all assume like all their teachers, it's the same with the pediatrician. Like, of course, they're the professional and I, as aparent, like, I'm not a professional, I don't know. But the reality is, a lot of teachers don't knowa lot about ADHD, other than what they've sought out themselves, either through continuingeducation, or following bigger accounts that talk about these things. Like it's just, they're really having to do a lot of work. But we know that a lot of kids in their classes have ADHD, and they're either flying under the radar, or the teacher is like already doing all this work toaccommodate them, the y just it's not necessarily documented. One other thing I was going tomention, when you were talking about kids who struggle with things like note taking and studyskills, I wanted to just mention to any parents that are listening that if your child needs, that'skind of the line that we were talking about. So we have accommodations, where we might givethem an outline that they can fill in rather than having to take notes from scratch, right, andthat's kind of an outline. But if your child needs direct intervention, like in specializedinstruction, to learn those study skills to learn things, like note taking to learn those things,those are going to be best served on an IEP and schools are hesitant, I'm going to say it, they'rehesitant to put kids with ADHD on an IEP. Oftentimes, we start with the 504. And we say let's start with accommodations. And that's okay, as a parent, like, we want to encourage you,you're part of your child's team, and you can share your concerns. But it's always okay to say yes, I think let's start there. And then let's set another meeting, you don't have to wait until anannual meeting, you might say, let's meet in two months and see where it's going. Because again, we can accommodate all day long. And I love accommodations, we think that's a great way to level the playing field. But that in and of itself is not skill building, it's not teaching new skills. And if your child needs that kind of instruction, that's going to be better served throughan IEP, which again, is kind of like next level. And you don't need to wait a whole year to decide if they're ready for that.

43:21 Do you have any advice for parents so that they can come in prepared for that meeting interms of kind of more advocating towards an IEP and being having the data and the documentsin place as a parent to be able to communicate that for the school? 43:42 Yeah, I think, you know, we always tell parents, that it's a gray area. So if you go into it, and I go to IEP meetings all the time, and I know the law well. And I can argue either way, because Iknow the law, and if you know the law, you can really make a good argument. So I think that's where educating yourself about that, and knowing Hey, this is a gray area, there's no right or wrong answer. And for most kids with ADHD, there's not really a right or wrong answer aboutan IEP versus a 504 plan, you can make an argument pretty well, either way. So I think sometimes if you've tried a 504, and we'll recommend that sometimes to parents is like try justdoing accommodations and see how they do and schedule a meeting, you know, three monthsafter you develop the IEP, the 504 plan, you know, schedule it at your 504 meeting and say Iwant to check back in and see if this is enough like to see if my child is successful. And if not, it might mean that we need some more instruction in these executive functioning skills for themto be successful. 44:57 And in this case, Laurie is not talking about kids. kids who are struggling academically. So if your child has like a reading disorder, math, those kinds of things, then yes, an IEP. So it's kind of like, we're speaking about the kids, that would kind of be like, again, I put that in quotes, butlike just ADHD, and where did they fall? That's really the gray area. So kids who need a lot of social support kids who need specialized instruction in academics, they're going to they'regoing to fall to an IEP anyway. And ADHD might be a piece of that for them. That might be likea secondary eligibility under the other health impairment or something like that. But, but really,it's the kids that we're thinking of right now is like, it's they don't have specific learningchallenges. It's really, again, just I say, just executive functioning, which, I mean, I don't know, Isee it in my everyday life. I'm like, This impacts everything. This is not a just situation. But the schools view. As often as you know, if grades are okay, then they're doing fine. And that's not the case. 45:59 Yeah, so I think, to give you an example, you go through an evaluation through school, andyour child has ADHD symptoms, it's impacting them, but their average academically becausethis, this is a common situation, right? This school, if they're average, academically, a lot oftimes the school is we don't do an IEP. But in many of these situations, these kids are becoming aggressive. They're disrupting the classroom, they might be throwing chairs, they might begetting suspended frequently, like using to go to school using the go to school refusal at home,where there's more like significant behavioral challenges, you can still get an IEP for behavior.And that's where a lot of parents don't understand that. But like when your child's behaviors are significantly impacting their ability to thrive at school, in kind of significant ways, you canget an IEP for that, just because their their academic skills or average does not prohibit themfrom getting specialized instruction for behavior, or social skills or things like that. So that I think that's important for families to understand. Or maybe your child doesn't have significant behaviors. Maybe you have a child with inattentive ADHD, but they've just transitioned tomiddle school. And now your child has five teachers and five classes to keep track of. And they are now they they used to be successful, because they had lots of hand holding. And now in middle school, there's this expectation that you write your stuff down, and you keep track of it.And they're, they're now getting C's D's F's, because they aren't bringing stuff home, they'renot writing their homework down. They're not remembering to turn it in their averageacademically, but they're failing in school because of those executive functioning challenges.And so that's another one that we see a lot, especially with girls, I see that many times withgirls who are really impacted with that executive functioning, but they're super sweet. And they're people pleasers, and their teachers love them, and they accommodate for them, butthey're really struggling. So that's like another example of you could have a child who hasaverage academic skills, but they're really struggling at school and, you know, sometimesfailing because of those executive functioning challenges. And we would be looking at an IEP for a child like that.

