I think of myself as a fast reader, but I do hear the words, in my own voice, in my head. I don't ever see pictures or pictures of words, that is fascinating. OP, in your example, I would say those words out loud to spell them. It would be harder to do it in my head. Best wishes as you figure this out. We are in a somewhat similar situation in that I have a highly intelligent child with brain damage, so all sorts of interesting things come up as she learns.

You all are awesome! We've got The Ugly Duckling running with immersion reading, with the font blown up to about four lines per page. My daughter is totally engrossed. I'm doing an assistive technology happy dance!

OhE, do you know if the immersion reading works with the Kindle Fire HD, or just the HDX? We have an HD with a 7" screen already, but I haven't used it for books mostly because I have three young kids, and they are used to using it to watch videos, so getting my toddler to leave the big girl alone with the kindle to read something has just seemed not worth the hassle. But as I type that out, I realize that it is a rather lame excuse. My two younger kids and their screen issues (they would both zone out all day if I allowed it) aren't really related to my older's education.

Dmmetler (or anyone), do you know if large print is a standard term and a certain font size? I'm looking at a version of Little House on the Prairie that says large print, but I don't know if that means large for visual problems or not.

Thanks for all the links! I especially like that the graph paper says it can be size adjusted.

Thank you, JennW, that is a wonderful story to hear. One of the really nice things to come out of the eval was the validation I got from the specialists that my intuition was on and we had been doing some really good things already, which they credited with helping to keep my daughter's work ethic and motivation high in the face of frustration. Throughout this process I have been prepared to send her to public school if it becomes apparent that we really can't meet her needs at home, so it was a relief to have someone say,"actually, you're probably going to meet her needs better at home than a school will be able to". My daughter really likes to be home, and I hope we can continue this way. Prairiewindmomma, have you ever used an abacus with a visually impaired student? We have been using Right Start Math since kindergarten, which I think gets a lot of things right for this type of learner, but my daughter doesn't particularly like the abacus, and we don't do the card games because she is very resistant, and I assumed there are motor/visual problems getting cards coordinated. And as always, dmmetler, thank you for your words of wisdom and encouragement. I just ordered a few graph notebooks. We use the math journal in Right Start, which is graph paper, and I don't think my daughter could do math on paper without it. I never thought about using them to write, but that's a really great idea!

She did have an MRI, which showed periventricular leukomalacia, which is definitely associated with these types of visual problems, so at least everything is pretty consistent with itself (the neuropsych even said she was an excellent case study, because her areas of damage match up very well to her areas of difficulty). The only thing that is nagging me is that she has been followed by ophthalmology since four months old for an unrelated condition, and neither of the two doctors she saw for that even noticed anything else wrong, or if they did they did not share it with us. I know that visual field testing is hard to do in young children, so it may be that the doctors weren't even looking for anything like that (and this was before we knew about her brain injury, so there was no reason to be looking), but still, it seems weird. Heathermomster, I did the math, and she had a 70 point difference between the GAI and the PSI. I agree with you, technology is in our future! And lots of OT and cognitive skills training.

During the testing, the neuropsych mentioned NLD to me, but in the report the diagnosis is "Other Specified Neurodevelopmental Disorder consistent with cerebral palsy". Interesting to me is that a google search showed that the DSM code is that same as the one for Global Developmental Delay in children under 5, so I am guessing that sharing a code is relevant and this is the "over age 5" version. I didn't actually think she met the social criteria for NLD at this time, and they said that there wasn't any specific LD, just processing speed so slow as to impact everything, and visual impairment making things much harder (a visit to the neuro-ophthalmologist is our next appt). She did exceptionally well in auditory tasks, which didn't surprise me because that is how we have accommodated her learning at home for the past three years, so they recommended to use that as much as we can. I have been reading up on strategies used with blind and visually impaired students, and I am going to try to find the right professionals there as well. We really need that ophthalmologist visit, and I really need her to get a diagnosis to support her visual difficulties. I think she meets the criteria for cortical visual impairment, but I'm not sure because she actually has a lot of vision and appears to be fully sighted to the average observer, so we shall see. We did see a COVD optometrist and I expect that we will use her as a resource as well. Thank you all for the responses. I am checking the links and making notes! I feel somewhat sad, because that processing speed score was so very low, but at the same time optimistic that now we know where to target our time and effort.

We got our neuropsych evaluation results for my 7yo second grader, along with a long report with good recommendations, so I feel like it has been a very worthwhile process. We will be focusing on OT and vision in the short term, but my question for you wonderful folks: practically speaking, what does one expect from a child with a 97th percentile IQ and a processing speed lower than 1st percentile? She barely hung onto average test scores on the Woodcock Johnson, which I was thrilled with, and the eval team (neuropsych and grad student) were very supportive of homeschooling given how hard it would be for a school to accommodate that cognitive profile, but I can't decide how optimistic to be about the future. For example, even with remediation, is it likely that she will be able to hold down a job in the future? She has cerebral palsy with very mild motor involvement, which has probably given us a false sense of security about her level of impairment. It is turning out to be a much more complex picture.

