My kids and I bow to your wisdom! I downloaded the app today and suddenly math is FUN!!! The app bypasses both the handwriting delay and the following auditory directions issue and lets them focus on the process and the actual calculations. Since they enjoyed it, they did problem after problem and did two days of math today, largely by themselves! Now we are rolling again...my head has been saved! :grouphug:

Oh, definitely fragmented! I have four special needs kids pulling me in a variety of directions...an objection in motion tends to continue that motion! ;)

Against my better judgement, I did 12 problems with each of them today. I quite literally needed a good, stiff drink afterwards! ;). Processing problems and multistep math don't go well together! Ah, well...they are making good progress considering! If you ever hear on the news that a woman's head exploded in NC, just send flowers. That, or a six pack of Mike's! :tongue_smilie:

I can only practice long division with one twin per day without my head exploding. That is all. :glare:

She fessed up on the way home from the barn tonight, asking if the mail had gone out and if the envelope had been mailed. When I truthfully told her no, the whole story came out. She called the gal, pretended to be me and offered Bless her heart, she really did think she was doing a special thing for us and she didn't make the connection that she was doing something illegal. She really thought that she could get the dog flown in next week and didn't think about a) whether the check would clear, b) that signing my name and pretending to be me was wrong and c) that she was inconveniencing the seller. So, we have had a long talk about what could have happened, why what she did was wrong, etc. It was an easy talk since I could honestly say I thought her motives were pretty good, though misguided. She's not dead meat...but we are restricting Internet access for a while! Thanks...drama while DH is out of town is always hard to handle!!!

That's a great idea! Thanks!

Please welcome my first sweet grandbaby to the world! Sweet boy was born last night at 7:35 pm, 6 lbs, 8 oz of healthy baby! Momma is doing great, though it was a very rough, early delivery and she had preeclampsia. Thanks to all who prayed for her...please keep it up! She's a trooper, but she's got some healing to do! Not sure how to post a pic from my phone...would love to if someone can tell me how!!

Oh, and one more little note to help understand the impulsiveness...she became an aunt yesterday! The new baby drama was obviously a big deal around here...we were on the Internet all night seeing pics of DH, DSS, momma and baby out of state! She was thinking babies all night...I know she wanted to give me one. Not excusing her by any means, but that is her thought process as an adopted child.

Ok, got a crazy one for you! My DD13 just got on the Internet and made arrangements to buy a puppy from out of state (having to set up a email acct to do so...big no-no in this house!). Yes, we have security on the computer, but apparently nothing was flagged here since it was just an email conversation. (Yes, we will be tightening that up ASAP!). Anyway, said child pretended to be me during the conversation, then wrote a rather large check in my name to the woman and mailed it off. I intercepted the envelope (mommy intuition...) before the mailman came. After mailing it, DD told me that she had gotten the most awesome Christmas present for us ever! She asked me a bit later how I would feel if the present were alive (this kid cannot keep a secret to save her life!). I told her I would send it back because we wanted to pick out a puppy ourselves, not have her make the arrangements. We have been talking about a puppy for a while and she doesn't know that we already have one picked out...two weeks old and still with Momma! Home a few weeks before Christmas. We've been telling her for a while that we would get a puppy when the time was right, but have not told her about the plans because she has a BIG mouth and would tell her little brothers. No one needs to know until it is close to happening around here, just in case something goes wrong. (All my kids are special needs...puppy disappointment would be overwhelming...enough said!) So, said child thought she was doing a good thing but did it spectacularly badly. Bless her heart, she even got the breed and sex of the dog we wanted correct! She is normal intelligence but has a mild brain injury and obviously questionable judgement and impulsivity. WWYD with a child like this? :confused: So far, I have simply made it clear that she was not to seek out a puppy and left it at that. I have the confiscated envelope and contacted the woman to cancel the sale. I'm thinking about just waiting to see what else DD has to say about it, hoping that she will confess. Thoughts?

Thanks, everyone! :grouphug:

Bump

My grandson to be will be induced on Monday morning..a bit early at 37 weeks because his Mommy has preeclampsia. Please pray for health for Mommy and baby, peace for DSS (he's pretty nervous!) and safe travel for DH and other relatives as they travel cross country to get there in time!

:grouphug: That's terrible. I think it was great that you asked for prayers for a friend to whom they would truly mean a lot. You demonstrated the true meaning of the word tolerance, IMHO!

Oh, and after reading your last post...finding a neuropsych who will do the Q is not "doc shopping" for your favorite diagnosis! It is looking for the RIGHT neuropsych to get the most thorough eval possible so that you don't have to KEEP doc shopping! ;) I do have to add this...being able to walk around with a set of pages showing an objective, measurable difference in my kiddo's brains, complete with little color diagrams comparing them to normal brains, has had a dramatic effect on the willingness of others to "see" the problems...as well as to stop blaming me for them! So has that nifty little regular EEG piece of paper that DD got with her Q that shows an abnormal, regular old EEG...a clear pattern of damaged brain activity! :D

Personally, I'd hold off until I found someone who will do the QEEG. IMHO, both from my experience with my kids and my experience working in the mental health field, you are likely to get more opinions than facts from a neuropsych minis the Q than you would otherwise. The Q will give you measurable data on the brain to make a clear diagnosis...add this to the medical/psychological expertise of the NP and you have a potent combo. Without it, you are left with an evaluation of how closely your DS fits a set of subjective criteria that day...not as specific as what you are asking for. I've said it before...and maybe on one of your threads!...that my neuropsych is constantly telling people that psychology/psychiatry is the only medical profession in which people treat without evaluating the actual organ in question (the brain) and that to do so is akin to a shot in the dark. Just his (and now my) opinion, but take it for what it is worth and make your own decision! I know that affordability is often a barrier with the Q, so do what you can. :grouphug:

Our audiologist has us running through several of the HearBuilders programs with our CAPD twins before they look at FastForWord. They are cheaper, but still excellent. We haven't done our post testing yet, so I can't tell you what the results will be, but so far they seem to be improving. We are doing Orton Gillingham tutoring for reading, and one of my boys has an FM receiver for his left ear (very weak in processing on the left compared to the right...strangely, the other twin doesn't have that problem!). We have also done some OT work, as well as speech therapy. Speech therapy related to APD will resume after the first of the year.