48:40 And we've both sat in meetings, school meetings, where the school has looked at a child likethat and said, it's a behavior problem, they're being oppositional, you know, and really interpretit through a lens of like laziness or almost like a character failure. And it's really important forparents who are listening, you know, if you don't have someone sitting next to you, like anadvocate, or the psychologist who did the private testing, that's another option sometimes. And that's why Laurie has been a lot of those meetings. And I used to sit in meetings too, is like, knowing that you know your child the best. And so if you know that your child is notoppositional and that they're not lazy, they're really struggling in these areas. It's it's veryimportant to speak up and give your input because you're an important part of the team. And I feel like every time we say that people are like, really, I'm on my child's school team. Are yousure? I'm not a teacher? I have not credential or like, No, you are you are on your you are veryimportant. And I think we as parents, like, I don't know, there's just something about it. We were just interviewing for our podcasts. We were interviewing a school psychologist who has a daughter with ADHD. She herself is a school psychologist and she sits through hundreds ofmeetings every year, but she thought even when she walks into her daughter's IEP meeting,she immediately feels intimidated and these are like her colleagues. But it is it's like a huge table and lots of people and they all have degrees. And so we want parents to know that like, ifif you feel that your child's being mislabeled or misunderstood, you are their voice to say no,that's not what's going on here, I think we need to dig a little bit deeper. 50:10 And, and to make that argument, schools love data, they love information like that. So bringingan outside evaluation that has data to support your child's challenges, keeping track of teacheremails, so sometimes you're you know, a lot of kids aren't getting behavioral referrals. I talked to families all the time, but like, they have a, you know, I had a family come in mom sent melike 15 emails within a one semester period of like, all these behavioral challenges that the teachers were going through, that never made it to administration, right. So saving all thoseand bringing those to the table, like, look at all these emails, and all these struggles, we'rehaving look at, you know, the the work samples of homework that I'm seeing at home, if I don'thelp my child, this is what they're producing independently. So like bringing any of the thingsthat you're seeing and talking about how it's impacting them home, or what you're seeing athome that they might not see at school is really important to kind of make that argument, men,this is really challenging, or even the teacher saying, Oh, I'm doing all these accommodationsfor your child during testing. So, you know, many times teachers are letting kids retake tests.Because again, they really want them to be successful, not so great, but it makes their gradesinflated, it makes their grades look like they're really getting A's and B's. But if the teacher wasn't providing accommodations, they would probably be failing. So even if the teacher has told you in meetings, they're doing these things come to the meeting and say, hey, you know,they're doing getting okay grades right now, because we're getting accommodations, like theteachers doing accommodations in the classroom. That's why they're, that's the only reason why they're getting good grades. So all that is good information to bring to a meeting whenyou're trying to make those arguments.

