Do you mean services in the school? I assume that before he is an adult he'd need an official IQ test done by a doctor if it looks like he's going to need more support as an adult? I can't imagine that the school's IQ test means a whole lot? Thanks!

Thank you all so, so much for your responses! They were so hopeful and encouraging. Sorry for my orig post and if by stating my son's IQ score was 'so low' I at all offended anyone. I was literally typing through tears and in a very self-centered mindset. I know when I chose to leave the 'system' when my son was 6, I also chose to deny that there was anything truly wrong. He struggled so much with learning certain concepts, but I still felt hesitant to even say he had a LD. Kinsa, I agree with you a lot about middle or highschool being particularly good for SN kids. I was starting to feel increasingly insecure about how to go about preparing my son for adulthood. I knew I needed help. I guess it might be a blessing in disguise that he started to become so oppositional to doing 'school work' with me, because that's why I finally threw in the towel and decided he NEEDED to be taught by people other than myself. He has been going to a tutor for the past 2.5 years and he takes piano, and he has always been MUCH more cooperative with them than with me. He is starting with a very laid-back schedule to get him into the groove. Art, Adaptive PE, Foods, 2 study hall periods (one where he will also do another cooking class with the OT once a week and then also be doing a 'job' of helping with chair stacking and table wiping of the cafeteria after lunch. He will also take a careers (I think it's mainly general life skills), Math and LA with the special ed teacher. He will get OT, ST and likely PT, as well. The OT was telling me about a summer school program she runs where they do a lot of stuff out in the community and also do cooking, etc. The three therapists I've met were all very, very nice and seemed to really like my son, which was nice :)

I have been homeschooling my son. He was diagnosed with hydrocephalus at 7 months of age after tremendous head grown (way off chart) which baffled the doctors because his scans looked 'normal'. Yet the untreated pressure first made his eyes go crossed, and when he was finally shunted (by that time he was 'shocking' to look at with his huge head and forehead!), the doctor said there was 'a surprising amount of pressure' when he put the shunt in. When I look back at pictures, I feel like he should have been diagnosed sooner, but I guess there is no point in dwelling on that. He talked late, always seemed 'immature' for his age, 'oblivious' to his surroundings, but very sweet, fun little boy. I always was glad I had him instead of one of the 'usual' little boys and honestly felt he was 'better' - he wasn't 'rough and tumble' or loud. He was sweet. He loved to talk to adults over other kids (still does). Anyway, after 2 years of preschool, him being with various therapists through birth-3, etc., I decided to home school him. Probably a mistake. I don't know. Things went OK but he's always been a bit 'lazy' and doesn't like to do things that are hard for him. I think I probably did a below-average job at homeschooling him, partly due to my own disorganization and also due to my homeschool social group consisting of the more 'unschool' types, always telling me, "He'll do it when he's ready." I always felt my son was FINE ... UNTIL I had him around other kids. Then it would stick out how different he was. I hate that feeling! At home, yes, my son does drive me 'crazy' at times with his stubbornness, sometimes lack of motivation and preoccupations (often with things that seem like minutia but he won't stop obsessing about them). I feel like I was in denial for a long time about his differences, still thinking he was just 'special' or even 'better' than other kids. Sigh.... Anyway, he is starting school Monday. He will be in special ed and I think it's for the best due to him being increasingly more and more opposed to doing work for me, but with OTHER people he's MUCH more cooperative and hard working. But ... when they did their testing to qualify him for special ed, he did SO terrible on the IQ test. SO terrible on the tests the OT did with him (Beery VMI-Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration - under 1% for all 3 parts. I feel SO guilty. I don't know how much these things can be caused BY being a 'crappy' homeschooler. Also I'm worried about what he will "do" for his life. I don't see how the IQ could be AS bad as he said. He can read, he is bad at math but he can memorize things OK. Except for seeming very 'naive' and immature, he doesn't seem terribly mentally-challenged. How can it be THIS bad? His IQ score was 59! He got a GAI score of 84 at his neuropsych test 3 years ago - seems more reasonable. I know it's just a test and I know my post here isn't making sense. I just feel SO down right now. I look back on how I thought my son was 'better' or 'special' and now realizing those characteristics were because he was basically brain damaged and I think, "How could you be HAPPY about that?" If this is a pity party, I am sorry. Just had to get it out somewhere.

No, he has never done online classes formally (we use online sources like Kahn but nothing where he's gotten credits and the time we did Time for Writing, the feedback from the teacher was very minimal.) I like the idea of dual enrollment and I'm going to ask about it. He goes to a tutor and I just spoke with her and she doesn't think all-day, at least at first, would be good for him. He takes piano and has done swimming lessons but nothing competitive. He has 'low tone' and is just not athletic at all. I'm not sure how the $$ issue works with dual enrollment? If he took a few classes online and then was in special ed services and a few classes at school, do they have to share the $$? Because, you know, it's all about the $$$ ... (well, maybe not, I don't know.) I'm not anti-school. I used to be moreso but my daughter is 6 and in school and I'm very happy with this district, at least for her.

