Tokyomarie
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Posts posted by Tokyomarie
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I think every child with reading difficulty should continue reading instruction at their level to improve function at least until they are in high school. I don't think a child should give up working at reading until the demand for reading volume in school outstrips the time they have to put into learning to read well.
However, I am also a strong proponent of such a child listening to books read aloud- whether using technology or listening to a parent or other relative read aloud to him. In the younger grades, my preference is for books read by humans because I think most computer voices still sound stilted and don't read with the best prosody. My son, at age 18, has been so spoiled by my reading aloud to him all those younger years that he has a hard time listening to computer voices.
The reason I believe a child with reading difficulty should listen to books, as well as work on reading them, is that when they have a hard time reading, the total amount of exposure to written language is decreased in comparison to their peers. When they are not reading, they are not picking up vocabulary in context. When their reading skills are below their listening skills, they are not getting exposed to high level vocabulary and syntax unless they listen to books read aloud.
So, in my opinion, when talking about a school aged child, it's not an either/or proposition, it's a both/and. Solid reading instruction and reading practice coupled with listening to books read aloud makes best educational practice as far as I'm concerned.
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An educational psychologist or school psychologist can be a master's level professional, but many/most are doctoral level professionals. I wasn't quite sure, so I did some googling. It looks like an educational psychologist focuses more on research, while a school psychologist focuses more on clinical practice. However, they both receive significant education, not only in testing and counseling, but in management of conditions relative to the school or other educational setting.
In contrast, a neuropsychologist has 2 years additional training in a post-doctoral residency which focuses heavily on the neuroscience of brain function and its relationship to behavior and learning. This is 2 years in addition to a 1 year internship served by all doctoral candidates.
The person who did my daughter's evaluation when she was 9.5 was a qualified PhD psychologist at the time of her evaluation. About 2 years later, he started a post-doc program in neuropsychology. After finishing that program, he returned to his private practice as a fully qualified neuropsychologist.
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I can't speak to Barton's Levels 9 & 10, but I used EPS's Vocabulary from Classical Roots series for both of my younger two children with language-based learning challenges. We started somewhere around 7th-9th grade. My daughter completed the whole series, while my son just did 2 books before he went into school. They both have scored high on vocabulary on various tests as older teens. My daughter, whose vocabulary scores were depressed when she was in mid-elementary had very high ACT/SAT scores in her senior year.
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It can be difficult to know how the testing organizations make their decisions, but some combination of low scores on key ed-psych or neuro-psych tests and documentation of prior use of accommodations is important.
I know a student who had an IEP in school, I think since elementary years, who was denied ACT accommodations based on the fact that he hadn't regularly used what was offered to him in his high school.
OTOH, my son had no history of accommodations use in public school prior to application to both the College Board and ACT. He had been in school for one school year; the school took its time about granting him a 504 such that two semesters had already been completed before his 504 was approved. However, he had a history of accommodations use at home K-10 and this was noted in one of the evaluation reports. We came out of the 504 meeting and barely a month later the application process for testing accommodations was initiated. DS was granted extra time plus computer use for essays from both organizations. These accommodations were amply supported by his evaluation data.
The key is document, document, document. Without some consistent personal documentation and strong evaluation data supporting the request, it will be harder to get approved.
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Since the IEE eval is already in the works, I would wait until they have been finished. I might also wait to see how the IEP changes in response to what the independent evaluator finds. If the school responds to your daughter's benefit because of the IEE results, I would be tempted to have her in school at least through Dec. to see how it goes. But then, I don't know all the specifics of the situation so I can't say for sure what I would do.
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I never got back to this thread- my life got pretty zoo-y right after I made my other post. I did check into my friend's special needs stroller and while I can't quite remember right now, I think it is the Convaid EZ Rider. It looks like the photos of the ones online, purple color and all.
