video of DD7 reading

[ktgrok]

I started a thread about her reading a while ago, and am implementing some suggestions, but realized it might help if you could see her reading. So...here it is. This is from Dancing Bears A, about 2/3 through the book. 

 

 

 

 

[Lecka]

My comments!

 

1) she is reading too slow to have comprehension, that could be why she didn't realize she skipped a line.

 

2) she has a hard time with initial consonant blends. Maybe work on them with easier words or you could consider making flash cards with initial blends. You could also consider -- if this program introduces all the initial blends at once -- going sideways and just working on a small number of initial blends at a time.

 

When she read "froid" she nailed the "oi" and "oid," it was the initial blend that threw her off.

 

She is pretty good at blending, at least easier/beginning blending. That is great. I think her blending is very good.

 

Initial blends have been a struggle for my younger son, and I think if you can, separate that out as something to work on. Don't just work on it when reading a passage or when reading words that also have things like "oi" for her to worry about. Work on it with easier words too.

 

I think she has a lot going for her. She has a lot going for her with blending and knowing letter sounds, and she seems very focused and has a confident demeanor, too.

 

Her final blends I saw seemed good. In the AAS/AAR series the author says final blends are harder than initial blends, so that is expected.

 

I have found initial blends to be really difficult for two of my kids, too.

 

Edit: unfortunately initial blends are in a lot of "easy" one-syllable words, even words with only 3 letters! Grrrrrr.

 

Also I mean initial blend to be two or more consonants that have to be blended, like sn- and fr-.

 

One of my sons had particular trouble with -l and -r blends because of his speech, so blends like fr-, fl-, cr-, cl-, etc were hardest for him.

 

I didn't see that with my younger son.

 

Another comment is that "long consonants" should be easier to blend than "short consonants," because you can hold the sounds.

 

So for sn, you can hold sssssnnnnnn.

 

For a letter like p in pl, you can't hold p, so you are going plllll, and that is just harder to blend in theory. Other short consonants are c, d, g, j, k, p, t, and maybe w.

 

You can expect blends with these consonants to be harder to sound out and harder to learn.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Lecka

[ktgrok]

Thank you. It helps having an "outside" opinion! I will work on those initial blends, I see what you mean. So "snail" is hard but "Vern" is easy. 

[Lecka]

I just read your other thread. I don't think she is very behind, but I'm not surprised there happen to be kids ahead of her, it varies a lot!

 

I think she will take explicit instruction but I think you can try more explicit instruction before looking at evals (unless it takes a long time to set up; then get an appointment -- I have waited 8 months for an appointment, other things I have scheduled one week out).

 

She did NOT appear frustrated in the video. That is excellent. Avoid having her get frustrated. Give more hints or give hints faster, or shorten sessions, if she does get frustrated. If she isn't frustrated, some struggle to sound out words on her own can be okay too. I thought you seemed fine. The main thing is -- you have a good thing going with her not appearing frustrated. Try to keep that. Not appearing frustrated is also a reason I think you could still be wait-and-see for eval. It is a good sign.

 

If you see her not really make progress, get more frustrated, or struggle even more when blending more sounds, those would be things where I would think of an eval.

 

She is really cute :)

[Lecka]

Yes, even though they seem like similarly-hard words; the word with the initial blend will be harder. Seriously you will be going "I never noticed all these words with initial blends!"

[SKL]

I agree that her blending is good.  I would have her re-say or re-tell what she was reading fairly frequently to encourage comprehension.  She does have great stamina and a good attitude.  :)

[ktgrok]

Thanks. She definitely does best with Dancing Bears as far as frustration, for whatever reason. I think the font maybe helps? Or the size of the words? 

 

She likes flash cards too, so I may make some for the beginning blends, to help her?

[ktgrok]

I agree that her blending is good.  I would have her re-say or re-tell what she was reading fairly frequently to encourage comprehension.  She does have great stamina and a good attitude.  :)

 

 

LOL, she is my reward for having her older brother, lol. Who does not, did not, have a good attitude. 

 

We did take a break when I finished that video, then went back and read the next paragraph a bit later, after folding laundry. We had already done a fluency page before the video. May do one more half page later. Doing MORE each day seems to be helping. 

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[Lecka]

Also just be patient with her speech sound confusions with her sounds from speech therapy. She may continue to have a harder time with those for a long time. But it should get better even while you still notice it.

