I read the article yesterday and have pondered it since. I certainly don't think parents are to blame. Blame doesn't help. Yet over the years of reading about special needs, it often strikes me how some of the occupational therapy activities that I try and see suggested are similar to many things that used to just "happen" in childhood more regularly than they do now. Sending children to play outside more won't resolve every child's issues, but the severity of the issues might be affected. Some children who straddle on the boarder of "normal" may fall to one side or the other, depending on their experiences. Society doesn't seem as oriented towards children playing outside as it once was. Scheduled activities leave little time for neighborhood children to simply get together and just play together for hours and hours. The parks are mostly empty. (Sure, those parks see action when there are organized sports teams using the fields or some other event, but when the scheduled acitivy is done, the parks clear out again.) Parents are worried about "stranger danger" or being charged with "child neglect" if we let our children play outside without being under our ever-watchful eye. So we keep them inside where they're "safe" and enroll them in activities. And far more frequently than generations before, our children's activities include schedules appointments with therapists paid to play with our children in ways somewhat similar to how neighborhood children used to play with each other. Society should take a closer look at the standards to which we hold parents. Rather than passing blame to parents, we ought to start handing out medals for bravery.

Please check out Barton Reading and Spelling for their student screen. The inability to combine sounds into words makes reading phonetically very difficult, but the problem can be remediated. Also, check out the Struggling Learners area of this forum. :)

It starts with various apple dishes, moves to pumpkin (starting with a pumpkin latte around October 1st), back to apple dishes but with cranberries for variety, next dishes with pecans and sweet potatoes start appearing more and more. I use the oven more often. We have soups and homemade bread again. I love wearing sweaters and boots! My boots! I haven't worn those for months!!!

(((Hugs!)))

Interesting! While we didn't think of it as therapy and didn't know we were dealing with special needs, we used to use duct tape over diapers when we encountered toddlers that removed diapers.

I want to add that if you decide to do this, the very act of doing it provides daily lessons of compassion, generosity and altruism. No packed curriculum could teach your children better.

It's unreasonable. The sister traveled the same 3 hour distance as the op did. She visited her parents. If the op was that concerned, she could have said "goodbye" and gone home. And even if she had left without seeing that sister again, the op's children still may have ended up sick because they may have been exposed from the other sister' s child before anyone realized anyone was sick.

Storygirl--it's interesting to read what your DD's nuero psych said about apd and adhd. I really wish we'd found a good nuero psych earlier in our journey, but I asked and asked and no one could refer me to someone they considered "good." Maybe there's professional bias. ??? Maybe. Maybe adhd could affect apd testing and the results, but being able to pay attention to what one is hearing is also part of auditory processing and could be affected by audiotory skills. For example, my son with the apd dx tested above normal in regard to his ability to hear background noise. He's more easily distracted by background noise because he hears it better--and perhaps vice versa. He hasn't been tested for adhd or ADD but I have my suspicions if we had tested for those first he might have that dx. Doctors who diagnose these things have to carefully parse through all of what's going on and may not be very familiar with what's outside their specialty. I spoke to a nuero psych several months ago who would have referred us to someone else because it gets more complicated. (We didn't go, mostly due to cost. Also after speaking to the nuero psych, I felt reassured about how we're doing.) APD can look like adhd (or add) and/or dyslexia--again, there's a lot of similarities and people can have more than one thing going on. Sometimes what looks like an attention problem may improve dramatically if the student is placed closer to the speaker and away from auditory distractions and then given written instructions in addition to verbal instructions.

Thinking about this fish/shrimp thing more and my response. That's an auditory memory, so it might fall into the auditory processing camp while also falling into the memory camp. I read somewhere that an APD dx vs a dyslexia dx sometimes just comes down to who's making the dx--that may not be true for all aspects of apd but many people with dyslexia present with auditory processing problems. My son with a dyslexia dx has not been through full audiologist work - up for apd, he was too young at the time and at this point in his remediation, (all 10 levels of Barton, portions of LiPS and more) the original phonological problems don't show. They're gone.) Also, by the later levels of Barton, he made far, far fewer of those word substitutions. His auditory memory improved, and while we did memory exercises and while his getting older may account for some of that, I suspect that Barton contributed to that improvement in not just phonological processing but auditory memory too because of the way it builds words to phrases to sentences repeatedly over the levels. If you can do both the audiologist apd evaluation and the neuro psych eval, do both. Audiologist is more affordable and quicker--plus it's already scheduled, so that's a great place to start. A good neuro psych can be harder to find and harder to schedule. And lots of times professionals will refer a client to other professionals to rule out suspected problems in those areas of expertise, so bringing an audiology evaluation would help with that aspect of the evaluation. My kids have never yet had a full nuero psych evaluation.