If you get an insurance denial on the first go round, take it higher up on the ins. company chain. In the meantime, document what you currently need to do to keep her safe in public places, and be sure to discuss the cost benefit issues related to what they'll have to pay out if she gets injured because you can't keep her safe without the stroller/wheelchair you are requesting.
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Wow! 26 pages just on the memory subtests??!! How long is the full report? Our full report was "only" 14 pages, but it took me a month of reading over and over it to get to the point where I could make a list of big questions about it. I did meet our neuropsychologist a second time to get those questions answered. I have actually met with him a handful of times since then to get advice as certain situations have come up requiring decisions to be made.
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Our state does not do IEPs or 504s for homeschoolers. In some states, homeschoolers are eligible to receive certain services through the school, and in that case, they would have an IEP or 504 if they are receiving services. Otherwise, there is no reason for the district to maintain such a document for a student who is not enrolled.
We never had any contact with public schools from K-10 for my son. I started the process for getting accommodations with the College Board when my son was in 10th grade, but hadn't gotten an application submitted when we decided to enroll him in a public school program. The school delayed going through the eligibility process for an IEP or 504 Plan for nearly the entire school year in ds's first year of the program. He literally was approved for a 504 Plan on one week toward the end of the school year and the school started the application with the College Board within the next two weeks. Ds had not had any chance really to establish a history of the use of accommodations at school prior to the application, which was submitted when he was 17yo.
While the school did the actual application, his approvals for College Board test accommodations were based on the strength of the results of multiple evaluations done from age 15-17 and the history of accommodations use in our homeschool that was noted in one of the evaluations.
I would not worry about having an IEP or 504 with the district now. If you had one with the virtual charter, you have a paper trail started. Document on your own, each year, the kinds of accommodations you give him in your homeschool to keep the paper trail going. Do you keep a portfolio for him? If you do, it is easy to keep a dated document for each year you have him at home.
BTW- I have talked with at least one other homeschooler who has done the application on her own and had her student approved.
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I don't have quite the thick file from younger years because my children never had IEPs, being, first, in schools overseas and then homeschooling. My son entered a public school program hen he was 16yo. I was extremely helpful to have all the data I did have from preschool years- evals and a couple of teacher reports from preschool. They established that there was a history, even though ds didn't have professional intervention from age 7-15.
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This is a problem for my family. My homeschool cover seriously pushes the college bound family to strive for 7 hours per year or a min of 28 hours by graduation,..yikes..
But most public school students can't even get in more than 24, depending on how their school is structured. And usually the 6th credit is not a hard academic subject. Even if they can get 7 credits per year, that includes such things as PE, Health, technology, and arts. When I say 5 credits, I'm thinking of a credit in each of the 4 core subjects, plus a foreign language or other academic elective. The other stuff isn't as hard to work in because it's less written output driven.
ETA: I honestly tried to bump up the level of output because, after all, it's high school. That was the worst thing I ever did to my son. He shut down and it took more than 3 years to get back some level of trust that he wasn't going to be given more than he could handle. Is it right to create a mental health problem just to meet some presumed "best practice" expectation set by others?
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I only have time for a few short thoughts, but I'll throw out the ones that are at the top of my mind:
1. Totally forget the timelines and schedules you see on the high school board. You will frustrate your daughter and yourself if you even so much as LOOK at them. I think you know that but you just need a mom who is a little further along in the process to give you permission. Well, I'm that experienced mom who learned the hard way because I didn't have someone a bit ahead of me to communicate it in a way that made sense.
Our slower processors who are creative NEED to not be pushed to do formal school activities from 9am-6pm. It kills their spirit and their motivation to achieve in the academic arena. This is what I experienced with my two children who have a profile more similar to your daughter than to my oldest child, who fits the profile of many of the fast workers who are academically driven. During the 9th-10th grade years, my younger two really could only handle a total of 5-6 hours of engagement with formal academic work- ie traditional textbook/written output required activities. Also, it was better to split up that time in say 2 hr blocks.