[Lecka]

I think try blend flash cards; but if it doesn't work out well, save them back for later (or never) and work on them some other way instead. But I would try to focus on them in some way, instead of just reading them as they come up.

 

I think you can find games too, and I think you can do individual words here and there but focusing on the initial blend part, or word lists with blends, or things like that.

 

You could pick one blend and do hunts for words starting with that blend.

 

If you focus a lot on one blend (or a small number), it will probably transfer to other blends later; but it can be easier to focus that way, it is a thought.

 

I would plan to spend a while on blends, but you don't have to stall everything.

 

You have a choice of stalling.

 

You also have a choice of quickly helping her with words with initial blends so she can keep pace better with the other words.

 

You can do either one.

 

Some reading program throw a lot of initial blends at kids pretty early, and others go slower or only have a few words here and there with initial blends.

 

You can scan ahead in what you are using and see how it is. It is one of those things -- for some kids it is hard, for other kids it is no big deal.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Lecka

[SKL]

In a past life, I made flip-books to teach blends by taking a cheap pocket spiral notebook and cutting the pages so they read either:

 

bland

brand

stand

 land

  and

 

or:

 

stop

stand

still

stick

 

etc....

[Lecka]

That is a good idea!

[Lecka]

That reminds me I have seen a cute one with a paper plate with a cutout, and you rotate another paper plate with blends to make different words.

 

It was too advanced for my son at the time, but if it is the right level it can be a cute way to go over a few blends.

 

Especially if she is more of a crafty kid, she might like crafts. If she is more of a games kid she might like games. Or some of both. It is one of those things, it gets old so different cute things can be helpful.

 

Or she might just knock it out fast with some targeted practice with flash cards. I wouldn't count on that though, but that is what I would rather do as a parent ;)

Edited October 20, 2017 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

If you were using something aimed at dyslexia (Barton, for example), you wouldn't be reading paragraphs right now. You'd drill to fluency at the word level, then the phrase level, then the sentence level. THEN, when she could read the target sounds to fluency at the word, phrase, and sentence levels, THEN you'd read paragraphs. 

 

So right now you're putting Everest in front of someone with two broken legs and saying GET UP THIS MOUNTAIN! And wow, this girl is a trooper and she's trying!! But dang, she's sounding out "had" for pity's sake. 

 

So yes, get your baseline testing and give her materials that are actually meant for this, something that will give the kid a fighting chance. It shouldn't sound like that. That's slog reading. It doesn't have to be slog reading. My ds is dyslexic and he never got stuck with mountains of slog reading. With Barton, he would slog through words containing certain phonograms, get them to fluency, then stretch to do them with phrases to fluency, then to sentences to fluency, and later to paragraphs. He never got plopped with fatiguing, overwhelming levels of material like that. So when you change materials, that's what you'll be changing. You'll radically up her success level.

 

Also, that CTOPP is gonna kick out a RAN/RAS score. Sounds like she needs RAN/RAS work. Her RAN/RAS is so bad right now, me personally, I'd just go play board games till you get the testing. But I'm pissy like that. That ain't fun, and it's easily, entirely correctable. Seriously, you can look for my RAN/RAS dot pages that I'm too lazy to link, do them, and in a few weeks that kid will be FLYING through the same stuff. Huge, huge difference.

 

So be pissy about this is my advice.

 

Great light on the video btw. Your phone or whatever nailed it. :D

Edited October 20, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[Heathermomster]

I typically would not move on if my DD made more than 3 or so mistakes in a paragraph. It has been a while, so I don’t recall the exact number of mistakes. Maybe ElizabethB can make a recommendation about that. I never allowed her to guess. I’d give her the word rather than have her guess.

 

I used to pre-read and underline any phonograms that my daughter struggled with. I also used flashcards, and DD practiced words from the same word families. I underlined the phonograms on the cards as well. As DD mastered the words, I erased the markings and eventually pulled the words from the practice rotation. DD marked her own words too.

 

She may just need more practice. I hate that testing is so expensive.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Heathermomster

[PeterPan]

Testing isn't THAT expensive. It's expensive, but so is curriculum that flops. So is prison. I have a son, so I'm very cognizant that 80% of people in prison are said to have a reading disability. There are lots of things that are expensive. A CTOPP with a reading tutor or finding a psych to run something, not so expensive, not in the long, whole scheme of things. Doesn't have to be $3-5k. Find OG tutors off the Learning Ally list and network to get suggestions on where to go for evals. Sometimes there are hidden gems. Even just getting a CTOPP run at this point would be a start. Sometimes a dyslexia school can run it as a screening.

