Teri H.; Oregon
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Posts posted by Teri H.; Oregon
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It has been awhile since I posted on the sale and swap board, and I can't figure this new one out. Can someone help me figure out how to post an advertisement for curriculum??? When I try to write up an ad it just says it saved it, but never posts it. Yes, I am techno challenged.
Teri
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I just posted for sale ads for level 4 and level 5 of the Barton Reading and Spelling System on the classified board.
Teri
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Been on this forum for the last 16 years and it still doesn't recognize me when they update the system. :-O
Teri
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16yo 11th grade
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Do you happen to know which software program it was?
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Thanks, geodob. This is similar to what our audiologist talked about doing. She also suggested having him listen to audiobooks with earplugs but only using one side. I don't remember the procedure right now, but it was along the same line.
We did end up going to the hearing aid specialist. Saw a big difference. It was really interesting, because after we were done we were all talking and trying to find out from DS if he noticed a difference. At first he said "A lot" (Which is what we saw. His response time to simple questions was much faster.) Then he changed it and said maybe moderately, then he said "Well, maybe only 25%." We were pondering that and then out of the blue he says "You know, one thing I noticed was that I didn't have to think so hard to figure out what you guys were saying. It wasn't as exhausting!" BINGO.....I think we are going to go with the hearing aids.
It is like we have this list and we keep working through it to address each individual need. Next I think I will see about finding an OT with the SIPT certification like you were talking about, OhElizabeth.
We took him off of processed breakfast cereal, which he ate every morning. HUGE difference after a few days. Started upping his protein in the A.M. and he has been much more energetic. Looking for some high protein breakfast type recipes or ideas. He came to me and said he felt so much better.
Just going to keep chipping away at it all. :)
Teri, I've been doing a study into a method to address this difficulty with background noise.
Which perhaps you might like to try with your son?
It is based on the ability to hear the direction that a sound is coming from.
Where I have found that people who have a difficulty with background noise, are often unable to locate the direction of a sound.
Though this ability to locate sounds, can also be used to focus hearing, and separate it from background and competing sound.
So that in this study, I have found that with practicing locating sounds, that the ability can be improved.
This involved a simple daily exercise, where the person sits on a chair in the centre of a room. With their eyes closed.
Then the other person moves to different points around them, speaking or making a sound.
Where the seated person tries to point in the direction of sound. (keeping their eyes closed)
To start with, they had no idea where the sound was coming from?
But in most cases, their ability to accurately locate a sound, developed quite quickly.
Though the second part, involves the graduated introduction of competing sound, such as a radio or TV at low volume.
Where they practice keeping their hearing focused and ignoring the competing sound.
Then another part, involves sitting between a TV and a radio, and then switching the focus of hearing back and forth from one to the other.
With this study so far, it has shown that doing these exercises can help gain the ability to focus hearing when their are competing sounds/noise.
I would also note that the effects of CAPD are often confused with ADD. So that this is worth giving consideration?
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I'm sorry. I don't know how to link to previous conversations but hopefully this link to my original post will point you all in the right direction for context; http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/503802-new-to=boardintro-and-questions-about-adhd-and-language-disabilities/
I wanted to thank those of you that gave me input in this area I am so deficient. My first two boys practically taught themselves to read and spell. Because of that, for years, I chalked the differences I was seeing with the next two boys as just that; differences in children. Though we saw many Drs., none raised any red flags. After recently having my son tested by an educational psychologist, we were puzzled with the test scores that we saw. There were more questions than answers. After talking with this board, and a lot of researching, we stumbled on very interesting family dynamics. We began our search to address the needs of my 14yo son, and through it found out our 17yo is Dyslexic, as well as my husband. It has been an eye opening 5 months around here.
In a nutshell, we have found out that 14yo ds has CAPD as well as his ADD and written Lang difficulties. In fact he can't hear people at all when there is any background noise around. It explains so many things we have seen and wondered about. We were given the suggestion of trying a hearing aid, by his audiologist, that can help eliminate a lot of background noise so he can hear conversations close to him. There is an 80% chance it will work. We will be fitting him with a demo H. aid next week and trying one out.
We still need to deal with his very slow processing speed, his ADD/distractibility, and writing issues. I'm not sure where to go from here to meet his needs, so am stumbling around a bit with all the information that is out there. It is a bit overwhelming. I started a couple of things but am not sure how effective those will be. I've read about the metronome therapy and called a couple of Drs. about Interactive metronome. Their input has not been encouraging as they were unimpressed with the results they saw and discontinued using it. Any feedback from moms regarding that would be helpful. I have started him on some Dianne Craft Exercises so will see how that goes. The audiologist is a specialist in diagnosing CAPD but not treating it. So, she really didn't have many suggestions. I have seen an SLP mentioned on the boards. I am assuming that is a Speech/Lang, specialist of some sort? I wonder if that should be our next step and if they would give us the best direction on dealing with his learning differences. What do you all think?
