Dyslexic Advantage discussion thread

[Embassy]

Yes, Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World.

 

He gives the qualification that he's worked with kids who learn better through phonics, but most of the particular kids he sees do not.

 

Here's are a few relevant quotes:

 

"The more right-brained a child is, the less successful phonics will be; nonauditory learners have trouble filtering subtle sounds (particular vowels), which makes phonics a constant struggle."

 

"To ask a child who thinks randomly and pictorially to learn to read using a method that's sequential and sound-oriented is handicapping him from the start. It may work, but it's more sensible to apply a method that's simpler and more congruent with the way he thinks."

 

"I often start the right-brained student with a sight word approach to reading that eliminates any guessing; I make sure I read any new words first. Once he's well on his way to reading, I add a dose of phonics as a finishing technique. This is the way today's emerging right-brained population should be taught to read."

 

"Oral reading has very little to do with silent reading, so as a measure of reading skills, it misses the mark for right-brained children."

 

"They can be excellent silent readers and speed-readers... It's fascinating to observe how the most right-brained student, the child who flounders while reading aloud, is the one who is most likely to excel at silent reading. That's because reading is about comprehension, and comprehension is about visualization, a strength of the right-brained population.... His style demands that he read quickly, scanning key words on the page, in order to produce a detailed picture in his head. The right-brained child may eschew note-taking, learning more effectively by skimming the text several times and visualizing the material."

 

Not all of this fits dd, because while she has some very strong components of right-brained processing/VSL, she doesn't have them all; she's an odd mix of powerful auditory learning, particularly in narrative form, and VSL characteristics.

 

It's not clear to me how often what Freed says applies to dyslexics vs. ADD kids, whose various strengths and weaknesses overlap quite a bit with dyslexics. I find it really confusing trying to sort it all out.

 

But his chapters on reading, spelling, math, and writing hit so many points about dd right on the head, and have given me so many great specific tools for working with her, that I've just stopped worrying about exact diagnoses and criteria, happy that it WORKS!

 

I don't feel that I have enough of a handle yet on the Eides book to compare it well with Freed, to see where they mesh and where they differ, how the kids profiled are alike and are different. But it would be a great project -- perhaps a topic for another thread at some point.

 

Thanks so much for the quotes! I'll have to reread the book. I mostly skimmed it. I'll have to dig a little deeper next time. I believe his book is the one with the quiz at the beginning to determine if your child is right or left brained. I was expecting my son to be very much right-brained, but he turned out to be in the middle and only slightly leaning to the right. :confused:

[Guest]

I believe his book is the one with the quiz at the beginning to determine if your child is right or left brained. I was expecting my son to be very much right-brained, but he turned out to be in the middle and only slightly leaning to the right. :confused:

 

That's what is really weird; dd also turned out in the middle according to his little checklist. But when I went on to try some of the specific little activities or tests he has in the subject area chapters to see whether your child is a visual speller, for instance, dd was WWWAAAAYYYYYY VSL/right-brained. And the patterns of difficulties and strengths he described in those specific subject chapters fit dd very closely too. Every single thing he describes doing with these kids works with dd. Yet she also posed all kinds of complications and deviations from that nice little checklist.

 

I finally disregarded the checklist in the beginning because so many other things fit and clicked. I'll just take whatever works.

[Guest]

Sorry to be posting so much here these past couple of days... but I'm finding lots of stuff too interesting not to pass on.

 

Here's a link from the Eides' neurolearning blog which shows a biological difference in the ways that brains of gifted kids develop.

 

http://www.eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/blessings-and-burdens-of-high-iq.html

 

The reason I'm posting it here is that I think it has connections with the dyslexic profile and slow processing in younger dyslexics and difficulty with open-ended writing tasks and/or responding to a prompt like "Tell me everything you know about _______." The point seems to be that myelin connections are physiologically different in some people, and that these people are typically slow processors when they're younger partly because they have so many things stored in different places in their brains and the connector pieces aren't yet fully built (or something along those lines). Many of us with spectrum kids, dyslexics, and 2e kids have seen an incredible intellectual growth spurt during and immediately after puberty, which fits in with the different growth patterns shown in the diagram.

 

I'm sure not all "different" kids have this same pattern, but I wonder if it's one of those points of overlap between so many non-neurotypical syndromes/clusters of characteristics.

 

Anyway, just another piece to add to the Eides discussion.

[Sugarfoot]

Two things for you to look at:

COMAP Mathematics: Modeling Our World is a 4-year, integrated math program (that is, algebra, geometry, trig, and pre-calc are mixed together rather than separated out into different years and programs). It's entirely based on real-world problems. So for instance, you'll get a scenario and description of something like making a fair test design, doing animation, measuring land area from satellite images, designing efficient packaging, thinking through game strategy, etc. Then for each unit/topic the question becomes not immediately how to do it, but what sort of math would you need to know for a problem like this? How would you start to break the problem down? How would you approach it?

 

I really loved the books (I found used copies on amazon quite cheaply). The research they've done shows that kids going through all four years come out with a very slight edge on kids who go through traditional programs, but the main difference is that they LOVE math, they see its real-world applications, they see all kinds of careers in which it can be used.

 

http://www.comap.com

 

Dd, my non-fiction hater, resisted this approach, which I was secretly plugging for -- I would have really loved knowing not only why and how math worked, but what in the world it was actually used for.

 

Key Curriculum Press: the "Discovering...." series.

 

This is what we now use, dd's choice -- she's currently working her way through Algebra II. The books seem to me to hit a middle ground between the abstract and the COMAP approach; there are LOTS and LOTS of word problems, lots and lots of applications, but they are a bit stilted, not always as thoroughly integrated into real world uses as the COMAP series. Still, they do very well at linking the topics to many aspects of finance, science, art, and the like, although through individual problems rather than an overall approach like COMAP. It seems to be a good fit for dd; she's even getting excited when she gets something, and some of the word problems intrigue her (a recent one was figuring the average age of actors and actresses when they received Oscars, figuring the standard deviations etc.).

 

http://www.keypress.com

 

Thank you so much for posting about these! They both look wonderful. Comap, in particular, looks like it would fit very closely with the way that DS thinks. When I look at the website, it mentions a Teacher's Manual, but when I look at the order form, it only lists a teacher's CD-Rom. I'll have to figure that out. I may call the company on Monday and ask about it. I think I'm in love..:lol:

 

My library didn't have DA, but I bought it at a bookstore today. I almost checked into the Kindle version, but I have a feeling this is one of those books that I just wouldn't be able to read in a linear fashion, and that's the way the Kindle is for me.;) I'm looking forward to getting started after the littles go to bed. I know that I likely have at least one more child to teach with multiple diagnoses, and my DH is likely the only left-brained thinker in the house, so...

