WISE beyond your years, Chase!! Although it isn't a given that your DD will be "okay," Penny, getting an evaluation is a HUGE key for understanding her and meeting her needs appropriately. She'll be a lot more likely to be okay if you address her needs head-on. If you don't know what is going on, or whether she has ADHD or a neurological processing disorder, simple behavior therapy or psychological counseling won't be the answer alone. Counseling is definitely CRITICAL for learning to work well with each other.. we found family counseling HIGHLY beneficial to our entire family in dealing with LD and ADHD issues. It helped re-set *MY* expectations and ways of working with my son and helped him see things outside of his usual way of seeing things. PLus, if your DD has ADHD and needs med to get her brain chemistry into balance, your quickest route to a viable solution is to get a comprehensive eval and to get meds. I'm not necessarily "pro-meds" and we resisted them for years. However, the very first day my DS took his he said, "MOM!!!! We should have done this a LONG time ago!!" Think of the heartache that would have saved, not to mention the stress on all of us in the meantime. Hang in there. HUGS TOO!

ROTFLOL!!! INDEED!! Stress eating will bite you in the butt under circumstances such as these (BTDT!!) SYMPATHY! Okay, so after reading through the whole thread... I'll try not to repeat much that other people have already said. Of your three choices, I would probably opt for #2 - for the reason previously pointed out that #2 is #1+developmental. If you give #2 the additional questions about experience with Apraxia and feedback, and find the answers pleasing, I think I'd chose this person as the most "highly qualified" to deal with your DS unique mix of issues. Swimming talk, apraxia, incredible thinking that makes you go, "WOW! Where'd that come from when he can't even remember our dog's name--which we've had since before he was born," etc. is very much my DS. Seriously, we had words like "kapano" for piano, windshiper for windshield wiper, lots of perseveration while speaking (I mean, I mean, I mean when are we going, going, going to dinner?), and a total lack of phonemic awareness. DS also had significant social skills issues, had a lot of difficulty with learning to ride a bike, learning to swim, etc., but over time our work and remediation added up to good-to-great! Our first eval was with a psychologist, second with a neuropsych through the Children's Hospital, and third by a highly qualified neuropsych (HQ-NP) that assessed kids on the spectrum regularly. Our subsequent evals were done by our HQ-NP and we LOVE the job he does. Having a HQ-NP who understands developmental issues will likely give you the most accurate separation of what is developmental versus what is neurological at the root--what will require giving it time versus what will require remedial work. Also, while your DS may seem like he has spectrum characteristics, he may also just have a variety of things going on that give an external appearance of the spectrum--the difference would be in whether the issues are distinct and can be addressed separately, as was the case for my DS--so he is not on the spectrum even if some people may have though so at times. (Does that make sense?) For example, DS' difficulty with social skills and eye-contact made it APPEAR as though he was on the spectrum, but Our HQ-NP determined the root cause of the social skills issues was a deficit in Executive Functioning. With the EF deficit, he just didn't even pick up on the fact that there were social cues and social skills. Thus, we were able to explicitly teach our son, "When you are talking to someone, it is common social practice to look them in the eye, but not for too long. Look away and look back." .. Yes, we had to teach him that specifically, but once he knew what was expected, he could do it.. For a kid on the spectrum, being able to look someone in the eye not something they'll do just because they're told they should.. at least, not without a TON of therapy for it. Our HQ-NP writes a LONG report, but as another poster pointed out--long is worthless if it isn't on target with what YOU need. I'd be concerned that writing a longer report based upon less data would consist of more general recommendations than specific ones geared directly to what your DS needs. For your specific questions: At what age will a psych actually say something definitive or helpful about dyslexia? -- Given that clinically diagnosed dyslexia involves issues with a lack of phonemic awareness, working memory deficits, and often processing speed deficits, your question to your evaluator might be "How accurately can you diagnose deficits in <these three areas> at the age of six?" I do know a lot of evaluative instruments have a lower-end age of 8 or 9, but don't know what evaluators have in their arsenal to use at younger ages, nor do I know how accurate those earlier instruments might be. I have been TOLD dyslexia can be accurately identified at age 5 or 6 based upon the above three hallmark deficits, but I am not a NP and I don't play one on TV. ;-) Which do I want more for a newly 6 eval: data or the psych's written recommendations? I would want DATA because that will give you the most accurate reflection of what kinds of issues your DS is facing. Of course, that is me with my experience and instructional design background--I can take the data and usually figure out the biggest keys for teaching the child. For many people though, the written recommendations are most helpful for knowing WHAT to do. Even so, if you have the diagnoses and data, you can research what to do, if that makes sense. ;-) Is one of these practitioners likely to be more experienced at sifting through the subtleties of the apraxia plus quirks scenario? Option 3 has done *2* apraxia kid evals. I hope to call Option 2 tomorrow to see what his quantity is. - Experience evaluating kids is not quite the same thing as knowing whether the person did a GOOD job of evaluating the kids. It does attest to an ability to work with the kids, but not to the qualification to do so. I would think your #2 option would be the most qualified, whether that person has done a lot of those types of evals or not. However, I would ask up front if the evaluator felt he could gain valid evaluation results when working with a kid who has apraxia, and if not, who would he recommend as a specialist for conducting a NP evaluation for a child with apraxia. There is definitely a need for the ability to carefully seek to UNDERSTAND the child and to make sure the evaluation accurately reflects the child rather than making any guesses based upon what the evaluator thinks the child is saying.. KWIM? Can you just shoot me now? - NO! LOL! I know how frustrating, scary, concerning, the whole gamut of emotions about what's going to become of this kid can be. However, both you and your DS will grow in ways you will not believe through your working together!! You'll know so much MORE and have such a great appreciation for this unique package that is your little boy when you are down the road about a decade. I can't tell you how proud I am of my DS!! He started his new job yesterday after graduating from College.. and to think there was that day when our school admin barked at us, "HE is NOT college material!! YOU just need to LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS!!" Thank heaven God led me on the path he did, he guided me along the homeschooling road to all of the best/right people, and the outcome of our journey often seems like a fairy tale as it is!! HANG IN THERE!!! And, I send my hugs..MANY of them.

