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Difficulty with vowels and similar sounding numbers


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My little one (5 with a fall birthday) struggled with learning letter sounds and counting but she is finally doing better. She is having a hard time learning a few vowels. Like she calls the u by the y sound and the e by the i sound. I think she has trouble hearing the difference. She has had difficulty learning first letter sounds and rhyming. Now she is better at recognizing words that rhyme but she cannot make her own.

 

Another issue is the 13 and 14 and 30 and 40 sound the same when she says it and it sometimes mixes her up by skipping from 12 to 14 and then on to 15 or 20 to 40 and then on to 50 when counting by tens. She is getting better but it is still something she does a lot.

 

Is there anything I can do with her to help with this issue.

Edited by MistyMountain
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No I have not done the pre-test yet. My ds has had difficulties with reading and handwriting too but a little different then hers. She does have some warning signs but her speech is fine. I cannot afford the testing or tutoring with her right now. How hard is LIPs to implement? It sounded like it was hard to do. I guess LIPs is the only thing out there for the early weakness? I am pretty sure she also is much weaker in her working memory and processing speed then the other areas and she most likely has dyspraxia (she has a motor planning delay) She at least qualifies for OT through the school. I am so not ready to go through all this again.

Edited by MistyMountain
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My little one (5 with a fall birthday) struggled with learning letter sounds and counting but she is finally doing better. She is having a hard time learning a few vowels. Like she calls the u by the y sound and the e by the i sound. I think she has trouble hearing the difference. She has had difficulty learning first letter sounds and rhyming. Now she is better at recognizing words that rhyme but she cannot make her own.

 

I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you have not gotten her a full audiology exam within the past 12 months, I would strongly encourage you to do so just to make sure there is not a hearing issue. Chances are, her hearing is totally normal, but this time last year I had no clue that my DD was profoundly deaf in the high frequencies. She never acted like she had problems hearing because the audiologist thinks she figured out how to lip-read & use context clues to fill in the gaps.

 

It really is worth seeing an audiologist for an updated hearing test even if your child has previously had normal ones.

 

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I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you have not gotten her a full audiology exam within the past 12 months, I would strongly encourage you to do so just to make sure there is not a hearing issue. Chances are, her hearing is totally normal, but this time last year I had no clue that my DD was profoundly deaf in the high frequencies. She never acted like she had problems hearing because the audiologist thinks she figured out how to lip-read & use context clues to fill in the gaps.

 

It really is worth seeing an audiologist for an updated hearing test even if your child has previously had normal ones.

 

Seconding. And if they will do a screening for CAPD, that's awesome--some places will screen at that age but not do a full test. My little one that had vowel sound trouble has auditory processing issues. 

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If you do want to pursue the hearing eval, you might try a university.  Ours can do it for $35. 

 

Yes, I would give her the Barton pre-test and see what happens.  LIPS is relatively straightforward and highly effective.  It's going to improve both her phonemic awareness *and* her working memory.   

 

I'm sorry you're feeling overwhelmed.  On the plus side though, the interventions you learn for one help the next.  

 

There's a CTOPP normed for younger kids, and they can do a regular CTOPP at age 6, I'm sure, because my ds had it.  So if you're going to the ps for evals and to get that OT, then I'd go ahead and make a written request saying you suspect SLDs and get that CTOPP done.

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My DC have had trouble saying 13/14 and 30/40 numbers because of /th/. Ask her to stick out her tongue for three, bite lip for four. Have her watch and mimic you in a large mirror to help. I think speech wise that can be nml.

 

Letters with wrong phonic sounds should be addressed daily. Ask what does e say? Etc or have flash cards. Review daily for school until it's learned.

 

Rhyming may be helped if you focus on rhyming books, games with rhymes where she knows the rhymes like nursery rhymes. Have her guess the rhyme by making riddles: I'm sticky and I rhyme with blue. I can make glitter stay on the page and I rhyme with sue. What am I?

 

Or I can hear and I rhyme with sear. What am I? At some point you want her rhymes to be real words but if the rhymes are nonsense at first and real rhymes, that's ok.