[Mandamom]

If you were using something aimed at dyslexia (Barton, for example), you wouldn't be reading paragraphs right now. You'd drill to fluency at the word level, then the phrase level, then the sentence level. THEN, when she could read the target sounds to fluency at the word, phrase, and sentence levels, THEN you'd read paragraphs. 

 

So right now you're putting Everest in front of someone with two broken legs and saying GET UP THIS MOUNTAIN! And wow, this girl is a trooper and she's trying!! But dang, she's sounding out "had" for pity's sake. 

 

So yes, get your baseline testing and give her materials that are actually meant for this, something that will give the kid a fighting chance. It shouldn't sound like that. That's slog reading. It doesn't have to be slog reading. My ds is dyslexic and he never got stuck with mountains of slog reading. With Barton, he would slog through words containing certain phonograms, get them to fluency, then stretch to do them with phrases to fluency, then to sentences to fluency, and later to paragraphs. He never got plopped with fatiguing, overwhelming levels of material like that. So when you change materials, that's what you'll be changing. You'll radically up her success level.

 

Also, that CTOPP is gonna kick out a RAN/RAS score. Sounds like she needs RAN/RAS work. Her RAN/RAS is so bad right now, me personally, I'd just go play board games till you get the testing. But I'm pissy like that. That ain't fun, and it's easily, entirely correctable. Seriously, you can look for my RAN/RAS dot pages that I'm too lazy to link, do them, and in a few weeks that kid will be FLYING through the same stuff. Huge, huge difference.

 

So be pissy about this is my advice.

 

Great light on the video btw. Your phone or whatever nailed it. :D

 

I agree completely. I am a remedial tutor (O/G) for 10 years and you need to back up. She needs to be working on a rule till mastery and then have her apply the rules in words, sentences and then paragraphs. I won't let one of my students read as much as you had your daughter reading with that much struggle. 

 

Find some materials that you can use for fluency -- RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming) of words that focus on a rule. I follow an O/G sequence that begins with short vowels (separately, then mixed), next digraphs, and later initial blends and progresses from there. I also do high freqency/sight words as RAN after they are fairly solid on the short vowel CVC RAN. After she has enough words, you can find short stories and progress from there. 

 

Build success and as soon as she starts getting tired, take a break and do some more later, when she's ready. It is great that she isn't feeling frustrated but pushing ahead before she's ready won't result in improvements in her reading. 

[PeterPan]

The dot pages I made and have shared in the past use colored dots. You can also do rapid naming work with numbers. So it doesn't have to be words at all. It can be pictures too. But really, colored dots, numbers. I think that's what the CTOPP actually uses in their testing, so don't do that until you've had the testing to get a baseline. Low RAN/RAS is a lagging indicator on dyslexia, something that is there even after kids get intervention, so you don't want to shift those numbers ahead of the testing.

[Heathermomster]

OhE, you are cracking up today, but then I’ve been tutoring physics for a couple hours this morning.

 

I was referring to the full ed eval being expensive. OP, CTOPP costs around $300. If you call around and determine whether you have a Scottish Rite learning center nearby, contact them directly and find out whether they could test your child, and how much money it would cost. My local Scottish Rite tested my son for free. However, free testing through them varies by locale.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Heathermomster

[Lecka]

I will agree with others to look for an eval. It wasn't my first impression but I think others are making good points!

[Lecka]

Basically I do think she sounds great compared to my 8-year-old I listen to read currently, but granted he has a serious articulation delay and he is very delayed in reading, so maybe it has been too long since I have been listening to my other kids read!

[ktgrok]

Ok... I've put the word out to get local recommendations for testing.

[Ottakee]

Have you seen the I See Sam books? You can read online or print the first 52 for free. They are great readers that can easily stand alone but also go with Dancing Bears. The stories are engaging but they can't "read" the pictures.

 

www.iseesam.com or www.3rsplus.com for the higher level sets.

[PeterPan]

OhE, you are cracking up today, but then I’ve been tutoring physics for a couple hours this morning.

 

I was referring to the full ed eval being expensive. OP, CTOPP costs around $300. If you call around and determine whether you have a Scottish Rite learning center nearby, contact them directly and find out whether they could test your child, and how much money it would cost. My local Scottish Rite tested my son for free. However, free testing through them varies by locale.