I'm grateful for the input you have given me. It certainly put us in the right direction and I'm not sure I would have stumbled on that info myself. So thanks.
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A Naturopathic Dr. recommended 1 TBSP ground flax seed in a liquid daily to me many years ago. It works wonders without bloating and gassiness. Don't know if that would work for your son, but I know it does around here.
Three people in our house are GF intolerant and I suspect one of them is Celiac, but hasn't been tested for it. The Celiac can't have virtually ANY gluten, Quinoa, Kamut or any alternate grains just rice flours.
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Other thoughts:
Do you also sense a comprehension issue, or does his comprehension seem good to you -- for reading silently, reading aloud, spoken information, and audio-visual information like movies?
If so, you might start working on comprehension/fluency. My ds ended up in tears over IEW, but I think it could be helpful on the side of reading passages for fluency and comprehension. My son did do good writing with it, but it literally bored him and frustrated him to tears. So Brave Writer which allowed for more creativity and interest was better for him.
Critical Thinking Co has programs called Math Detective which have computer and workbook versions. They work some math and reading comprehension/logic at the same time. Their Balance Math and Balance Benders might also be of interest to your son since they are very visual forms of math related processing.
Was the blocks test timed? If not, part of what is going on may have to do with what he can do when timed versus not timed.
Block test was timed and he finished before the time was done. Comprehension seems to be a bit challenged.
I referenced the link that Geodob gave and that was tremendous help. I need to take some time to digest all this. I think we are going to have a 2nd opinion done and see what we get from that. I can let you all know what we find out.
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The PSI test of Symbol Search was interesting, as this test involves the tester giving names for geometric shapes, which the testee has to point at.
Where given his strong Perceptual Reasoning scores, it would be expected that their would be strong recognition different geometric shapes?
But what this actually tests, is the 'sound/symbol' connection.
So that the 37% score, shows some delay or difficulty with association.
With the Coding test, it has a row of the numbers 1 to 5, with different symbols under each one.
Then another section has rows with the numbers 1 to 5 in random order.
The test involves drawing the relevant symbol, under each number.
(where of course, fine motor difficulties make drawing the symbols a problem.)
But what needs to be considered with this test, is how a difficulty with sound/ symbol association would effect this test?
As we read the number, and then look up for the symbol associated with it.
Though a supplement to the PSI test, is the Cancellation test.
Which has a page with randomly arranged: numbers, letters and pictures.
So that the tester names them randomly, and the testee has to point at what was named.
Where this is a basic test of sound/ symbol association.
Low scores with this, can then be followed with the RAN Rapid Automatic Naming test.
Which is actually opposite, as it tests symbol to sound, with naming.
But importantly, recent research has shown that delays sound/ symbol and symbol/sound association.
Can be addressed with exercises that simply involve: 'name and point', and 'point and name'.
Where practicing it directly, develops and an increasingly fluent sound/ symbol/ sound association.
Though here's a link to a page that describes each of the tests:
This site is fabulous, Geodob!!! Thanks!!!!
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It is interesting. On the coding, I remember her saying that a lot of kids would reference the codes they had already placed down by the numbers in order to find other ones. They would work faster because of that. She was saying DS kept looking up at the top and never referenced the ones he had already done which in turn made it that much longer for him to complete the coding.
I'll take a look at the link and see if I can recall other things she might have said during our conversation regarding the different tests.
Thanks!!
Another thing is when I was asking him about some of the tests, ds referenced the digit orders. He said he found it easier to remember and say them backwards than forwards.
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The PSI test of Symbol Search was interesting, as this test involves the tester giving names for geometric shapes, which the testee has to point at.
Where given his strong Perceptual Reasoning scores, it would be expected that their would be strong recognition different geometric shapes?
But what this actually tests, is the 'sound/symbol' connection.
So that the 37% score, shows some delay or difficulty with association.
With the Coding test, it has a row of the numbers 1 to 5, with different symbols under each one.
Then another section has rows with the numbers 1 to 5 in random order.
The test involves drawing the relevant symbol, under each number.
(where of course, fine motor difficulties make drawing the symbols a problem.)
But what needs to be considered with this test, is how a difficulty with sound/ symbol association would effect this test?
As we read the number, and then look up for the symbol associated with it.
Though a supplement to the PSI test, is the Cancellation test.
Which has a page with randomly arranged: numbers, letters and pictures.
So that the tester names them randomly, and the testee has to point at what was named.
Where this is a basic test of sound/ symbol association.
Low scores with this, can then be followed with the RAN Rapid Automatic Naming test.
Which is actually opposite, as it tests symbol to sound, with naming.