My son is 15 and we're increasingly having difficulties with motivation and his social skills are poor. He also has a 'poor work ethic' or maybe it's just bad parenting, but we have a hard time getting him to do anything he doesn't want to do (help stack wood one day, for example). I am exploring the idea of school. He is technically 'way behind' for his age (would put him in as a new freshman, even though he's behind timewise), but with the NVLD, I don't want to compare him to where he 'should' be anyway. I get the talk from the school that there are other kids with challenges and that they won't put him into situations he can't handle. They said they have 'developmental PE' (I was thinking of requesting NO PE because he has such a hard time with any kind of team sports) but maybe if the PE doesn't have that kind of stuff in it, that'd be OK. Basically I'm just trying this because what we're currently doing isn't working. Also, with his intellectual ability, I don't think college is really going to be an option (never say never, of course!) and I'm not sure about technical school - hopefully! But the GED is WAY too hard for him, I think, so I'd prefer for him to be able to have a HS diploma. I'm just so confused and right now I'm on the verge of tears at the thought of my son, a fish out of water, trying to figure out all the school stuff. It's a large school, so I think he will 'blend in' more than a small school. If there is any bullying, at a word from him, I will pull him OUT. I was thinking virtual online school with a LOT of help from me just to get that piece of paper (diploma) would be plan B. I don't know ... I'm so conflicted and scared and just looking for advice.

In a perfect world, I would want to stop homeschooling my son next year and send him to high school (he's 14 but I consider him a year behind his grade level, so currently in 8th). I feel because of his special needs, I'd love to send him to a private school specializing in NLD/Aspergers and I've googled and found very few (and many of the ones I did find are boarding schools, which is out of the question). I did find one in Scottsdale, AZ called Gateway Academy but subsequently read some pretty concerning reviews and the tuition is extremely high for all of these schools, so if our whole family is going to sacrifice *greatly* to do this, I want it to be worth it. Anyway, just curious if anyone else has looked into this? What schools have you found? ** I hope it's OK to ask on homeschooling board ... I do know that a lot of homeschoolers end up sending their kids to high school - our local group is shrinking due to this. Sending my son to the local public HS with his issues would likely be a bad experience for him and I'm not sure it's a risk I'd want to take.

For +/- we used Touchmath and didn't need to memorize. For multiplication we did a mixture of skip counting (for 5's) and tricks (for 2's - double and 4's double/double and the nines trick) and songs (schoolhouse rock Three is a Magic Number and their Figure 8 song) and threw in some rhymes, etc to help with the leftovers. Like this: http://club166.blogspot.com/2009/07/skate-x-skate.html For division I just used multiplication in reverse once he had his times tables really down, but we haven't gotten to harder division yet where he'll have to estimate first.

Does he do the wrong operation a lot (accidentally)? Like my son will be doing an addition problem and then half way through will subtract or even multiply. Or during a multiplication problem when he's adding up lines he'll forget what he's doing and start multiplying .... Drives me crazy. I think his problem often is just focus ... He's usually thinking about what he wants to do when he's done. We used a lot of tricks for the multiplication tables ... Pneumonic devices and things like that. He still does the double-double for the 4's, which I was just thinking today that I should make some flash cards for those and see if we can break that habit ... Then again, it only slows him down a bit. We just started our second disk (of 4) today in TT Math 5 today. We're doing 2 lessons most days since it's pretty easy so far. It's not totally hands off for me - I watch him do it and help a bit here and there with extra explanations, but I'm so glad we got it!

Finn, your story is kind of my fears about school for DS exactly :(. I'm sorry he had such a bad experience. I have been asking around (locally) and one mom I was talking to is really pro school now (previously homeschooled her kids). I feel her trying to convince me that my son could thrive in school because her kids do, and I just want to say, "But your kids both were far more competent socially in our homeschool group.". It's like apples and oranges! I can't even imagine him finding his way to classes or dealing with all that stimuli! Not to mention bullying. I really want nothing to do with school for him - I do hope that he will go to college or tech school or whatever ... I plan to start taking some classes with him soon (non-credit community college) and try to help ease him into that environment. I have also heard stories about kids around here not getting what they need in school and their parents homeschooling (I'm talking locally), so yeah, I can't imagine them doing much for me. I've pretty much moved on from this idea since starting this thread :)

Not an expert on math curriculum or NVLD or ADHD, as it's still new to me, but my son (his recent diagnosis was NVLD and in parentheses it said he meets diagnostic criteria for ADHD in attentive type) did MUS for 2-3 years and I don't believe he got much out of it. Not saying you shouldn't still try for some conceptual 'understanding' in math, but our doctor said rote memorization and verbally explaining how to do things was the way to go. Just throwing that out there just to say I wouldn't spend 'too' much time on manipulatives if you don't see it's helping.

