CONSULTATIONS & ADVOCACY SERVICES

Our Consultation & Advocacy Services

We are pleased to announce that we are now providing both individual private Assistive Technology Consultations and/or Special Education and Section 504 Advocacy Services for students with diagnosed disabilities that result in an educationally significant written output disorder. If you are only interested in our Advocacy Services, please scroll down to that section of this page. These services are described in detail below:

Assistive Technology Consultations with Us

The first question many people have asked us about our Consultation Services usually is — “How can we do a Consultation with you when I am in another state/country and you are in Michigan?” So — let us explain how a Consultation with us works!

We have designed our Consultation Services so that people anywhere can access our knowledge base for their particular child/student with educationally significant handwriting challenges/Dysgraphia. We do not physically need to be with a child or watch them write to evaluate their handwriting disability as the assistive technology recommendations we make in our Consultation Reports are always based on a student’s current school/neuropsychological/psychological/medical evaluations and/or reports, standardized testing results, handwriting samples and parent information — no matter where a student is located. We can also tell a great deal by looking at a wide variety of a student's handwriting samples. If desired, we will also review videos of a student writing when sent to us via an email video application.

To complete a Consultation with us, you must first purchase one of our Resource Guides, available on our website. The Resource Guides act as the "backbone" of our Consultation Reports as, when we recommend assistive technology in our report, we will refer you back to the Resource Guide for product descriptions and ordering information. Our Resource Guides also contain our Assistive Technology Implementation Plan, which IS the key to successful implementation of assistive technology for written output in the classroom - for both the student and the school staff that work with them.

We are pleased to let you know that we now are offering 2 different types of individual Consultation services. They are:

Type 1: Individual Consultation with Assistive Technology Recommendations - This type of Consultation is for those parents who have a good relationship with their child’s school and where the school realizes that the student needs assistive technology but is unsure as to what will really work. Based on our intake of a student’s educational, medical and personal information through the completion of our Consultation Request Form, a review of the student’s written language and handwritten math samples and a 60 minute follow up phone call with a child’s parent(s), we will provide a written list of our specific best practice Assistive Technology Recommendations for that student with our additional comments. These recommendations can then be implemented in the classroom using our Assistive Technology Implementation Plan, located in our Resource Guide.

Type 2: Individual Consultation with Assistive Technology Recommendations and Supporting Information for the School as to Why a Student Needs to Use Assistive Technology for Written Output - This type of Consultation is for parents who are struggling to get assistive technology supports in place at school for their child who struggles to complete their schoolwork with paper and pencil. After a complete intake of a child’s personal, educational and medical information through our Consultation Request Form, a thorough review of any educational and medical reports that the parent(s) provides to us and a 60 minute follow up phone call with the child’s parent(s), we will create a Consultation Report. This report not only makes assistive technology recommendations but also explains how a child’s disability makes it impossible for them to complete their written schoolwork in a traditional manner. These reports are designed to provide an “airtight case” for the school to understand that the child must use assistive technology at school in order to access their Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). These reports can be used in school mediation and due process hearings to attempt to obtain assistive technology services and supports.

Individual Consultation with Assistive Technology Recommendations
$95.00

Step One: Thoroughly complete the Consultation Request Form located in this Appendix and mail it to the address on the Dedication page of our Resource Guide, along with approximately 5 varied handwritten language assignments (please include a worksheet or two) and approximately 5 varied handwritten math assignments. Lastly, we ask that you include a check for $95.00 made payable to Handwriting Problem Solutions, LLC. WHEN YOU MAIL YOUR INFORMATION TO US, PLEASE EMAIL US RIGHT AWAY AND LET US KNOW SO WE CAN BE WATCHING FOR IT IN OUR PO BOX. OUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS ALSO ON THE DEDICATION PAGE OF THIS RESOURCE GUIDE.

Step Two: After we complete a thorough review of what you have sent us, we will schedule a 60 minute phone call with you to ask you any questions we may have and give you a chance to ask us any questions you may have.

Step Three: Within one week after our phone call, we will email you our assistive technology recommendations for your child along with our additional comments regarding the assistive technology and its implementation in the classroom.

Step Four: The assistive technology recommendations in the report should be shared with the school. It should be determined with the parents and the school staff who will be responsible for teaching the student how to use the assistive technology. Once this is determined, a schedule of training needs to be put into place.

Step Five: Once a student has learned how to use the assistive technology, you can begin the implementation process with your child and school staff using our Assistive Technology Implementation Plan, located in our Resource Guide.