52:13 So I think I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit. But have you seen an accommodation, thatwhere you're at the table, the team may have given you kind of some pushback, like, either wedon't do that, or I'm not sure how that's gonna work. But then they said, Yes, we'll go ahead and try it. And it's been like, out of the park, the best thing? 52:37 I think so. In the past, when I worked in the schools, personally, we used to do like a checkout,check in checkout program, which we talk a little bit in our course, too, and provide thatbecause it's an evidence based school intervention for kids with ADHD. It requires effort, whenthere's a behavior plan in place, it requires effort on the part of the staff and a teacher toimplement that. And you have to understand teachers have very little time they have 30 kids,they have a lot going on. But I think many teachers might be hesitant to do that. But then they,once they do those interventions, they're spending so much less time managing theseproblems as they come up, do you know what I'm saying? So like, the teachers might becomplaining that they're interrupting class all the time, because they're blurting out, or I'mhaving to go over this work with them, or I'm having to handle these problems. Whereas if you get in front of them and provide a positive plan, yes, it takes some time. But now you're saving all this time, in not having to manage the problem behaviors, right. So I have definitely seen that with teachers where they've been really hesitant. Like, I don't want another behavior plan,where they were coming back to the table a month later and saying, Wow, like we've seen, likea lot of growth in this child's ability to like, now they have the skill of raising their hands,whereas they didn't a month ago, right? Where we've kind of systematically taught these skillslike we're talking about. And the teachers were kind of pleasantly surprised by how successful they were. And I've seen that many times. Katie, do you have anything? 54:28 Yeah, I was just thinking along those same lines, I think it's really like getting ahead of the

,jgg , yggchallenges. So I remember being in a meeting one time at a at a local school and talking abouta child who was really having difficulty at recess. And so we were talking about like, maybe wecould bring we were brainstorming, you know, and how can we help support him but also all thekids in the class were kind of coming in after recess. There was a lot of fighting and just things weren't going as well. And it was like how can we get an aide or somebody to almost structuresome acts tivities at recess, I know, recess can be such a fun time for the kids. And we don't want kids to get their recess taken away. But it can also be a lot, we actually got an messagefrom a mom yesterday who was saying, you know, my kid does so well in structure. And the minute the structure goes away, he goes to recess, he starts hitting his friends, like all thesethings start happening. And again, that same conversation around the table of, well, if we dothis proactive strategy of planning, like a parachute game, or something like that, and then thekids can volunteer, they can participate if they want to, it's a lot of extra work. And I know that the schools, the you've got the admin who's like, this is a great idea. And then the school staff who's like, oh, my gosh, who's gonna do this, and when do I get to eat my lunch. But the more and more as we, as we brainstormed, and it was a monthly check in with this team, werealized, like, wow, this is actually making a lot of impact. And not only on the child we wereoriginally talking about, but the whole school like the whole, that whole grade was doing a lotbetter by having those kinds of strategies. So I think in a lot of examples that come to my mind,it's really like the takeaway is, there's a lot of investment of time, either way, and we can spenda lot of time correcting behaviors, correcting kids with ADHD, they get so many moreinstructions, corrections, just a lot more feedback than their peers, oftentimes, and this canlead to all sorts of things. But when we know that we're going to put in the time, regardless, wecan strategize that, and with the school to strategize the time, that's going to be put in on thefront end. So something like putting in check in checkout, helping build a little more structureat recess for those kids who need it, and realize like, hey, at that point, now, we're controllingthe narrative a little bit more, and then the kids do benefit. And there's such a positive payout for that. For all of us. I know, I don't like correcting my kids, I would much rather be proactiveand figure out how can we set this up for success. And so I think that's, that's kind of a the general theme. And I think keeping in mind that for the most part, your child's educationalteam is there to support you. There are situations where you just can't always come to an agreement. But I think big picture, you're all on the same team. And starting from that place can be really helpful.

57:11 Fabulous, fabulous, kind of as we wind down, and you kind of mentioned that sometimes wedon't come to an agreement, right? So kind of circling back to where we started and getting an assessment. What happens if a parent receives an assessment, and I know you guys have aclass on this, you're going to share all that information. But I think it's good knowledge forparents to know and kind of have in the back of their mind, and then come to you to get thatinformation. But what if they receive an assessment? And they're like, I don't agree with this.This does not look like my child? I don't agree. 57:47 Yeah. So I think I mentioned that at the beginning that I specialize in doing independenteducational evaluations through the school. And so basically, if a parent though, the lawprovides this kind of thing for parents that if they go through a school evaluation, and you get to the end of that, and let's say, for instance, you really think your child has ADHD and needsan IEP, but they say, No, they're doing fine, we're not going to basically do anything. And you disagree with them. Or maybe they say your child has autism, but you don't think your childhas autism, and you feel like they have something else going on. So there's various reasons why you might come to the end of that, sometimes it's, you know, I see my child's struggling inmath and their, every night, we're working on this. And then the school came back and said, Nope, they're average and math, they don't have any issues, where you're kind of just notseeing that align with what you're seeing. And you disagree with that. You can request throughthe school and independent educational evaluation, which is basically a third party coming inand doing an assessment that is free to you. So the school district pays for that evaluation. And this kind of third party, which is me or Katie, sometimes, we kind of do our own assessment andgive recommendations that then goes back to the school team. And the school team can use that evaluation to then make changes or update kind of what their needs are in the schoolsetting. So we do those fairly frequently.

