Question for Claire (or anyone with advice)

[fancypants]

I had posted some time ago regarding my 11 y.o. son who is having difficulty in school. Currently he is failing in both social studies and math. I had read in another post that you are familiar with the PACE program. We are currently going through that program, he has two weeks left. I was reviewing the initial testing that was done and am now wondering what the testing really means (I thought I understood at the time it was reviewed).

Here’s what I have:

Test evaluation

To assess objectively the effects of the cognitive training and/or reading program, the following tests are from either the Gibson Cognitive Test Battery (GCTB), Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT), or other cognitive test instruments that measure specific cognitive abilities and have been administered prior to and after training. Please not: 18 is the maximum age reported since performance at this level is similar to that of an adult and 5 is the minimum age reported.

 

Pre-Test scores in relation to age level:

Processing speed: -0.8 years deviation

Working memory: +2.9 years deviation

Visual processing: -2 years deviation

Word attack: =3.4 years deviation

Auditory analysis: -2.5 years deviation

Logic and reasoning: -5 years deviation

Selective attention: -5.4 years deviation

 

Competency Assessment Battery

Visual memory skills:

Visual matching: 92.86% (7 symbols 86-100%)

Visual memory: 85.71% (6 symbols 72-85%)

Visual construction: 64.29% (5 symbols 58-71%)

Auditory Memory Skills

Auditory memory: 92.86% (7 symbols 86-100%)

Auditory construction: 57.14% (4 symbols 43-57%)

Integrated Cognitive Skills

Vocabulary: 70% (advanced level 61-100%)

Verbal analogies: 50% (advanced level 41-100%)

Symbol sequencing: 60% (intermediate level 41-70%)

Pictorial analogies: 100%

Reading and Comprehension

Word recognition: 5th grade 90%, 6th grade 40%

Comprehension: grades 5-6 40%

Time Orientation

Analog – telling time: 50% (developing knowledge 21-70%)

Sequential awareness of days and months 90% (appropriate concepts81-100%)

Time analogies:70% (developing time concepts 51-80%)

Spelling

4th grade 80%

5th grade 80%

6th grade 70%

Middle school 20%

Mathematics

1st grade 62.50%

2nd grade 100%

3rd grade 87.50%

4th grade 62.50%

5th grade 87.50%

6th grade 37.50%

 

I realize it would be difficult to tell what the test results mean without knowing what tests were administered, but I would be interested in knowing what you (or anyone else) may have to say about them. We will soon be doing the post-program testing.

It will be interesting to see what changes there have been. We met with the teachers earlier this week to get their input on what they were seeing. It was interesting that the science teacher commented that she will be speaking to the class; he is listening, paying attention, but once she is done talking it is as if he doesn’t have a clue what she just said. His math teacher is truly baffled as to what his weaknesses are, as his errors are inconsistent. She showed us a quiz they had done where he had easy problems wrong and harder ones right. She did express concern that possibly he could have a math learning disorder. The English teacher believes she is starting to see improvement. Unfortunately the social studies teacher could not be present.

As with my first post, sorry this is so long.

Thanks

[Kathy in MD]

Pre-Test scores in relation to age level:

Processing speed: -0.8 years deviation

Working memory: +2.9 years deviation

Visual processing: -2 years deviation

Word attack: =3.4 years deviation

Auditory analysis: -2.5 years deviation

Logic and reasoning: -5 years deviation

Selective attention: -5.4 years deviation ......

 

Processing speed is just the speed his brain works at. If he was a runner, he would be slightly behind the pack.

 

Working memory has 2 major uses. First, it allows him to remember facts and instructions for a short time so hecan work with them. Forexample, you can assign him 3 chores and he should be able to remember what chores to do after he finishes the first. Also before anything enters long term memory, it must be held in short term or working memory. I would expect him to be good at accdemics requiring memory.

 

Visual processing is how well his brain handles and interprets imput from his eyes. Eyes deliver a lot of extraneous info. The brain must sort out what is important and how to react to it. Some info needs to be stored in working and eventually long term memory. Other visual info needs immediate, physical reaction, such as when a car swerves into the lane mycar is in.