[PeterPan]

:grouphug: How sad that here you were, calling out for help, and no one helped you. I'm so sorry!

 

I was luckier in that I had a psychologist friend who remarked early on that clearly my child was not a phonetic reader. He didn't seem to think this was an issue...

What I don't know is how rare this is. Dd is a gestalt/visual reader, just as she is a visual speller who has now developed a really good visual memory for how words look. I don't know anyone else in real life whose child found phonics useless, but again, I don't know whether that's because the phonetic model is currently so dominant in our educational culture that people don't really know how many kids would/could learn to read in other ways.

 

Well that's the thing, I *wasn't* asking for help. She could read, and we were getting by, albeit with a LOT of work. But the amount of work we were putting in was *so* disproportionate, the signs (in retrospect) were OBVIOUS. Someone shoulda thunked me.

 

That's weird that even your psycho friend (just had to say that, haha) didn't think it was an issue. I suppose whether it's an issue or not depends on when the dc's visual memory runs out. Our VT place said there are generally limits on how many words like that the brain keeps in memory, and that eventually, even with the smartest people, you just hit a WALL. I think their number was 10K, but I could be wrong.

 

You're right that in general lack of sounding out words isn't an issue. It's not like most of us spend our days sounding out words like 1st graders, lol. But we're having these small walls and issues creep up here and there, and I need some explanations. So at this point it DOES matter. The cause of these things matters. For instance, I've said 30K times my dd doesn't like to read non-fiction. I've never had anyone take me to task on that either. (You kind of get the sense I wish people would, right? LOL) Does she not read non-fiction (and not would be the appropriate word) because of PERSONALITY or because she actually is having trouble decoding all those new words and having issues with comprehension? I can't answer that. I really don't have a clue. But it sure is making us hit some walls.

 

She also can't understand when people have too much of an accent or bad english. My ESL student, bless her soul, was only about 50% intelligible when she started with me. We've been friends for years, and I was fine with it. My dd literally COULD NOT understand her. After some serious working on this friend's english, my dd can now understand about 80% of what she says.

 

And that's not an isolated incident. My dh says the same thing about music and how people sing. If it's not very clear, he can't understand it. Women are especially hard for him. He usually sticks to a clear tenor. But I digress. I got a book on caves that I was fine reading and she just had to slog and slog and slog. Finally I realized the author is romanian, and, while the material is great, his sentence structures were sometimes non-standard and foreign-sounding. She couldn't read it. She could move her eyes over the words and take something, but it was just flummoxing her. And of course you know we finally gave up on the BJU Life Science, which had been my preferred choice for science for her. I still don't know why it can't work with her. I can get it to work, but basically we have to go through it line by line after she reads it. And to do that takes hours.

 

And I don't know WHY. I've already had the pat answers about how I just need to get topics that interest her (I've tried that) or approach it through a different genre or time period (tried that too), but ultimately it doesn't answer the question of why she can't read these books and get something out of them. And until I know WHY I can't fix it. But I've NEVER had someone listen to my bellyaching on the boards (and I do bellyache a lot, lol) and come up and say go get a np eval. They do on this board when we talk about our general things, but I'm talking about where people just come up, read the tea leaves, and tell you the honest truth.

 

Well whatever. I have NO CLUE where that came from, lol. Reading is such a fascinating thing. SWR that I used with her CLAIMS that students who learn to read with it will be very fast readers, faster than the norm. I have to tell you that even before VT she was a very fast reader. To what extent was she skipping words? I don't think she was. The visagraph at the VT place did not indicate skipping words. To me it seems like Sanseri was right, that something about the way SWR does it gets it to direct connect, no sounding out, and they end up super-duper fast. After VT, she became lightning fast. Her eye movements *before* VT were 11th grade efficiency. I'd hate to guess what they are now. She's visibly faster than me at all things visual, and I went to grad school, etc. reading a lot. Dh was taught the regular way (sounding out), and his reading is still so laborious that he avoids it and defers to things with an audio option.

[PeterPan]

Wow, yay that's great news. FWIW it's as long as it would take my DS. 4 paragraphs would definitely take a week. Yay for your daughter getting it done. I figure whatever it takes. Just to get it out. I can relate to that, my son is an excellent writer in his own mind. Even getting to the point where he could do 4 paragraphs in 6 hours was pretty huge for him. It used to be one paragraph a week or a sentence a week. It's been a long haul to get him to this point.

 

I have got to go get my hands on that book. DS is almost done.

 

Yes, writing has been for a long time the thing she avoided. She went through a recipe-writing stage where she would write her "recipes" on cards. They were usually single words or short phrases, very charming. After that though, around 1st grade, it was pretty much pulling teeth. And any time she sat down to really WRITE something, there was this huge initiation hurdle (as the OT put it) to get over. I finally learned to just leave her alone, as I couldn't help.

 

So yes, this writing she's doing seems to be gelling in a lot of ways. So I was going to ask you, is your ds formally diagnosed, and if so with what? If you've said it, I ought to remember and don't.

[PeterPan]

I suspect this is related also to the struggle many 2e kids have to put their thoughts into the linear format required by so many essay formats. Basically what they're having to do is translate: for some, from pictures to words, then from words in their own unique organizational form to the form required by school output. No wonder it takes them forever and wipes them out!

 

When I was 17 I was a foreign exchange student in Paraguay, and I can still remember how despite four years of Spanish in school, I was just wrung dry by the end of a day trying to translate, and this was simply language to language. Many of our kids are struggling everyday with a much more difficult translation job. And it's tragic when the amazing thing they are doing is not even recognized as difficult for them, that only their deficits or issues are seen at the end.

 

DA actually hits this translation issue (going from pictures/non-verbal to verbal and the difficulty) on page 65. :)

 

You know, you may have just explained something for me. When I went to Russia, I got very, very sick after a couple weeks with culture shock. Now I'm wondering if it really wasn't just that whomp of getting thrown into a new language and having to process, process, process full-time like that. I went to bed for days. The family was pretty worried about it. Nuts, I was worried about myself! Mercifully I recovered and wise fine after that.

 

And yes, I think you're explaining it correctly. Or I think the explanation the Eides give on pg. 64-65 explains very well why dd is so TIRED after she writes. The book mentions that a portion of their brain that is normally dedicated to language gets appropriated for spacial functions instead.