But importantly, recent research has shown that delays sound/ symbol and symbol/sound association.
Can be addressed with exercises that simply involve: 'name and point', and 'point and name'.
Where practicing it directly, develops and an increasingly fluent sound/ symbol/ sound association.
Though here's a link to a page that describes each of the tests:
It is interesting. On the coding, I remember her saying that a lot of kids would reference the codes they had already placed down by the numbers in order to find other ones. They would work faster because of that. She was saying DS kept looking up at the top and never referenced the ones he had already done which in turn made it that much longer for him to complete the coding.
I'll take a look at the link and see if I can recall other things she might have said during our conversation regarding the different tests.
Thanks!!
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I'm with wapiti that I'm surprised your tester had never seen perceptual scores like that. You might consider taking your results to another psych for a 2nd opinion. Happens all the time. Our psych offered to read the tea leaves on testing our SLP does with ds. A 2nd opinion is always good, and you wouldn't be the first to get an adhd label and have missed something big.
The pat answer I've heard (not a guru of the numbers though) is that a spread with a verbal score much lower than perceptual is your BIG RED FLAG to go look for an auditory processing disorder.
It was the block building she was referencing....:)
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I just want all of you to know how much I appreciate you trying to help me wade through all of this. I feel like I am learning a foreign language.........
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I'm not a psych, but like the others I'm surprised you didn't get a GAI. Has she given you the written report yet? Sometimes they meet with you and then mail the written report a couple weeks later. That may give you more to work with. If you already have that you might list here what the tests and scores were and see if anyone who's good with interpreting them (not me) can help you.
****I received the written report and she also sat down with us. At the time she sat down with us, we had not seen the report and she gave us an overall summary. As far as questions we had, we didn't know what to ask at that point. The summaries on the report are really just regurgitated information from the results so are not that helpful.****
Is there anything he's especially good at or likes to do? If he has something like that, I'd probably harness that for his writing, grammar, etc. and hang the curricula entirely. The classical composition programs are all boring as sin, sorry. Somehow people have taken WTM/SWB's comment that we shouldn't *force* kids to be creative to mean we needn't BOTHER. I think this totally misses the boat with these kids. If you give them something in context, something they're interested in or have a use for, sometimes they come alive. Does he type? Does he have an email account? My dd struggled with QWERTY for years and years, so I finally put her over to Dvorak. I had this terrible moment, around when she was 12, where I realized she might not end up comfortable with handwriting OR typing, and then where would she be? Ack! I switched her to Dvorak, gave her an email account and user account on the computer, and locked it so it ONLY worked in Dvorak, hehe. Then I paid her. She went from pecking around 8 wpm to typing properly at 40+ wpm in about 3 months, hallelujah.
****Are there tutorials for the Dvorak keyboard or was it just something your daughter just explored on her own?*******
So that's one thing to ponder, how he's going to get out his writing. The next thing then is WHAT he's going to write. I think WTM has something write when it puts forward the idea that you should be comfortable writing before you try to make it more complex by thinking and writing. So you can break up the elements of the task and just focus on helping him get comfortable with getting SOMETHING out, anything. That, after all, is the point of those narrations WTM recommends all those years. I did prompt writing with my dd one year, because it worked toward our goal of getting her more comfortable getting something out. If neither handwriting nor typing is going well, maybe back up and do the thought to word portion of writing (oral narrations, discussions). It can be totally fun stuff, like watching a movie together and then TALKING about it. Talking is a form of composition.
*******Good thought.....*****
Btw, my ds has verbal apraxia, which involves motor control, word retrieval, etc. Ironically, when I got my dd eval'd, her word retrieval was also very poor, low in a way typical of dyslexics and kids with apraxia. You couple that with low processing speed and handwriting that isn't automatic, and writing gets really ugly! When WTM/SWB says work on thought to word, she's on the right track. It's just she doesn't see it from a therapy perspective like we do to realize that some kids actually are going to struggle with that MIGHTILY and need support. Some kids need evals for speech, because an SLP can work on language (word retrieval, etc.).
Btw, have you looked into CAPD as an explanation? Don't know why that slipped my mind till now. The gurus can tell you when/if you post your numbers, but I think a verbal score that's dramatically lower than perceptual is a red flag to look for an auditory processing disorder. Around here, the audiologists that do the full testing (with a closed booth, blah blah) want the psych eval (fresh, what you have) and an SLP eval. It's just one of those things to read about and consider whether it applies to your situation.
You know, this is total aside, which clearly I'm full of tonight, lol, but it's so odd to me how they pick one blanket label and slap it on, slap it on, and there's SO much variation. It seems like they don't even account for or explain the differences in processing speed we see, and why some kids would be 10th percentile and other kids 30+ and both be afflicted. Then you'll see kids also getting the blanket label who have much HIGHER processing speeds. There's never really an attempt, seems like, to explain why there are those differences in the kids.