 

Word attack means your ds can read words, recognize them and pronounce them properly. It doesn't mean he understands what their meaning. It's only a preliminary step to reading comprehension.

 

Auditory analysis shows how well an individual can understand the individual sounds so he can understand conversations and teachers' lectures. All too many words have only slight differences in sound, making listening comprehension difficult for the individual who struggles with it.

 

Logic and reasoning is the ability to draw inferences, make deductions, connect various bits of information, draw comparisons (analogies), etc. This is the ability to think.

 

Selective attention is the ability to screen out any unnecessary distractions. A person struggling with this would devote as much brain power to a piece of paper being crumpled as he would the teacher's lecture.

 

 

.........

Competency Assessment Battery

Visual memory skills:

Visual matching: 92.86% (7 symbols 86-100%)

Visual memory: 85.71% (6 symbols 72-85%)

Visual construction: 64.29% (5 symbols 58-71%)

Auditory Memory Skills

Auditory memory: 92.86% (7 symbols 86-100%)

Auditory construction: 57.14% (4 symbols 43-57%)

Integrated Cognitive Skills

Vocabulary: 70% (advanced level 61-100%)

Verbal analogies: 50% (advanced level 41-100%)

Symbol sequencing: 60% (intermediate level 41-70%)

Pictorial analogies: 100%

Reading and Comprehension

Word recognition: 5th grade 90%, 6th grade 40%

Comprehension: grades 5-6 40%

Time Orientation

Analog – telling time: 50% (developing knowledge 21-70%)

Sequential awareness of days and months 90% (appropriate concepts81-100%)

Time analogies:70% (developing time concepts 51-80%)

Spelling

4th grade 80%

5th grade 80%

6th grade 70%

Middle school 20%

Mathematics

1st grade 62.50%

2nd grade 100%

3rd grade 87.50%

4th grade 62.50%

5th grade 87.50%

6th grade 37.50%

.........

 

This tests I'm not familiar with, but it looks like the tests that deal with straight working or long term memory are high. Anything that deals with thinking is where he falls down.

 

.......I realize it would be difficult to tell what the test results mean without knowing what tests were administered, but I would be interested in knowing what you (or anyone else) may have to say about them. We will soon be doing the post-program testing.

It will be interesting to see what changes there have been. We met with the teachers earlier this week to get their input on what they were seeing. It was interesting that the science teacher commented that she will be speaking to the class; he is listening, paying attention, but once she is done talking it is as if he doesn’t have a clue what she just said. His math teacher is truly baffled as to what his weaknesses are, as his errors are inconsistent. She showed us a quiz they had done where he had easy problems wrong and harder ones right. She did express concern that possibly he could have a math learning disorder. The English teacher believes she is starting to see improvement. Unfortunately the social studies teacher could not be present.

As with my first post, sorry this is so long.........

 

It would be interesting to know if his science teacher is expecting him to draw conclusions from her lectures or if she is just asking him to recite back what she said. Also sometimes a student can be paying close attention (or appears to be) yet is not focusing on what the teacher is saying. Another question, are the teacher's lectures so fast that he doesn't have time to digest the info or does she have a slight accent he struggles to understand? It might help if he read, or you read together, his science book prior to the lecture so it's not all brand new material. Another thought is how good are his class notes? Distilling the lecture into notes helped keep me focused and understanding the gist of the lectures.

 

If you find a solution to your ds's math errors, please let me know. I'm still floundering.

 

English is one area where my ds is also doing well in now. Though the grammar rules are nit picky, one minor error doesn't cascade and make the entire sentence wrong as it does in math. After doing Sentence Composing with him ( a modeling program), his sentences are now interesting and complex. His paragraphs are also starting to become more organized.

[fancypants]

Thanks for the information Kathy

“Working memory has 2 major uses. First, it allows him to remember facts and instructions for a short time so hecan work with them. Forexample, you can assign him 3 chores and he should be able to remember what chores to do after he finishes the first. Also before anything enters long term memory, it must be held in short term or working memory. I would expect him to be good at accdemics requiring

memory.”

