It's for national parks and sites. I think this is the thread http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/554126-a-cool-accommodation-i-didnt-know-about/

Thanks for the link. It was a very interesting webinar and I'm excited to see that youtube has many other videos from Dyslexic Advantage that I look forward to listening to in the future (whenever I can find some time). We will keep trucking along with typing (as soon as we decide which program to commit to) and continue scribing until his keyboarding skills get up to useable standards, It's good to hear that scribing isn't a crutch, but will allow him to learn the writing process better so he can write independently later on.

I will look into Keyboarding Without Tears. So far we have tried Type to Learn 4, Touch Type Read and Spell, and the keyboarding lessons on Clever Dragons (we got a free subscription through the summer with HSBC). We haven't tried Bravewriter. We used WWE 1 a couple days each week when he was in 1st grade and then continued through the summer. The copywork took him forever so we started doing more oral narrations. I like what I have read about partner writing that Bravewriter encourages. I'm going to try a few different things this summer and see which (if any) he likes. Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, I would love more info about how to start a team. I've read the info on the DI site, but would love some btdt advice and experience. Thank you!

We just started trial offers of a couple different typing programs and it is slow going. I was hoping to find something for ds9 so I won't have to scribe so much for him next year when he's in 4th grade. His written output is not at all a good indicator of what he knows and we want to begin changing that next year. We've done narrations that I turn into copywork but that has also been slow and tedious for him. I saw Ginger offered at HSBC awhile back but must have misunderstood it's main purpose. Thanks for the clarification.

We currently have an ancient Nook tablet, windows 8 desktop and laptop, and a Galaxy tab 4. We've been Barnes and Noble supporters, but just broke down and got amazon prime last month because BN doesn't have good audio books (we got an audible subscription at Christmas and have been loving it). I will try to turn on dictation for windows. Thanks.

We are trying to decide what activities to put our sons in next year. The oldest is indecisive and wants to do everything we have suggested as possibilities. We live in a small town and the closest clubs we have found are over an hour away. So my husband or I would probably have to start/lead something to make it happen. He loves hands-on projects, talks about inventions all the time, loved the 45 minute lego robotics class he went to at legoland and wants more opportunities to be around other kids. If anyone has experience starting or participating in Imagination Destination, First Lego League, Young Makers club, or something else along those lines that I haven't heard of, I would love to hear from you!

Any suggestions for best speech to text software as we begin accommodating my ds9 with dysgraphia? I've seen several people recommending ipad or kindle. Are those much better than dragon naturally speaking or ginger for a regular desktop or laptop? It's encouraging to read how others are accommodating their dc and gives me a better idea of how to implement these changes. Thanks