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Misty, if you end up going with Barton, you'll do rhyming in level 2 iirc.  Barton has a very concrete, physical way of explaining rhyming.  Exercises asking the dc to think up words that rhyme would have been too hard for my ds, so don't feel bad if you're thinking wow my kid can't do that.  Barton will break it into smaller steps that they can get.  

 

Ok, can I ask a question? When you did the Barton pre-test, did you do it all in one session?  Or did you break it up?  Because if you had to break it up so much, I'm going to call that a fail.  I don't know, that might be something to go back and examine.  They should just be able to sit down and do it and pass it.  

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I gave her the Barton screening and she failed all 3 sections. She could not do task A. She pulled the first few words and then pulled one for the last few words. She got 4 wrong in task B and 7 wrong and 2 corrected in task C. She had difficulty with anything with a sh, th or ch some of the vowels and m m and n.

 

I know that kids have difficulties saying the th at her age but it did seem like she was having trouble hearing the difference. Is it more common for a child her age to fail so bad? I guess I will be giving LIPs a try. I did not like how Visualizing and Verbalizing from that company was organized and I am guessing LIPs might be similar but I guess I need to try to figure out a way to do it. It is good it works on working memory too because I did not know too many ways to work on that with a 5 year old. I have been doing iPad versions of Simon.

 

She has had her hearing checked at school but not with audiologist.

Edited by MistyMountain
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I wonder if the reason she struggles more then ds with phonemic awareness is because his speech therapy for articulation was like LIPs. He had a really good speech teacher who really taught him how to make sounds and the difference between them. He had really bad articulation as a preschooler but made so much progress through therapy. She never qualified for speech. Her articulation was a little off but not enough to qualify

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Oh my, for some reason I thought you said she had passed the pretest.  Well yes then, you're headed into LIPS.  I squack about it, but it's not bad to implement.  Yes, it was developed by an SLP and it's going to help you bridge between speech and phonemic awareness.  Yes, it will build working memory naturally as you segment and blend sounds.  My tip of the day would be to take it *farther* than they say.  Like Barton says just get to 3 or 4 (I forget) and then jump to Barton 1.  Me, I would take the skills in LIPS all the way to 5-6 letters, and I would keep right on using those LIPS faces right on into Barton 1, 2, 3...  It's FABULOUS for making these connections and organizing their brains.  

 

Around here, an SLP is $110 an hour.  For 2 hours of therapy, I could buy anything I needed for LIPS.  If you can find the materials used, that helps.  Since you have already had your evals, I'd go ahead and order and get started.  There's no reason to wait at this point.

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She has not had any evals except for the pre-test I did with her. It really confirmed she was not hearing the differences between the sounds. She compensates rather well for speech.

 

This is very overwhelming though. It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I know she is going to struggle and she will need serious help but everyone will dismiss me and think from ds that I am just a helicopter parent. She has an IEP and gets preschool services for her motor skill delay but I know they will not think her not knowing all her sounds or sounding out words etc is an issue yet. They fight tooth and nail about getting a child help never mind one as young as her.

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So you get them to do the CTOPP as soon as she turns 6.  I know the SN coor at the ps was shocked when I came in.  She kept saying oh we don't normally give IEPs for SLDs for K5ers.  Well fine, but standards have changed.  We CAN identify them, and the current research is showing that dyslexia ought to be diagnosed BEFORE 1st grade!!!!  Seriously, that is the current research.  You should not feel badly AT ALL about pushing this.  I got my ds diagnosed at newly 6.  With the family history, you have every reason to be proactive.

 

I understand the overwhelmed.  But put that energy into learning and you'll be ok.  You'll want to do the barton tutor screening, just to make sure there's no issue with your own phonological processing that would hold you back.  I don't have that issue, but I'm just saying she mentions it.  But assuming you're good to go there, you're going to be fine.  And even if you have some challenges yourself, there's probably a path.  It's just something to do before you order things.

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So you get them to do the CTOPP as soon as she turns 6.  I know the SN coor at the ps was shocked when I came in.  She kept saying oh we don't normally give IEPs for SLDs for K5ers.  Well fine, but standards have changed.  We CAN identify them, and the current research is showing that dyslexia ought to be diagnosed BEFORE 1st grade!!!!  Seriously, that is the current research.  You should not feel badly AT ALL about pushing this.  I got my ds diagnosed at newly 6.  With the family history, you have every reason to be proactive.