 

Technically it's not that the CTOPP costs $300 to run. It's that the time required to run it is x and the person running it costs $ per hour. So if a psych runs it and the psych is $250 an hour, then it's going to cost more than if an OG tutor charging $70 an hour runs it.

[ktgrok]

So, I'm asking friends for recommendations, but if they don't turn up anything, how do I find someone to test her? I'm guessing the public school system will not be particularly helpful? Private educational psychologist? Tutor of some kind?

[PeterPan]

google your state dyslexia association

Learning Ally (which does audio recordings, google for it) has a self-referred tutor/psych/etc. list. You might find some good names there

Hoagies Gifted

call any dyslexia schools in your state

 

And maybe someone just plain has a name for you around here. :)

[PeterPan]

Learning Ally | Dyslexia Specialists - Print Disability Evaluation

 

This turns up scads of names.

[PeterPan]

The issue with the ps is not whether they can do a good job. Most are very ethical and do what they can within the bounds of their funding and cultural climate. Federal law requires them to identify disabilities, yes, but their question is always whether there is a disability affecting the dc's ability to access their education. They might require RTI first, saying they can't know if the dc had adequate education. I had done Barton into level 2, iirc, and my ds was STILL diagnosed as dyslexic by the ps. For them, it was clear evidence of RTI.

 

So anyways, you're asking what is going on, and the ps is asking whether it's affecting her ability to access her education and whether they, therefore, are supposed to be doing anything about it. They can be different questions. Someone can be dyslexic but not qualify for an IEP, etc. It happens.

 

So in general, typically you're going to be a lot better off with private evals. I'm seeing tutors on that Learning Ally list as well, so I think you'll be able to call around and find some options at a pricepoint you want to pay. If you want a starting point, you could start with a tutor who does the CTOPP. Or find a tutor near you and ask for a referral. Or go straight to the psych. You'll have options.

[Kanin]

Wow, she is a hard worker! You must be really proud. I love the way she slowly and deliberately sounds out the words. Most (ok, all) of the kids I work with try to speed through reading, throwing mistakes to the wind. 

 

I agree with everyone who says you should back the difficulty down for now. Even though she's successfully sounding out words, like others have said, she's reading too slowly to comprehend what she's reading. I generally go with 90-100% accuracy is independent, 80-90% is instructional, and below 80% is frustration level. Some people are even more strict than that, with 95% or higher independent, for example. I would have her read a passage, count up the words, and calculate her accuracy. Then keep doing easier passages until you find where she can read between 80 and 90% for her work with you. Anything she reads for pleasure, if she does, should be easier than what you're teaching her.

 

ReadWorks is a fantastic, FREE, amazing (I could go on...) website with passages at all levels K-12. You can print their passages, and the font ends up being pretty large. The passages are short, and pretty interesting. Just a resource if you need some easy reading things.

 

I would count any time she has to slowly sound out a word as a "mistake," even though she gets it right. She had to sound out p-e-t twice in just a few sentences, so she's not fluent at the CVC level yet. But she will be! I think her letter/sound correspondence is pretty great. 

 

Also, when she sounds out words like p-e-t, you should make her re-say the whole word so she gets that p-e-t is pet. She should re-read any sentence that she has to sound out a word in, from the beginning, nice and smooth.

 

Wow, I'm just so impressed with her. If my students would work so diligently and for so long, I would be over the moon!

 

 

 

[ktgrok]

Learning Ally | Dyslexia Specialists - Print Disability Evaluation

 

This turns up scads of names.

Ooh, that was helpful! I found two promising names. 

[ktgrok]

And thank you to all who commented on what a good worker she is! I told her what you all said and that made her day :)

 

We've been REALLY careful to sound out and not guess, so there is that at least, no bad habits to break that way. 

 

And DH agrees we should pursue testing, whatever she needs, so I've contacted on on the list, (an SLP who is also a former special ed teacher who does Linda Mood Bell/OG reading tutoring) and will contact another I found on there as well, who is recommended locally by some homeschoolers. 

 

She's such a sweet girl, I want to do whatever we can to make this easier for her. 

[ElizabethB]

Great job not letting her guess!

 

I agree you need to work on fluency with simpler things. I would watch Don Potter's Phonovisual movie and do a daily review of my one page chart, it is similar, they are both based on a 1914 chart.  