I gave him the Barton screening test and he passed. I looked at lists of symptoms of dyslexia and he meets a lot of them. Trouble sounding out words, reversing letters like b and d, q and p. Saying saw for was, no for on, and home for house. Really poor speller. Bad at foreign languages (attended an immersion school and still had a LOT of trouble saying anything in the language by the end of the year, compared to his older brother who could almost completely communicate in the foreign language by the end of his first year). Really bad at sequencing. Still has trouble remembering months and days in order (will sing a song of them in order to remember). We didn't have a good experience with public school speech therapy. He scored in the 3rd percentile for articulation (this was after 8 months of private speech therapy) when he started 1st grade and the evaluator seriously tried to tell us he didn't need services because it was just articulation and shouldn't interfere with learning since he had friends and the teachers could understand him (he was considered to be 50-60% intelligible to strangers). Thankfully he had an nice and experienced English teacher who agreed with us that it was impacting his reading because he couldn't sound out some words well if they included blends that he was still struggling with, so he got services. But he only got 30 minutes of speech therapy with 2 other kids 3 times per month. The SLP seemed annoyed when I would email and ask how he was doing or what we could be working on at home to help support him. We also had him in private speech therapy for 30 minutes each week and it was like night and day. They always gave us homework, would tell me exactly which things he was improving on and which still needed work. By the end of his 1st grade year the private therapy place said he was meeting the goals they set for him with 95% accuracy, so they recommended we take a wait and see approach and continue to practice the things he had learned and correct him when he made mistakes (mostly when he is tired or talking fast because he is excited) and then if we started seeing other issues or regression then we could look for an SLP in our new state (we moved last summer). I'm not concerned about APD for this kid. When the school did their testing he scored 97th percentile on a test where they would say a sentence and he had to pick the correct picture (there were 4 choices). The tester said she had never seen anyone score that highly on that test in her 15 years of working in schools. He loves audio books. He's my best listener. Scottish Rite said they need a recent hearing test (including tympanogram) to make sure there are no hearing issues or structural issues that could be causing the reading or speech difficulties. We've been using AAS to practice phonics and reading. We tried reading books they had assigned him at school last year but he was guessing and rushing too much so we backed up and started BOB books from the beginning and Nora Gaydos Now I'm Reading books. I have to cover the pictures or else he will just guess (and be pretty close to right, but clearly not sounding out the words). We build short sentences on the whiteboard. We practice rhyming by erasing one letter and replacing it with another. It's not that our budget is zero for his testing, it's more like we realize our oldest is in need of VT and most likely OT, our youngest ds is impulsive and most likely has ADHD and will eventually need a full neuropsych eval, so we don't want to spend more than we have to to test middle ds right now to figure out what to do for this upcoming school year (since he will probably need some kind of therapy as well). We chose Scottish Rite because a friend recommended them after getting good evals and then therapy for her kid. Free therapy if they find anything sounds really nice at this point. The person on the phone for SR couldn't tell me exactly which tests they would run, said it would depend on his symptoms/needs. She did say based on his history of speech services at public school they will have a SLP test his language and then most likely reading too. She said if the school didn't terminate his speech therapy then he would probably qualify for services at SR (but again no guarantees, they won't know for sure until after testing, etc). She said if he does end up qualifying for reading help he would be required to come in for one hour 2 times per week for OG tutoring. If you don't show up for your appointments then they will give your spot to someone else. So if a lot of people don't show up (or only show up sporadically) then he could move up the list faster. We are hoping to be able to afford a full neuropsych eval for him in the spring 2016. If we can get him free services through SR in the meantime that would be great. We will schedule a COVD vision eval to rule out possible vision processing issues that could effect reading. I was wondering if I should start Barton because I am planning for the next school year. We school year round. Our last day was on Thursday and we are visiting grandparents and cousins over the next few weeks. We're planning to start back the monday after 4th of July for the 2015-2016 school year. That should give us more of a buffer for therapy appointments and whatever else comes up over the year. Plus it is super hot here in the summer so nobody wants to be outside after 10 or 11 in the morning anyway. I'm trying to decide what to do with ds8 for reading and writing. We're going to do Aurora Lippor's online science stuff and some BFSU, SOTW, some state history stuff and field trips, Miquon, MM and lots of manipulatives, music appreciation (listening to classical music, going to high school choir and theater performances), art (visiting art museums and doing the mark kistler online drawing classes that are free this summer through HSBC). He is on book 3 of explode the code. I think that has been good for him and plan to continue it for next year, but I'm really not sure what else to use for him for ELA. I still have to sit with him when he does ETC or else he will make a lot of mistakes (because he still has trouble reading the directions and will rush through it without me there). We've been using AAS because I had that from when ds9 was in K. My oldest learned to read before K and it was mostly easy. It's feels crazy to have been working with ds8 for the past 3 years and still be about where my oldest was before K. I'd love suggestions for curriculum options or things we can be working on over the summer before his name comes up on the SR list. Thanks!

My just turned 8 year old ds is still having a lot of trouble reading. He had speech articulation issues and did private therapy in K and private and public school speech in 1st grade before we moved last summer. We are on the list for testing at our local Scottish Rite language center (they said will probably be early fall before his name comes up to be evaluated, but they couldn't guarantee any time frame, just depends on how many others before him show up, need help, etc). So should I go ahead and buy Barton and start that with him? Or get a vision evaluation? Or just wait until after testing at SR to do anything? We have a hearing test scheduled for next month (SR said they would need that). We would like to get a full neuropsych eval, but it will have to wait because we just finished getting neuropsych eval for our oldest ds and it will take awhile to save up enough for another. Any advice on how to prioritize all of this would be very much appreciated.

My ds also gets great enjoyment out of things others his age consider too babyish to be worth their time. I didn't connect those dots before. Can ADHD also make kids seem immature? We have an HMO type of insurance so if they cover it then I only have to pay a copay, but if they don't then I have to pay for all of it. We are waiting to see if the pediatrician will give us a referral for OT, VT, and an APD eval. I will also ask about any other services they offer for SCD behavioral/social stuff. Thank you!

