I second Merry's suggestion for ​All About Spelling. ​It is structured and systematic. The big thing is to do lots of practice with individual words using the tiles and spelling single words from dictation. Then move to short phrases. And good amounts of review to keep concepts fresh. Has your son had any assessment which might explain the wide discrepancy between his reading and spelling? BTW- my son had a similar discrepancy. A structured, systematic approach with a highly qualified tutor who could adjust his program carefully made a big difference. He still does not spell well, but well enough that he is able to write via keyboard without slowing his thoughts down too much.

OT & PT assistant requires a 2 year degree and licensure. However, there are aide positions in those departments that may only require on-the-job training. At least that was the case when I was working as a PT years ago.

Meds are usually not a recommendation for slow processing speed. Not all people with slow processing speed have a significant ADHD component, and for those who do, meds are to treat the ADHD, not the PS. Here is an article by Ellen Braaten, PhD, the author of Bright Kids Who Can't Keep Up, ​a book about processing speed deficits. It gives a good overview of the topic. I see she also has some clips on YouTube that you can watch.

I never went more than a couple of months without seeing my oldest daughter until she got married and moved out of state one year after college graduation. My next child started college less than two hours from home, but transferred to a university 1300 miles away after her second year. I saw her about 4 months after she moved, but then didn't see her for another year. She's been in CO for 7 years now; I just saw her a few weeks ago and it had been a year since the previous visit. My son attends a university 530 miles from home so we typically see him at semester breaks. Last summer he stayed up north. He's home this summer but is leaving at the end of August to do a full year study abroad program in Japan. I'm hoping to be able to go to Japan while he's there, but it may not be until the end of his program next spring.

Daria is right that colleges frequently do ask for testing with adult norms- age 16 or higher (WAIS for the Weschler IQ). University of Michigan is one such university. However, many, many colleges do accept testing done with norms from the child version (WISC-V). Many colleges also accept documentation older within 5 years, rather than requiring it within 3 years. Very much a YMMV situation. Colleges that are more disability friendly tend have to less stringent guidelines. I've dealt with two particular universities in Michigan that are more open to using older documentation or documentation that does not include adult norms. If there is interest in a particular college, go to the disabilities page of the college website and look up the requirements for documentation. I think it will get harder for colleges to put the financial burden on the student to update testing. The Department of Justice recently released guidelines for accommodations on high-stakes testing that reduces the re-test requirement for those who have previously qualified for accommodations. This document does not cover classroom exams, but does cover various kinds of entrance and licensing exams. Hopefully, it will have an effect also on accommodations for courses taken in a college or university.

Waiting is sooo hard! Especially when you know the date is coming and time just ticks so slowly. Just making a comment about APD and musicians: various types of APD can result in somewhat different profiles. In one APD profile, a person may have difficulties with pitch and/or timing that would make musical performance challenging. However, it is possible to have APD and be a good musician. My daughter is a fiddler with APD. Her challenges do not lie in timing or pitch. She has difficulty with hearing the speaker's voice in the presence of background noise. She did have trouble with vocabulary and language comprehension, but she had a lot of intervention to develop her language skills. Language comprehension is no longer an issue, but hearing the speaker's voice in a noisy environment is nearly impossible.

Glad to hear you have finally made a decision and are moving forward. It can be so hard to make the jump into the waters of evaluation, but getting off the spot of feeling frozen with indecision is a great first step! I hope you and your son come away with a better understanding of how his brain works. Learning to use his strengths and figuring out what to do to manage his weaknesses- whether it is building skills or using accommodations- can really help him leave behind his feelings of being stupid. I didn't go with a full evaluation for my son until he was 15yo. Was it later than I would have preferred? Certainly. Was it valuable at the time we did it? Absolutely. It started us on a path towards helping him to feel like a competent, contributing member of his family, social, and academic groups. When do you go in? Oh, and BTW- my son also plays Ultimate Frisbee!

OhE, children transition from EI to a public school IEP on their 3rd birthday. They have some evaluation done shortly before their birthday to determine if they qualify for services. The criteria for qualification are different than for EI. If they qualify, the IEP is developed in time for services to begin on the 3rd birthday.

It's definitely true that a child's complexity isn't always recognized up front. Sometimes it's not until you start peeling the onion that you recognize how much is going on with the child. The question of which professional to start with can be tricky and may depend on the most pressing issues and/or budget. It is often best to go with a neuropsychologist from the get go but sometimes that's just not possible. In some markets, a full neuropsych eval runs $3.500-$5,000. If a person's insurance won't cover it and paying out of pocket isn't an option, starting with a much less expensive eval with a different type of professional can be a workable option. In any case, if a professional will do the written language remediation, he/she will do some evaluation because a neuropsych eval doesn't include some of the detailed literacy assessment that is important for planning intervention.