Individual Consultations with Assistive Technology Recommendations and Supporting Information for the School as to Why a Student Needs to Use Assistive Technology for Written Output
$395.00

The Consultation Process

Step One: Thoroughly complete the Consultation Request Form included in our Resource Guide and mail it to the address on our website, along with copies of any relevant school and/or medical reports such as IEP’s or 504 Plans, school psychological reports, occupational therapy reports, neuropsychological reports, other standardized testing reports, etc. We also ask that you send us copies of a variety of a student’s handwritten class assignments including both written language and handwritten math. Usually, approximately 5 varied handwritten language samples (please include a worksheet or two) and approximately 5 varied handwritten math samples are sufficient. Lastly, we ask that you include a check for $395.00 made payable to Handwriting Problem Solutions, LLC. All reports that are sent to use remain strictly confidential. WHEN YOU MAIL YOUR INFORMATION TO US, PLEASE EMAIL US RIGHT AWAY AND LET US KNOW SO WE CAN BE WATCHING FOR IT.

Step Two: Once we receive your information in the mail with your payment, we do a complete review of everything you have sent us and highlight all information that supports the presence of an educationally significant written output disorder. We then make a list of any questions that we would like to ask you.

Step Three: After we have reviewed the materials you have sent us, we will schedule a conference call with you to ask you any questions we may have and to give you a chance to ask us any questions that you may have. These calls usually last approximately 1 hour. Based on the information learned in this conference call and our review of the materials you have sent us, we also may ask to have permission to talk with specific school and/or medical personnel currently working with the student.

Step Four: Based on our review of the materials you have sent us and our conference call(s) with you and involved school/medical personnel (if necessary), we will generate the rough draft of our Consultation Report with our assistive technology recommendations that will best help the student to learn to create finished written schoolwork as independently as possible - that is as similar to those of the student’s peers as possible.

Step Five: Once we have completed our Consultation Report, we will send it to you by email for your thorough review. We will ask you to verify that we have all the student’s basic personal information correct, such as name of school, names and dates of service by any service providers, official diagnoses, medication dosages, etc. We ask that you let us know of any corrections in these areas and that you send the report back to us by email so we can make any corrections.

Step Six: After we have made any corrections, we will then certify by email that the Consultation Report is finalized. At this point, we will electronically sign it and you may then share the report with anyone you wish. We will also email you a cover letter for the student’s school explaining who we are and what we do.

Once you have completed a Consultation with us, we will continue to be available anytime in the future by phone/email to address your on-going questions and concerns regarding the contents of our report - never at an additional fee!

Contents of Our Consultation Reports

Part 1: Includes a complete compilation of a student’s educational and medical Background Information that has been submitted to us in order to create a “case” for the school that this student does, indeed, have an educationally significant written output disorder and showing that they need to use appropriate assistive technology for the completion of the majority, or all, of their written schoolwork.

Part 2: Discusses any Other Pertinent Data and Testing Information that was not discussed in Part 1, which supports the presence of an educationally significant written output disorder.

Part 3: Discusses any Previous Written Output Intervention Attempts to help the student try to overcome their written output disorder and whether or not they have been successful.

Part 4: Discusses the commonality of Handwriting Challenges related to the student’s particular disability (i.e. ADD, ADHD, ASD, LD’s or Physical Impairments).

Part 5: Discusses Dysgraphia in School-Aged Children. Many school personnel do not understand what Dysgraphia is – what it isn’t – and the negative impact it has on students academically, emotionally and socially when it is not appropriately addressed.

Part 6: A list of the Signs & Symptoms of Dysgraphia according to the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (DSM) and the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

Part 7: Discusses our Consultation Methodology. In this section of our report, we list, in detail, all the information we reviewed to create the assistive technology recommendations in our report.

Part 8: A list of the student’s personal and academic Student Strengths.

Part 9: A list of the Student’s Current Dysgraphic Symptoms. This information can then be compared to the information in Part 6 of our report to help the school understand that the student’s handwriting challenges are educationally significant and that the student has a need for appropriate assistive technology for written output.

Part 10: A list of Questions to be Answered by This Consultation that are requested by the person requesting the Consultation.

Part 11: A list of our specific “Low-Tech” and “High-Tech” Assistive Technology Recommendations for the student to help them overcome their written output disorder in the classroom. Included are our comments specific to the student as to why these items are being recommended as well as what each piece of assistive technology is designed to do.