LOVE this discussion! I haven't read DA yet, but it sounds like I ought to so I'll know when to recommend it to a parent (vs when might not be a good time). For me, the biggest encouragement when we started was "The Gift of Dyslexia" from the standpoint of seeing the positives in your child. I agree with the poster who said it is still a LOT of work to remediate a child even if he's 2E. There is also the factor of the severity of dyslexia since it also ranges from mild to severe. For kids who have extreme struggles with learning to read, I think they sometimes also have the most notable strengths -- polar ends of the spectrum in gifts and deficits. It's so helpful to look at each child to see what the individual child's gifts are and I think it's critical to cultivate those gifts for the sake of the child's esteem and direction in life. Although we struggled mightily when my son was learning to read, he also had a great ability to remember all kinds of scientific information, which has served him very well throughout college. It helps that he pursued a science-based degree too. ;-) He just started his first job yesterday in a career I expect he'll LOVE and he'll be using his strengths (and doing very little in the way of reading and writing), so it worked out well for us. It is such a huge key to really focus on the individual child, to work on the deficit areas, and to build up the strengths. I probably should have put more about having a strength-based focus in my own book, but maybe partnering it with DA will be the best way I can go for helping out new moms just beginning this homeschooling and overcoming dyslexia adventure! :-D Think I'll go check if my library has DA. ;-)

We didn't have an Kaplan books, so it wasn't that one. We had a Barron's book and an "Official" book. One of those was okay-ish, and the other neither of my guys would use. We had bought our books used from someone else, so they were older editions. Whichever we didn't like might be better these days. I do know someone who used a Kaplan prep book and really liked it--did well on the test too.