Rather than one big conversation, my daughter and I have had a series of small conversations about her cerebral palsy and its associated diagnoses and what that means for her. I want her to know that I am not hiding anything from her, and I think it helps her to know why some things are harder for her, and why she gets so worn out, and why she goes to OT, etc. She just did a neuropsych eval, and we get the results tomorrow. I plan to share what is appropriate with her. She wants to know, and I think she is more worried about the unknown than the known.

Due to my adventerous, climbing, want to be a chef four year old, we are already down to the bare minimum on the countertops. I have the blender and the knives locked up. I do like the clutter free countertops, but I will probably put a few things back once he is responsible enough to use them.

No. Two of three children almost never sleeping through the night. Possibly if I got consistent sleep for about three years I might then consider it.

Have you tried the melatonin? If you do and it doesn't help, then at least you can call back with that info. Melatonin has helped my daughter with neurologically caused insomnia (not the same as your situation, I know), although I have also seen it sometimes cause her very early wakings and/or daytime grogginess.

I hope it is going well.

That is funny! Thanks for the laugh. I had a kid read "Baby Jesus was lying in a manager" the other day.

I have not had time yet to read all the replies, but surely I can't be the only one who has said, "you need to eat those pop tarts, because I'm not making eggs!" This thread makes me feel much better.

I will absolutely agree with you. It can be so depressing to have to write it all down.

My husband and I have been on a gin and tonic kick.

Congratulations!

My DD with a brain injury is doing a neuropsychological evaluation now, and the doctor has said that her right side damage is causing problems that may get her a nonverbal learning disorder diagnosis, which from my reading seems to have Asperger-like symptoms. Do you happen to know where his damage is? This is apparently something that happens on the right side.

My child with mild CP is 7.5 and mostly dry with a daily bowel management program and timed voiding. She does have a neurogenic bladder and bowel, meaning that the brain is not getting the signals very well (I would guess Ravin's foster sister upthread had the same problem). OP, I wish you good luck and I hope your daughter has normal bladder function. I think it is pretty hit and miss with CP. My daughter's bathroom problems have caused us so much more grief than anything else so far, and that was what led to getting her diagnosis, because her orthopedic impairments are so mild that they got missed in toddlerhood.

Kbutton, that is very helpful! We are still really working on automaticity when forming letters. I am hoping to get in some stealth practice for her when my son starts kindergarten work soon. They can do big letters together.

I don't think so. It is damage to her occipital lobe that may be causing blind spots. She saw a COVD doc last year who said she had "visual delays" and recommended VT for saccadic movements, which we have held off on doing mostly because of cost, and because DD improved her reading a lot on her own, although she still does things like skip lines and small words and lose her place, and she very rarely reads for pleasure outside of our short reading school time. Vision is definitely the #1 priority at the moment, though, so it may be worth a revisit. Things I thought were motor problems, like trouble going down the stairs, are probably depth perception problems instead.

Thank you for the hugs, and the recommendations! I don't know the situation at the school. My guess is that there is some arrangement with the state deafblind school about an hour away, maybe a traveling teacher. If the neuropsych strongly thinks she needs the ps vision services, then my plan is to go through the ps special ed evaluation and see what services they offer. I'm also trying to scope out the world of hsing with blindness/vision impairment to see if it is doable. She is really bright, possibly 2e, and I can almost guarantee that the school will focus on the deficits and ignore the strengths. My interactions with the school district have given me the impression that they are only focused on getting kids up to grade level.

We are in the middle of a neuropsych eval for DD7, and it is looking likely that a lot of her trouble with handwriting is not motor based, as I had thought, but a brain based visual impairment that is possibly causing visual field loss, which is why she has such a hard time with copywork. She has mild cerebral palsy and I think likely has other processing issues as well, which is the reason for the NP eval. So with that in mind, does anyone have any curriculum suggestions that do not involve copywork? We are using a Sonlight Core and the LA reading schedule, but not the LA curriculum, FLL2 without the copywork, and AAS1 just using the tiles or spelling orally. For writing, she is handwriting a story she is very excited about (it is really a narration from a tv show), but I am using her motivation to get some practice in handwriting. She does about 1-2 sentences a day, and I help with spelling and punctuation if she asks for help, but she needs to do all the writing. Is it possible that perhaps this is enough for the moment? I was planning to use WWE as well, but afaik it is half copywork, and copying the narrations, and just probably not a good fit. I did see the Bravewriter lady at a conference last year, but I have not tried it. Off to go research that... I honestly have been completely overwhelmed about the visual field thing, to the point of wondering if she should go to PS next year, because if she needs a teacher of the visually impaired I don't know if that's even something we can do privately (we do have a good private OT). Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated. She is otherwise thriving at home, I think.