 

Our district doesn't want to test for dyslexia until 3rd grade. I pushed back on them HARD last year on this because it's crazy to wait that long for a child already identified with SN's. We KNOW that my DD isn't a neurotypical kid who's just a "late bloomer". Yes, she was reading at grade level halfway through K5, but she'd made very slow progress from August through January. At that rate, she would be below grade level in 3rd. Why wait for her to fail before giving her intervention? It's easier to keep her at-level than to remediate later on.

 

Don't be afraid to be the squeaky wheel.

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Crimson, I think 3rd *was* the old standard.  The new standard is identify in 1st.  Someone I know with a 1st grader in the ps is indeed getting that testing done.  If she doesn't have the discrepancy (2 SD) between achievement and IQ, I don't see how they get you there.  They might come back and see it later or they might say what you're seeing is due to issues caused by the ASD or EF or whatever.  But my ds was actually diagnosable *by that standard* in K5.  Twice, with different psychs, and one was the ps.  But he had the discrepancy.  

 

I don't think everything has the same explanation, kwim?  Like you look at that super low CELF she has.  Is it going up, now that she has the HAs?  Actually, I never asked.  Does she have HAs?  And if she does, did those bump her CELF scores?  You said they're retesting as they intervene.  I definitely, definitely, definitely think those low CELF scores cause problems with reading, but they are *not* the same as a dyslexia diagnosis.  

 

It's crazy complex stuff!

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Ds had huge discrepencies in his scores but they did not use a GAI for him like they should have and he was not two years behind so it could not get him help. You needed discrepencies plus be two years behind.

 

Would LiPS effect her CTOPP scores a lot?

Edited by MistyMountain
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Yes, LIPS will bump the CTOPP scores.  It won't bump ran/ras (part of the ctopp) but it will bump the rest, absolutely.

 

Misty--for them to say 2 years behind effectively is to say must be 3rd grade.  That is NOT part of the diagnosis.  Go to a private psych if they're pulling that stunt, or complete the ps evals, dispute, and make them pay for the independent evals.  

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I don't think everything has the same explanation, kwim?  Like you look at that super low CELF she has.  Is it going up, now that she has the HAs?  Actually, I never asked.  Does she have HAs?  And if she does, did those bump her CELF scores?  You said they're retesting as they intervene.  I definitely, definitely, definitely think those low CELF scores cause problems with reading, but they are *not* the same as a dyslexia diagnosis.  

 

It's crazy complex stuff!

 

She was tested with the CELF-4 unaided in December '14, with the CELF-5 aided in June '15, and this past Monday with the CELF-4 aided. We saw an increase in percentiles from the December to June testing. However, it's impossible to tease out the effects of the HA's vs. the other interventions like ABA and speech therapy. The improvement was probably a combo of better speech perception from the HA's and underlying improvement in her language skills. The testing she did this week should help clarify since it'll be compared to the aided testing last June.

 

She's definitely speaking a lot better than she was in June but the big question is whether that will translate to higher percentiles on the standardized testing.

 

My friend the ed therapy student tried to run a CTOPP on DD last summer but the poor receptive language skills meant that only some of the subtests could be done. The ones that my DD understood what was being asked of her she did ok on, but there weren't enough of those to rule out a milder phonological processing issue. I do plan on getting a full CTOPP done in the next 1-2 years unless her decoding improves enough to make it a moot point.

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Crimson, I'm just so happy your dd is making progress.  It's a phenomenal story and represents a lot of hard work!  Yeah I don't know how much improved language she would need.  Ds was at 28th percentile, and even though that was higher than your dd's starting point, it wasn't exactly stellar either. He does have that really good vocabulary.  I'm just thinking I'd be wanting that CTOPP earlier.  

 

Anyways, that's awesome progress!  :)

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An actual audiologist came to school to test hearing of the pre-k kids today. I wonder if they did good enough testing. How long does the testing take and what should they have tested? I will ask the teacher more about it.

It was probably a screening like happens in a pediatrician's office. You want full booth testing that takes probably a good 45 minutes at minimum. It can take longer if the audiologist includes speech perception testing as well as pure tones.

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