[Emerald Stoker]

nm

[PeterPan]

I don't feel that I have enough of a handle yet on the Eides book to compare it well with Freed, to see where they mesh and where they differ, how the kids profiled are alike and are different. But it would be a great project -- perhaps a topic for another thread at some point.

 

Nahhh, I think we should keep going RIGHT HERE and see if we can get the thread to hit 100 pages or something. :lol:

[PeterPan]

That's what is really weird; dd also turned out in the middle according to his little checklist. But when I went on to try some of the specific little activities or tests he has in the subject area chapters to see whether your child is a visual speller, for instance, dd was WWWAAAAYYYYYY VSL/right-brained. And the patterns of difficulties and strengths he described in those specific subject chapters fit dd very closely too. Every single thing he describes doing with these kids works with dd. Yet she also posed all kinds of complications and deviations from that nice little checklist.

 

I finally disregarded the checklist in the beginning because so many other things fit and clicked. I'll just take whatever works.

 

I've read (mercy I don't remember where, probably in something the Eides wrote) that this whole discussion of left/right brains isn't as tidy as it sounds. So that alone might explain why his survey isn't perfect. But if the techniques help, that's all that matters. We can even add more twists like VSL kids who don't develop their full VSL ability because they have additional physical vision problems holding them back. My dd never mentioned thinking in pictures until after VT, even though she has the spacial issues the Eides mention and fits Freed's profile. The VT place said she was processing auditorily because her visual processing was SO weak. The Eides discuss how these kids can have the spacial and actually LOSE (or in our case not develop) the visual side. Think about that a VSL with a weak V, hehe. (pg. 58 in DA)

[PeterPan]

Sorry to be posting so much here these past couple of days... but I'm finding lots of stuff too interesting not to pass on.

 

Here's a link from the Eides' neurolearning blog which shows a biological difference in the ways that brains of gifted kids develop.

 

http://www.eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/blessings-and-burdens-of-high-iq.html

 

The reason I'm posting it here is that I think it has connections with the dyslexic profile and slow processing in younger dyslexics and difficulty with open-ended writing tasks and/or responding to a prompt like "Tell me everything you know about _______."

 

I need to go read that article. On the answering open-ended thing, our OT examined that. She said it actually had something to do with praxis, which doesn't make sense to me, but whatever. Try the same task, same age, same child, but give more structure, and you can get a totally different response. For instance she asked dd to tell her all the animals she knows. Hum, haw, no response. (This ought to be easy for an 11 yo, right?) Then all of a sudden the answers start coming out, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. No structure, no way to organize thoughts and retrieve, no language output. With structure, it flows. Before that she did a rope test, same thing. Hand the rope and tell me all the things you can do. With my dd, literally all the things were in the same category (some version of a lasso/leash). With me, the rope was a puppet with scraggly hair, a lion, a this, a that. Nope, her things were all the same, one category.

 

The OT didn't have a thorough explanation of that. I'm just saying it's easy to assume things are timetable that *aren't*. And it's easy to assume that because it developed later that the amount of output and achievement are now normal, which they aren't necessarily either. I don't see how delayed development becomes a new norm. It might be, or it might still be a problem.

[PeterPan]

My library didn't have DA, but I bought it at a bookstore today. I almost checked into the Kindle version, but I have a feeling this is one of those books that I just wouldn't be able to read in a linear fashion, and that's the way the Kindle is for me.;) I'm looking forward to getting started after the littles go to bed. I know that I likely have at least one more child to teach with multiple diagnoses, and my DH is likely the only left-brained thinker in the house, so...

 

You know, you just solved something for me. One of the first things I wondered when I looked at a kindle was how easy it was to jump to the end and then jump around where you want to be, hehe. Guess lots of us aren't linear here. :)

 

Glad you got a copy so you can read and jump in the discussion! I'm still plugging along, so you have plenty of time.

[PeterPan]

I don't know what people usually mean when they say "gifted". When I think of "gifted", I think of the character Charlie on tv show Numb3rs. I've known people who are close to that level of gifted. My sister was gifted in all academic areas and music. She's now an engineer and she's good engineer. However, objectively speaking, my husband is "more gifted" as an engineer. No one would have called my dh a "wonderboy" as a child, but he's a natural at engineering.

 

My ds may or may not be able to "cut it" in college to ever become an engineer--but it runs through his blood. Even if he doesn't become an engineer, I can picture him becoming an inventor. In that regard, I sometimes think my ds's memory problems may one day be an asset for him. He may come up with some great innovation--all because he couldn't remember the way something was suppose to be designed. :lol:

 

(It's kinda like spelling, where my husband and son also display their creativity. :D)

 

Merry, I just wanted to make sure you knew we didn't miss your post! Yes, someone could be dyslexic and have a lower IQ (everyone has one, so obviously some people's will be higher and some lower) and yet be BETTER at their profession than someone of a HIGHER IQ. In fact, a friend of mine with a PhD told me her degree had nothing to do with brilliance (which she has plenty of) and everything to do with persistence. And of course with engineers, that spacial ability and ability to visualize, see connections, think out of the box, is huge. It goes way beyond someone who just has the ability to crunch numbers.

 

There are actually IQ parameters for levels of giftedness. If you have your test scores from high school (SAT, etc.), there are ways to extrapolate and guestimate what your IQ would be. It's a fun little game to play if you're interested. Just google to find out how.

 

Uh oh, gotta stop the 3 yo from "fixing" my MIL's computer. Another engineer in the making. :)

[Guest]

I need to go read that article. On the answering open-ended thing, our OT examined that. She said it actually had something to do with praxis, which doesn't make sense to me, but whatever.

 

Interesting; our neuropsych said something else entirely in reference to the very same task, but as that was four and a half years ago and not written down explicitly I don't remember what she called it.

 

I don't think they are turning developmentally delayed into a new normal, although the precise distinctions seem to me very complicated. They're talking about a very particular biological/physiological pattern of specific aspects of brain development in kids with particular IQs. What we don't know is how many kids in the "gifted" sample were 2e in some way, or how that would skew the result. And I think that's precisely their question. They're thinking this would be a vital piece of information to have about 2e kids.

 

IF -- big IF -- the pattern is similar, which is what they personally seem to suspect, in dyslexic kids they work with, what does this say about how we work with kids in terms of requiring certain kinds of thought or work from them that might be, for that specific group of kids, developmentally and physiologically inappropriate?

 

It's all unknown territory, but it's great to think about whether, for instance, my occasional frustration with dd's slow processing -- "I'm THINKING, Mom!" -- and my urge to do all kinds of things to speed it up in some way would be better served by simply waiting for that neurological change.

 

I'm not finished (oh, dear, you probably think), but dinner's ready so I have to stop (thank goodness, says Elizabeth).

 

Karen

[wapiti]

I don't know what people usually mean when they say "gifted". When I think of "gifted", I think of the character Charlie on tv show Numb3rs.

 

Just to add to what Elizabeth said, the specific cutoff for "giftedness" (for psychs, neuropsychs, schools, etc.) depends on the IQ test, but it's typically in the range of 130, or the 98th percentile and up. And then above that, there are different levels of giftedness. Many people, when they hear the term "gifted," might think only of profoundly gifted persons. Moderately gifted (and some highly gifted) persons may be right under your nose, i.e., more difficult to spot.

[Sugarfoot]

Thank you so much for posting about these! They both look wonderful. Comap, in particular, looks like it would fit very closely with the way that DS thinks. When I look at the website, it mentions a Teacher's Manual, but when I look at the order form, it only lists a teacher's CD-Rom. I'll have to figure that out. I may call the company on Monday and ask about it. I think I'm in love..:lol:QUOTE]

 

Dear Sugarfoot,

 

I emailed them this summer, and they happily sold me solutions manuals (i.e. paper copies) for the first two volumes. I've got the third textbook, too, but haven't bought the solutions for that one yet, since it will be a while 'til we get there, if we in fact decide to use this series. (I'm investigating integrated math options mostly because that is the way math is taught here in Canada, and I don't love our public school textbooks very much.)

 

Hope that helps!

 

Thank you! I love the look of this program, but I'd definitely want to take advantage of all of the teacher's materials available.

 

Best,

HG

 

Why can't I make the quotes show in little blue boxes?

 

Did you click on the little "quote" box at the bottom of my post? That almost always works, but sometimes there's just a glitch. ;)

 

You know, you just solved something for me. One of the first things I wondered when I looked at a kindle was how easy it was to jump to the end and then jump around where you want to be, hehe. Guess lots of us aren't linear here. :)

 

Glad you got a copy so you can read and jump in the discussion! I'm still plugging along, so you have plenty of time.

 

It's funny about the Kindle/iPad. I like it fine, but I don't love it. ;) And I definitely don't want to read anything but fiction on it. In fact, the Kindle app has forced me not to look ahead (or back:001_huh:) in that genre, too. :lol: DD 13 has a regular Kindle, which she refuses to use. She says she just wants to read a real book. She's completely anti-linear (new word?;)), too, and she also has serious ADD tendencies. We're really struggling with whether or not to medicate at this point, but she also has some medical issues that complicate things. I know I've read somewhere about there being similarities between the brains of dyslexics and those with ADD.

 

I'm excited to get started on the book!

[Jennifer-72]

I need to go read that article. On the answering open-ended thing, our OT examined that. She said it actually had something to do with praxis, which doesn't make sense to me, but whatever. Try the same task, same age, same child, but give more structure, and you can get a totally different response. For instance she asked dd to tell her all the animals she knows. Hum, haw, no response. (This ought to be easy for an 11 yo, right?) Then all of a sudden the answers start coming out, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. No structure, no way to organize thoughts and retrieve, no language output. With structure, it flows. Before that she did a rope test, same thing. Hand the rope and tell me all the things you can do. With my dd, literally all the things were in the same category (some version of a lasso/leash). With me, the rope was a puppet with scraggly hair, a lion, a this, a that. Nope, her things were all the same, one category.

 

The OT didn't have a thorough explanation of that. I'm just saying it's easy to assume things are timetable that *aren't*. And it's easy to assume that because it developed later that the amount of output and achievement are now normal, which they aren't necessarily either. I don't see how delayed development becomes a new norm. It might be, or it might still be a problem.

 

I believe both of those things are used to assess the ideation part of motor planning/praxis. While some will struggle with all pieces of motor planning, some will struggle with just one piece, such as ideation.

[Guest]

We can even add more twists like VSL kids who don't develop their full VSL ability because they have additional physical vision problems holding them back. My dd never mentioned thinking in pictures until after VT, even though she has the spacial issues the Eides mention and fits Freed's profile. The VT place said she was processing auditorily because her visual processing was SO weak. The Eides discuss how these kids can have the spacial and actually LOSE (or in our case not develop) the visual side. Think about that a VSL with a weak V, hehe. (pg. 58 in DA)

 

Yep, that's dd too. Here was a poor kid who was a visual speller with multiple visual processing deficits. VT helped with a lot of that for us too.

 

What's very intriguing for me are the number of dyslexic kids who have these incredible abilities to rotate things mentally, see them in 3-D, imagine transformations -- and yet they have such poor senses of their own bodies in space that they constantly run into things, can't tie their shoes, put their clothes on backwards or inside out or sideways. What an enormous wrench their own physicality puts into their mental spatial abilities.

[PeterPan]

I believe both of those things are used to assess the ideation part of motor planning/praxis. While some will struggle with all pieces of motor planning, some will struggle with just one piece, such as ideation.

 

Thanks for the term! I was so skunked that our OT looked at lots of things but didn't get them all into the report. She was just very scattered. :(

[PeterPan]

Yep, that's dd too. Here was a poor kid who was a visual speller with multiple visual processing deficits. VT helped with a lot of that for us too.

 

What's very intriguing for me are the number of dyslexic kids who have these incredible abilities to rotate things mentally, see them in 3-D, imagine transformations -- and yet they have such poor senses of their own bodies in space that they constantly run into things, can't tie their shoes, put their clothes on backwards or inside out or sideways. What an enormous wrench their own physicality puts into their mental spatial abilities.

 

Yes, you're mixing the physical side (proprioception, sensory) with the mental. But what would be interesting to ponder is their ability to move themselves through their space mentally, or say on a computer game, where they wouldn't have the sensory limitations. You'd probably get a very different outcome.

 

My dd isn't as extreme as say Jackie's ds with spatial stuff (is it spacial or spatial?) at least from what I can tell. Some things she is, but it shows up in different ways like decorating. Tonight I told her what was quirking me about our living room and she rearranged in her mind, lickety split, before I even knew what I wanted. Then she had gone on to multiple more arrangements even before I could finish trying to visualize my first one, lol. I like the way it is now btw. She was right. :)

[PeterPan]

Sorry to be posting so much here these past couple of days... but I'm finding lots of stuff too interesting not to pass on.