Both kids were about 16-17 years old before I could ramp up the schedule. My middle child suddenly took a dramatic leap up in her ability to engage in sustained work on traditional academics when she was right around 16.5yo. My son was more like 17.5-18yo. I worried about whether they would ever get there but the change was amazing when they did.
Since your daughter already engages regularly in her hobbies & interests, you don't need to worry too much about whether she'll use her non-academic time productively. You will want to think about how you can arrange some of it into elective courses for her transcript. And, yes, it is perfectly fine to include it-especially if she is learning new skills in the process or can do some kind of written work, photography, or video to document what she is learning.
2. The balance seemed to be right if they were getting in enough work to get 5 credits worth of work done/school year in the first couple of years, but spreading that over more than 36 weeks. We only took about 6 weeks completely off during the summer, though we had a slightly abbreviated schedule for about 4 more weeks.
You do need to take the lead on expecting a high quality job for the work that is produced. Not adult level perfection, but being fully engaged with the task at hand and aiming for the best job they can do.
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I have a friend who uses a folding SN stroller that looks reasonably lightweight. It's pretty stylish & looks easy to handle, but I don't know what brand it is or how much it cost. Let me check in with her at church tomorrow. She started using one about the time her daughter outgrew the toddler stroller and is still using it several years later, though the child is now outgrowing it. The girl can walk and usually does so inside buildings, but for any distance or when she's tired she rides in the stroller.
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For online spelling practice, look at Wizardsspell.com. My son used this for awhile and it really did help get around the difficulties with writing his spelling words by hand. You can input your own lists to go with whatever curriculum you are otherwise using, or you can use their prepared lists.
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Does your neuropsych report include the fact that he is homeschooled and mention anything about accommodations you've given him? I was planning to start the applications while my son was still homeschooled, but ended up waiting until he was in school. However, he had only *just* been granted his 504 when the application was made to Collegeboard for the SAT. I'm sure it helped that in addition to the whole raft of evaluations we provided, the school psychologist's report mentioned that the student was provided with and used accommodations such as untimed testing and keyboarding for all written expression assignments.
If it's not mentioned, you might just draft a document which outlines how you have implemented various accommodations at home to include with the reports from professionals that you'll be submitting.
It can't hurt to give ACT and Collegeboard a call. You can tell them what documentation you have and ask what you'll still need.
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I work one on one with kids with learning disabilities. I was googling place value/visual processing disorder because of two new students who each have both (what a coincidence!) and found an intelligent, practical and very helpful discussion here. So, here I am!
Welcome, TeacherDBK! I've been around here for many years now. This has been one of my top "go to" sites for information about all sorts of things, including teaching my two children who have language-based learning challenges. My youngest is now 18yo, and I am now taking my first steps towards helping other children with LDs.
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I haven't seen the Language Wise book, myself.
For a traditional vocabulary building program, I have used, to much benefit, two series by EPS, Wordly Wise 3000 and Vocabulary from Classical Roots. Wordly Wise is a really solid program, but the words are not organized in any specific pattern in the lessons. Both of my younger two have used the Worldly Wise series. I found it especially helpful for my daughter who I mentioned has similarities to your daughter in her profile of strengths and weaknesses.
Vocabulary From Classical Roots is for roughly 7th grade and up, so you could use it in a few years. What I like about it is that it organizes words by Latin & Greek roots, so it helps students learn the building blocks of words at the smallest level of meaning, or morphemes. This helps students to be able to expand their vocabulary more easily when they can look at another word and recognize the meaning of roots, prefixes, and suffixes which makes it easier to guess what the word means, even if they have not encountered it before. I've been away from elementary level resources for a bit. Does anyone else know a good program that teaches morphemes at a more basic level?
Another EPS program that could be good is Megawords. I used it with both of my younger two primarily for spelling, but it is also good for vocabulary building. It is usually used for 4th grade and up, so your daughter might be able to benefit from it if her spelling skills are at 4th grade level or higher.
