Identifying Learning Disabilities and Working the System For Your Bipolar Child

Sometimes I feel that the only positive trait that I have is persistence. Anyone that knows me well, is aware that I lack patience. Apparently, you need tons of persistence and patience to be a good advocate for your bipolar child.

From what I have been reading, bipolar is a central nervous system disorder, as are ADHD, sensory processing, and learning disabilities (i.e. dyslexia, and dysgraphia, etc.). Sometimes, with a bipolar diagnosis, will come a whole host of other problems, like with my daughter, Ms. M. She did NOT win the genetic lottery and therefore she has a whole kit and caboodle of problems, which has made her severely learning disabled and this, has further impacted her education.

Ms. M is in the above-average intelligence range and is a third grader, but, she performs on a pre-school level. In other words, she can barely read and has problems doing simple math problems, i.e. 2+3=5. So I know that Ms. M has a learning disability and it is just a matter of identifying and treating the problem. Sounds simple right, but its not, because our school system does not have the solutions.

Now if you are as naive as me, then you would believe that you could have your BP child tested and identified for learning disabilities and presto, the school would put in place this beautiful Individual Educational Plan (IEP), tailored for your BP child. I hate to burst your bubble, abso-freakin-lutely NOT!

If you have a BP kid with learning disabilities, your first goal should be to identify that they have a learning disability. If your child is in the local public school system, then you must convince the school to do the necessary testing, which is called, Psychological testing (IQ), and Educational Testing.

If the school has offered to do the testing, then you are already ahead of the majority of parents. In Ms. M’s case, I had to convince the school to do the testing, because the school blamed Ms. M’s poor performance on her behavior, which was complete bull hockey.

The school is legally obligated to test your child, under the IDEA law. You have to prove to the school that your child has a medical diagnosis. This means that you must supply the school with your child’s written diagnosis and requested testing. I had Ms. M’s psychiatrist write on a prescription pad, her diagnosis of BP, ADHD, and separation anxiety, and a request for testing. I accompanied this prescription pad diagnosis from the doctor, with a letter from myself, asking the school to test Ms. M. I hand carried all of these documents to the principal.

You would think that would be the end of it, but no. The school has to setup a meeting with you and get your written permission to test your child, which involves signing a bunch of forms. I know, I know, you are thinking, that you are the one that asked for the bleeping testing in the first place. What can I say, it’s a bureaucracy.

The school has 90 days to test the child. You will be required to fill out more paperwork for the parental portion of the psychological testing. The questions are uncomfortable and contain a lot of personal questions, but do try and remember that all of this is for your child. Be honest on the form, so that the school cannot come back to you at a later date, and say that you willingly withheld information. One day it might make a difference if you ever have to fight for your child’s education.

When all of the testing has been completed, the school will setup another meeting to go over all of the information with both parents. If your child has a learning disability, then there should be a discrepancy between the child’s IQ, which is the child’s intellectual ability and their performance level, which is the educational testing portion. In theory, but not always in practice, the higher the child’s discrepancy between intelligence and performance, then the more special education services your child will be entitled to.

There is one caveat. If you child is practically a genius, but is only performing on grade level, then the school does not have to give your child any special education services. This is the case with my son, he is in the top 2% for intelligence, but only performs at grade level. This is a clear indicator that he has a learning disability, but since he performs on grade level, it is not a concern to the school.

Ms. M’s testing was originally done in first grade. The school redoes the testing every three years, unless you provide a written reason why you child should be retested earlier, which typically involves no educational progression on your child’s part. As I stated before, Ms M has above average intelligence, but still performs on a pre-school level, which identifies her with learning disabilities. Now the school identifies that the child has a learning disability, but the school does not diagnose the child’s specific learning disabilities. You must go to an outside office/hospital that deals with neuro-psychology for a further in depth identification for your child’s learning disabilities.

This is at the point where Ms. M and I are at, further identifying her specific learning disabilities, since she still has problems, even with an IEP and special education.

Now, I have a friend, with a son that is dyslexic and it was no problem for him to get a solid diagnosis. Not because he had an easily identified learning disability, but because my friend could afford to have her son privately tested at Blue Ridge Behavioral Health Center, (http://www.brbh.org/), which identified his different learning disabilities. The private testing runs in the range of $2,500.

To put it simply, I don’t have that kind of money. I have to go the harder and more painfully complicated route. Persistence comes into play here, through my sometimes misguided and occasional errors. I have identified some local resources in Maryland, in which you can obtain neuro-psychological testing for your child that doesn’t cost as much money, and might be free, with the right type of insurance.

I must be living under a rock, but I hadn’t heard of Kennedy Krieger Institute located in Baltimore, Maryland, http://www.kennedykrieger.org/, but it can take a year to two years to get the testing done.

More recently I found out that John Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland, http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/tpl_news.aspx?id=4832, has a neuro-psychology department, with a much reduced waiting period for testing. I recently emailed them, and had an appointment in a month’s time for Ms. M’s testing. I have to say, its about freakin time. I will keep you posted on the experience and the results.

The Continuing Saga of a Mother who is Parenting a Bipolar Kid

Two years have past since our D-Day. My life has changed quite dramatically in some ways and not at all in other ways. For instance, my not-so-dearly departed ex-husband, the dingle, who went completely crazy and stalked our family, passed away on May 9th, 2008.

Whew, what a relief! We were in the most heinous custody battle, in which I was about to lose, unfortunately for my children, who were terrified of his ever growing instability. The dingle, who was a mediocre parent at the best of times, was an even worse, neglectful, manipulative, and deceitful parent, since our separation. Among many other incidents, he was showing up at my children’s school and telling them I was going to go to jail, etc. It gets even better, people were calling me up and stopping me on the street and asking if he was homeless. This crazy homeless person was a once an intelligent attorney, who graduated from George Washington Law School.

