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When a child has a language delay, people tend to accept this fact at face value: Joseph is 6 but speaks like a 3-year-old. While understandably upsetting to many parents, no one expects Joseph to speak differently before he is able. There's a scramble to start services and a patient approach while allowing language to develop.

The same attitude does not hold for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a developmental delay in a broad skill set called executive function. A huge body of research defines it as a medical disorder; neither parents nor children benefit when people suggest otherwise.

Do you dread parent meetings—or find that they don't yield the results you wish they did?

At their worst, such meetings (especially when they focus on a problem) are packed with defensiveness, frustration, guilt, and fear for parents, teachers, and students. All parties want to "get it over with." But by sharpening your facilitation skills, you can keep a parent meeting from degenerating into a dance of blame.

Thirty-one states, including Alaska, Colorado, South Dakota, Washington and Oregon, have laws requiring teens to stay in school till age 17 or 18.

Montana is among the minority of states that allow students to legally drop out at 16.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court issued a special-education decision, Forest  Grove School District v. T.A, that had been closely tracked in many sectors of  American education. Those who compulsively need to keep score might conclude  that private schools for children with special needs had “won.’’ They would be  wrong. The true winners were children with what one might call hidden  disabilities - social, emotional, and learning needs that are often less  apparent than some visual, auditory, ambulatory, or intellectual challenges.

On June 22, 2009,  the Supreme Court issued a pro-child decision in Forest  Grove School District v. T.A., a case about tuition reimbursement for a  child who was never found eligible and never received special education services  from the public school.

The question presented in Forest  Grove v. T.A. was whether parents who unilaterally enroll their disabled  child in a private school are entitled to tuition reimbursement if the child  never received special education from the district.