lol, yes it's tornadoes - each quadrant has a tornado. Every picture he has ever drawn for me is of a storm. Except for the painting he made a couple days ago of a "rainbow" (which was a huge thing for me - the raindrops in the picture were a side note rather than the focus of the painting!) We aren't officially "going" to OT, we just met with a friend who is an OT and got a bunch of stuff to do at home while we wait for our eval at the end of summer. I've never been one to do anything half-way when I decide to do it properly. We are doing the following: Theraputic brushing followed by joint compressions to all joints every 1.5-2 hours every day all day from waking to sleeping. We spend time jumping on the couch (b/c we don't have another good option) twice a day, swinging time in a hammock at least 2x a day. We use an electric tooth brush for teeth brushing 2x a day, various "deep pressure" activities at least 2x a day. Outside playtime daily (including things like chalk drawings, trucks in the mud, etc. that involve lots of different textures) Dedicated "messy play" time daily (things like cars and trains driving in split peas, one day we played with a tub with a cup of sugar poured in the bottom, the shaving cream was too much for him right now, so we are doing things that don't "stick" to you as much yet, rice play, etc.) A deep pressure massage to arms/legs/back with lavender oil at bedtime. Omega 3 twice a day plus his regular vitamin. I'm NOT seeing much change in behavior yet, although he is having fewer accidents (going from never making it to the bathroom to making it probably half the time?) and he's willing to sit on my lap to receive love through touch when he's waking up in the morning and when he gets hurt. (both are HUGE improvements). That said, he had a meltdown at Church yesterday because they changed the room he usually goes into. Still a long way to go, but hopefully we are on the right track!

A week ago I posted a picture my son drew of a person. After a full week of intense OT work, I repeated the test out of curiosity. I feel like it's a significant change for a week... it's showing improvement, right? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have no expectations, I'm focusing on doing what I can in the meantime. I honestly don't know whether that's the right diagnosis or not. More of what I see is sensory stuff but following through with the evals is important. My MIL is having a heart attack over the whole issue because she's terrified that he'll get any label at all. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

:grouphug: I can't relate where I live, but I deal with other frustrating issues in my home that have me feeling like I'm drowning so I wanted to send hugs!!!

This is probably why my son doesn't look asd. PROMPT therapy as a child did amazing things for him and I'm sure it taught him to overcome things that would make his behaviors look more obviously atypical if he hadn't learned them . We will see if that knocks him out of a diagnosis. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, it's very frustrating. I worked as a special educator in my past life and I still remember trying to explain to parents why I wasn't Allowed to work with their kids, why they didn't qualify. I also remember being frustrated with the situation when a private school kid came to us for testing and we could tell them before we tested that she wouldn't qualify because of the rigor of the private school. We were right, the patents left frustrated and a bright kid with a potential learning disability was not given help because of our inability to work with anything but one one type of special need child. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Exactly why I've been working to reverse the prediabetes. Just because you may find yourself or your child in a gray area doesn't mean help isn't needed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, you put my thoughts into words beautifully! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I too recognize many of my kids traits in myself and it helps me in so many ways, both with helping my kids and with not feeling like the weird one myself, too! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is a purely academic thought process without any implications on my opinions on my own children, just something I've been pondering as I walk down the road that we are on, so indulge me for a moment: I am currently working to reverse prediabetes... my fasting blood sugars are not high enough to qualify as diabetic but not low enough to be "normal" so I am in the gray area of prediabetes (and in fact, the past week all my fasting numbers have been "high normal" so exciting progress!) Anyway the research I'm doing on reversing this issue has me thinking about behavioral issues like ASD. Is there a "gray area" where you aren't quite neurotypical but you're not quite asd either? Seems like it should work that way - if it's a spectrum that goes from mild to moderate to severe, what is one step lower than mild? Is it neurotypical? Seems like there might be a gray area where kids aren't quite neurotypical but not quite different enough to qualify for something? No idea if I'm off base or not, but it's something I've been pondering a bit as I await evaluations.

I use Beast as a spine for my older DD9. She got fed up with it a month or so ago and I pulled math mammoth out again for her as a "get it done" worksheet program and she quickly realized the value in beast as she really thrives on the conceptual approach to math. I appreciate the problem solving approach that they use well enough that I'll likely use it for all my kids, even if I have to use it a bit behind grade level for any of them. It really trains you to think mathematically and puzzle through concepts - I've learned a lot from it as well!

Thank you ladies! I appreciate all the tips and advise! Makes it easier to figure it all out [emoji4] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I redid the screening with her and she passed section b and c, but was segmenting words by syllable instead of word in part a. Looking at what is covered in barton level 1, it's exactly what I need to do with her. Whether I can piece it together or not might be irrelevant to the fact that it would just be easier to buy it! Thanks for this - I've been through OT with my 9 year old several years ago and it was intense - but it worked. And I do feel a bit overwhelmed by everything, obviously. I may ask grandma about doing barton, but at the same time, she tends to have no respect for difficulties of any type because she can't stand the idea of things not "appearing exactly right" and refuses to believe that it's not my fault that DD isn't reading yet. She also dislikes the fact that I'm homeschooling in general. But it might be something DH can do with DD as a special daddy daughter thing.

I've looked at that program before and decided against it at the time. I'll keep it in mind. Maybe a better foundation in sound manipulation is the way to go, so that she's not working as hard when she gets to the words. I'll look into barton. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

my usual prompt it to give her the sound if it's the vowel she got wrong, and ask her, "what's that sound?" if she gets the ending sound wrong.