Two more children beyond six is clearly the reason why my house isn't clean. (We'll conveniently ignore the fact that two of mine no longer live at home because they leave their stuff here.)

It's important for me to sit with friends who mothers of the other players at any game. We nudge each other when one of us may randomly notice that one of our children did something or is about to do something.

Put it in a squeeze bottle and call it "spreadable jam".

Happy news: we started high school Spanish today and it wasn't horrible! I've read for years how dyslexic children have problems with foreign language, so I was (and am) a little worried. I'm trying to pull in O - G and Barton techniques. When reading English my son often read long English words with the stress on the wrong syllables to the point that he couldn't recognize the word, so we worked and worked on that in English--and now we turn it around and use it to our advantage. He's a natural at turning words he knows into foreign sounding words just by changing the stressed syllable or reading the silent e aloud. And since this is a thread that started about music therapy, I'll share that my son also requested that we play the Spanish children's songs c.d. that we have. I approach this with cautious optimism.:)

Sounds right. Our APD tests were scheduled for 3-4 hours. They don't take nearly all that time if the child understands the directions and cooperates. The substitution of the word "fish" for "shrimp" sounds like issues with memory and how words are stored and retrieved. Shrimp is a more specific type of fish. She was close but not quite right. It likely wasn't a hearing/auditory processing problem, but something else with language. (My son with a dyslexia dx makes those kinds of mistakes, but my son with an APD dx doesn't.) There can be a lot of overlap in these language processing disorders, so there could be more than one thing going on. Two interesting books you might like reading: "When the Brain Can't Hear" is about APD. "It's on the Tip of My Tongue" is about word retrieval.

It sounds perfectly reasonable to limit or restrict what he plays with during school time. Think of what it would be like if he attended a traditional school. While homeschoolers can adjust to what best fits our particular child or family's needs instead of rules to control a whole classroom of children, we need to establish some house rules and guidelines to facilitate our children's education. I'll add what we do to help answer the thread question: Yes, we restrict breaks, but we do take them. Some breaks are built-in, like after lunch we go outside to play. Many of the school materials we work with fall along the lines of educational toys, like math manipulatives or puzzles, etc.. During times when I read aloud, I permit quiet play or coloring. We got a small trampoline for one child, who used it frequently between subjects or when he just had excess energy. (He's a teenage now and uses it far less frequently. Things change as they get older.) Particularly with my younger children, play is structured into our school day, but it's not "free play" until their school work is completed.

And thank YOU! I read your post earlier this morning---early enough for the Tooth Fairy perform her duties.

My first thought when I saw the thread title was "LiPS." But you've gone as far as we did in the before we moved to Barton. Barton also covers phonemic awareness--and it's not just in level 1. It covers those concepts pretty much throughout the program, although heaviest in the first few levels. Your daughter is just on level 3 of Barton, and she'll continue to build on and develop those skills if she continues on Barton. What exactly do you mean when you say she can't do it outside of Barton? Remember that Barton uses hand signals and such to help a student discover the sounds within the words until such time as they become more automatic. The hand gestures eventually get dropped in Barton, but she's not there yet. Those hand gestures, tile work, etc. really helps to "make visible" something that is otherwise merely auditory. If people testing her phonological skills aren't using them and she's able to do in when going through Barton but unable to outside of Barton session, then I'd take that as evidence that Barton is working for her. The program eventually drops those supports. It sounds to me like she still needs the kind of help that Barton builds into the program. As to you statement that she's "basically unaware of auditory things", I'm not sure what to make of that. ? I have one child with an APD diagnosis. His auditory processing problems show up only in certain circumstances, like in the presence of background noise. Your slp's office is probably quiet, so the slp may not experience what happens in noisier environments. Maybe something's going on or maybe it's not. Seven is on the young side for APD testing, but if your concerns persist, I suggest consulting an audiologist who is familiar with APD. It might catch a problem or it might just ease your worries. My 9 year old saw the audiologist who diagnosed her older brother and I was somewhat surprised and relieved to find out her auditory processing is within normal. A child doesn't need a perfect score to test "normal' and apparently some degree of "obliviousness" is just part of being a kid.