 

Here's a link from the Eides' neurolearning blog which shows a biological difference in the ways that brains of gifted kids develop.

 

http://www.eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/blessings-and-burdens-of-high-iq.html

 

The reason I'm posting it here is that I think it has connections with the dyslexic profile and slow processing in younger dyslexics and difficulty with open-ended writing tasks and/or responding to a prompt like "Tell me everything you know about _______." The point seems to be that myelin connections are physiologically different in some people, and that these people are typically slow processors when they're younger partly because they have so many things stored in different places in their brains and the connector pieces aren't yet fully built (or something along those lines). Many of us with spectrum kids, dyslexics, and 2e kids have seen an incredible intellectual growth spurt during and immediately after puberty, which fits in with the different growth patterns shown in the diagram.

 

I'm sure not all "different" kids have this same pattern, but I wonder if it's one of those points of overlap between so many non-neurotypical syndromes/clusters of characteristics.

 

Anyway, just another piece to add to the Eides discussion.

 

Ok, I'm reading that blog post. Here's what it says: The figure below shows that the highest IQ kids had the lowest prefrontal actvation in the early elementary school years, while cortical connections really turned on the gas (passing mildly high and average IQ kids) heading into the teenage years.

 

And here's the abstract they link to that is available for free at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7084/full/nature04513.html

 

Children who are adept at any one of the three academic ‘R's (reading, writing and arithmetic) tend to be good at the others, and grow into adults who are similarly skilled at diverse intellectually demanding activities1, 2, 3. Determining the neuroanatomical correlates of this relatively stable individual trait of general intelligence has proved difficult, particularly in the rapidly developing brains of children and adolescents. Here we demonstrate that the trajectory of change in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, rather than cortical thickness itself, is most closely related to level of intelligence. Using a longitudinal design, we find a marked developmental shift from a predominantly negative correlation between intelligence and cortical thickness in early childhood to a positive correlation in late childhood and beyond. Additionally, level of intelligence is associated with the trajectory of cortical development, primarily in frontal regions implicated in the maturation of intelligent activity4, 5. More intelligent children demonstrate a particularly plastic cortex, with an initial accelerated and prolonged phase of cortical increase, which yields to equally vigorous cortical thinning by early adolescence. This study indicates that the neuroanatomical expression of intelligence in children is dynamic.

 

Now I don't know if anyone else is weak on their brain anatomy, but I had to do some googling and find out what in the world the cerebral cortex is and how that differs from the pre-frontal lobe and what in the world is thickening. LOL Just to read that article, you would think it's the neural pathways that are thickening. Not really. It's the actual wrinkly layers sheathing the brain. The minicolumns the Eides talk about in DA connect through layers of that cerebral cortex (multi-layered sheath). And apparently the prefrontal is a lobe, a location, a specific region.

 

[i just deleted a bunch here, because I'm becoming boringly repetitive.]

 

To me they're playing with fire here. Hope their "don't worry, your kid will bloom eventually" theory works out for the kids they counsel it with.

[wapiti]

To me they're playing with fire here. Hope their "don't worry, your kid will bloom eventually" theory works out for the kids they counsel it with.

 

This is fascinating. Somewhere along the way, I recall seeing a graph having to do with development and IQ, and it had two curves - one for neurotypical, and one for high IQ. The high IQ curve started at a later time than the other one, but surpassed it. It was as though the whole curve was shifted to the right, but larger. Does this make any sense? What you're quoting reminds me of that graph. I wish I could remember some specifics about it or at least where I saw it.

 

So, I hope this sort of thing lines up with what I am seeing with ds8 (who at 3 y.o. was "severely developmentally delayed"), my late bloomer. But y'all are killing me over here; I can't get to the library until tomorrow to pick up DA.

[wapiti]

Elizabeth, here's another study from Nature you might be interested in (I saw it cited over on the Davidson forum) Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain

 

A combination of structural and functional imaging showed that verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by speech, whereas non-verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by finger movements. By using longitudinal assessments of the same individuals, we obviated the many sources of variation in brain structure that confound cross-sectional studies. This allowed us to dissociate neural markers for the two types of IQ and to show that general verbal and non-verbal abilities are closely linked to the sensorimotor skills involved in learning. More generally, our results emphasize the possibility that an individual’s intellectual capacity relative to their peers can decrease or increase in the teenage years. This would be encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve, and would be a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential.

 

I'm not sure what to make of this; maybe they simply mean that sensorimotor skills help a person score well on IQ tests?

[PeterPan]

Wapiti, that's interesting. Now try to put it together with the material KarenAnne linked to at http://www.eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/blessings-and-burdens-of-high-iq.html I *think* when they say "gray matter" they mean the cerebral cortex. If that's the case, then you could put the two abstracts side by side and try to correlate them in your mind.

 

As far as your question about what they mean by sensorimotor skills, well I think the issue is that an MRI can't measure "ability" or learning. So instead they're looking at the things that part of the cortext does. Implication or assumption is more grey matter means more brains means more learning ability/higher IQ. Read the other wikipedia article, and you find out it's not so linear. They extrapolated by weight and ended up with smart dolphins who shouldn't be so smart, lol. And why does the cortex get THINNER in the teen years (with a graph going precipitously DOWN, not up as you age, lol) if we get smarter as we age?

 

But no, I think if you read the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex I think by sensorimotor skills they just mean the stuff the cortex is responsible for.

 

Ok, I found a better answer. Maybe it's referring to Piaget's theories on stages of development. Here's your link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development#Sensorimotor_stage

[Guest]

It's fascinating, Elizabeth, how you go for the biochemical details and I'm interested in the general idea and implications.

 

What I get from the study quoted and the Eides' comments is that there is a neurological reason why many of our kids, particularly when they are quite young and obviously really really smart, yet have such dramatically slow processing speeds and such trouble doing things like dredging up specific information in reply to a specifically worded prompt (among other things) or writing full paragraphs.

 

The study also jives with multiple stories I've read here on the boards about Aspie kids who have a huge, absolutely huge, developmental leap in terms of their ability to get it all together for writing tasks in early adolescence.

 

I don't think for one minute the Eides would quarrel with early intervention or therapies; that's not the point. I honestly don't believe they're going to tell parents to just sit back and wait, everything will be all right. For one thing, the study dealt only with a "gifted population," and we have no idea who that really consists of, where and how they were identified, etc. The Eides are just speculating that a 2e profile might look similar or have a similar trend toward later maturation in specific areas and wondering what the implications might be for working with these kids if that is the case (as they think it probably is). That's massively different from saying don't worry, it will all work out.