I would truly concentrate at building language at the individual word level, based on your daughter's current skills. It looks like she does well with sentence structure and paragraph comprehension- that probably assumes that she understands most of the words used in a given sentence or paragraph. I believe a major part of what's limiting her right now (based only on what you've told us) is her lack of understanding of how language works at the word level and the overall number of words that she can use.
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Has your daughter ever had an OT or PT eval? If she's poorly coordinated and has difficulties with some kitchen tasks, I'd be wondering how her motor/ visual-motor control compares to her peers. I know it's sometimes hard to know what to and in what order to sort out the issues. With difficulties in more than just the language area, it seems that seeing a good developmental pediatrician could be a good step to take. It seems to me that the school not really identifying and addressing all issues. It's definitely time to bump up to whomever you can get to take your concerns seriously.
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IQ testing is often considered to be invalid- or not truly reflective of cognitive ability when there is a significant language disorder. I'm more accustomed to working with the standard scores rather than percentile rankings, and will have to think a little to translate the scores. However, I see a significant amount of scatter (or discrepancy) in her language scores, some significant strengths and some significant weaknesses side by side.
Her word classes score and antonyms score, combined with expressive vocabulary indicate, to me, that she needs some intensive targeted work in learning to think about words- ways we classify them, antonyms, synonyms, nuances of word meaning, etc. A good SLP or educational therapist would have the skills to help your daughter in therapy and help you build a home program to improve these aspects of language.
I have a really nice Linguisystems book called 100% Vocabulary that was really useful in working with my daughter. I don't see it on the Linguisystems site anymore, so that particular book may be out of print. They have similar books for academic vocabulary, but I'm not sure they accomplish quite what I'm thinking about. Let me think a bit on other vocab. resources for her age/level.
Has your daughter had any assessment in her second language? Do you have a good sense for how balanced her language skills are? I'm looking at the definite weaknesses in non-verbal processing and trying to figure out if those are true lows or are reflective of maybe not understanding directions well. How long ago did she finish vision therapy and am wondering what their comments would be about the non-verbal processing. How are your daughter's social and life/adaptive skills? Do you see any significant problem-solving difficulties?
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Her filtered words scores do show some nice gains, but she clearly still has difficulty with tasks that require her to distinguish the speaker's voice from the background noise. I'm assuming that she has an IEP if she's been seeing a speech therapist at school? If so, does she have any accommodations written into her IEP for managing the difficulty with listening, such as preferential seating in the classroom (right in front of the teacher) or even better, an FM system? What other provisions does she have in her IEP, if she has one?
Here are two sources that may be helpful for finding an academic language therapist: International Dyslexia Association and Association of Educational Therapists. Don't let the fact that your daughter doesn't have a dyslexia diagnosis put you off from searching the IDA database. You'll be looking primarily at those who list themselves as "Academic/Educ Therapist" or as an SLP. I have also heard that some people have found an SLP who is good with language remediation by going to a hospital that has a good rehabilitation services for brain injury and/or stroke patients. A major children's hospital might be a particularly good source for a therapist or referral to one.
Does your daughter's school have a curriculum for building vocabulary in an intentional way? I believe that building vocabulary intentionally and building internal strategies for categorizing words and "filing" words in the brain are incredibly important for a student like your daughter. My daughter was only able to overcome her listening weaknesses when she had built up her understanding of vocabulary and sentence structure well enough to be able to fill in auditory decoding gaps using cognitive strategies. She, somehow, because of language processing weaknesses had not intuitively built up a way of understanding how to think about words in a way that would allow her to file them in her brain by various categories. That made it more difficult for her to retrieve the words when she needed to use them and even to learn new words efficiently.
Hopefully, this gives you some more ideas to ponder.
