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Sarah J.

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  1. Just a thought about the headaches. Sometimes cold can help. Some companies make chilled caps that might prevent or help control headaches. Like this: https://www.icekap.ca/pages/testimonials The other thing I might look at is light. Some people are sensitive to particular kinds of lighting, like fluorescent light, that can be a headache trigger. Perhaps try turning off artificial light and using a mirror to get more natural light, or moving closer to the window. These may or may not help, but they would be the first things I would try if my child got many headaches. Also, if eyestrain could be a culprit, maybe a magnifier for reading, or larger print sizes.
  2. Thank you, Terabith, I was wondering how strict people were about Barton's "no pleasure reading until level 4" guideline. She was only reading the books I mentioned AFTER doing about 8 sessions of VT with daily homework and good improvement. Before that she could only read Elephant and Piggie and Go Dog Go and the like. Has anything helped your DD with the spelling, that you've been able to identify? White space, fewer words on a page, and fewer words on a line all help. She does read easier books, but the books I described are the hardest things she CAN (mostly) read. For read aloud, she enjoys things like Marguerite Henry and A Wrinkle in Time (I was skeptical that she was too young, but DH wanted to read it to her and she did follow it and like it a lot). I think we need to jump into audio books for sure.
  3. Well it was probably the most nerdy-culture dorm on a campus with strong nerdy-culture (but not STEM-exclusive) tendencies, and also just really really accepting of differences. We never knew anyone's diagnosis but I'm sure there were quite a few students with and many without. There was a strong culture of student-led events and programming (rather than RA or staff-led... those happened too, but student-led was huge). We had one student I'll always remember who had a moderate speech difficulty including a stutter, and who I suspect may have had ASD also, and he was an active participatory member of the community and liked and respected (and admired for his brilliance, he was brilliant at math and music). There was space for students who wanted to do video games to play TOGETHER rather than isolated, but also spaces for other social stuff, cooking together, etc. I would say a small dorm where many students choose to live there for at least 2-3 years is ideal. But really it was kind of magic and I don't know another place like it. Sadly small dorms lack economies of scale, so the university shut it down.
  4. I work with college students who live in dorms and my sense is that the available supports do vary quite a lot from school to school, as do the kinds of social environments in on-campus living. I used to work in a particular dorm community that was a ridiculously good place for kids with atypical social presentations and saw a lot of them do really well there both academically and in terms of friendships and so on, so it's not always a bleak picture. But no matter how awesome the college, willingness to engage with the community or the campus resources himself is absolutely key. I have never seen a parent have a lot of success in scaffolding this or getting students to do anything they don't want to do once the student is on campus, unfortunately. I would have huge hesitancy about putting any parental resources whatsoever toward college for a child I thought likely to crash and burn... especially with a gaming addiction in the picture. EDIT: I would be hesitant not because of $ but because failing out itself isn't the worst outcome. There is also debt to consider, and the exacerbation or development of anxiety/depression in a high-stress environment...
  5. No, I didn't get a score report and don't think one is in the mail--testing was back in early September and she started VT right around the same time. Testing was done through a hospital-based clinic (... not a good hospital) so I imagine I'll have to make it a medical records request, unless maaaybe they sent it back to her ped, who was the referring doctor. I really appreciate all the good feedback on FIS and intend to order it. I apologize if I caused confusion with the questions about auditory interventions. I feel a lot of words have kind of specialized meanings in this arena that aren't immediately evident to the layperson. I couldn't find much about it online. After we get it and use it I'll post and let you know what I think, as a parent tutor without prior experience in this area! I feel too that I may have muddied the waters by giving too much information about the child and trying to describe where my concerns don't lie at this time. My gut instinct as her mother is that she is a gifted, in many ways typical child who is thriving in many areas (social and emotional, enjoys dancing, ice skating, riding a bike, telling stories, etc) and probably has dyslexia and maybe other LDs/some OT issues--but it is largely in the world of academics that I have concerns for her.