 

For homeschoolers, I think the interesting question is whether there are academic areas in which we could be expecting things or simply worrying frantically about things that our kids are physiologically not set up to do until later years. Writing, as one of the most complicated tasks that draws on executive function skills, motor planning, visual discrimination, the ability to recall and organize information, verbal skills, etc., may be one of those areas in which less is more until quite a bit later in a child's education. And note, this is my own speculation, not that of the Eides. With my own child I've seen that by waiting until she is ready -- for things such as Latin and writing -- I can help her to accomplish in a matter of weeks or months what otherwise would have taken us years of painful struggling, frustration, and tears. I don't know how this would look in any other child. I just know what it has looked like in mine, and what writing in particular has looked like in a number of other Aspies whose moms held off with a lot of writing demands until high school. It's a matter for thought and consideration, not a claim to a perfect pedagogy.

[Guest]

[quote name=OhElizabeth;3260279But what would be interesting to ponder is their ability to move themselves through their space mentally' date=' or say on a computer game, where they wouldn't have the sensory limitations. You'd probably get a very different outcome.

[/quote]

 

Did anyone else see that really interesting article in the NYT (I think??? I'll go try to find it) yesterday about a study of people's gestures while they described chess moves and playing chess? It was absolutely fascinating and it is exactly what you are talking about, Elizabeth.

 

And regarding your dd -- there's an interior designer story in DA that reminded me of her!

[Guest]

Not NYT, but an earlier entry in the Eides blog. Here it is:

 

 

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/high-fluid-intelligence-gestures-and.html?

 

As my dd has finger agnosia and substantial fine motor issues that interfere with her use of gesturing, I immediately wonder what kind of wrenches other 2e kids would throw into this kind of study? Or what the implications are for dd's "fluid intelligence" -- which isn't specifically defined anywhere that I could see.

[peacefully]

.

[onaclairadeluna]

I don't think for one minute the Eides would quarrel with early intervention or therapies; that's not the point. I honestly don't believe they're going to tell parents to just sit back and wait, everything will be all right. For one thing, the study dealt only with a "gifted population," and we have no idea who that really consists of, where and how they were identified, etc. The Eides are just speculating that a 2e profile might look similar or have a similar trend toward later maturation in specific areas and wondering what the implications might be for working with these kids if that is the case (as they think it probably is). That's massively different from saying don't worry, it will all work out.

 

That was how I interpreted it as well. I jumped in and did intervention with my son but some things just didn't come together until just recently. This year writing is happening and it is just fantastic. It gives me hope that somethings may come around eventually (I kind of see that happening this year and I think it is fantastic).

 

This takes me back to the idea of "hitting a wall". You can hit a wall at 7 or 8 but that wall might not be the final wall. Or it might disintegrate in a few years. That's what I am finding. It's tricky to know what is developmental and what needs remediation. I think you just have to do what you can and be in the moment and not worry too much about the future. This is another thing that LD and GT has in common. It's hard to predict where our kids are actually headed and thinking too much about "the future" can be perplexing.

 

So it's difficult to dice apart the GT issues and the LD issues. But the gist I am getting from DS is that they might be one and the same. That is so interesting to me, because it is always how it seemed. His inability to do anything by rote is really quite a blessing. He has a deeper and more profound understanding of things than I ever had.

 

Elizabeth...you asked about DS's DX and I don't have one (in spite of how I encourage others to do this). I am without a doubt sure he is dyslexic. It's familial and he fits the profile to a T. Whether I will be able to get a DX of dyslexia at this point is questionable. He spells and reads on grade level. It's timing and recall that he still struggles with. I am trying to get something on paper for him so he can have extra time on tests. He really needs it.

 

He has the whole list of dyslexic signs. Couldn't tie his shoes. Said Mow Lawner until he was 7. Couldn't spell or write without Barton. Doesn't memorize rote. His speech is still noticeably different. People say he speaks with a "british accent". He also has some aspie-like qualities but not really. Intensity mostly. "I stubbed my toe it's the end of the world" And I sometimes have to be pretty explicit with social skills (remind him to remember peoples names and stuff). Again, I don't know how much of this is GT or LD or blah blah blah. And the label doesn't really matter too much at this point. At 7 or 8 it might have been helpful if I had knowledgeable people in my area. Ha. I wish! Oh well, I feel as if I did a pretty decent job considering I had no help whatsoever. :tongue_smilie:

[PeterPan]

Not NYT, but an earlier entry in the Eides blog. Here it is:

 

 

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/high-fluid-intelligence-gestures-and.html?

 

As my dd has finger agnosia and substantial fine motor issues that interfere with her use of gesturing, I immediately wonder what kind of wrenches other 2e kids would throw into this kind of study? Or what the implications are for dd's "fluid intelligence" -- which isn't specifically defined anywhere that I could see.

 

Now THAT is interesting. As the article points out, it opens up more questions than answers, but what a lot of rabbit trails to ponder! They asked whether the thicker cortical areas are IN RESPONSE to the training/stimulation. I've wondered about dd's use of ASL when the words won't come out. (Not that she knows so much, but it's really sort of a bizarre preference.) And of course they explored the gaming I had mentioned. Then to tie that into pedagogy is really cool.

 

Well that's just too fascinating, this whole idea of using gestures to aid visualization.

 

And yes, I'm a left-brained, detail person in Freed's book, the polar opposite of dd. I live in details, love 'em, wallow in them, and struggle to figure out the whole. Dd is the total opposite, taking pleasure in overall connections and not caring a rip about minor details like how you prove something or show your steps. :)

[rafiki]

.

[Guest]

OOur SLP also did this particular "name as many ___ as you can in a minute" test with my ds, first over a year ago, and then just recently as part of his re-evaluation. Last year, he was able to name only 3 or 4 animals in a minute, before giving up on the task entirely. Of course, at the time he knew dozens and dozens of marine animals alone, so it was totally weird that he wasn't able to produce any answers to this question.

 

Our SLP's take on this was that at least in my ds's case, this was an auditory processing issue rather than a learning style/memory issue or a praxis issue. Over this past year, ds has been remediating his auditory and language processing and just recently completed a re-evaluation of his skills. We've never practiced the "name as many ___ as you can" test or addressed this skill specifically in any way, but when ds did this test again, he now named 20 animals in a minute (age-level norms are around 15).