Part 12: We list and discuss our Best Practices for Classroom Use of Assistive Technology.

Part 13: We discuss our Assistive Technology Implementation Plan that comes with our Resource Guide and how this can be used by the student’s school team to successfully implement the assistive technology recommendations that we make in our report.

Part 14: This is our Additional Comments section where we address any other special concerns we have related to appropriately accommodating the student’s written output disorder in the classroom. In this section, we often discuss how assistive technology goals and objectives can be written into the student’s IEP or how assistive technology accommodations can be written into a student’s Section 504 Plan.

Part 15: This final section of our report discusses (for students in the US) FAPE, Dysgraphia and Assistive Technology. In the US, all students with educationally significant diagnosed disabilities in the public school system have the right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). For students with Dysgraphia, they are unable to access their FAPE when expected to complete their written schoolwork with paper and pencil.

We hope this explains our 2 types of individual Consultation services and how they work. If you have further questions about an individual Consultation with us, please email us or give us a call anytime. We will be happy to answer your questions.

Special Education/Section 504 Advocacy Services

Our Advocacy Services are designed to help parents successfully advocate for their child who struggles to independently complete written schoolwork in the classroom using paper and pencil. Many parents find it a continuing challenge to obtain appropriate services and supports from their local school districts – including “best practice” assistive technology – as their children continue to struggle trying to complete their written assignments using traditional methods. We are here to try and help you and your child get the services and supports that they deserve – and that are required by federal law.

As mentioned previously on our website, educationally significant handwriting challenges experienced by students are often misunderstood and not appropriately addressed by school staff - which puts these kids at serious risk academically, emotionally and behaviorally. It is our mission to ensure that these students get the school services and supports they deserve which will enable them to complete the same finished written schoolwork as their peers - as independently as possible. This can be done using the latest “best practice” assistive technology – which is our specialty!

We bring a very unique perspective to the advocacy services that we provide. Many advocates are parents, lawyers and/or judges who have received advocacy training - but who have limited, or no, Special Education/Section 504 experience on a daily basis in the actual school setting. We, however, have 35 years of experience as Special Educators working in multiple Michigan school districts providing assistive technology services to kids, K-12, with written output disorders. We have participated in thousands of IEPs and many Section 504 Plan meetings on the “school side” of the table. We understand how schools “think” and the parameters within which they often operate when creating IEPs and Section 504 Plans and deciding what services and supports they are willing to offer students. This knowledge really does give us a “leg up” over many other advocates as it often helps to reduce, or eliminate, many of the roadblocks encountered by other advocates who do not have our wealth of experience actually working within multiple school systems. Our advocacy training has been through Wrightslaw (www.wrightslaw.com), which is the leading Special Education/Section 504 Advocacy Training Program in the United States. We also have extensive experience advocating for students with written output disorders over the last 20 years through our on-line company – regardless of their location. If you would like to take advantage of our Advocacy Services, you can work with us no matter where you are located through phone conferences and/or Skype! The first discussion with us is FREE!

If you decide to work with us after the first phone conference, the services we can provide (but are not limited to) are as follows:

• Reviewing evaluations and other school records and explanation of evaluation results

• Helping to define parent concerns, determine what steps need to be taken and creating parent meeting agendas

• Assist with letter writing to request things such as a Special Education or Section 504 evaluation,

an IEP meeting, a Section 504 Meeting, an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE), a Review of Existing Evaluation Data Meeting (REED) and mediation with a school district.

• Attending school meetings. We can attend meetings in person that are within a 2hr. drive from our Olivet, Michigan office. If this is not possible, we can participate in meetings via phone conference or Skype.

• Participating in mediation and due process hearings, if necessary. Once again, we can attend meetings in person that are within a 2hr. drive from our office. If this is not possible, we can attend meetings via phone conference or Skype. We can also recommend and work with attorneys specializing in Special Education mediation and due process.

• Filing complaints with State Departments of Education and/or Offices of Civil Rights

Advocacy Fees

• First 1 hour Phone Consultation – FREE!

• Hourly rate - $65.00

• We can either be paid hourly (we will bill you monthly for services performed) or we will create a customized package designed to meet your specific needs. Please email us at handwritingsolutions@hotmail.com with a list of your needs and we will send you a quote. If you wish to talk with us about this, please email us and we will promptly email you back to set up a time to chat.

If you have any questions regarding our Advocacy Services, please email us and we will be happy to respond.

Thanks!