(((Hugs))) You wrote, "Plus he's a little sick"---that may be more responsible than the break. Even when we didn't take breaks, illness showed up in ds' s school work. Sometimes I'd think we'd hit a wall or wonder what went on to cause him to revert, and then a day or two later, he'd be sick. Then, after his recovery, his school work would resume at his normal pace. I saw this often enough to recognize the pattern. Don't get discouraged! I'm willing to bet homeschooling will go better when he's feeling better.

(((Hugs)))

We used their Forester's Algebra II plans last year, and this year we're using them again for Algebra II/Trig Honors. I really like Kolbe and their lesson plans. Their regular Algebra II doesn't cover as much of the book as their honors class, but the plans are written so that you can see both honors and regular Algebra II side-by-side. Although they go through the book, neither of them are exactly just turn the page and cover the next lesson and do all the problems. They select a good number problems that can be done in a reasonable time to build and demonstrate understanding, and the family can add more if more practice is needed. Kolbe allows for a lot of flexibility. Sometimes the lesson plans allow for more that one day for a particular lesson, but if I felt he understood the concept, we just moved to the next lesson. If we needed more time with something they allowed only one day for, then we took it. Some days we worked more than one lesson. We weren't always exactly on their schedule, but the ability to adjust to a child's individual needs is one of the beauties of homeschooling. Kolbe's plans can be flexible, but if you want to do it exactly as written, it works well. Kolbe's plans provide tests including midterms and finals. If a student is enrolled with Kolbe Academy and wants credit for the honors courses on their Kolbe transcript, then send Kolbe the midterms and finals. If enrolled with Kolbe but not seeking any specific notation on the transcript beyond Algebra II, or if not enrolled in Kolbe, the exams are optional. I really like having the exams because testing like that looks to me like what "high school" and preparation for college should look like.

Sometimes I've posted "first day" pictures and I've seen some of my homeschool friends post them too. If you didn't know we homeschooled, they might just look like other "First Day of School" pictures. Even though we homeschool, my children typically wear new clothes for the first day of school.

Do you have a diagnosis yet? Sometimes evaluations come back and tell you that your child's struggles falls normal limits for a child that age. I've told my children about appointments with various professionals that we need to have someone else look at this to give me a better understanding of what's going on with _(whatever is being evaluated)__and how to help with __(whatever the child is struggling with)__.

Buying the empty lot between two nicer homes? Maybe, if the price was right and if I wanted to do what you say you want to do. That lot sounds more like something that would fit in with your longer term goals of having an RV pad and travelling the country in an RV.

Some things. I have three in high school this year. We got several supplemental dvd's from "The Great Courses" that they'll watch together and hopefully apply what they learned to their individual workload. For most subject this year they'll spread across 9th, 10th and 11th grade work. We switched to Spanish I this year to combine their foreign language. My twins do the same lessons in math, but combining my twins for most subjects didn't work out as well as you might expect. One twin has dyslexia while the other scores well above average, so it was usually best to have them working with different materials for a variety of reasons. Combining classes sometimes invites comparison and competition, which can either work for or against the individuals involved.

I freeze them to keep the oils from going rancid too, then I throw them from the freezer into various things. One thing I like is to fry them in a pan with just a little sugar (which melts and coats them) and then use them in salads. I particularly enjoy dark lettuce tossed with chopped apple and pecans with a maple & vinaigrette dressing, with perhaps a few dried cranberries thrown on top too. Pecans are fabulous in Apple Waldorf salads too. (Basically chopped apple, celery, mayo & nuts.) I use them at the nut-of-choice in various cookie and cake recipes. Since you don't have an oven, you can use them in and onto for fancy maple-pecan pancakes. I often use them with sweet flavored things, but as someone already mentioned, ground pecans make a great coating for fish.