 

It is utterly fascinating how basically the same difficulty -- the naming task -- can be looked at and interpreted from so many different angles. With dd, from what I remember, the neuropsych basically said it was a problem of categorization in memory and in retrieval. She suggested some exercises (I forget what -- I'd have to go look up our report), but there were so many other urgent things to work on, VT, OT, anxiety issues, social inhibition, dysgraphia, that I let that one go.

 

Surprise, surprise, a couple of years later dd had the same test somewhere and she aced it, throwing out oodles and oddles and oodles of items and names. She overflowed with them. With no therapy or intervention or exercises.

 

So in this one particular individual case, the ability did indeed develop on its own timetable, and develop spectacularly well. And in dd at least, the type of task, the basis of the problem according to the neuropsych, and the Eides' speculation really mesh.

 

I also find it interesting that at eleven dd was officially diagnosed with severe dysgraphia/disorder of written expression; by fourteen, she'd almost completely overcome it. She didn't have "therapy" or remediation per se, but I didn't push her, I didn't require constant writing, and I changed what I was doing to work with Freed's techniques and (as always) with dd's own particular interests. I did nearly everything differently from/backwards from conventional notions of how to teach kids to write. Again, this is not to say "Here's THE answer," but just an example of how very different a 2e kid's development can look, both in terms of the timetable, and in terms of quantity/kind of writing/approach.

[onaclairadeluna]

 

Anyway, I tend to agree with Karen, Jackie, the Eides... all those who suggest that we need to have instructional strategies that better address the alternate ways that our kids categorize and retrieve information. Totally! That is my particular interest in this whole thread. What is it that actually works for these type of kids. OTOH, I've seen how helpful it is to give our kids the tools to develop some flexibility in their thinking too.

 

My son was talking to me about this part in the book. He said something like it might be hard to remember the word dog but he could remember dug which was from the original icelandic tongue which was incorporated into viking language which traveled from germany to england. And there is there is hound from hund which is from a indo european language.

 

And then he went into this joke about how dog reminds him of the creek next to our house because it is "dug".

 

So I am not sure I need to encourage flexibility, it is just there. This is why multiple choice tests are hard for him. Interestingly, though I am not dyslexic I have a similar problem with seeing how more than one answer could be right. He, however, usually can see how ALL of the answers are right. Just like the fitting in of every puzzle piece. You just don't know if it might change shape and fit.

 

On the one hand I think this skill should be nurtured. On the other, I feel it is my job to teach coping skills (in a world full of boxes, forms and hoops)

 

It's like that song "you gotta know when to hold em'/know when to fold em'/know when to walk away/ know when to run"

 

I'd like him to be able to fill out the form if he needs to. Or conversely to turn the form into a paper hat if it is appropriate.

[Guest]

Yllek, I'm to the point where I don't want more information or theories as to why, the connections, etc. It is what it is. DA didn't speak to me a bit. What I'd like is to read books, blogs, threads, etc. on HOW people are embracing their children's strengths, passion, and gifts. How are those used as a core instead of the typical methods discussed on the other boards here?

 

I've posted quite a bit on the high school board (and been roundly criticized for it) about using dd's passions as the core of school from the word go. Actually, I have (kind of embarrassed, it seems so overboard) 2000 pages of single-spaced notes from when dd was fourteen months to now, and I'm going back over them attempting to draft a book about what life is like with a 2e kid and how we did things and what I discovered, how it turned my philosophies of education upside down and inside out. I've got about three chapters roughly laid out and/or drafted: the before-preschool years, our experiences with testing, and junior high.

 

I have a lot of stuff, so if you would like specifics about a rough age, or a subject, or anything, you can either PM me or ask here, and I'll look up what I wrote then and try to answer.

 

I also have had four (I think) articles published in Home Education Magazine. I don't remember the dates of the issues, but I can go dig them out and cite them if you're interested. One deals with writing (or not writing) and dysgraphia, one with horses -- I don't remember the others at the moment.

Edited October 23, 2011 by Guest

[PeterPan]

He has the whole list of dyslexic signs. Couldn't tie his shoes. Said Mow Lawner until he was 7. Couldn't spell or write without Barton. Doesn't memorize rote. His speech is still noticeably different. People say he speaks with a "british accent". He also has some aspie-like qualities but not really. Intensity mostly. "I stubbed my toe it's the end of the world" And I sometimes have to be pretty explicit with social skills (remind him to remember peoples names and stuff). Again, I don't know how much of this is GT or LD or blah blah blah. And the label doesn't really matter too much at this point. At 7 or 8 it might have been helpful if I had knowledgeable people in my area. Ha. I wish! Oh well, I feel as if I did a pretty decent job considering I had no help whatsoever. :tongue_smilie:

 

Just so you know, he may have actually gotten a number of different, overlapping labels if you had started earlier. That speaking with an accent thing is a common outcome of apraxia, where the dc starts to speak but may sound like he has an accent. Dyslexia is apparently very common with apraxia, and of course apraxia, being a form of praxis, is common to spectrum kids. I've also read that some times the apraxia kids have some auditory processing issues going on underneath the apraxia. In any case, it might be interesting to see what would happen if he got a speech eval from someone with experience with all the things in that mix (apraxia, spectrum, auditory processing, etc.). Remember Yllek's ds has been getting therapy from a SLP even though he talks. It's all sort of fascinating.

 

Anyways, didn't mean to tear you apart there or analyze. I've scheduled the 1st interview with an NP this week (unless something happens), so we'll see how that goes. Like you I've dithered in this should I, shouldn't I land quite a while. I'm deeply concerned I'll spend my money on the np and get told I actually need another practitioner on top of that to get to the root, ugh. But I figure we're bound to learn SOMETHING if the man spends 6 hours prying into her brain, lol.

Edited October 23, 2011 by OhElizabeth

[peacefully]

.

[Guest]

This takes me back to the idea of "hitting a wall". You can hit a wall at 7 or 8 but that wall might not be the final wall. Or it might disintegrate in a few years. That's what I am finding. It's tricky to know what is developmental and what needs remediation. I think you just have to do what you can and be in the moment and not worry too much about the future. This is another thing that LD and GT has in common. It's hard to predict where our kids are actually headed and thinking too much about "the future" can be perplexing.

 

I absolutely agree.

 

What's developmental and what needs remediation is in the process of being disentangled in brain science right before our eyes -- but it's going to be a long process with a lot of complications and things that they get wrong before they get them right.