If reading a progressive phonics book she does guess a lot - she's good at guessing with context. individually she blends words really well, just makes mistakes still.

wow thanks for all the links! I'll spend some time today looking into all this information. The interesting thing about her blending is that some of the time she blends a word very very well. She sounds each sound, and says the word. She doesn't need to blend the first two together before adding the ending. Other times, the exact same word gives her trouble. Thus the flash-cards - I put a star on the back each time she blends it correctly.

Yes, I did the Barton screening but it's been a while and I can't remember what the results were, I'd have to pull it out again to see. I remember she needed some work on a couple things so I pieced together those in what I was doing with her. I don't have letter tiles, that might be a good investment - I have a lot of magnet letters that we used while working on letter tiles. She's really good at individual letters, but once they are put together, she has trouble. It's like her brain scrambles things when she can't identify them individually. I haven't committed to a single program yet with her, only picking pieces out from my Orton-gillingham training as a teacher years ago, as well as bits from phonics pathways (blending initial sound with vowel then adding ending sound). I might need to save up and get Barton or a similar program for her to work on since it seems like my teaching resources are about tapped out.

I don't know if my experience will help or not, but as I figure out what's going on with my own kids I've realized that I likely have dyscalculia myself, but as I was gifted, my difficulties in math were missed (I was still testing "ahead" in math). I distinctly remember the feeling of numbers being these slippery things that no matter how hard I tried, they wouldn't stay put in my head the way they should. Like climbing a cliff with my fingernails, desperate to hang onto enough of the "process" to keep the numbers doing what they were supposed to be doing. A lot of times I'd go to solve a problem and find a blank slate in my brain - no idea how to do the problem in spite of working on the same thing over and over again. Quite frustrating as a child. As an adult helping my children learn through different math strategies there are a couple things that finally clicked as an adult that might help - the stuff in Ronit Bird mostly, which is a lot of games, so it shouldn't be terrible to add in if you're looking for something to do. The ability to visualize the WHY behind math helps immensely. My mom's approach (I was homeschooled as well) was simply rote drill and practice, but I never really got the why behind formulas, just learned to memorize them and plug numbers in. (NOT saying that's what you're doing, just sharing my growing up experience where I was forced through year after year after year of saxon math - I hated math as a child!!) Sorry, not much helpful advice, hang in there! :grouphug:

DD6 has dyslexia and low working memory. We have had to explicitly teach a lot of language skills (like using proper pronouns, proper verb tenses, etc.) and it took her a full year of orton-gillingham work to get letter sounds down. We've progressed to cvc words, and her working memory is finally able to hold a word in her head long enough to be successful at both sounding out three letters and blend them together as well as break the sounds apart to write a cvc word down. She's more consistently able to write cvc words down than she is at sounding them out to read. But she still has to sound out almost every cvc word even though we've been at this level for probably 6 months now. She's very frustrated with it and I am struggling to figure out my next approach. We have done a LOT of games, short sessions, allowing her to practice with g-ma (which backfires on me a lot because g-ma is VERY concerned that she can't read yet, regardless of what I tell her about the test results, but at least she hides that from DD!) We've done some progressive phonics (she liked the level 1 stories but level 2 is too difficult), and I've used bits of strategy from phonics pathways to teach blending. For the record we are doing a very relaxed K year - some math mixed into these language bits, and some science, but mostly free play and language work. My current approach is to have made flash cards with a bunch of basic cvc words, hoping that if I can get a group of basic words automatic, it will allow her to progress some. I'm noticing that in spite of her ability to write the words from dictation (she knows the sounds in isolation), when blending, she often "reads" the wrong sound. Half the time she gets the vowel wrong and the beginning and ending sound correct. the other half of the time she gets the initial letter and the vowel sound correct and the ending sound wrong. About half of the time that she sounds each letter out individually, she'll then blend it backwards: "p - o - t - top" Suggestions on next steps?

I've got an evaluation scheduled - it should be covered by our health sharing plan. In the meantime I've had opportunity to meet with an OT and a behaviorist on an informal level. The behaviorist is a friend of a friend and gave us quite a few methods to help his behavior including a picture schedule, sleep aid, and specifics on how to manage extreme fits. She was thrilled with how I can mirror talk and said that's a great method to help. The OT was a personal friend, whe've used her services in the past, and I got a lot of info on how to put together an intense sensory diet. She also agreed with the advise I've gotten here about his inability to draw a person connecting to the sensory problems and feels strongly that the sensory diet can make a huge difference for him. Essentially she said he cannot process sensory input properly so he acts out when ever the input reaches a certain level as his way of coping. She thinks as he is able to better process the input, we'll see both the behaviors diminish and his person drawing abilities increase. I've also been lectured by my mil on how he's a normal 4 year old boy and that I'm causing the behaviors by coddling him and not spanking him. She wishes I would just listen to her instead of the people who tell me otherwise and wishes I wouldn't get him labeled. I'm ignoring her and implementing the advise from the behaviorist and OT. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I switched to cloth pads because of painful cramping and heavy bleeding. The first month was significantly better. Instead of 7 days of painful cramping and heavy bleeding, I have 4 days of light bleeding and mild cramps. Will never go back to disposable again!

:party:

I'll look that up, thanks for the suggestion. I'm all ears right now because I know the behavior isn't normal and I need help with it. Even if my mil has her head stuck in the sand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is something my husband is very against. He wants me home with the kids and homeschooling. Our circumstances will Change in June one way or another so we are very close... So close I can taste it, lol. Plan A is a new job but plan B gets us out of the yard. I can't explain much more than that at the moment but Change is coming. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk