If your blender makes acceptable smoothies, you really don't need a smoothie maker too. A lot of less expensive blenders struggle to make smoothies.

I would not spend $2,000 on private testing if you cannot afford therapy. I agree with having the school do all the basic testing. That will save you some money. Meanwhile, get a private speech and language evaluation from a speech pathologist, and a private occupational therapy evaluation. These private evaluations are usually much more thorough than what a school can provide. Do you have a college or university nearby that offers a major in speech pathology? They typically will either have a low-cost clinic that they run or internships to provide practice (which is well-supervised) for the senior students. That would be your best bet for getting good speech therapy for your money. I agree with starting therapy for the speech/language issues as soon as you can. That is more important than reading instruction at this point, and a better use of $2,000 than a private neuro-psych out-of-pocket would be.

I think it's likely to be APD. APD affects the ability of the brain to process auditory information, and it can play havoc with auditory memory. It can also interfere with vestibular development (rhythm, timing, balance). The APD then shows up in the slow processing of even non-auditory tasks, because timing is critical to all kinds of processing (not just auditory). I can't remember -- has your son had an occupational therapy evaluation? Vestibular issues will usually show up in an OT eval.

We used the Key to Fractions workbooks for review. What I really liked for fractions, though, was the Marilyn Burns book Lessons on Introducing Fractions It really cemented fraction concepts for my dd. (Key to works on mechanics only, not concepts.) The book starts out by having you and the student make sets of manipulatives to use in games throughout the lessons. This was the only math program my dd said was actually fun, and it didn't add on a lot of extra time to our math that year.

I have a monthly subscription to Audible, although I may change to annual after reading the other posts. I really love it, but it is similar in expense to buying regular books (and no resale value!). I don't think there would be any problem cancelling a subscription. You just go into your account online to do that. Have you visited the website? Lots of books to choose from! Audible has different ways of subscribing. They describe the different subscription options on the website. You can browse there for information. One nice thing I have heard about Audible is that they will keep a record online of the books you have purchased forever, even if you unsubscribe. That means you can re-download any book if you lose one. I don't think other websites do this for you.

About the only thing I can think of is to call around to all of the adoption agencies in your area and ask how much they charge for a home study. I'm sure prices vary. Where we are, I think the cost is about $3,000.

Thanks. That was really nice of you. I have deleted my posts as well (although it looks as if the moderator beat me to the last one).

I can't find the article on CNN now, but I'm pretty sure they recommended Capital One as a credit card you can use abroad without extra fees. I would call them and ask. Also, I would not try to use a debit card abroad because it does not offer the protection against theft that a credit card does (and also doesn't give you protection in case something breaks or isn't up to par).

A really good book that can help you determine what is causing your headaches is this one. Many of my headaches are triggered by food intolerances. Chocolate and red wine are my nemesis.

Here is a link to a CNN article about the 10 fastest-growing real estate markets in the country. Hmmm.... Just realized that may not be an indicator of new construction. Still, I suppose it's a starting point.

Thank you. It's been almost 30 years now, and I still miss her.

Hard water can permanently etch materials, including glass and plastic. To prevent etching, you may want to wipe the container dry immediately after washing, and never allow water to stand in the container. I wouldn't use Magic Eraser because of the toxic materials in it. We have glass block in our shower that gets stained from our water. I found that vinegar and lemon juice were not strong enough to get the calcium stains off. I have had to take a razor blade to scrape it off (very carefully!). Also, Brillo soap pads were helpful. However, I'm afraid any of the options that work on my glass block would scratch even hard plastic. Why don't you call the company? They may know of something that is safe to use.

For the handwriting, you might want to try Callirobics. It helps kids who need to work on fine motor skills associated with handwriting, and it sounds as if your son fits that bill. It's a shame you couldn't get better OT. Are you aware of computerized home vision therapy? It works well for the most common visual efficiency problems. All of the posts I have seen from families who have tried it have been positive. So far, everyone has reported a total cost under $300 for pre-testing, the software, and post-testing. It is one of the most inexpensive ways to do vision therapy. Cognitive skills training can be helpful too. They work on developing a wide range of skills that support academic learning.

I would definitely recommend Barton over OPGTR. Barton is an Orton-Gillingham program, which means it is multi-sensory and systematic and works well with remedial students. It limits reading text to materials within the program so that the student is always presented with decodable text at an appropriate level. Guessing is one of the worst habits that a beginning reader can pick up, and very difficult to eradicate later if it is allowed to become engrained. Barton controls practice text so that the student has no need to guess. OG programs are structured around a philosophy of teaching sight-to-sound. There is a newer type of reading instruction now that employs a philosophy of sound-to-sight, and this is the one I prefer. I have found that it remediates much faster for most children, plus it is easier to teach. I typically recommend using a sound-to-sight approach first because it is much less expensive and takes much less time. If you don't see satisfactory progress within 20 to 30 hours of working one-on-one with this type of program, then it's time to look deeper to see if there is an underlying problem that has not been diagnosed and remediated (with my dd, it was visual efficiency deficits -- not evaluated in regular eye exams) and/or consider switching to an OG program. The best sound-to-sight program on the market right now is ABeCeDarian. They have an active and very helpful support group on Yahoo! The developer of the program, Michael Bend, was the keynote speaker at the IDA convention a couple of years ago and he is highly respected in the reading community. He posts to the support list to help if someone needs advice or help getting past a hurdle in the program. Janis on that list is also very experienced using the program and very helpful with getting parents started. ABCD is *much* less expensive than Barton. My advice is to start with ABeCeDarian. You should see significant results within 20 to 30 hours of using the program one-on-one. There are a few (very few) children who seem able to access reading only through spelling. When this is the case, it becomes necessary to switch to an OG program such as Barton. Spelling typically remediates much more slowly than reading. I would focus on getting the reading up to grade level first. Once your son is reading on a 4th grade level, I would advise adding in Sequential Spelling from Avko.

I would definitely subscribe to Lifelock in this situation. I'm considering doing it for us even though we have no reason to suspect anyone of trying to get our info.

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Did you edit out some information? I read your post before taking a nap and came back to answer it, only to find lots of differences! Thought I was in the Twilight Zone for awhile there. Anyway, I am going to include some recommendations based on some of the info that is no longer here. Many different underlying conditions produce symptoms of ADD. From your initial description of your son, he sounds a lot like my dd. In my dd's case, many of the problems were caused by visual efficiency deficits that had gone undiagnosed by her opthalmologist. She also had delays in development of phonemic awareness. I'm pretty sure these two problems contributed to her "right-brainedness". We were able to fully remediate the underlying problems and get her up to speed in reading. We had to work a little harder on math and writing, but these have developed also. (My dd is 17yo now and in public high school.) My first recommendation is to get a developmental vision evaluation. Visual efficiency skills are *not* tested in regular eye exams. A child can have 20/20 vision and still have severe visual efficiency deficits. From research and surveys I have read, 80 to 90% of the children displaying the problems you describe have an undiagnosed visual efficiency problem. At the very least, it's a problem you want to rule out. You can find board-certified developmental optometrists in your area here. Cost for an eval is usually around $300 and is not covered by insurance. If you decide this is something you want to do, I advise you to post again here so we can give you some advice on finding someone good. There are inexpensive and expensive ways to do vision therapy, if it is needed. If you are on a budget, my advice to you will be different than if you are a family who can afford out-of-pocket expenses for therapy. Has your son ever had an occupational therapy evaluation? In your initial post, I think you mentioned a visual-motor problem. An occupational therapy evaluation can evaluate this and provide exercises to help. If this is indeed a problem, then the OT should actually be done before vision therapy or concurrently with vision therapy. Once we had reduced my dd's visual efficiency deficits, we did a cognitive skills training program that worked on a wide variety of subskills necessary for academic learning. This greatly improved her reading. Before this program, my dd could not remember the values of individual coins. By the end of this program, she was spontaneously counting up change left on the kitchen counter. My dd had difficulty with math facts too. Since your son has been able to learn the facts with the story approach, I would *highly* recommend following up with daily drill to improve his math fact fluency (speed in combination with accuracy), as this makes all math much easier to handle. We used QuarterMile Math for 10 minutes every day, with me doing the keyboarding for her. (Doing the keyboarding for your student seems to be crucial to success. It allows many more problems to be packed into the 10 minutes.) Drill is deadly in large quantities, so should be done for only short periods of time. We set a kitchen timer. It took my dd 4 months of daily QMM when she was 11yo before she was solid on all of her math facts. When we stopped, I noticed after awhile that she started "losing" facts. We did QMM again daily until she was solid, and then I put her on a maintenance schedule twice a week (doing her own keyboarding). After a year of that, she never lost math facts again. There is no way to adapt all curriculum materials to be efficient for a right-brained learner. It's great to use materials that "fit", like the multiplication stories. The solution for us was to work very hard to improve dd's left-brain processing skills so that she could learn better from standard curriculum materials. My dd is still right-brained, but she has enough left-brain skills now to be able to make her way in the world. There are advantages to having right-brain skills. She is unusually creative and innovative with her problem-solving, and she is an excellent artist. A complete neuro-psychological evaluation can help you identify learning strengths and weaknesses, and will also evaluate the different types of memory. This is an expensive evaluation, however. We did the OT eval and developmental vision eval first, then completed vision therapy (because this was such an obvious area that needed remediation). We did the cognitive skills training after that, to develop the visual processing skills that were still lacking, and got wide-ranging improvements in many areas as a surprise benefit. The neuro-psych eval was actually our last step in the process, when writing remained difficult after all of our remediation strategies. (Dd was diagnosed at that time with borderline dysgraphia, which has since resolved to the point where it would not even be considered a borderline disability anymore.) HTH!