 

 

She can color in my one page black and white chart while learning how it works, let her color it while you explain it.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/40LChartsCombined.pdf

 

I would have her watch one lesson of my Syllables movies per week and do the exercises for it, then spend the rest of that week focusing on word lists with those type of words.  For example, week 1 is short vowels, do all of the short vowel words in Blend Phonics, Word Mastery, whatever you have on hand.  Don Potter has links to a lot of different phonics programs that are free to print.  Week 2 is long vowels, which includes long vowel simple syllables. That week, I would just do the syllables, that will get you work on the blends without having a lot of extra letters to work on.  For example, bla ble bli blo blu, all long because they end in a vowel.  Do the single consonant ones (like ba be bi bo bu by, ba is long a like in ba-ker) the first day, then the blends.  (Save the c and j syllables for later.)  The next week I would review the syllables and work on the other long vowels in Blend Phonics/Word Mastery.  Keep going like that.  After lesson 6, you can do a few words from Webster table 26 daily, the fact that they are 4th grade level words should be motivational.  She can watch lesson 7 and have some fun with the Greek word roots and bingo and building Greek words, but is not yet ready for lessons 8 - 10.  

 

After lesson 3, add in daily review of my 2 letter vowel chart.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/OnePageVowelChart.pdf

 

It is possible there is another underlying issue besides her speech problems, but I have also had students who have had past speech problems who were eventually very good readers who were reading at about that speed and level at that age.  The problem with blends is also common for people with underlying present or past speech problems.  

 

Totally optional, she is blending fine now, but to explain to her why it is taking longer for her, you guys can watch my blending movie together, it explains why blending is hard and why letter sound approximations do not exactly match words, it also explains why syllables help and why she will do better learning the blends in syllables.

 

Edited October 21, 2017 by ElizabethB

[ElizabethB]

Thanks. She definitely does best with Dancing Bears as far as frustration, for whatever reason. I think the font maybe helps? Or the size of the words? 

 

She likes flash cards too, so I may make some for the beginning blends, to help her?

 

Don Potter has ALL the words in Blend Phonics on cards.

 

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/blend_phonics_decoding_card.pdf

 

I would definitely start with the long vowel syllables for learning blends, but cards are nice to carry around and do games with, a bunch of different things you can do.  I have fun ideas for cards and making the repetition fun in a video showing you how to make phonics more fun:

 

 

Don Potter also has the syllables and some words from Webster on cards, but they seem kind of small font.

 

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/websters-spelling-book.pdf

[PeterPan]

When Mainer says practice the CVC words that she has to sound out till they're fluent, what that looked like for us was put the list of CVC words into Quizlet and drill them till they're fluent. You can do Quizlet on your phone, ipad, anywhere, and it syncs across devices. LOVE Quizlet for fluency work.

[PeterPan]

Wow, sounds like you're finding some good resources! Let us know how it goes! :)

[ktgrok]

Well, I got an email back from one of the people I contacted...evaluation would be at least two sessions, 2-3 hours each, and cost $1,200. Yikes. 

 

I'm waiting to hear back from two others. One of them is an educational therapist, with degrees in special education, who does the KTEA-3, which may be less expensive than the full psychoeducational work up the other wants to do. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by ktgrok

[ktgrok]

Oh, and this is her doing her flash cards from Dancing Bears...well, some of them. 

[PeterPan]

Actually that's a phenomenal deal to get 4-6 hours of testing plus a full written report for $1200. Psychs, etc. bill by the hour, so the cost is ALWAYS going to reflect how many hours they're planning to spend. So if they do 1 hour of intake with you, 1-2, hours of follow-up, and spend maybe 2-3 hours crunching out a report (I don't actually know), how many hours was that? Uh, that's 12. So they're billing at $100 an hour. What is their qualification level? 

 

Around here, a clinical psych is that pricepoint. Sometimes that clinical psych is going to specialize in exactly what you need and be a fabulous deal. If that's what you've found, you just SCORED. Cuz you go to a neuropsych (popular around here) and they're gonna bill at $250 an hour. Now technically they have broader training. They can tell you what parts of the brain are affected and they have some extra tricky special things they can do, like brain damage after chemo, really complex stuff. 

 

So if your person with the 4-6 hours of testing has a good reputation, is easy to talk with, seems to be good at explaining things when you talk on the phone, is not related to any donkey or donkey anatomy, and they specialize in dyslexia, that $1200 eval with full write up will be a DEAL.