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No, i haven't looked into a private eval, but perhaps I should. She's had so many done by all the therapists she's worked with, I figured that an eval is an eval. It's the interpretation of the results that's lacking. All the scores were consistently 1-2 years behind what they should be with figurative speech being the worst one. I can post them here if anyone can help with interpretation.
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Daughter did have an auditory eval which came back with terrible results. The test where she had information read in both ears (don't know the name), she got 0 answers right. We did hours and hours of earobics and Audiblox and the following year, the improvements were amazing. So I am sure she still has some deficiencies, but I felt that a big chunk of it was addressed.
I do feel it would be helpful to seek a consultation with a private language therapist. You would need to do some investigation to find someone who is experienced in working with a child doing language remediation, not just homework help. Oftentimes this person is a SLP who has developed a specialty practice and may call herself an educational therapist or language/learning specialist. It can also be an educational therapist who comes into the field from another background. Or sometimes just plain SLP but whose primary specialty is language disorders, not articulation. You could take all your previous eval reports to her to look over and discuss her impressions of what the results mean and how she would proceed, knowing the therapies your daughter has already had and your current concerns. You could interview a couple of therapists this way to see how a couple of different people would approach your situation.
Did an audiologist do your daughter's auditory eval? Those are some impressively low initial results. That's great that Earobics and Audiblox has improved her function so much!
If you would like to post results, I'm sure a couple of us could take a stab at our *Layperson's* interpretation. I'm always hesitant to post comprehensive results on a highly searchable board, but do remember that you can delete them as soon as you get some helpful information. Alternatively, you could PM me and a couple of other people to keep it from being searchable on Google.
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I second the Super Duper and Linguisystems materials! I used materials from both when I worked with my daughter.
I would disagree on a grade adjustment if she's making Bs and Cs at current grade level. Depending on the school system, that's not always indicative of true proficiency, but it does show she's not so far behind her peers overall that she can't function in her current grade. It's just that w/o continued language remediation, she's likely to start falling behind in her grades in middle school or high school.
Have you thought about getting her a private speech eval? A good speech therapist (some are better than others, shop around) could help you sort through the language part at least and then help you target your efforts. Places like Super Duper and Linguisystems sell speech therapy materials and will sell to individuals. Super Duper especially has some things you could look at. Also, you might try searching the boards here for posts with "MERLD".
Sometimes kids with delays benefit from a grade adjustment (or two).
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I missed your post when it was first posted. I understand the brush-off you get when you have a bilingually developing child. Grrrr, is what I say because while it is true that it can take time to develop full competence in academic language if the school language is different from the home language, there should not be evidence pointing to a language disorder. Our second child was bilingually developing in English (home language) and Japanese (community and school language) and it took me until she was 9.5yo to get to the point where I a) had the confidence to say this is NOT a bilingual issue and B) find someone who could assess her in English, since we lived in Japan at the time.
Has your daughter been assessed for an auditory processing disorder (CAPD/APD)? Has she had the tests for her phonological processing (such as CTOPP, rapid naming, LiPS screening)? We never did get quite the full eval we could get today if I were in the same situation as I was with her in the mid/late-90s, but in our case, now that she is an adult and I have seen her developmental trajectory out 15 more years, I believe her final diagnosis should have been dyslexia w/CAPD.
Here are a few options you can consider:
1) Find a private language therapist who is qualified to evaluate language functions thoroughly- oral and written- so you can get a better read on phonological processing, as well as receptive and expressive language in detail and can get a good synthesis of the results. Check out DyslexiaHelp, the testing & evaluation section under the professionals section for a thorough description of various tests of reading & language. Many school speech therapists are better trained to deal with articulation issues than language issues.
2) Consider an auditory processing eval with an audiologist. If a child isn't able to take in auditory information efficiently at the basic level, building language competence will be more difficult, because language instruction almost certainly has to be 1-on-1 or small group in order for the child to process incoming information without the stress of competing noise and to give the extra processing time the child needs.