We recently switched to TT and DS really likes it so far! :) There are some thing about it that bug me a bit (for example, right now they keep giving these certain problems that don't vary enough and I think DS is just memorizing the 'formula' for the problem but not actually thinking through the problem, but they keep giving the SAME problem over and over (if you want a better example, I'd be happy to give it).

YES! I was kind of annoyed by this, because I gave her a whole sheet (extra in addition to the questionnaire) just because I don't trust my memory and when DS did some of his 'things', I wanted to tell her about them, knowing that some of them were just little things that probably don't 'mean' anything - and the report had the ENTIRE list in it. Kind of embarrassing, actually! And to think I almost put in there that he's NEVER picked his nose (I thought this might go to executive function or something, lol) ... yeah, very thankful I didn't mention that, or that'd be right there in the report, "Mom is concerned because he has never picked his nose." :001_huh:

We got our report last weekend. We had the same recommendations - special ed at the school for math, OT, ST, and some other things. It didn't really tell me anything to 'do' more than I already knew, but having a diagnosis has been enlightening to me ... not $4500 worth, though. Ouch! Can I ask what issues are most disruptive/worrisome to you with your son that you are seeking the most direction with?

For my state it just says, "There are no additional requirements for homeschool students with special needs. In addition, there is no policy which allows homeschool students to obtain special education funding." Seems kind of generic, and I'm not sure what it means. I'm looking into getting the answer, though. I'm also looking at tutors. I think I'd rather go that route, anyway.

This was recommended by the neuropsych (for Math). I have to admit, I'm skeptical that it would be helpful. A one-on-one tutor? Sure! But I'm guessing that the school won't have resources for that. I'm not even sure if the schools will provide anything ... have to look into it. We were 'kicked out' of ST when we started homeschooling, but maybe it's changed by now. If you looked into it, what was offered to your child as a homeschooler as far as special ed? I was looking at just doing OT at a clinic ... I believe insurance would cover it anyway. She recommended so many things, we couldn't possibly do them all. I'm trying to pick out the one(s) that seem like they would help the most. Thanks!

I don't have any links to recommend but I just wanted to comment that I *so* know how you feel when it comes to relief! We recently got a diagnosis for my son (NVLD) and even though I sort of self-diagnosed him in the weeks leading up to the evaluation, hearing it from the doctor as well as reading more about it and seeing how it all fits into place, not only does it make me feel less 'guilty' that somehow all his problems are my fault, it also helps me understand him! Just this weekend when we were at a movie theater and he was doing his thing - which is acting pretty 'lost' in a new place and 'unobservant' ... in the past I used to fear that he was like this because I homeschooled him or some other thing I did! Also due to this, I think I was less than patient with him. I feel a LOT more patience and empathy for him now that I know at least sort of what he's going through and how hard certain things are for him. I also feel that now that I know, it will be easier for me to help him.

If she's still using her manipulatives for add/sub, though, I would consider touchmath. If not (your OP was back in Nov I see), then probably not. You can see videos about it on youtube. They don't have much of a 'curriculum', though, so all I would recommend is learning the touchpoints and getting some of their printable add/sub worksheets and just using the concept as a supplement to whatever other curriculum you use. Again, you said you're past this so just ignore me ... I am just responding again just in case she *is* still using manipulatives ... then keep it in mind :) With my son I tried to teach him to be able to 'understand' and 'conceptualize' math, but he just cannot do it. He NEEDS to count (or memorize). I remember with MUS he would talk about how bad 'counting' was. That's great for the kid who can 'get' it, but did not work with my son. When he was completely LOST trying to play a game that required add/sub because he didn't have his blocks with him and he was 9 1/2 years old, I knew I had to do something different. :(

Have you tried touch math? It was the thing for my son! You just memorize where the touch points are on 1-9 and then you have build-in manipulatives for life! We previously used MUS and it was a failure.

I asked about it and she didn't think it helped at all. She was thorough and professional in every other way and, IMO, was spot on with her diagnosis if my son. However, I realize it is her opinion. Just sharing my experience and look forward to hearing what others' neuropsychologists said. I would definitely ask about it!