Keep working through it. If you haven't got your scores yet, hopefully you will soon...
*******I posted the scores below***********
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Here are the WISC results for my son:
Verbal Comp. index = 100 (50%)
Subscale -
Similarities: 5%
Vocabulary: 84%
Comprehension 25%
Perceptual Reason. index = 119 (90%)
Subscale -
Block Design: 99% (didn't miss any)
Picture concepts: 50%
Matrix Reason: 75%
Work. Mem. index = 104 (61%)
Subscale -
Digit Span: 63%
Letter-Num Sequencing: 63%
Processing Speed index =80 (9%)
Coding: 2%
Symbol Search: 37%
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Eta, how did his verbal comprehension score compare to PR? Did the tester explain why she did not calculate a GAI instead of a Full-scale IQ? There are certain rules about when to calculate GAI instead of Full-scale, having to do with the spread of VC vs PR on the one hand and then comparing them to WM and PS. However, there are less-experienced psychs who don't even pay attention to the GAI option and inappropriately give a Full-scale when they should have calculated the GAI instead.
I'll go ahead and post the scores from the WISC that I received. Maybe that will give a better picture of what I have.
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Is fluency, reading fluency, or all kinds of fluency?
All fluency was low.
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Thanks for asking those questions OhElizabeth as I really didn't even know what I wanted to know! :)
We just got the report back last week. I've kind of had in the back of my mind something just wasn't right for a while now. I thought maybe it was me not teaching him well enough, but when he kept sliding back in his studies I started getting really concerned. He just wasn't recalling stuff we had covered time and again, and I couldn't figure out what was going on.
I think I read something about the interactive metronome, but at that time I didn't know he had a problem with processing speed. I have been so overwhelmed by all of the information that I really didn't know what I needed to address or start with. I guess that is what I mean by I didn't know what to do with it. His processing speed came in at 9%. Your questions were good, and I think after reading them maybe a good place to start is trying to improve his processing speed. Fluency seems to be his main issue on being behind, so if we improve his processing speed will that help his fluency?
How do I deal with his memory? That came in at the 60th percentile.
When you ask about his adjusted IQ would that be referred to the full scale IQ?
He struggles with math. Right now he is MUS Delta.
He seems to be doing well with FLL level 3.
I think I need to find a composition program. We are using Classical Composition. It works well with my daughter, but I wonder if I need to do something that breaks things down a little more for him...
So is this a right brain issue? I noticed I am finding a lot of stuff referring to that.
Thank you for your encouragement!
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Hi all,
A little background.....I have been homeschooling for over 15 years, with three kids still at home and two kids graduated - one of which is in college and the other trying to find his place in the world. I had it all figured out <*sarcasm* Do we ever?> and then was thrown a curve ball that I don't know how to handle.
We recently had my 13 year old tested for educational issues and he came back with a diagnosis of ADHD with an inattentive disorder. He also came back with very poor processing speeds that have hampered his math and writing fluency. His tester gave him a written diagnosis of a "Written Language Learning Disability" so that in the event he went on to college, and accommodations needed to be made, the schools would have a written diagnosis to support that. My problem is I don't know what direction to go in order to address this. After talking to the psychologist I tried to find out if this falls under Dysgraphia, but she hmmm and hawed and said she really hesitated to put him in that category. She kept going back to his low processing speeds impacting his fluency in subjects. His IQ tested out average, but his perceptual reasoning skills were off the chart. She said in all the years she has tested she has never seen them that high. He is definitely an out of the box thinker.
I really don't know what to do with this.....
Does anyone have any thoughts or materials they could point me to in addressing this issue?
Thanks for any help or direction you could give me,
Teri
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Although you're posting on an old thread, thank you!! My son is going to attend PHC as a freshman this fall, and he is on cloud nine. Although, like you, I am afraid once he gets there it may be awhile until I see him. We live in Oregon so I asked if he really had to pick one of the furthest states to go to! <sniff> I am excited for him though.
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for all your help HiddenJewel!!!! :)
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DS was notified about being a National Merit Semi-finalist, and I have been looking at the application I need to fill out! I am completely overwhelmed by the Build Your Curriculum Sections. (A testament that anyone can homeschool thier kids if I can do it! I can't even understand their application! LOL!) Is there anyone that has done this before, or is doing it now and has figured it out, that can help me understand how to fill out these sections? Could you email me offline and walk me through some of my questions? I called NM but the gal I got seemed to feel I should know what they wanted, but I don't! It seems contradictory. In one part they say do it and in another it says you really don't need to if you homeschool. ??? Help please....?? :tongue_smilie:
Teri
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Is that the Writing Workshop section?
Thanks!
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