3) Consider taking your child to a Lindamood-Bell center or having her assessed with a speech/language therapist who is fully trained in L-B techniques. Their Visualizing and Verbalizing program is specifically targeted to help reading comprehension through improving the ability to translate words into mental/visual images. Therapy at a Lindamood-Bell center is expensive, and you want to check out the experience levels of the person who would work with your daughter, but it's worth checking out as an option. Alternatively, you can purchase the materials from Gander Publishing and try to use them yourself and/or attend a L-B training if you decide you are really keen to try it yourself as a way of cutting costs.
4)Consider taking your daughter to a developmental pediatrician, especially if there are other difficulties besides the language comprehension issues. Often language comprehension difficulties can go along with an ASD. However, it can be hard to tease out and language comprehension difficulties do not always equal ASD. In our case, our daughter's social skills, especially during the adolescent years, seemed to indicate a possible ASD in the high-functioning range, but now that she is an adult, there isn't any real evidence of an ASD, though she still prefers to socialize one-on-one or in very small groups due to her CAPD. She simply cannot hear the speaker when there is lots of background noise or the signal is degraded. When she was young, she didn't know how to accommodate for that and her behaviors around it made her "look" ASD.
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Nice article!
I sometimes wish I had another kindergartner so I could take advantage of the growing maturity of the movement. The options for educating in a full neo-classical style or even with just elements of the classical style have expanded dramatically since I first learned about the concept of classical education in 1998/99. When I first started, the only help I had was TWTM book and this forum. With the homeschool curriculum and B&M schools available today, it is so much easier for parents just starting out to find support for educating using methods that are not familiar.
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*sigh* I don't know. I'm mulling this over and I really appreciate the books and materials you've all pointed to in this thread.
I'm not sure if anyone suggested this book upthread, but I wanted to mention one of my favorites, The Mislabeled Child. I found it very helpful when I was first trying to sort things out with my son.
I also wanted to apologize for hitting a bit of a nerve related to the involvement of professionals. I have become an advocate of getting evaluations, and professional help with remediation, if warranted, because of my experience with my son. We were definitely heading down a wrong path with his progress in his education and life skills before I finally put my foot down and said, "We need this, NOW!" I had waited for many years for "all the stars to align," so to speak, and finally got to the point where I was spinning my wheels. Normally, I'm pretty much of a DIY person as regards my children's education, so it was huge to admit that we needed not only the evaluation, but professional help- of the right kind- with the teaching.
Ben Foss dyslexia book
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
I've done a quick read of Ben Foss's book and need to go back and read more deeply before I discuss too many specific details. He certainly presents his message passionately and is another important voice in getting the message out that children and adults with dyslexia a) have a lot to offer the world with their talents and b ) that they need to be able to use accommodations to help them use those talents effectively.
On my first read through, I had trouble with two aspects of his message:
1) It seems like his view of "eye reading" and "ear reading" is heavily influenced by his own lack of progress in learning to read effectively. It seems like he is not acknowledging the fact that dyslexia symptoms occur on a spectrum and that the combinations of weakness in specific underlying skills needed to learn how to "eye read" will affect the ultimate outcome of reading instruction. He notes that even with O-G tutoring his reading was still in the bottom 15th percentile when he reached adulthood. I suspect that this is not the normative experience for dyslexic students and that he is a bit of an outlier in that respect.
2) He is against homeschooling, except as a short-term emergency choice, because, if I recall correctly, he believes that these students need to be in schools with parents and others advocating for them to force schools to learn to do the right thing for these kids. Also, that the students, themselves, need to be in the school environment to learn how to advocate for themselves. He's all about homeschooling being isolating...failing to acknowledge that even homeschooled kids participate in many community based activities that may require accommodation.
On the whole, I think Foss presents an important message, and as the inventor of the Intel Reader, has certainly been a part of creating solutions for severely dyslexic people.