It absolutely *can* be within the scope of an SLP to diagnose dyslexia/reading disorder. However, it requires an SLP who has had additional training in literacy. SLPs have extensive training in oral language development. Oral language assessment is an important part of understanding the whole picture of a person with dyslexia because dyslexia is a language processing condition which includes difficulties with certain areas of oral language as well as trouble with written language. Not all SLPs have the extensive training in literacy necessary to do a thorough assessment for dyslexia, but many do and are qualified to make a diagnosis. I should add that, for a complex kid, having assessments by multiple professionals in a team-based approach can be very helpful.

The "formal training in the "ethical adminstration, scoring, and interpretation of clinical assessments" is a key piece of the equation. Different test publishers & companies selling tests seem to have differing requirements for documentation before releasing the tests for purchase to an individual. In general, B Level tests, can be released to those who have been trained to use tests of educational achievement and some tests of basic processing. The person who does Barton Screening may be able to purchase tests on her own if she has completed the assessment courses in the University of California certificate program. If she has taken the assessment courses, she is nearly done with the certificate and will be in a position to interpret educational testing from a broader perspective than just the lens of dyslexia. At this stage, she is still fairly new to assessment, so the OP will need to take that into consideration. Because educational therapy is a field that is not yet covered by state licensing laws, it would be out of that person's scope of practice to apply any diagnostic labels to her interpretations of the testing. However, a well-written report can be very useful to professionals who can take the next step in diagnosis. Any professional who conducts additional testing certainly needs to be aware of what assessment tools have been used because there are restrictions on how soon they can be used again. For the OP: this person may or may not be a good fit for what you need right now. If you are unable to afford the fees of an educational psychologist or neuropsychologist and you want to take a solid first step towards understanding your child's strengths and weaknesses, it could be a good option. If you think you may need a diagnostic label for legal purposes at any point in the next year or so, it might be better to find a way to get an evaluation with a psychologist.

When getting a dyslexia evaluation, you need a good test of phonological processing. The CTOPP includes tests of phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming (RAN). You need to see these tests! A thorough evaluation also includes some oral language testing and a variety of tests of reading and writing. Tests that allow the evaluator to analyze spelling development are also essential, because they also provide a window into whether the student's difficulties are primarily phonological (related to interpretation of sounds within words), orthographic (related to visual memory and the understanding of the conventions of English spelling), or both. This will give an evaluator information which will help with developing interventions for reading words (decoding) and spelling (encoding). Take a look at the information on evaluations at the DyslexiaHelp website before deciding where to have your child evaluated for dyslexia. Some SLPs can do a very thorough assessment- a more thorough assessment in certain critical areas than many psychologists do- but they need to be highly trained in literacy, including a deep understanding of the characteristics of dyslexia, as well as the structure of the English language.

My ds was home for a full week. It was good to have him here and connect with him about his plans for the next year or so. He has decided to apply for a study abroad in the country where he was born and lived for the first 5.5 years of his life. If that all comes about, I will have the chance to visit for the first time since we moved back to the States over 15 years ago! He had some homework to complete for his Computer Science classes, but the hardest part for me was that *I* had massive amounts of homework for my internship class. Coupled with hosting the extended family for dinner on Thursday and visiting with some other family on Friday, I didn't have as much time to do fun stuff and shopping with him as I wish I could have done.

It is very common for bright and gifted students with dyslexia to do better reading words in context than when presented individually or in a list. These kids use their intelligence- their reasoning, oral language skills (vocabulary & syntax), and metacognitive skills- to put the whole picture together when reading a passage. They are able to make reasonable guesses about unknown words based on typical sentence patterns and perhaps the beginning and/or ending letters in a word. This is especially true for kids who have been read aloud to since they were very young. When words are presented individually or in a list, the student must rely solely on single word decoding skills, which are most impacted in dyslexia.

Congratulations to you and your son, SailorMom! That sigh of relief combined with sheer joy at your son's accomplishment is palpable. These stories of children achieving well beyond what public school officials predicted are multiplying and becoming a mountain of evidence that our children CAN learn! My son has some of the same labels, but he is now in the 2nd year of a computer science and IT double major program, with a physics minor thrown in for good measure. And, yes, handwriting, spelling, and writing papers are still not his forte. But the use of word processing and majoring in an area of strength means that he is doing just fine!

I am on the road now, making the 530 mile drive to drop my college boy off for his second year away. He is a newly licensed driver- as of yesterday- and is taking his mandated turn at the wheel right now. He doesn't really love driving but I gently reminded him that this gig of driving back and forth to college will be on him come next year. 😄

Ds starts his second year on the 31st. He spent nearly all summer up at school- took core classes during the first half, just took one PE class during the second half (PE is a graduation requirement). He came home last week for about two weeks and will go back at the end of next week.