  6. My DH, who was in the room for the testing, thinks that a big part of the nonverbal IQ test was an arithmetic worksheet where she had to write all the answers herself. It also had Raven's Progressive Matrices, but he thought it was the arithmetic+writing part that really threw her, plus he said it was toward the end of about a 3 hour session and she seemed very tired--we pretty much always do Math out loud, we'd been using MEP; she is now in Beast Academy 2A and handling it pretty well so far. I would have thought a proper IQ test wouldn't require young students to write answers lest either poor writing instruction or dysgraphia should confound the IQ result, but what do I know? But he was pretty sure it was part of the IQ test and not part of any achievement testing. Clearly I just need to request the medical records and see what actual tests were run. When I read lists of signs of NVLD, though, they just don't really sound like her. I just am not putting a ton of confidence in that psychologist at this point--she told us she did not know what was going on! I do understand that vision therapy won't help true NVLD, what I was saying was that I think being tested pre-Vision Therapy (when her tracking and eye teaming were pretty bad) may have thrown the NV IQ score somewhat. I'm reading that auditory interventions for reading difficulty aren't evidence-based. I wonder whether this includes the strategies used in FIS (I mean I know they didn't investigate the specific program, but I wonder if the strategies that were not found to be effective in the studies were similar). I know some say this also about VT for dyslexics, and I wonder if it's the same sort of thing where no it doesn't directly address the dyslexia itself, but some subset of dyslexics have deficits that will be addressed by it. I will see what I can do about a neuropsych eval but I just don't know if it's in the cards right now, especially if it is the sort of thing where we'd likely need more testing in a couple years. FIS and Barton I can swing, and I'm very optimistic that they will help her.
  7. We did not pay for that psych, thank goodness, insurance did. Paying $$ for private psych eval (or trying to see if they'll pay for an actual neuropsych, some have suggested to me that the right kind of referral from the dr could get it covered, say if ADHD were suspected) is not entirely off the table but I guess I'd need to have a significantly better idea what I'd really do with the information/diagnoses while HSing... especially if a neuropsych eval won't even touch the auditory processing and we're going to need an audiologist or SLP for that anyway? Going by my gut, my main big concerns for her are reading/spelling, and now I guess auditory discrimination? Auditory discrimination makes a lot of things make sense now actually, like the fact that it took her the longest time to learn to count to 20 (thirteen and fourteen sound almost the same to her!). Thank you for your PM, I'll probably respond to that tomorrow. I'm not super worried about handwriting right now. We didn't emphasize it until this year because I felt we had bigger fish to fry and that the fine motor stuff was likely developmental. She hasn't had all that much practice and her handwriting is messy but legible. If she'd gone to preschool/school where they write all day, her handwriting would likely be low-average for grade level, I think, but she does find it laborious so I'm not sure how hard that would have been on her. So here's my to-do list right now: Request SLP referral, see about getting CTOPP Buy and do FiS, followed by Barton 1 Meanwhile do more white-board/paintbrush/whatever handwriting on the easel, as well as fun stuff for fine motor and play dough (I have a book for this), maybe OT? After we finish VT I hope (we expect to finish after 2-4 sessions) See about audiologist? Maybe SLP would refer to audiologist if they see the need? I see some saying only audiologists can diagnose APD...
  8. As I was alluding to earlier, the psych she saw did not do a great job of communication with us (didn't call back for two months, excuses about moving offices, then calls me and tells me stuff over the phone while I am in a noisy public place!). She told my husband (who took her for the screening) that she had run a "brief" IQ instrument, what verbal and NV scores were, and about the discrepancy. She said, IIRC, to him, that working memory was "pretty good." Nothing about processing speed. She told my husband, "I'm a generalist, you need a specialist"--but no referral. Other than the fine motor and trouble-with-multi-step-directions things (which also tend to co-occur with dyslexia, right?) she doesn't seem to me to have red flags for NVLD. Like I said, good social skills, good at non-verbal cues and reading people. What is significant about the empathy piece? She does have 3 sibs and also a lot of interaction with young adults due to my husband's job/our living situation, and less with age-matched peers. Multiple adults who know her moderately well (Sunday school teacher, pediatrician) have used the word "mature." EDIT: also I don't think her fine motor skills are horrible; she can draw My Little Ponies pretty well. She does not enjoy handwriting. She does have trouble cutting food with a knife. No speech issues except articulating the "th" sounds. EDIT 2: I read somewhere that apparent NVLD can be developmental vision deficit related and can resolve after VT?