Happy to! :grouphug: to you and your friend.

Got a young one on the way to a texting addiction here...no controls were enough to stop the problem until the phone just.went.away. Permanently, in our case...or at least for several years. Our texter is younger than yours, but honestly, I think that the phone going away is still the best solution available. Nothing is worth the risk of an addiction or accident. People lived with landlines for years and no one died as a result...and somehow, everything managed to still get done! ;)

When a massive panic attack in a brain injured child masquerades as defiance (think, "I'm terrified so I'm trying to scare everyone away!!), it most certainly does not! :glare: However, I agree...for the neurotypical, defiant child, it's a good book! It is SO hard to explain those pesky, invisible special needs to the uninitiated. It really hurts my heart to see her so misunderstood. It also blows my mind that after three years of absolutely NO disciplinary action (not even a warning slip), she can have a panic attack and it is all over. It's not like we didn't give them all available information on her special needs, over and over again. Don't think they believed us, since the panic attacks haven't manifested until now. The LDs did, but not the panic... I'm trying to forgive here, but it may take a while. I am hurt for her and for me.

Thanks for the hugs! So far, she's doing okay today.

You put into words what I have been trying to tell myself all weekend. Thanks! Hard to remember when faced with principal you believe means so well. I will keep telling myself this... :grouphug:

Hmmph. Ultimately her own fault, but still...hmmphh. Note to self: anyone who directly quotes from "The Strong-Willed Child" while discussing the behavior of your learning disabled child with a panic disorder and mild brain injury probably doesn't understand the situation. Great book, lots of truths therein...but must use different tactics to achieve a similar goal with a child with disabilities. That is all. Ah, well. Back to homeschooling four kids with competing disabilities for the near future. Warning to all...I may soon become very stressed out, gain tons of weight, get out of shape and become very grumpy once again. Hmmphh. Waiting for God to provide the light at the end of the tunnel here, since I know this is ultimately for her good and mine. Still, for the moment...hmmphh.

I used to be an extreme couponer...been known on many occasions to get up to 75-100 percent off on my grocery bills. Once, I did a HUGE run on a double coupon sale and got about $800 worth of groceries for about $200 in one trip...at midnight! That was a crazy trip. For us, it was a huge money saver and a really good education in how to save money at the grocery store. It was very important to us at the time because we had adopted four special needs kids in under four years and were broke and stressed out. Getting our baby soap for free, our diapers for almost nothing, etc. was a pretty big deal. I also got more than I could use, so I was able to donate a bag or two of groceries every week to the food bank. Very sweet deal. We had an extra freezer and fridge plus the entire closet under the stairs stacked up high with groceries. There was so much stuff that once I took pics...crazy organized...can't even remember those days now! Downsides were my time...once I started homeschooling that bunch of kids, there was NO way I was going to be able to continue. Once we started trying to eat a more natural diet, I also found that there were less and less items I could get with a coupon. Now that we have gone to an almost all locally raised diet...forget about it. It is true that you can get all sorts of junk food easily. You can get some of the healthy stuff too, but you get into buying clipped coupons and jumping through all sorts of hoops to get enough stuff that it isn't always worth it. If I were to do it today, I'd focus only on household supplies and use the savings there to buy all my locally raised produce and meats. I'd not give up the health benefits of those unless I absolutely had to do so. Those shows are nuts...not the reality of the couponers I knew, but sensationalized for TV. It can be an addiction, but most people that do it have half a clue! ;)

If you can pm me your approximate location, I may be able to offer a recommendation or two. My NF therapist is pretty well connected. IMHO, don't worry too much about the exact details of how treatment is provided. Choose instead someone who does QEEG based neurofeedback and has years of experience (or works directly under someone who does). Treatment modalities will vary depending on your child's specific needs. There are different "client interfaces" for neurofeedback...my twins did one that looked like PacMan and another that was a space ship of some sort, I did one that resembled an island receding into the distance...there are a lot of them. They are just a client interface...what you see as your brain interacts with the computer. What the therapist is doing behind the scenes in terms of setting the computer thresholds and placing the sensors is what is important. Other things like the LENS treatment, interactive metronome, etc., may be used depending on the individual's needs. The course of treatment should begin with a good measure of the brain and its function...the QEEG. Those who are not using it are often those with the least training and experience...your NF there would be much less targeted, more general in nature and more akin to traditional biofeedback than deep neurofeedback for the brain. It has its place, but not for most of our kids. Special needs kids really need a good QEEG to determine exactly what is going on inside the brain...we are not just trying to achieve peak performance here but rather repair something. Oh, and I second doing it in office with a neuropsychologist...at home programs are fine for peak performance but will not produce the deep results of in office NF. There may be some who recommend at home programs as a supplement or follow up, but if you can go for the real thing, you will see faster, longer lasting results. Your site is a good place to look for a provider. There are also good lists in the back of some of the best NF books...I have several that I'd be happy to check for you. If you have any other questions, pls pm me and I'll jump back in here. Having a tough week with DH traveling and I will be on sporadically this week.

Yeah! Praise God!