The psych recommended that we continue homeschooling. I guess I just would like to keep my options open and the difficulties with writing and social stuff would make a public school environment far from ideal. I am sad that a door has been closed. I am exploring the at home charter option here in CA because they give you $1,000 per child per semester in exchange for you meeting with a certified teacher once each month and taking standardized tests at the end of the year. I already have most of the curriculum and materials I want to use next year, so almost all of that money could potentially go to extracurriculars. I am less concerned about an IEP than accommodations in general, maybe a 504 plan would be fine. If I could get something like swimming or gymnastics or martial arts or music lessons for free from the charter funds to supplement the therapies, then that would be great. But I wouldn't want to sign us up for that if they would be unwilling to allow him to have extra time on tests or access to a computer and keyboard for essays later on. I'm not afraid of oversight because we work our butts off, but I am concerned that they may have unrealistic expectations and make our lives more stressful. I should probably stop dreaming about this "perfect" at home charter option that so many have told me about and just focus on the other stuff and be glad we don't need to deal with the school system for the time being.

Can you get an OT evaluation? It could be a sensory processing issue, developmental coordination disorder, specific learning disorder of written expression, or something else. OT seems like a good place to start (and a lot cheaper than a full neuropsych evaluation).

So I think after reading that second link that he could have ASD. This kid flaps his arms when he runs, loves to spin and loves his patterns/routines. I just think he functions well enough that people don't notice those things. NO one suggested he had any issues the whole 2 years he was in public charter school. I'm not very hopeful that he would get an ASD diagnosis because he is better at looking people in the eye when they are talking to him because we have worked on that and he loves hugs (probably sensory seeking behavior) and is affectionate and outgoing (although socially awkward and misses other people's social cues so has a difficult time making/keeping friends). He has a cousin who is a couple years older than him and she has been tested 3 times (once as a toddler, again at the beginning of school and then a couple years ago) and both the private/insurance-covered psych and the public school psych said she couldn't have ASD because she looks them in the eye and is affectionate and "too social" to fit the label. She has a LOT more issues than my son that scream ASD to a lot of people around her and still didn't get the label. Maybe when they test her in middle school it will show up? Anyway, how do you find someone who will look past the affectionate/look you in the eye stuff to give the ASD label. I could argue my kid meets the criteria (and I understand a lot better why the people who didn't meet him wanted to give him the label). But I don't know that he would actually get it. We have already paid for the private eval. Should we just wait until after the OT and APD evals and then send in the reports to the private neuropsych testing place and ask about ASD again? Should we attempt to get him tested through the school district or through our insurance? Would those places have experts in ASD? Or would we have to pay out of pocket again? Should we just wait until middle school and test again after doing VT, OT and whatever else is needed? What measurable difference would we see if he had the ASD label now instead of his other labels? Thanks for helping me think through this!

I guess I'm just not sure what difference it would make. SCD and ASD seem really similar to me. I'm hoping we will get more info after the OT eval and APD eval (still waiting to hear if our insurance will cover it). What kind of accommodations would he get with an ASD diagnosis that he wouldn't have with a SCD, SLD writing, DCD (dysgraphia), and ADHD diagnosis (and possibly sensory processing disorder or dysfunction of sensory integration or whatever the current label is for sensory issues, depending on what the OT says)? Even if I got a private psych to give him an ASD label, wouldn't it be hard to get a ps to also give him that label and services since he scores above average on most tests and can be affectionate and look testers in the eye, etc? Would the ASD label open up more services from insurance or school or? I'm just trying to figure out what's the advantage of the ASD label over all the labels he just received?

I would love to see a checklist of symptoms and how to document them. Would the neuropsych eval we just got not count for a track record for accommodations because he didn't get the ASD label but SCD? My library has Different Minds so I will be reading that soon. Do you think something like 6 trait writing would help him organize his thoughts/ideas and help him get them on paper? What did/do you use to work around/on the dysgraphia? I will try to find that Reader's Handbook to see if I can make it work for us. Thanks for sharing your advice and experiences

