If your child was just diagnosed with a learning disability or a special need of any kind, there can be a myriad of feelings, to deal with such as shock, concern, fear, relief, confirmations, anger or sadness, to feeling overwhelmed with further questions-the biggest of which is, “Now what?”… After receiving a diagnosis, following these next steps can be helpful for you and your child.
I Got A Learning Disability Diagnosis For My Child…Now What?
May 17, 2022by Faith Berens
- Learn all you can about your child’s diagnosis, while recognizing that your child is more than the particular diagnosis or label. Nobody loves your child more than you or wants to see him succeed and meet his full potential more than you. By learning about your child’s diagnosis and different abilities, you can grow in understanding how to better support him, as you continue to be your child’s fiercest advocate and loudest cheerleader. Knowledge is power and will help equip you so that you can cultivate your child’s strength, potential, and address his weaknesses which will help him to begin to thrive.
- Investigate treatment options, such as therapies, interventions, and possible medications or natural treatment possibilities. A great place to start is your child’s pediatrician or the diagnosing professional. You may also want to consider seeking holistic treatments by working with an integrative physician. There are more and more types of therapies available for various disabilities and special needs. Many therapy treatment options exist–from art and music therapy, pet and equine therapy, to behavioral and cognitive therapy, in addition to more “traditional” or standard speech/language, vision, physical and occupational therapies. Our family tapped into music/sound therapy for my son which truly helped with his sound sensitivity and auditory processing difficulties. Additionally, both of my children benefited from equine therapy for core strength, confidence, emotional support and mental heath as well as executive functioning and processing.
Be encouraged that you are your child’s best teacher, and home education is an excellent individualized educational plan.
- Seek support for your child and the family. You can find parent and children support groups, such as Decoding Dyslexia and Eye to Eye Mentoring, as well as national charitable organizations, such as Scottish Rites, Easter Seals and the ARC that offer parent and family resources, supports, directories, grants/scholarships, etc. Also, non-profit organizations such as Joni and Friends, provide resources, a directory for disability ministries across the country, and family camps. *Work with me for consulting and coaching! I would love to walk alongside you and your family to help your child meet his full potential and thrive!
- Talk with your child about his diagnosis and teach him to self-advocate. Your child needs to understand that his diagnosis does not define him. There are many bright and successful people with disabilities. In fact, it is estimated that 1:5 people have a learning disability. Help your child come to understand what his difficulty or disability is and how it may impact him, but also teach him ways to work around it. Also, help your child recognize the ways he is smart and what are his areas of strength. The book, 8 Great Smarts, by Dr. Kathy Koch is a great resource. Self-advocacy is an important, empowering life-skill. Resources such as The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan by Ben Foss, Yale Center for Creativity and Dyslexia, LDAdvisory, and Understood.org are a few examples of places to find resources to educate your child and teach him how to advocate for himself.
- Make a plan for reasonable accommodations for the student and discuss these with your student and other adults/teachers, such as those in your community of faith, coaches, music teachers and co-op leaders/teachers. Accommodations level the playing field and help students to take in information or show forth what they know. Some common accommodations are extra time, use of audio books, dictation or oral assessment, or frequent breaks, to name a few. It is a good idea to keep a written record of the educational accommodations you will be providing to your student, in your home school file.
Be encouraged that you are your child’s best teacher, and home education is an excellent individualized educational plan. While home education, due to its very nature, is an individualized educational plan, for homeschooled students with special needs, drafting a written, individualized student education plan can be wise. Lining up specialized intervention, such as cognitive training with Equipping Minds, or behavioral therapy, as well as supplementary classes, such as those offered through True North Academy, Bridgeway Academy, or Outschool.com, can be great ways to customize your child’s specialized home education.
HSLDA’s Special Needs Educational Consultants, www.hslda.org, can help families with this and provide templates for how to do so. Additionally, their special needs consultants can help make sense of the diagnostic assessment reports and help you the parent-teacher come up with a customized educational plan. Read more here: https://hslda.org/post/what-is-an-sep-iep-isp