I'm late to this conversation, but in the decade I've been helping parents, I've never had a kid that wasn't relieved to know what the "problem" is. My son was very relieved to know why his "brain didn't work right" (as he put it). The kids KNOW. They KNOW there is something different about their learning as compared to other kids and it is a relief to have an explanation. Like albeto said, the kids often assume something is wrong--horribly wrong, they think they're stupid or it's their fault for not "getting it," or worse. When the kid has a true reason and diagnosis, it gives the child hope, especially when they know other people have the condition too. It is great for them to know there are other kids like them--a group they can belong to! It sounds like you did a fabulous job talking with your DS! :-D Congrats! :hurray:

My strategy: Go with my gut. We started with one COVD that was recommended by someone to us, but I just didn't feel right about their recommendations and costs. I looked up and found a different doctor on COVD.org, went for a consultation with him, and felt very comfortable with him and his recommendations. My son ended up seeing him for a year and we had a great outcome from our vision therapy that allowed my son to overcome his ocular motor deficiencies. Sorry you feel overwhelmed.. there is always a lot going in the earlier years. Hang in there! We had a great outcome.. All of the hard work paid off handsomely, but it has been quite a journey!! If you want some encouragement, you can read our story at: http://learningabledkids.com/articles_about_homeschooling/overcoming_learning_disabilities_through_homeschooling.htm HUGS!! :-D

The main benefit of ACT over SAT comes for kids who are good at science / logic. The ACT has a Science section, but the SAT does not. Therefore, for a student who is fabulous at science, it can really help the ACT composite score if the student does well on the science section. As an example, my DS scored one point below PERFECT on the ACT science section. It really helped balance out his lower score in reading due to his dyslexia. That gave him a great composite score, which allowed him to get an Honor's scholarship going into college. It's important too, as preparation, to heavily consider the neuropsychological evaluation process. As Heathermomster said, the evaluation must be less than 3 years old to be considered "current." We timed our boys' evals to be done in the spring of their 10th grade year. That way the evals were viable for their ACT/SAT exams AND they were still valid going into college so they could get accommodations there. Don't worry too much about your son's dyslexia being remediated. My DS could read well above grade level, but the NP testing showed it was still labor-intensive for him, took him longer than typical people, and he qualified for accommodations. For the ACT he got testing over multiple days, extended time, a reader, and marking his answers in the book instead of on an answer sheet. Accommodations on the ACT or SAT take a good 6-8 weeks to get if your request is granted the FIRST time through. If you have to appeal, you would need twice that amount of time. Having a neuropsychological evaluation can take several months to schedule, and a month to get back the written results (which are needed to file for accommodations). Therefore, I'd highly recommend starting the evaluation process at least six months before your child will take the ACT or SAT. Getting the needed signatures when you file for accommodations can take time too, so you'd want to start that process as soon as you have your neuropsych report. We found the ACT folks a lot easier to work with than the SAT people. They were also more generous with the accommodations given our documentation. For practice, we used REA's ACT Prep with timed practice CDs - http://www.amazon.com/ACT-Assessment-5th-Ed-CD-ROM/dp/0738600733/ We liked them as far as practice books go. We had a couple of others we didn't care for. Hope that helps!

Sounds like your DD has a Kinesthetic learning style! FUN! I have a webpage with activities ideas for incorporating Kinesthetic learning activities into different curricula. http://learningabledkids.com/multi_sensory_training/page24-kinesthetic2.htm If you use the "forward" button at the bottom of the Kinesthetic page, it will take you to a similar page for Tactile activities, which can be used for hands-on explorations. The listed activities will help you with whatever curricula you chose. Incorporating activity can be done in a variety of ways... bouncing on a big exercise ball while reading or working at the computer, bouncing on a mini trampoline or walking on a treadmill while reciting facts or listening to an audiobook. We even put a plank across the arms of our treadmill so my son could walk slowly and do school work with his textbooks! :-D Having an active child who can't sit still for "lessons" requires out of the box thinking and creativity for incorporating activity into learning. The good news: now that you know it's what your DD needs, you can begin planning for movement based learning! :-D

It happened to me too!! It left me contemplating, "What's next for me?" It's a time of mixed emotions.. that feeling of pride and accomplishment mixed with a feeling of being lost and trying to figure out what to do now that my guys have grown up!