  9. That sounds potentially more likely to be covered by insurance too? Here is the family history piece: my husband was speech-delayed. He was assessed a 3 months equivalent for expressive language when he was nearly 2--i.e. he essentially had no expressive language--though his receptive language was great. He went to a special early-intervention preschool and was all caught up with speaking by age 3. At 3 he also taught himself to read and was a young kid who would possibly be identified as hyperlexic today. He definitely isn't on the spectrum, though. He has excellent speech, writing, and spelling skills today. Nobody on either side of the family is dyslexic. EDIT: Does anyone know of any FB groups for Barton users or dyslexia generally where I might ask about user experiences with FiS? Specifically, where that kind of a question would be welcome from a new member? Another question: Is the Barton screening indicative of much for a 5-year-old? What I mean is, I know if you flunk it you can't start Barton, but might some 5yos be developmentally unready rather than having LDs/auditory issues needing remediation? Think I might go ahead and give it to my 5.5 yo boy.
  10. Thank you OneStep. Would an SLP be able to evaluate auditory processing, do you know? Or does that require the full neuropsych eval?
  11. I am a long time lurker, first time poster. DD is recently turned 8, 2nd grade, always home schooled. I have long suspected dyslexia, but she always was making progress with phonics/reading, just never quite with the master I though she should have or "taking off." She is very bright, very verbal, with a large vocabulary and excellent listening comprehension. Will listen to chapter after chapter and beg for more, and understand what's going on. If she could read chapter books, she totally would. Adults who talk to her typically think she's very bright. Very good social skills for her age, almost too good, lots of empathy and tact. So, a brief summary. She has been in Vision Therapy since last fall when a screening revealed difficulty with side-to-side tracking, eye teaming, and saccades. She has had a lot of improvement in reading over that time. She still guesses a lot (she is very good at contextual guessing) and makes a lot of mistakes she shouldn't make, based on the amount of phonics instruction she's had. We were using LoE: Foundations and Let's Read. If I use my finger to help her track, she can read about a paragraph of Little House on the Prairie or about a page of Boxcar Children before tuckering out (buddy reading). But she still gets hung up on words she should know how to decode/blend, especially those beginning with consonant combinations (snug, globe). And she cannot spell. She misspells "and." In the past month, she has spend "and" as "end" and as "aed" (?!?!). Handwriting is an issue as well, but not one we've been prioritizing -- we do a page of Getty-Dubai every day, but I've been hoping the VT would help with it. Yesterday we (finally, why did this take me so long?) did the Barton screening. She did not pass part C (she passed A and B, though she did miss one clapping syllables question). She got 4 wrong even after repeat. And yes, /a/ vs /e/ was one of the ones she couldn't do. Also, we've been practicing a Latin song for her children's choir, and even when looking at my mouth she has trouble repeating the words back to me. Like, I say "Laudantes" very clearly, breaking up the syllables, she can't say it back without error. So we clearly need something like LiPS and Foundation in Sounds. I saw in another post that some of you have reservations about FiS, but has anyone actually tried it yet? It's pretty new and I am not finding any reviews except what's on their website. But Susan Barton's stamp of approval should count for something, right? I just don't know if I have the mental bandwidth to wrap my brain around figuring out LiPS right now (I have 3 other kids, including an 8-month-old baby), and affording a tutor would be really hard. My inclination is to order FiS like today or tomorrow, but I'd really like to hear first if there are reasons I shouldn't. We had a screening (brief IQ test and some other screens) with a psychologist, and we were told, "She is smart, her verbal IQ is higher than nonverbal (there was a 20+ point gap, I think verbal was 130-something, "superior," and nonverbal was 111, "average range," but this was before VT--she could not count a horizontal row accurately with 1-to-1 correspondence before VT), she probably has some kind of LD, you may need a specialist eval but I don't know where to refer you that would take your insurance, try the Dyslexia Center (which is far away and has a waiting list), I will refer her for OT for handwriting (have not gotten the promised call about this)." Oh, and "don't crush her spirit."
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