Actually he is not doing well in any subject. He has failed both math and social studies all three quarters (55), he is in the high 60 to low70 range for English and science is actually his best subject. He did manage to get an 80 this past quarter. Interestingly, his Working memory composite score was 88 on the WISC-IV when he was tested in 5th grade. If I understand the WISC-IV scoring, the PACE testing would indicate an improvement, or it’s just a difference in the testing.

 

The Selective attention: -5.4 years deviation was a surprise, but then so were the science teacher’s remarks. As you said, maybe he seems to be listening, but isn’t really focused. As I mentioned, science is his best subject. They do not work out of a text book. She had also commented that she felt he had the potential to be a solid 80s student. All the teachers agree his behavior is not the issue, so maybe he is not focused. How do you determine that? I have requested an evaluation by the school. Something just does not add up.

[Kathy in MD]

"Actually he is not doing well in any subject. He has failed both math and social studies all three quarters (55), he is in the high 60 to low70 range for English and science is actually his best subject. He did manage to get an 80 this past quarter. Interestingly, his Working memory composite score was 88 on the WISC-IV when he was tested in 5th grade. If I understand the WISC-IV scoring, the PACE testing would indicate an improvement, or it’s just a difference in the testing........."

 

I wouldn't expect him to do well in math. Math has very little memorization after you learn math facts. It's all about playing with numbers. Stated more formally, it's about logic and reasoning. How can I go from point A to point B?

 

His problem in fields that you might think are more memorization is that schools have reacted to the complaints of drill and kill of years gone by. That, combined with realizing the valid need for students to think, has led to more courses emphisising logic and reasoning skills over memorization. Instead of just being asked to recite the major rivers of China, the students may be asked to explain why the Yangtzee River was important to the development of China. It might be spelled out in their textbook, but also it may not be.

 

I would expect him to do well on spelling tests on Friday, but perhaps forget how to spell the words on Mon. I'd expect him to do well on vocabulay tests where he gives the definition, but not be able to figure out the meaning of a word from a reading passage. He may know the elements that go into a good paper, but can't reason well enough to pull them together.

 

He may be doing well at science at this grade, because often science at this level is still taught mainly as stuff to memorize and learn, but not apply (application requires reasoning.)

 

 

 

"The Selective attention: -5.4 years deviation was a surprise, but then so were the science teacher’s remarks. As you said, maybe he seems to be listening, but isn’t really focused. As I mentioned, science is his best subject. They do not work out of a text book. She had also commented that she felt he had the potential to be a solid 80s student. All the teachers agree his behavior is not the issue, so maybe he is not focused. How do you determine that? I have requested an evaluation by the school. Something just does not add up.

......"

 

Being able to selectively focus on something is difficult for some people. Imagine you have two children on either side of you screaming for attention. Everytime you focus on one, the other starts screaming even more for attention. Finally you give up and tell one to be quiet. For someone with auditory focussing problems, telling the second noise maker to be quiet isn't possible. The brain insists on paying as much attention to the crumpling paper sound behind him as it does to the teacher's voice.

 

I'm curious about the science however, since they aren't using a text. Are most of his grades coming from experiements? Is your son taking good notes and then learning from those? Or is the problem the way the teacher is asking him questions? I once saw an instructional film about working with children with LD's in a regular classroom. The instructor had several suggestions. When wanting to ask the LD student a question, the instructor should give a minor signal to alert the student, ask the question and do something to give him a moment to organize his thoughts and respond. (The teacher should avoid dead silence). If asking for multiple imput from the general class, and the LD student has his hand up, the LD student should be called on first because slower processing speeds would make it more difficult for him to come up with a second answer. I wish I could remember the name of that film. I might have seen it on PBS.