I SECOND Derek Owens. My son took his Honors Physics course and really loved it. Derek was fabulous about answering questions and helping DS understand anything he had questions about. The teaching videos are excellent for explaining the concepts and my DS really had little difficulty with most of the course.

Yes, we continued working on math fact drills until my son mastered them.. which was around 7th grade. Using a great computer-based practice program can help a lot too.. You might want to check out Reflex Math as an option. 20-30 minutes of practice every night before bed can help with retention because your son's brain will continue processing the facts during the early stages of sleep. Study data shows two things: 1) Using a dual approach with direct instruction and a drill program will help with retention. 2) Whatever you study right before bed will "stick" better than anything learned during the day. That said, your neuropsychologist had us use a specific process for drilling our son in his math facts.. I've documented the process we used on this webpage: http://learningabledkids.com/home_school_q_and_a/short_term_memory_memorization.htm. It took about two years of DAILY drilling using this method before our son could recall the facts given a bit of thinking time. We started with just one set of math facts (2's), then added on one set of facts when he reached a point that he could go through all of the facts correctly the first time through. Even after you have all of the facts in a BIG pile, your son should be able to go through all of the facts in 5-10 minutes given he has mastered each set before he next set was added. Hope that helps! ;-)

You say, " I'm wondering if I need to back up and focus on working memory again?? " YES! I think so! Brain plasticity exists throughout a person's life and any measure of gain in the area of memory functioning will help your DS advance his cognitive functioning. The brain therapy, brain gym, etc. is also fabulous for helping to rebuild synapses damaged through chemo. Sounds like you've been through a lot with your little guy. I know the medical affects on the brain can be pervasive and are challenging to overcome. The good news is that intensive programs and therapy can help... It's awesome that you're homeschooling and love it because that will make all the difference in the world for your guy! Given that memory functioning is foundational for spelling and math, I'd rank it right up there as being just as (if not more) important than the academic skills themselves. ;-) Otherwise, sounds like other moms have already given you some fabulous ideas. HUGS!

Since DS is reading well and he's finding AAS tedious, I'd think you would be fine if you choose to use a different program. Given your DS' dysgraphia, you could have him finger-write the spelling words on carpet or fabric to help him have more of a tactile experience in his practice, and you could use any program as your guide for teaching the spelling. Using a computer-based program would circumvent a lot of the dysgraphia issues and it'd allow your DS to focus solely on the spelling lesson. Really, I think you have a great deal of flexibility about what you do specifically for spelling.

I don't know of a way to leap over the social skills issues, but I've found that "Teaching Your Child the Language of Social Success" helps parents (including myself) with directly teaching social skills to kids whose social skills are not developing in a desirable way. It's probably not a solution that would work for every kid, but so far.. the moms I've known who have used the book found that the methods helped their child. Teaching a child the social skills isn't easy because it requires that a mom become a virtual helicopter for her child's social interactions and that she intercede and TEACH at those prime teachable moments. With peers, it works well for very close friends, but I found it was difficult and "odd" to neuro-typical acquaintances who seemed to think both the child's behavior and the teaching was odd. It's a tricky issue to deal with!

My guys preferred I read to them too, but that (I think) was because we would sit side-by-side and cuddle-up on the couch while reading together. It was more of a solitary pursuit to use an audiobook independently. You don't say how old your DD is, but my guys were 12+ yrs old before they WANTED to work independently. I like OhElizabeth's suggestion to speed up the playback too.. if that doesn't work, then maybe you could try slowing it down. Maybe if you can match the speed to be similar to your read aloud speed? Hope you find a good solution!

