Expert: Norm Bishop - 2/19/2010

Question
my son is in the 5th grade, he was dignosed with ADD in the 3rd grade. he came home the other day with a paper n he forgot to answer one of the questions, he got a detention for this. i feel that this is not the right way to go about the situation.....please give me some ideas about what i should put on his 504 plan

Answer
You son's 504 plan could include a paragraph that implements a procedure to have his papers checked for completion by the teacher prior to formal hand in.  Given his ADD, and the number of years that he has had difficulty, it would not be unreasonable to have a check procedure just to make sure he has finished.  The teacher will say something about "how will he learn if we keep enabling him."   I would answer by saying, we have been doing the same thing since third grade and it hasn't worked, so why are we still doing what hasn't worked.  Let's try this and as completion of tasks increases then we can talk about reducing the check procedure.

The other option that comes to my mind is to give papers back to him that are not complete and give him 24 hours to complete it without penalty.  I would have that written into the 504 plan, and have a provision for alerting you when he gets something back...

Good luck...Norm