Yes, I know he may get an ASD label later on. We had him evaluated at a place that specializes in gifted and 2e and 2 of the 3 people who discussed his results/wrote his report thought he met the criteria for ASD. The one who had spent the most time with him was the one who said he was too outgoing, affectionate, and engaging to get an ASD diagnosis. We're going to get the OT evaluation and APD screening/evaluation and send those, as well as the COVD evaluation results, back to the psych and see what they think at that time. They were pretty thorough on the testing. They did the WISC IV, WJ III achievement test, ASBI, Beery VMI, D-KEFS, NEPSY II, GORT, TOWL, WCST, and something else that I am forgetting, plus about 25 pages of paperwork/questionnaires for my husband and I to fill out. Since he is homeschooled and we didn't have any teachers to fill out the forms they asked me to fill out everything and my husband to fill out another copy so they could see if my husband and I saw differences in him at "school time" vs the rest of our family time. We didn't get the clear cut answers we were hoping for, but we got a good starting place. I've been reading up on ADHD and EF difficulties. Smart not Scattered has been helpful as well as Bright Kids Who Can't Keep Up. I'm about to start Superparenting for ADD. Delivered from Distraction has been life changing for my husband. He is actually getting ready to start the process of getting himself tested for ADHD because he met so many of the criteria on the checklist in that book (I could only relate to a couple of the things, but he checked off almost all of the over 100 things listed). He was identified as gifted in K and again in 2nd when his family moved, but his mom pulled him out of the gifted program in 3rd grade because she said he wasn't finishing his homework until 10 PM most nights and she was tired of bugging him to get it done or focus or pay attention more. She said the work wasn't hard for him, but he could never seem to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. He's the poster kid for outside the box, creative thinker. He uses graphic organizers all the time. That is so not how my brain works. I am having to relearn things in a new way to try to help my kids learn. I am a sit down and read the book, answer the questions and take the test kind of learner. I'm having to learn all this multisensory stuff. The psych recommended more project based learning and that we continue to homeschool him if possible so that we can teach to his strengths while sneaking in the skill work for his weaknesses (plus it allows us to be a lot more flexible about therapies when we can do them during the day while others are in school). We're also looking for a mother's helper so I can get more one on one time with each kid (right now ds9 and I are doing an hour of school before his siblings wake up and some more one on one when his sisters nap after lunch and dh helps after dinner). How much should a good OT evaluation cost? The only reason I have been paying attention to what the schools are doing is because I wonder if they would actually allow the accommodations the psych recommended. And I have looked into the charter schools that give you up to $1000 per semester per student. It could be nice to have that money for extracurriculars like swimming, gymnastics, martial arts, or music lessons. I keep hearing about how great music lessons are for EF, and working memory. I've also heard violin can be good for gross and fine motor skills and crossing the midline. Have you had any experience with music being helpful for your kids issues? Here's an article a relative sent me on some of the benefits of music http://mic.com/articles/108022/science-just-discovered-something-amazing-about-what-childhood-piano-lessons-did-to-you?fb_action_ids=10206203005931616&fb_action_types=og.shares

I'm excited about doing Supercharged Science from Aurora Lippor and some BFSU. We got an annual pass to the national parks and forests and are looking forward to earning more junior ranger badges. Beast Academy also seems worth being excited about.

Chiropractic adjustment of my neck helps me tremendously. I saw a neurologist after a couple ER trips in the same year for excruciating pain on the left side of my head and back of my neck who gave me meds and asked me to keep a food and environment diary and there was no rhyme or reason to my migraines. I couldn't figure out what my triggers were. I would often wake up with a migraine. I finally went to the chiropractor and after one adjustment I was much better and then after 2 more over a couple weeks I felt normal. I went from 3-5 migraines each week to one migraine every 3 months or so. Essential oils have also helped me a lot when I am stressed or feel my neck getting tight. Hope you're able to find something that works for you soon!