First things that comes to mind for me are either a working memory issue where she can't hold the choices in her head long enough to make the choice, or a processing issue that doesn't allow her to weigh and consider the two choices. In the case of a processing disorder, it could be auditory in nature, but I'd think you'd see her struggling with verbal instructions of any kind. One way to pinpoint where the root cause of the neurological breakdown is occurring would be to have a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation for processing issues. It's just really difficult to say otherwise.

AMEN THAT!! I don't know of ANY school that moves on that dime. Parents are lucky if administrators even acknowledge there is a problem in Kindergarten. That "wait and see if they outgrow it" mindset is pervasive.

I thought I'd go poking around for some of the research since I can't find my paper.. "In the simplest terms, these studies ask: Do struggling readers catch up? The data from the studies are clear: Late bloomers are rare; skill deficits are almost always what prevent children from blooming as readers. This research may be counter-intuitive to elementary teachers who have seen late-bloomers in their own classes or heard about them from colleagues. But statistically speaking, such students are rare. (Actually, as we'll see, there is nearly a 90 percent chance that a poor reader in first grade will remain a poor reader.)" (http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/fall2004/editorssb1.cfm) "The evidence is in: The children who we hoped would be "late bloomers" in reading rarely are. Their early and modest reading weakness impedes enjoyment and deters practice. Soon, their small reading problems spiral into devastating ones. But with new easy-to-use tools, we can identify children headed toward failure and prevent it as early as kindergarten. Children who are destined to be poor readers in fourth grade almost invariably have difficulties in kindergarten and first grade with critical phonological skills: their knowledge of letter names, their phonemic awareness (ability to hear, distinguish, and blend individual sounds), their ability to match sound to print, and their other skills in using the alphabetic principle are weak." (http://www.ncld.org/checklist/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=273%3Apreventing-early-reading-failure-and-its-devastating-downward-spiral-&catid=75&Itemid=311&lang=en) Hope that helps! :-D

Ohhhhh... I'll have to go looking for that reference!! I got it at a session at the International Dyslexia Association annual meeting over a decade ago.. I HAD the handouts with the research name info, but I don't know where it is at the moment (or if I even still have it!).

We didn't ever have or use that.. They didn't have it available when my DS was using LA. Good to know that option is easy to use! :-D

Um, the statement that " he has processing issues because he has a low IQ. " is completely backwards!!! He has a low IQ score because he has a low processing speed that causes a great discrepancy in his scores!! When a child has a processing speed at the 4th percentile, when factored into your child's composite score, it WILL drag down the overall IQ score.. This does NOT mean your child has a low IQ. This means the composite IQ score is NOT a good reflection of your son's overall cognitive abilities. Truthfully, the student who performed the evaluation NEEDS to be taught this--particularly that when a child has a wide discrepancy in scores, the composite IQ score is NOT a good indicator of the child's abilities. A better indicator of your DS' cognitive abilities will be the Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning indices. Look at those scores for your DS and they will give you a better idea of his ability to learn. The Processing Speed and Working Memory definitely affect a child's ability to learn, but they affect learning in a different way than the ability to comprehend and understand content. That said, given your DS' very slow processing speed, there will be several factors that are important in teaching him. 1) Start him on a good cognitive enhancement program to help build up his processing speed.. Check out Brainware Safari as a good choice. (I have others listed at http://learningabledkids.com/learning_disability_ld/memory_processing_speed_brain_based.htm). 2) When teaching your DS, information will need to be presented with plenty of processing time in order to be stored in long-term memory. You won't want to blaze through lessons talking at a normal speed or present multiple concepts in a short time span. Instead, consider presenting one concept at a time and working with that singular concept for 15-20 minutes. It is better to take it slowly and make sure it "sticks" rather than go through a bunch of stuff and have to repeat it all repeatedly hoping that some of it eventually makes it through your DS' processing speed threshold. Hope that helps!! --Both to put your mind at ease and in helping you work with your DS!