Since all of this trauma and drama, I have been remarried to a wonderful man for a year, who emotionally supports me and both of my children, and fundamentally does no wrong. We live in a nice town in Maryland and on some days we can have a peaceful existence. As for my cancer, it seems to stay in remission for the most part.

What hasn’t changed, is the wheeling and dealing of Miss M’s bipolar disorder and learning disabilities. Most of the time, I feel as there has been no progress at hand. I have been taking her to Brooklane Mental Health Services in Hagerstown, MD. The child psychiatrist that has been treating her for the past year, has been very nice, and has done all of the medication changes. However, Miss M is not stable for very long, and only for a couple of months here and there. Plus, Hagerstown seems a little backwards in terms of psychiatric care. Which makes me wonder, does Miss M need a more in-depth mental health treatment facility?

Yesterday, while surfing the internet, I discovered that the U.S. News and World Report publishes yearly the top 100 best hospitals, which listed John Hopkins Hospital as the number 2 Psychiatric Hospital in the U.S. I dug a little deeper and found out that they have a children’s ward with a psychiatric department. I am going to contact them tomorrow to see if I can get Miss M an appointment, since I am feeling pretty desperate.

If anyone can shed any light on receiving the most comprehensive psychiatric care for children in and around Maryland, do tell, please.

D-Day, How my 6 year old daugter's diagnosis of Bipolar came into being.

I am not sure how it all started, the desperation, or the condemnation of the diagnosis bipolar of my (then) 6 year old little girl, Miss M. Maybe everyone else had known it, and I was the only one, who was clueless, in denial, and in the dark. I remember when Miss M was born, she was a beautiful blue-eyed, blond haired, 8 lb baby. How could this possibly happening to me, or us?

As I think back, Miss M was always a little different, in pre-school, she cut up her clothes, had more tantrums with a much longer duration than other kids. Miss M was hard to manage, she was always destructive and moody.

Other parents, who secretly persecuted my parenting skills, just said that "I wasn't strict enough" and that "I always let her get her own way". I thought long and hard about their criticisms. In the long run, I learned that it wasn't true, my kid was just tougher to control than most kids.

Miss M was having a lot of problems in pre-school and now she was in kindergarten. She was a behavior problem and she could not learn to read or write. On top of that, my now-ex, who I commonly refer to as the dingle, was really having a difficult time controlling his own behaviors, showing up for work late or never, making empty suicidal threats, and constantly beating off to porn.

Immediately, I took Ms. M to the pediatrician, in which he diagnosed her with ADHD, like her older brother and her father. The pediatrician put her on a stimulant, which seemed to help partially, but with bipolar, stimulants can produce mania and she was eventually taken off of it.

Miss M's first unofficial diagnosis was in the summer of 2006, when I had taken her to a grief counselor/thanatologist. I had just been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, inconveniently the day before New Years eve. I spent a week in the hospital and had a lengthy recuperation at home and post-surgery. During my recuperation, the dingle had been slacking and Miss M was extra moody during those days. Over the next few months, I finally found proof of the dingle's extra-curricular activities. It didn't help his case any during my hospital stay, my oncologist couldn't track him down. The dingle didn't show up to the hospital or help with my surgery appointments or treatments. His lack of concern for my well being helped to shed some light onto our marriage or lack of one. I moved out with both kids and my disabled mother on April 20, 2006, Miss M was 6, and my son was 8.

I assumed that Miss M's behaviors, tantrums, and general moodiness were all based on my cancer and our separation and pending divorce. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. The grief counselor spent a couple of months attempting to counsel Miss M on death and dying, but her behavior and moods were getting worse not better. Eventually, he told me that he believed that her behavior was biologically based and that she needed to see a psychiatrist. After his unofficial diagnosis, I heard nothing else from him again. Apparently, he wanted nothing to do with me or Miss M. I am finding this to be an all too common problem.

I sought more help from a local psychologist to counsel Ms. M. In all honesty, it hasn't helped Miss M much, but the psychologist has been a valuable resource for me.

As I am sure you would have guessed, it wasn't long afterwards, that I found out that my ex, the dingle had been diagnosed with bipolar, which he had hidden from me, until he threatened (yet again) suicide. Me and a friend of mine had to take him to his psychiatrist's office, in which I learned of his diagnosis.

I finally found a psychiatrist in Columbia, MD, (only an hour away) who diagnosed Miss M with a NOS mood disorder, separation anxiety, and ADHD. He prescribed her Trileptal, which helped some, but by no means has been a cure. Over the months, Miss M continued to get worse and the psychiatrist stopped answering my phone calls and refused to help me increase her medication as necessary.

Eventually, I found another child psychiatrist at Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore that diagnosed Miss M with bipolar and put her on a cocktail of drugs. These psychotropic drugs included Depakote, which made her sick and lethargic and was removed immediately. Risperdal which made her gain weight and she became very OCD, and then Abilify, which had the same side effects, but were less than the Risperdal.

Through many trials and errors, we have found that Miss M is a rapid cycler, who is consistently difficult to stabilize, even now. That year she was maintained on a combination of Trileptal 1500 mg , Abilify 15 mg, and Clonidine .2 mg.

Navigating the maze of mental illness for parent with a bipolar child can be difficult and downright depressing, which on many occasions have left me feeling downright desperate. I didn't realize the lack of resources, or the lack of empathy and compassion for these children and families.

I still have yet to meet another mother or father parenting a child with bipolar disorder. Sometimes, I feel like I am at my breaking point, only to endure another day of coping with Miss M's bipolar disorder, rages, endless doctor appointments, problems at school, and multiple learning disabilities.

Sometimes, I have to wonder, is there anyone else out there, dealing with these same issues?