Help: Dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia OH my!

[warriormom]

My 8 year old daughter has dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, auditory processing issues, sensory issues, ADHD, speech language issues and visual processing issues. I am overwhelmed. I have a background with children with disabilities but I am overwhelmed because of the emotional aspect of this all.

 

I have come to the realization that she is a severe to profound dyslexic (double deficit)with a constellation of challenges. She has left right discrimination issues, visual tracking, working memory issues and phonemic awareness. Her fluency is poor at best 52 CWPM for rehearsed text and worst 32 CWPM on novel text. Some days I think she is learning to read well and some days she is guessing, reversals etc. WHAT SHOULD I DO? My math curriculum works but AAR and AAS do not seem like enough for the learning to stick at this point. She learned some words (233 fluently) but we hit a wall.

 

 

This is what I have done:

 

OT for 2 years + school OT

SLP for 3 years + school SLP

Vision therapy for visual attention 6 months

Brain beat 2 months

 

 

Pulled her out of school to homeschool her:

100 easy lessons (dumped it)

Saxon 1 (dumped it no number sense)

All about reading 1-2 (started 3)

All about spelling 1 (started 2)

Math-U-See Alpha (started Beta)

Earobics step 1

Choir (with music instruction)

Art class

Theatre class

Dance class

Lots of audio books on Learning Ally

Handwriting without tears (I am a COTA)

Edited April 28, 2017 by warriormom

[PeterPan]

Results of Barton pretest? What was the SLP diagnosis?

[PeterPan]

Btw, what does she LIKE to do? Any hobbies?

[warriormom]

Music (sings in a choir)

Loves art

Visually based

Kinesthetic based

Loves YouTube

Listening to learningally books

Imaginative narrations

 

She has issues with correct expressive use of morphemes, difficulty comprehending grammatical rules, ability to define word and linguistic fluency. Susan Barton said the language issues stand in the way of this being the right program.

Edited April 28, 2017 by warriormom

[PeterPan]

Have you looked at retained reflexes? Done RAN/RAS work?

 

Those will be foundational. Might get language bump after reflex work. Would do that, then retest language with CELF or CASL. Age 9 bumps to better CELF test so do reflexes till then.

 

Continue AAS/AAR if are working but drill with Quizlet for fluency. AAS orally or with a tile app so more than visual. Her progress in those seems reasonable. Might not be ready for more. Might get bump with the reflex work. My ds had a noticeable language bump with reflex work.

[PeterPan]

Get Spelling Success games.

 

Will need visual processing work or VT but must have reflex work first.

 

Emphasize things she CAN do. Do them more. Have you looked at Writing Tales? She might be ready for level 1.

[MerryAtHope]

Guessing and reversal issues can take a LONG time to work through (my son had strongly ingrained guessing strategies at age 6 that we worked on for several years to really undo--sometimes it just seems the most natural thing to do to a child, especially if they are good at guessing by context, and mix in some vision issues--really can solidify that habit and make it challenging to undo.) Since you are using AAR/AAS, keep going back to the letter tiles. I would do a daily demo of the blending procedure and have her teach it back to you each day until it really becomes automatic for her. This article on breaking the word-guessing habit shows what to do--expect to really practice this a lot though, it's not a magic bullet but it does work. If she is switching sounds or reversing whole-words, the blending procedure helps with that too. Keep going to the tiles.

 

Similarly with letter reversals--here's an article with various ways to work on reversals through analogies, large arm movements, kinesthetic/tactile approaches, etc.... Work on one letter at a time and gradually work on more while continuing to review the ones she has mastered. (I spent a whole school year working on reversals with my dd when she was 9--not tons of time each day, only about 10 minutes or so--just short, daily, continued work. She wasn't 100% with them after that but was much better. Again, expect all this to take time and try to be patient & know they'll get there--I know it's overwhelming to us as moms when this is our children!)

 

Did she work on integrating primitive reflexes before or during vision therapy? If not, that's definitely something I would try to add in to your routine.

 

Level 3 has some pretty challenging words if she is severely dyslexic--was she fluent on the level 2 words? If not, I would continue to work in tons of review on those easier words (and if so, work in review on the words she's hitting a wall with now--but I often found when my kids hit a wall that it helped to go back and spend more time solidifying things and really making sure they were solid and that I wasn't leaving gaps--and after a time of review and helping them develop confidence, they were often ready to move ahead again. Sometimes, though, it might take more strategies with a specific concept--email AALP for support if that happens. The author's son was severely dyslexic--they were told he would never read or write and to prepare him for a life without reading. They just refused to accept that. She has a short video about their story here.).

 

Really customize that review system with the cards for her needs. There are tons of activities you can do with the cards to make review more interesting--put them on the wall and shoot nerf darts or throw paper snowballs at them. Write them on a board and let her erase each word she reads. Integrate them with favorite games like Sorry--each person reads a word as you take your turn. Here's 11 ideas for reviewing word cards--and more in the comment box at the end.

 

Reuse fluency sheets--cut strips or mark them with a highlighter or use stickers at the end of each line and let her roll a die to decide how many lines to read that day. Let her feed them to a monster etc... Here are ideas for the practice pages.

 

HTH some.