Just looked up Inference Jones and it looks great! Have you tried the Reading Detective books also by Critical Thinking Company? It says inference is one of the things they work on in that book too. I might give them a try after Inference Jones. How long does it take to do a lesson of Inference Jones? How much time should I set aside for it and how many days each week? Ds9 is bright, but inconsistent. He was always in the top reading group and math group at school (went to a foreign language immersion charter school for 1st and 2nd grades until we moved last summer and started homeschooling in our new state), but they usually only test for gifted in K and 3rd and he was homeschooled for K and we moved before 3rd. His teachers were good about sending him different more challenging homework (they used Singapore Primary Mathematics US Edition and would send home intensive practice problems instead of the usual workbook). But they were starting to get annoyed when we left because he was doing so poorly on the math drills and would turn in homework without showing his work or not writing the answer to the word problem in a complete sentence. He was starting to have trouble reading the longer passages and answering some of the comprehension questions. He was supposed to write a summary each night about what he had read (they were required to read for 20 minutes each night in English and then 15 minutes in the foreign language) and his summaries were always really short and sloppy but would take him almost an hour to write down. When I asked how long the homework was supposed to take and mentioned how long he was spending on the summaries, his teacher said he wasn't putting forth enough effort and just needed to focus and try harder because it shouldn't take him that long since he knew the material. He took the MAP 3 times each year for English and Math and scored in between 79-97 percentile. He would do great one season and then scores would drop a lot and then come back up. His lowest score of 79 was in the fall right after summer break. Plus one of his teachers said the cut off is usually 98th percentile when we asked about gifted testing. I'm not sure if that was true or if they just didn't want to spend the time and money on testing. We decided to do neuropsych testing this past thanksgiving when we were half way through the school year and still struggling with writing and math drills and comprehension and one Sunday School teacher suggested he had ADHD and a family member said she thought he had Asperger's/ASD. He's such a complex kid! I'm glad we have names for what we have been seeing (SCD, dysgraphia, and provisional ADHD combined type, provisional because none of his teachers from the charter school ever suggested he had any ADHD symptoms and he seemed to have visual processing, sensory processing and possible auditory processing challenges so the psych asked us to get evals for all those things first to see if it was one or all of those things causing the inattention and impulsivity). But I wish we were past all the evals and therapy and didn't have to deal with all the insurance and scheduling stuff. We live over an hour away from all these places that provide therapy so I'm trying to figure out what I can do at home on my own to save money and time and what we can do in the van traveling to and from all these upcoming appointments. Do you allow your kids to use a calculator or times table chart to do multi-digit multiplication or long division? What types of things do you use to improve their math drill times when you can? We've been trying more oral math drills and doing the longer multiplication or division problems on the whiteboard so the numbers are larger and I can scribe for him when his hand hurts or gets worn out or he doesn't line up the numbers correctly because he made one of the digits too big or small. I'm so grateful to be able to "talk" to other parents who have been doing this longer than me. Thanks so much for your time and help!

Does the Fast Facts Math app have a timer? We've been using xtra math and he gets frustrated when he doesn't go fast enough to beat the teacher. He seems to remember more when we do math facts orally when he is jumping on the trampoline or some other physical activity. He scored 97 percentile for math on the MAP (untimed computer adaptive) test at his charter school last year in 2nd grade. But he was struggling to keep up on the timed math facts drills. Some of that is the dysgraphia (because all his math drills at school were pencil and paper tests) and probably processing speed? Does VT improve processing speed? He scored 9th percentile for symbol search and 16th percentile for coding on the WISC. Some of his trouble with reading comprehension is the SCD, but hopefully the VT will allow the actual decoding to be easier so he can focus on the meaning and we can spend our time working on inference and those types of things that are difficult for him. One more question, are visual memory and working memory connected? Would VT help working memory or is that something an OT would help with?

Thanks, everyone! This is so encouraging. After talking to my relatives I was beginning to wonder if I was crazy. My husband and I really liked the COVD optometrist who did the testing. The neuropsych recommended him. The developmental optometrist's office is 2-3 hours away depending on traffic and he was willing to help us find someone closer to our house for therapy and even suggested asking our insurance about it because he thinks they will sometimes cover it for convergence insufficiency. It was a nice surprise that he wasn't all about the money or trying to push us to do therapy with him. Ds9 read all the magic tree house books during first grade, but he has seemed to be in a holding pattern. He can read harder words, but the smaller print and fewer pictures have been tough for him. He says his eyes are tired a lot. His independent reading comprehension (for 3rd grade books) is not good right now. His writing is horrible and it takes FOREVER to copy anything from a board or textbook. Written math and math facts are way lower than mental math and critical thinking problems. I am hopeful that vision therapy will make a big difference.

My ds9 had a vision processing evaluation and we were told he has eye teaming and tracking problems (convergence insufficiency and oculomotor dysfunction). It makes sense because he was reading for shorter periods of time, rubbing his eyes a lot, had a lot of trouble lining up columns to do multi-digit math problems and seems clumsy a lot. But this kid can build/play with legos for hours. I have family who are saying the evaluation must be wrong because it would be impossible to play legos for that long if you are seeing double or having trouble tracking. What has been your experience with this? Do my relatives have a point? Should we seek out a second opinion? Any advice or suggestions?

Did you meet with the psychologist about the results yet? Ours was pretty tight lipped until we had all the results and were able to discuss them together. Did they test hearing or language/speech? Those things could cause spelling issues. There is more than a 40 point difference between the spelling and writing sample so that seems like it could be a big deal. I hope someone else can give you more ideas or suggestions.