 

You want as much testing as you can get. Having the IQ, etc. from a full eval will be exceptionally useful to you. They can show discrepancy and read all kinds of tea leaves into it. You'll be glad to have it. For that pricepoint, you're getting a deal.

[PeterPan]

KTEA-3 says it's only achievement testing. That's nice, but you need IQ, CTOPP, and achievement. Frankly, you also want screening for ADHD because it's 60% comorbid. LIke those tests are the bare minimum. If they aren't getting done, keep looking.

[PeterPan]

Have you done the student screening at Barton and the parent screening? I'm not saying it will turn up anything, just that it's something to do. Head over and you'll find both for free. They're not dyslexia tests only screening tools to see if the student has enough baseline to go into Barton. 

 

Did Dancing Bears come with an audio track to let you know how to say the sounds? Not to be hyper-literal or picky or whatever here, but she's adding vowels and really imprecise in how she's saying the sounds. It's something a tutor would tighten and that you can tighten yourself with a little effort. :) On the plus side, she clearly has been learning with you!!  :thumbup:

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Edited October 24, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[Storygirl]

I agree with OhElizabeth that your quote is likely a good deal, depending on the testing they will provide. You should be able to ask what tests they will run. For comparison, our NP evaluation for our dyslexic daughter was closer to $2,000 and included a parent-only intake session, two 3-hour testing sessions, a written report, and an in-person discussion of the results.

 

It was worth it (even though she was tested by the school six months later for her IEP.)

[ktgrok]

Actually that's a phenomenal deal to get 4-6 hours of testing plus a full written report for $1200. Psychs, etc. bill by the hour, so the cost is ALWAYS going to reflect how many hours they're planning to spend. So if they do 1 hour of intake with you, 1-2, hours of follow-up, and spend maybe 2-3 hours crunching out a report (I don't actually know), how many hours was that? Uh, that's 12. So they're billing at $100 an hour. What is their qualification level? 

 

Around here, a clinical psych is that pricepoint. Sometimes that clinical psych is going to specialize in exactly what you need and be a fabulous deal. If that's what you've found, you just SCORED. Cuz you go to a neuropsych (popular around here) and they're gonna bill at $250 an hour. Now technically they have broader training. They can tell you what parts of the brain are affected and they have some extra tricky special things they can do, like brain damage after chemo, really complex stuff. 

 

So if your person with the 4-6 hours of testing has a good reputation, is easy to talk with, seems to be good at explaining things when you talk on the phone, is not related to any donkey or donkey anatomy, and they specialize in dyslexia, that $1200 eval with full write up will be a DEAL.

 

You want as much testing as you can get. Having the IQ, etc. from a full eval will be exceptionally useful to you. They can show discrepancy and read all kinds of tea leaves into it. You'll be glad to have it. For that pricepoint, you're getting a deal.

This one wasn't a psych, which was why I was a bit surprised. Another I've contacted is, I kind of expected that more from her. But maybe i'm out of the loop, lol. 

[PeterPan]

Was the person a Barton tutor? What was her qualification? I think some tutors are generating reports, blah blah. Your challenge is that if there *is* something going on you'd like it to result in paper trail. My ds was diagnosed at newly 6 (yeah, I'm that mom, but it was obvious), and the paper trail opened up the door to the National Library Service/BARD. It gets you other things, but that BARD gig is huge, really huge. 

 

So you're doing it right, taking your time. If you spend a little and get a screening or you go all the way right away, it's just what you find and what you think.

 

Oh that's funny, you're coming across hairbrained people? They're all different. There was a psych that, well let's just say he acted like he was related to a donkey on the phone and it later turned out he WAS related to a donkey. So definitely put stock in the differences you think you're seeing.

 

Some of these tests have requirements even to administer them. What is the $1200 person??

 

Which was all to say, paper trail from tutor vs. paper trail from psych, definitely sort that out. The tutor people, of course, say their paper is valuable...

Edited October 24, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[ktgrok]

She is an SLP. I guess I was surprised because full neuropsych testing wasn't that much more than that, and I wasn't expecting an SLP to do as much testing, if that makes sense. I also have a call out to an educational psychologist and the educational "therapist", to find out what tests they do and what the evaluation process is for them. 

 

I could also go through the school, for free, of course, but I'm sure that'd take forever. 