Take into account everything OhElizabeth has said, particularly paying attention to developmental vision issues. Additionally, It is entirely possible for a child to have a deficit in phonemic awareness and no other learning disabilities. However, given she can't even point out a "b" on the page, she may have a "naming" or "labeling" issue as well. It may be a visual memory problem, or be specific to the randomness of the letters themselves. Letters aren't tangible objects, so they can be more difficult for a child with LD's to categorize in their memory/recall. If she was experiencing the same or similar issues with numbers and math, it'd more likely to be a more pervasive problem like a memory/recall issue for text-based objects. However, since her ability to remember numbers and understand math is not a problem at all, I'd look more deeply into the possibility of true dyslexia, which is caused by a lack of phonemic awareness. Whatever the case may be, it will be very difficult to determine precisely the right solution without a comprehensive evaluation to find out what the exact issues are. We could all guess all day long, but we all may be wrong. As OhE points out, the earlier you can start on intervention the better because only 15% of kids are in fact "late bloomers". MOST of the time (85%), when a child struggles with a particular area of learning, there is an underlying neurological cause which will not be "outgrown". So, the sooner you can identify the root cause of your DD's difficulties, the sooner you can help her, and if nothing major is wrong, you'll at least know where you stand. Unfortunately, getting the needed evaluations can take a lot of time (6 months+) depending upon how quickly you can find a highly qualified evaluator, get an appointment, get tested, and receive the results.

Since it is highly probable your DD has LD issues that you aren't aware of yet (memory, processing, etc.), you might want to consider going with a multisensory approach for the time being, until you have a strong handle on her best learning avenue and know what cognitive areas to work around. For math, TouchMath is a very good choice to cover the bases with multi-sensory instruction. As HeatherM pointed out with her own son, your DD is likely to need direct instruction on an ongoing basis too. It may be helpful to know also that research shows a dual approach with one-on-one direct instruction (using a program like TouchMath) and a computer-based program to practice foundational skills (like ReflexMath) brings about the best overall learning progress. The same applies to reading skills for kids with dyslexia.. A direct instruction program coupled with a computer-based practice program brings about the best results. If you want to research reading program options, I have one-on-one programs (top half) and computer-based practice programs (bottom half) listed on this webpage: http://learningabledkids.com/reading/proven_reading_programs.htm. There are a lot of good choices out there.

Is there a particular reason you chose AAS to use with DS8? Have you tried Spelling Power or Sequential Spelling with your DS8 yet? I have several free, online multi-sensory spelling sites listed at: http://learningabledkids.com/multi_sensory_training/free-multisensory-curriculum-online.htm. You may find your DS8 enjoys using one of those programs, and if you don't have a specific need you're trying to meet with one of the other programs, I would suggest letting DS try one or several of the audio-visual programs to see if that suits him better. One of my thoughts here is that using a computer-based program will give him some typing and spelling practice.. At least, the typing portion will help with keyboard familiarity. Since he likes the switch-up also, using a program adds in more variety. Each child IS different, so it is difficult to figure out what needs changing for each child and from one child to the next!

HUGS! Not a lot to offer in the way of help, other than a heads-up for future reference: If the phoneme of the day gets carried across to other words, then AVKO Sequential Spelling is not likely to be a good choice for a spelling program. With my DS, we had similar problems with carryover, and with S.S., when he learned that a word pattern represents a certain sound (like -are as in care, glare, rare, etc.), when another form of that sound was introduced (like -air as in hair, pair, fair, etc.) then all prior words with that sound were suddenly spelled the NEW way, as in cair, glair, and rair. We had to use a strict, Orton-Gillingham based approach for spelling that taught rules and used multisensory memorization rather than anything with "families" of words. AVKO S.S. is a great program for some kids, but for my DS, it was a frustrating way to try to learn to spell!