LD and Elite Colleges

shawbridge
Thu, 07 May 2009 19:05:23 +0000

aspiemom, I have two kids. The older one is truly gifted and has major disabilities – reading and writing and processing speed issues of a major magnitude. The younger one is quite bright though she doesn’t realize it and has ADD-like issues and processing speed issues, but these did not really come to the fore until HS. The private HS that she attends suggested we get her tested and is working to support her. But, their capability to support is low.

In contrast, the same HS told us that our son was extremely bright but discouraged us from sending him there because they really wouldn’t cut him much slack – extra time only. By negotiating with the very good public HS and paying for all non-people things myself, we were able to get some reasonable support for him from the HS. [Not everyone was, but I was careful to spend a lot of time negotiating in a nice, respectful way for what I thought we needed. I never found them good at suggesting what was neede]. But, I paid for computers, software, audiobooks, etc. I just asked them to make the appropriate accommodations and supply people for things like improving reading fluency. I also asked them to make modifications in the English curriculum to focus on writing and not literary criticism. They did some of that but not enough and I negotiated with the school district to set up a partial home-schooling arrangement. Lab science, social science, and studio art at the school; math and English at home. Math because the honors classes were too slow (he did junior year honors math in half a year for example). English, because he needed to learn to write, rewrite, rewrite until he could write cogent arguments. One of his last high school English courses was Expository Writing 20, the course Harvard freshman are required to take, at Harvard Summer School. We just couldn’t get what we wanted from the English department there. But, the assistant superintendent of schools was very supportive.

I’d stay away from boarding schools. Your really need to stay involved. Interestingly, in our experience, the public school was much, much more welcoming of parental involvement than the private school. You can spend the money you would have spent on private school (the increment not going to financial aid) to get outside support at the public school.

I used to meet each teacher at the start of every one of my son’s courses. I’d give each a 4 page memo explaining what I knew about my son’s neurology, IQ, etc. and what had worked and what hadn’t worked in previous classes. I told them to expect the highest level of intellectual ability with some real deficits in ability to produce the work and suggestions to work around the production problems.

I don’t think we’d have the same positive outcome (son is going to Amherst, was probably ranked 3rd out of 300 in a very competitive suburban Massachusetts HS) had he gone to the private school.