 

Oh, and regarding the sounds for the phonograms....yeah, we've been trying to get her to say them properly but not with much success. She throws the vowel sound onto the consonants no matter what....if I stop her each time it just frustrates her and doesn't seem to make much difference so I'd kind of slacked off on that. Also some other pronunciation issues, part of which are her speech issues. (have a call in to have her evaluated for that again as well)

[PeterPan]

Technically SLPs can diagnose a surprising amount. Technically an SLP can even diagnose ASD. Now would you want that to be your complete paper trail? No, but technically they can. What was her list of tests? I'm surprised you could get a neuropsych eval for the same amount. Neuropsych should be 2-3X more, unless your insurance is bringing it down. Did you look at the # hours testing? Neuropsych bills at $250 around here, while an SLP around here bills at $60-100. Actually, our SLP now bills at $125, ugh. So for the same amount of testing and hours billed, should be very different prices unless insurance is adjusting it.

 

I agree about not going through the school. Complex questions are not best answered through the school. They're not actually asking the same questions anyway. You're asking what the disability is, and they're asking whether the disability affects her ability to access her education. So the medical (true, overall, actual) diagnosis might be xyz, but if in their uber-brief, limited time (like 40 minutes with the psych, 1 hour with an SLP, etc.) eval they conclude xyz isn't affecting her ability to access her education (ie. her scores don't have 2SD of discrepancy, etc.) they still won't care. It's a messy field. Nice people, but lots of politics and messiness to it. You might get lots of help or lots of frustration. I've been through the IEP process with my kids and done it till I'm blue in the face. Nice people, but it's messy stuff. If you've got the $$ to do it privately, then private is the way to go. If the situation is complex, it's almost unavoidable to do it privately.

 

So yes, in general it's not surprising if she's having phonological processing problems that are affecting her ability to discriminate the sounds and thus articulate them. Dyslexia and speech problems (in general) can go together.  For my ds, they went hand in hand, with each making the other worse.

 

Did you do the Barton student screening yet? Now I'm really curious to see how she does.  Students | Barton

 

Edited October 24, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

It's almost like she's reading them as words and working so hard at it that she can't stop and think of them another way. Look how focused she is there.

 

If you eliminated the reading part, if you just said, "Say /b/" and corrected like not /buh/ but /b/, could she repeat it? And if you say the sounds (like lay out the 5 vowels), could she touch the correct written form when you say the sound?

 

I watched the video again. She has a lot of good things going for her. She's getting her tongue up but her lower jaw is jutting out. I still would want sorted out what is motor planning vs. something else. I'm looking at the round cheeks (in spite of being pretty trim overall!), the jutting jaw, whether she's retracting and rounding enough, etc. I really don't know if she is, I'm not an SLP. But it would be questions to ask, and a PROMPT Bridging or better trained person would be the person to ask those questions. www.promptinstitute.com is where you'd find people. I found 5 of 11 in your area who could do that.

 

I really liked LIPS. Nowadays FIS (Foundations in Sound) is the easier to use, new fangled thing. I would go with LIPS if it turned out she needed some hands-on, visual instruction integrating speech therapy. That's what my ds needed, and it was so brilliant to me that it's like wow, why wouldn't everyone do this, lol. Like on /bu/ vs. /b/, well hello we can show that easily using the colored tiles and LIPS faces. We can literally show her ok /b/ is one sound, one tile, and this is the mouth face to show what our mouth is doing. /bu/ is two sounds, two colored tiles, and two LIPS faces. But if her mouth isn't actually moving enough to articulate it clearly (a motor planning deficit), then she's not gonna feel it, which means she's not gonna then link it to what she hears.

Edited October 24, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

nt

SaveSave

Edited October 24, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[ktgrok]

you know, looking back, maybe insurance did cover part of my oldest's NP work up. 

 

I'm going to do the Barton Screening today, we were at my mom's all day yesterday and just took a day off from reading. 

[PeterPan]

A day off is good! :D  Let us know how it goes. Hopefully it will be a nothing, but it's still interesting. :)

[wendyroo]

I'm surprised you could get a neuropsych eval for the same amount. Neuropsych should be 2-3X more, unless your insurance is bringing it down. Did you look at the # hours testing? Neuropsych bills at $250 around here, while an SLP around here bills at $60-100. Actually, our SLP now bills at $125, ugh. So for the same amount of testing and hours billed, should be very different prices unless insurance is adjusting it.

 

Yeah, around here a 3-4 hour NP eval with a written report ends up costing 3-5K out of pocket...and that is with an insurance adjustment, though not a significant one.

 

Wendy