59:26 And as you mentioned, that's something that we get really in depth in our course shining atschool. It's all about supporting kids with ADHD at school. But the four main areas that you canget an IE would be you can do a psycho educational evaluation. That's what Laurie does. A speech and language evaluation. That's my jam. You can do occupational therapy, or what's called a functional behavior assessment. So for kids that are struggling behaviorally, andthere's those four areas are the common areas where the school would assess and then where you can request a second opinion or a third party evaluation. 59:59 You know, so many parents don't know that that's like a thing that's provided to them in thelaw. And it really is amazing because like we were talking about earlier, it can be really hard toget a medical evaluation. Sometimes they're expensive. Sometimes it's hard to find providers.So if you go through the school and you're not finding that you agree with them, or maybe youdon't even agree with, like the supports that your child is getting, and you don't know how totroubleshoot that. That's another reason that you might request that that ice. Cool, 1:00:37 so much information packed. So much. So I hope folks are listening and taking notes sharing this podcast with others. As we are wrapping up, is there anything that I did not ask that I didn't know enough to ask? 1:00:54 But I should have asked. I didn't. I feel like we covered so much. 1:01:00

1:01:00 Yes, absolutely. And I think you had great questions. I think it's just such a journey. And I think each of the different areas that we covered, you know, probably someone different is like, oh,yeah, that's where I'm at, whether it's like, all the way back at the evaluation or all the way atthe end where you're just fed up and you need a second opinion. It's it's a journey, and we're all kind of on this journey together. And so hopefully, there's something in there for each person. But no, I think that you covered everything. If you had 1:01:25 a billboard that you could put one tip for parents, what would it be? And why? Final question? 1:01:31 Ooh, I like it. Laurie, do you want to go? Or do you want me to go? 1:01:38 You are your child's advocate. And you have to kind of throughout their schooling, understand that and really embrace that. And know, you have your child's best interest in mind you and you alone. And so you have to go into those meetings, understanding that and reallyadvocating for them. It's just essential throughout their whole schooling. Yeah, I don't know if you can fit that on a billboard. But 1:02:13 first part, you are your child's best that okay. 1:02:19 How can folks get in touch with the childhood collective? 1:02:21 Perfect, so you can definitely find us on Instagram at the childhood collective we are on therepretty much every day, we share lots of funny stories and relatable parenting tips, but also a lotof tools to support kids with ADHD at home in school. We also have a website, the childhood collective.com, which has an extensive blog, we recently launched our podcast shining withADHD. Yep, we're pretty excited about it need to get you on there, that's going to be top of the list. But we the so you can find that wherever you podcast and is also available on our website,if that's just an easier way to locate us. But we do have two online courses that are self paced,so parents can take them on their own time without a babysitter in your pajamas. And we don't one of those is called Creating calm. That's all home based strategies, a lot of executivefunctioning, emotion regulation, supporting behaviors and building connection, just kind of helping support building routines, all kinds of things that we that are tried and true andresearch based to help families with ADHD at home. And then we have our course, which we've talked about a little bit more today shining at school, that is all all the tools you need for goinginto these meetings, feeling prepared. We have workbooks with each of our courses. So there's a lot of handouts and things for people to get really tactical and kind of practice and that kindof thing. So we also have if you were wondering more about accommodations, we do have afree guide to ADHD accommodations. And as I mentioned, it's divided up based on thechallenges that your child has at school. So that can be a great place to start. It's just a freeguide, you just put in your email address and you can download it and that'll get you a great start. If you're about to walk into a 504 meeting and going I don't know what to ask.

1:04:09 fan tastic this was so good. I appreciate your time and talking through all this. And I know this is going to resonate with a lot of folks that are listening. So thank you. 1:04:20 Thank you. Thanks for having us.