I found the Nurtured Heart Approach to be a valuable tool in my toolbox- along with other tools- for encouraging positive behavior without using harsh, punitive techniques. I've never been one to love punishment as a main tool for discipline, but I found myself getting frustrated with a particular child who wasn't compliant with typical calm approaches. Through NHA, I learned how to avoid energizing negative behavior, how to encourage the positive- and even how to create opportunities for the child to demonstrate positive behavior even when the child was determined to avoid showing positive behavior. And I learned to be clear about my boundaries without using emotion to enforce them. I also like Ross Greene's work- OhE referred to The Explosive Child. For a team that writes from a specifically Christian view (should that be of interest), I like Scott Turansky & Joanne Miller of The National Center for Biblical Parenting. They favor a heart-based approach to parenting rather than a behavior modification approach. Each of these authors has had an impact on my thinking about behavior. It's also helpful to think about physiological reasons for difficult behaviors, such as sensory processing disorder, allergies and sensitivities, and rhythms of life (schedules for sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc) to figure out how challenges in these areas might be contributing to your children's behavior.

No established routines. I have always had the kid's' class schedules and if it has been more than a week since they initiated contact I call or text them. My kids have always been pretty well connected with us emotionally. Each one has a different "contact personality" in terms of preferred amount and type of contact. I did go through two periods where I worried about a kid because of a change in communication. One time, there was something to be concerned about, though the kid never failed to respond to POL type calls. Another kid went through a period of being very upset with me and needing to establish her independence. I never worried about POL because she lived with her sister and knew I would hear about it if there were any concern for safety.

Not sure how to fix it, but I can't view it, either.

How on earth do people type pages and pages of text on a teeny, tiny little keyboard? Every time I type a text, I have to backspace and correct about every three letters because I hit the wrong key! Using dictation helps, but I can't dictate paragraphs of text when I'm sitting in a room full of people! My use of "most employed people" wasn't a good choice of words. Of course, there are many, many jobs that don't require email. But I have a hard time imagining those in many professional positions and those jobs that require a lot of written communication using text as the primary means of communicating multiple paragraphs of words. As for social interaction, I do use social media- FB & messaging apps- to communicate interactively with friends and family. I don't really use email for that function, though I do use email with family to communicate more formally when necessary- such as discussing details of a family member's medical care. If I'm messaging with someone, though, I prefer to type on a real keyboard, not a teeny, tiny phone keyboard.

Seriously? Sure, a text for something like an alert (campus is on lockdown, tornado spotted near campus, etc.) or one phrase reminders can be more timely than email for many. Even then, with the way I use my smartphone, it doesn't much matter. I see visual previews of subject lines from my primary email, so it's just as fast as getting a text notification. But as for "nobody uses email," I have a hard time imagining that. Honestly, you can't really communicate longer messages by text. On any given day, I receive an average of 8-10 email messages that require a response- personal messages- plus important information messages that don't require a response. If I'm in the midst of one of my volunteer projects, I could be dealing with as many as 50 messages in one day. My husband deals with much more email than I in his job. I have my personal/professional email separated from commercial advertisements and most list mail, so those messages don't clutter my inbox too much. But, for most employed people, email is a fact of daily life. Even for personal matters, if it requires more than a sentence or two, I go to email because using the phone's keyboard is just too clumsy an affair.

In the semi-rural areas around where we live, there are still lots of areas where cell signals are not strong- and it's not like we live miles and miles from civilization, though some of you truly urban folks might think so- :-) One extended family member had a poor signal in/near his house and when there was an ongoing family health situation and I stayed at the house, I got through to people better via text than call from my phone.

Historically, email was something that didn't automatically download. Back in the dial-up days, one had to actually "call up" an internet connection, so email literally only came in when you chose to go online. Perhaps because of that, many people still look at email as being something that is a send at your convenience, read at your convenience thing. Texts, even in the beginning, were more instantly available, so people, at that time, used them differently. With smartphone technology, the lines have, indeed, become much more blurred. It would be interesting to find out how many people actually have their email alerts set to ding on their phones every time a message is automatically downloaded. I had mine set that way when I first got my iPhone, but it was so crazy annoying due to the amount of email I get that I turned off audible alerts for all my mail- both accounts. I get visual alerts for the account where I receive messages of great importance. So, in my thinking, I don't usually worry about sending an email at night. I think people are less likely to have audible email alerts than audible text alerts, and even if they do are more likely to silence them at night because emergency info is not likely to be conveyed via email. Could be wrong though. As this thread has demonstrated, people use their phones in widely divergent ways.

If that's the case, I stand corrected, though I'm not sure I'd use the term "well before cell phones" literally, at least not in the most commonly used business systems available in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The places I worked at in the '80s didn't have such features on their business systems, but I haven't worked in a business environment since then. I have had a cell phone since 1996, but my iPhone was the first one to have a Do Not Disturb feature. I used an Android as my first smartphone and as far as I'm aware, it did not have such a feature by any name, though I could be wrong.