Thanks :) The colored overlays sound/look interesting. I have tried and tried to get him to use a straight edge of some sort to keep under the line he's reading and he's VERY stubborn about it. His Kindle seems to help, though, with the font bigger (though I had to raise it just a *bit* without him knowing - he asked if I changed it and I told a white lie! - he's SO stubborn when it comes to certain things that he decides have to be done his way)

I agreed with everything she said but also now I'm starting to feel like a bad mom that I didn't do this sooner (my son is almost 13). He did therapies for his first 6 years and I was so 'unimpressed' by the entire process and was just sick of being in the 'system' and wanted to homeschool and let him develop on his own timeline, blah blah. Anyway, she said he has NVLD ... I'm not sure what other labels will be in the report. He has inattention but she said most likely due to NVLD, not a separate ADHD issue. Last night I was googling and seeing that besides ADHD, NVLD is listed as a common LD associated with hydrocephalus (which he has) so wow, that's why I feel like such a terrible parent that I didn't even KNOW that. And when I read about NVLD, it describes him perfectly! I ordered 2 books on Amazon, NLD From the Inside Out: Talking to Parents, Teachers, and Teens about Growing Up with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Michael Brian Murphy, Gail R. Shapiro and Raising NLD Superstars: What Families with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Need to Know about Nurturing Confident, Competent Kids Marcia Brown Rubinstien If anyone has other reading recommendations, please share. She recommended OT, ST and taking him to school for special ed help (math). If he could get 1:1 tutoring, that'd be great, but I'm guessing the school doesn't have those kinds of resources. I'm not crazy about the idea of taking him to school for anything. Has anyone else tried that and what were you able to get? She was telling me things like, 'Teach functional math, use digital clocks, keyboarding skills," etc. to help him to function in the world. I liked that she was that way and not, "You need to PUSH him so he can OVERCOME this and get an A in math!" At the same time, I'm not going to just stop trying to get him to master the analog clock - he's pretty close right now, so why stop? She said he would be able to drive when he's older, but just on a delayed timeline (which I already figured before any diagnosis). She said his reading was good, which actually surprised me! I knew he could read lists of words well but he has trouble with reading on a page (reads 'sloppy' like he's skimming, skipping words and sometimes whole lines). I know you all are going to recommend VT. She was not a believer in it. I will keep doing research on that to figure it out for myself. Right now he's just started doing "Sound Reading Solutions - Remedy" and after she said his reading was good I kind of feel like doing all those phenomic awareness exercises aren't what he needs ... but still part of me thinks it could help him so I'm not sure whether we should keep doing the program or stop (not like DS LOVES doing it). So that's that. I feel like this helped confirm to me where his difficulties lie, helped show me that he needs verbal instructions and not visual as much, and the books will help even more to understand him. So that's all good. I'll try not to dwell on the fact that I didn't figure it all out sooner, but it's also not like I was in total denial - I knew he was 'different' and I knew he had hydro and that that could cause LD, so I guess I was at least 1/2 way there. Not sure what to do about ST or OT. Maybe will check into OT once I get the report. Maybe things they would do with him now would be more helpful, not like the EI stuff.

My son uses touch math for addition/subtraction. We used MUS for 2-3 yrs and it was not working for him.

I didn't speak with the tester much at all. Just smiles between sessions as she came out to get him again. The person who I spoke with was the doctor. She seemed nice is all I can say. He's always been very friendly with adults, so yeah, I am a bit worried that she will just see the side of him that is pretty comfortable with one-on-one with an adult. When we go to our homeschool group if there is an adult that seems 'available' to him (is chatty with him), he'd prefer to just sit and try to talk to them the entire time instead of trying to play with the other kids. I don't know .... argh! My brain is fried! I seriously feel like I'm not even sure if I'm in denial about my son's issues or if I'm all the way on the other end of the spectrum and making more out of nothing ... I'm so ready to have someone ELSE tell me what THEY think, you know?

We had the testing yesterday. What a LONG day (especially the waiting around part, lol!) I was hoping to get some idea of what they were thinking, but we just met with the doctor, I gave her the forms, and she asked me questions, then he went right into the room with the tester and he did 4 sessions that were 60-85 minutes each - 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. We were done by about 3:45 (we arrived at 8 a.m.). Monday I go back to talk about the results. Hopefully they will at the very least give me some ideas on what kinds of things would work best for him for learning. If they give me no diagnosis for his social problems, I'm just going to admit, I will be disappointed and feel a little lost. I get so stressed watching him struggle in social situations and I *know* that a lot of the reason is I blame myself, even though I really know when I think about it he's always been 'him' and I didn't cause it, so just having a 'reason' will I know help my internal struggle. If they say, "Nope, he's totally normal" ... I think it will ADD to my stress.

I have the Expression ... Love it! I got mine from overstock.com. Glad I got the Hello Kitty cartridge before the prices went nuts! (one on eBay sold for $175 recently!) It's really a cool machine! Re the mats - I buy the 12x24 ones and cut in half ... Cheaper that way :). Also I reglue mine to get a little extra life but I don't get to involved (like some of theyoutube videos). I just coat mine with a wide Zig pen and let dry.