le PAP - PLAN d'ACCOMPAGNEMENT PERSONNALISÉ

Living in France means having to embrace acronyms.  From SPANC for the septic tank (I kid you not) to ACCRE for setting up setting up businesses passing by CAF, APE,,, it's a whirlwind.

In the case of a child with special needs or learning difficulties there is a bewildering cornocopia of PPRE, PPS, PAI, PAP, MDPH to name but a few.  However, I want to chat about the PAP or plan d'accompanement personnalisé in full.

When we went through the process of having my son diagnosed with dyslexia this was with the aim of seeing what adjustments he might need to help him in his school work.  The process was that we had him tested and based on that diagnosis we would have his level of "handicap" measured and help would be given based on that - and guidelines would be given to the teachers about how to make his work more user-friendly.  And only after this was in place would the teachers be obliged to follow the guidelines.  The waiting list for testing is around 6 months and the MDPH - handicapping body would take another additonal 6 months to study his file.  Valuable time would be lost.

However, during this process we moved house and changed school and we felt that his teacher seemed more open to making adjustments on an informal basis, so even after we got the formal diagnosis of dyslexia we didn't bother following up with getting him labelled handicapped.  This was in December 2014.

One of the recommendations for my son was to cut down his writing due to the cognitive effort that reading and writing pose him. So I agreed with his teacher that I would reformat all his history and geography lessons and print them in a dyslexia friendly font in a colour that he finds less taxing.  All great until I discovered that she still made him copy it all down - just from the sheets I provided.  This went against the grain of all the recommendations that we had for him and against the adjustments she was making - gapfill exercises, multiple choice ....

Enough was enough and we felt it was time to put in place a formal PLAN.  So I began to research how to put in place a PPS - and felt saddened by the need to declare my bright and clever 8 year old handicapped when on the   http://www.apedys.org/ website I found a fabulous chart   http://www.apedys.org/dyslexie/article.php?sid=836 which listed all the possibilities open to us.  And I discovered that in September 2014 a new plan - the PAP had been introduced.  It's very target was children that need adjustments but not as far as needing a person with them (AVS) to help them.  It allowed for changes to testing, allowing for the spoken word and not the written word, lightening the loads.  It was also exactly what my son needed.   We didn't need to get him formally assessed for a handicap but a written contract would be created with us the parents, the head teacher and the medécin scholaire of the Education Nationale.  How cool was that.  As we didn't have to pass throught the MDPH then it is much quicker and easier to put in place.  It allows for a yearly assessment of the child and can follow a child all through their school life from maternelle all the way to lycée.

I'm not saying that we won't have to change the plan when he reaches exam time, however, I feel it will be a lot easier as the building blocks of his adjustments will already be in place.  I am also thinking ahead for when he goes to collège in 2 years and the PAP should make his transition much easier.

Here's to the PAP

Getting a dyslexia diagnosis in France

Our son started his speech and language therapy when he was 6 and in CP and this is ongoing.  However, towards the end of his CE1 year (the one after CP) we had a meeting with the head teacher as to how to plan his last three years at primary – Cycle 3 which is CE2 and the 2 CM years.  We had seen with our eldest child that there was a lot of copying required and memorising for dictations, we felt, along with this therapist that he would find this tiring and hard. 

The head teacher was surprised, as he was keeping up in his CE1 class – but there most of the work had been photocopied for him and some “copying for the sake of copying” had been reduced.  We asked that lessons should be given to him in a printed format and some of the memory work – poems, dictation should be shortened.  His response was to call in the school nurse, who decided that we had to go for a formal diagnosis with recommendations, without which the school was not obliged to make any adjustments.

Ho Hum!  The nurse gave me the details of the one-stop shop neuro-paediatric centre at Lille where he could be seen by everyone all at the same time.  We then went onto the waiting list, with a  4 month window to provide up to date tests on him (or else he would be booted off!).   Initially, we had to provide – an IQ test, an up-to-date bilan d’orthophonie and a doctor’s referral. When we got the convocation with the appointment we were also asked for a viewpoint from his teacher.

  Finally, after nearly 7 months we had  the appointment and went off to Lille for the day.  He was seen first of all by the neuro-paediatrician and then by an ortoptiste and  an orthophoniste.  The doctor took his family history and asked about the problems he had.  I felt very uncomfortable doing this as he was present and I felt that the focus was on what we perceived he couldn’t do (fairly naturally) as opposed to what he could do.  As we don’t make a fuss of what he can’t do at home, I’m sure that many of these things were a surprise to him.  Not necessarily a good one.

After the tests, we had a long wait as the medical team consulted on the children that they had seen that day.  At the end of the day we were called to see the neuro-paediatrician again who confirmed that he was dyslexic and made some recommendations regarding his on-going treatment.  She also said that he should come back when he was in his last year of primary in order to see his progress and to make plans of how to best adapt for secondary education.  A full report was sent out quite quickly with the comments from the doctor and some very detailed recommendations from the orthophoniste to help him in his daily life.

Following this, and depending on the recommendations made a request can be made to the MDPH for the funding of equipment or the AVS (assistant) that a child might need.  It might also be necessary to put in place a PPS (projet personalisé de scolarisation).  We have worked on a voluntary basis with the school but at the end of CE2 are planning a meeting with them with the view to putting in place a PPS as we feel that the recommendations are not being implemented. Apparently this too may take 6 months!! ;-)