 

Telling if a student is focused is sometimes difficult. Many learn how to LOOK focused when the brain is elsewhere. I've even heard of kids being able to sleep while faking attention! OTOH, I would sometimes doodle to keep my brain alert while listening to an unimportant lecture. My suggestion is to encourage your ds to take good notes. If he's taking good notes, he's focusing on some part of the lecture. He might need to study the notes to understand what the tacher was saying, but he has something to learn from.

 

And sometimes you have to go by improvement, not is he a "good" (aka "A &B" ) student. Sometimes just becoming a C (once known as an average) student is good.

[fancypants]

“I wouldn't expect him to do well in math. Math has very little memorization after you learn math facts.”

He hasn’t learned math facts. He has to add and subtract on fingers, forget multiplication. There are some he can recall, but not many.

“I would expect him to do well on spelling tests on Friday, but perhaps forget how to spell the words on Mon. I'd expect him to do well on vocabulay tests where he gives the definition, but not be able to figure out the meaning of a word from a reading passage. He may know the elements that go into a good paper, but can't reason well enough to pull them together.”

Please bear with me; I’m having a hard time understanding this memory thing!! So I’m gathering from this, working memory is short term memory if you will? I have also heard the term rote memory (learning by repeating something over and over). Is this the same or similar to working memory? Is this one way information gets to long term memory?

“I'm curious about the science however, since they aren't using a text. Are most of his grades coming from experiements? Is your son taking good notes and then learning from those?”

They are graded on homework, worksheets with information followed by questions; class work (similar to the homework); a home activity or topic report, and unit test. He does not do well on the unit tests. It is the homework and class work that keep the grade up.

“And sometimes you have to go by improvement, not is he a "good" (aka "A &B" ) student. Sometimes just becoming a C (once known as an average) student is good.”

Right now that is what we are living by, the improvements. He had a 61 on a math quiz and it was time to party!! Right now, his performance in school has not brought him down. He is still a happy go lucky kid. I need to keep him on that track. What makes it tricky is he has two older brothers that have no issues with school. #1 never opens a book and is a high honor student, #2 occasionally opens a book and is an honor student and #3 trudges along. He knows this, he sees it. His brothers never really do homework while he spends 1 – 1 ½ hours a night doing homework.

[Kathy in MD]

Have you tried Math the Fun Way (http://www.citycreek.com)for learning facts, both addition and multiplication? It's the only way my ds was able to learn them. Ds took about 4-8 weeks to learn the storiesand facts. However I didn't follow with regular drill and he forgot. We had to redo the program, however it did go faster the second time. I followed that time with about a year of drill.

 

Working memory is a short term memory. Rote memorization is one way to work it into long term memory. My mother was taught in her ed classes that it takes 20 repetitions for a student to learn something. That's about right for my ds, even with his poor memory. Now if I could just get him to apply it.

 

If his science tests are mostly recall, it may be that his working memory isn't good enough to hold things overnight. He may need to work extra on memorization of science facts as he does each worksheet. An alternative might be that he doesn't trust himself to know the right answer. My ds is constantly coming up with the wrong answer and when I tell him it's wrong, he frequently responds, "it can't be ________!" Often the answer that can't be "right", is.

[fancypants]

I'll check out the math site.

Thanks for all the information.

[ldee]

I would expect his scores to be higher after his posttests.

Is he going to continue with Master The Code? That will help his word attack and his comprehension. He may not be able to comprehend what he reads. MTC will definitely help with that.

You will see progress continue for up to a year after co mpletion of pace. It will take him about a year to catch up though. PACE will fix the underlying problem but it is NOT remediating the skills that couldn't be learned prior to pace. This means that he may need some remedial math (pace should touch on some of this), MTC will really help with comprehension. So much of reading, social studies, science and word problems in math is based on how well one can comprehend what they read.

Based on his Woodcock Johnson scores, I would recommend MTC.

 

ldee.....also a PACE provider....after this program fixed my daughter's many problems!!

[Kathy in MD]

.....

Master The Code? That will help his word attack and his comprehension. He may not be able to comprehend what he reads. MTC will definitely help with that.

 

 

I've always had the impression that MTC only helped with basic reading skills. How does it help with comprehension?