That's what I'd do. I doubt you would need a signed copy unless you're dealing with a school district. However, you may want to have a signed copy in your file in case you need it later for documentation if you plan to ask for accommodations on the ACT or SAT. (Students going to community college and transferring later to a four-year college typically do not need to take the ACT or SAT.)

You should probably ask Janis on the ABCeDarian support list. (You can email her directly from the list if you don't want to post the question to the entire list.) We didn't use ABCD as it wasn't out yet when my dd needed reading remediation. However, I was trained in Phono-Graphix and have kept up with developments in that approach, so I have some of the ABCD materials. That, along with the support group help, has encouraged me to recommend ABCD over PG for parents. Janis uses Level C following A and B and has had great results with it. She typically follows Level C with either Phonics for Reading (if the student needs more work with fluency) or Rewards Intermediate (for students who are reading sufficiently well after ABCD Level C). Honestly, I wouldn't change something that obviously has been working for your son. I'd go ahead and do Level C. (Not an expert, but that reading text looks like at least beginning 3rd grade text rather than 2nd grade.)

I think they'd be fine to try for single correction lenses (near-sighted or far-sighted, and possibly astigmatism). From the reviews I read, I definitely would not try them for the graduated lenses I have (graduated bifocals). From what I read, it's impossible to get a refund from them if the glasses don't work, so I would stick with the simple prescriptions.

I would skip the wash cloth, as it can irritate already-irritated skin. Just use your hands. I'd also try a different soap, as you may have developed an allergy to some ingredient in it or they may have changed their formulation.

What you have described is called dysgraphia. There is a support group on Yahoo! you may want to join. My dd has borderline dysgraphia. It was more of a problem in elementary and middle school grades. She has gone to public high school and in the last three years has improved quite a bit, although still not more than low-normal among her peers. Keyboarding is often a difficult skill for dysgraphics to acquire. The *only* keyboarding program that worked for my dd was Keyboarding Skills by Diana Hanbury King. Once basic skills are acquired via that program, you can use some of the computer-based programs to work on gaining speed and accuracy. Dysgraphia is often a neurologically-based problem that does not respond to interventions. Some dysgraphia is exacerbated by fine motor problems. An occupational therapy evaluation can help determine if this is the case, and OT can help develop the muscles associated with writing. A home program that often helps with fine motor issues related to writing is Callirobics. Sometimes motor planning is the problem. When this is the case, OT can help. Also, Interactive Metronome sometimes makes a profound difference in writing ability. (I had a friend who had her son do IM, although he had other motor planning issues besides writing. Before IM he could not write a paragraph. After IM, he could write multiple paragraphs.) My dd's dysgraphia seems to be largely neurological in origin. She did not have fine motor issues (can draw beautifully) and did not have motor planning issues (very athletic), so Callirobics and IM did not help her. She is a remediated dyslexic, so I suspect her dysgraphia is a language-based disability. Most dysgraphics also have difficulty acquiring the mechanics of writing -- grammar, capitalization and punctuation, etc. Depending on the severity of the dysgraphia, your son may need to go to voice-recognition technology to develop writing skills. It takes about a year to train this kind of program, though. Dragon Speak Naturally is one.

Have you tried this with multiple books? I'm just wondering if there isn't a problem with the links for a specific book. I just tried it on two different books and it worked for me. If it doesn't work for you for any book, my hunch is that some file on your computer that they use to download the feature is corrupted. Just logging off and logging back in won't correct that. Try shutting your computer off completely and then turning on again. If the corruption is just in the working copy and not on the disc, that will solve the problem. If not, you might have to call my dh :). He's the one who reloads software for me and fixes that kind of problem. :lol:

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It depends on your state, your school district, and the principal of your school. In MN both I and friends were able to have our children attent public school part-time. State law does not forbid this, and all of the school principals we contacted were fine with it. I think a lot depends on how your public school is funded. Where we were, the public school received money for part-time students. There are some states, I think, that will not fund part-days (CA comes to mind, although I'm not sure about that). If the school is not going to receive money, my bet is that a school principal will be less inclined to allow part-time students.