 

It's so very hard to live in the moment with our kids, because we're always thinking about what will happen to them when we're not here (or at least I am... maybe I'm just obsessive and morbid). But I believe you are right that this is one of the gifts we can offer them -- living in the moment, that is, responding to and working with who they are in the moment, not trying so very hard to force-grow them into something we think they should or could be. Again, this does not mean we don't intervene, pursue therapy, keep working with them and beside them. It doesn't mean we don't strive to cultivate their ultimate independence in any number of areas.

 

For me, it simply means that dd's developmental path is so unique and so different from the norm that I can't see where it is going, and so there is no point whatever trying to shove her in one direction or another that I think looks good or that works for neurotypical kids.

[peacefully]

.

[Tokyomarie]

Like the other poster, I jumped ahead to the end and have been enjoying reading the section on high school and college. It's fascinating to ponder that I've been asking the totally wrong questions. I figured once she had the right major, all would be well. They had a section on pg. 229 where they talk about testing and the Nelson-Denny reading test, and I was wondering if anyone's np had done that or if it was common, whether it's reserved for high schoolers or starts earlier, etc.

 

About the Nelson Denny test: it is a test of reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary normed for 9th grade and above. It is often used in colleges & in some adult settings for placement &/or as a tool for acceptance into certain educational programs. At the high school level, it is known as one tool that is accepted by the College Board to help them determine eligibility for accommodations on the SAT & other College Board tests.

 

My son, who was tested in the 2nd semester of 9th grade, was given the Comprehension/Reading Rate section of the test by his neuropsychologist. He was given the test with standard & extended time measures, as required by the College Board. In his case, the scores showed slow reading rate, comprehension at dead set average on standard time & very high comprehension on extended time. This profile would support a request for an extended time accommodation on exams.

Edited October 23, 2011 by Tokyomarie

[Tokyomarie]

Just as an aside, dd also wanted to switch the x and y axes. It just seemed more logical to her that way. I spent a lot of time talking about conventions, and how they are one way of doing things, one out of a number of different attempts to lay something out, and this one just happened to stick. I compared it to a lot of other things like punctuation, algebraic notation (we'd looked at historical examples of the evolution of very complex and wordy notational systems to what we have today), etc. I think it's helpful for these kids to know they don't have it "wrong"; it's just that what we've got is the form which ended up sticking out of a number of attempts to create a system, and that mathematicians have agreed to use it together so that they all could understand each other's notations and work.

 

Both of my children who have a dyslexic processing profile were like this. I remember one conversation with my middle child that took place when she was about 3.5-4yo. She was insisting (for the umpteenth time, all on different words) upon calling a particular object by some made up word or a word used to label a completely different object. When I tried to correct her, she just said, "Well, that's what *I* call it." To which my reply finally became, "Well, you can call it what you wish but no one else will know what you are talking about." That was my first attempt at helping her understand that there is a reason why we have certain conventions in language.

 

My son has done things similar to the x & y axis story & his issues with conventions are most prominent in math.

 

My very bright oldest daughter was a strong-willed child who had her own issues with rules. But I don't recall her ever challenging conventions in math or language. She is also my one child who does not demonstrate characteristics of being dyslexic.

[Tokyomarie]

See, I think the hype thing doesn't bother me because I've read quite a bit about the Eides background, and they clearly specialize in 2E dyslexic kids & adults. Perhaps applying their research to all dyslexics is unfair, but I expected the book to be mostly examples of 2E dyslexics. That is their primary area of interest and research, and the area they see under-represented in the field. I think they feel that other books have covered middle-of-the-road issues, but not enough attention has been paid to 2E dyslexics. Now you can disagree with the Eide's basic premise, but my expectation going into the book was that it would focus mostly on high-achieving dyslexics.

 

I think the idea or purpose of Dyslexic Advantage finally sunk in for me when I realized that the Eides were writing a book which celebrates the strengths that dyslexic people bring to the table and to help people realize that there are far more high-achieving dyslexics in our world than one might think would exist. There could, perhaps, be some balance added with stories of dyslexics who are achieving in their own realm, rather than just those who have become well-known.

 

For parents whose children are still stuck in the "standing out more for what they lack academically than for their talents" mode, it's a reminder that as their child grows & develops, the child WILL have good things to offer to society- IF the child doesn't get squashed down by an educational system that constantly reminds them of what they can't do so well.

 

Thinking about where my children were at in the early years of their education, I mostly remember the hard slog through teaching them both oral & written language. My middle daughter always showed her V-S strengths, but she really began to come into her own beginning around age 16. Will she ever be rich & famous? Well, maybe not; she has no aspirations of such either. But, her early challenges in oral & written language no longer hold her back & she is using her vast creative strengths in her entrepreneurial work.

 

My son turns 17yo tomorrow. Just in the last 3-4 months, I have begun to see his M strengths emerge. All of a sudden, the developmental snowball is rolling & is starting to grow bigger very fast. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next couple of years bring for him.

Edited October 23, 2011 by Tokyomarie

[PeterPan]

Yup. As I said, DA gave me some really useful models to get a better idea of what might be going through ds's head, but I could use a bit more in terms of how that information translates into a typical day. My brain is overly full of information too. I could stand a little more inspiration.

 

I went through the Mislabeled Child so quickly the first time, I don't remember if it may have hit that. I'm planning to go back and reread that next. Maybe they hit on some of the more practical side there.

[PeterPan]

About the Nelson Denny test: it is a test of reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary normed for 9th grade and above. It is often used in colleges & in some adult settings for placement &/or as a tool for acceptance into certain educational programs. At the high school level, it is known as one tool that is accepted by the College Board to help them determine eligibility for accommodations on the SAT & other College Board tests.

 

My son, who was tested in the 2nd semester of 9th grade, was given the Comprehension/Reading Rate section of the test by his neuropsychologist. He was given the test with standard & extended time measures, as required by the College Board. In his case, the scores showed slow reading rate, comprehension at dead set average on standard time & very high comprehension on extended time. This profile would support a request for an extended time accommodation on exams.

 

Thank you for explaining that!!! That's very interesting!!! I've been wondering for some time how they figure this stuff out.

[Guest]

For parents whose children are still stuck in the "standing out more for what they lack academically than for their talents" mode, it's a reminder that as their child grows & develops, the child WILL have good things to offer to society- IF the child doesn't get squashed down by an educational system that constantly reminds them of what they can't do so well.

 

 

:iagree: wholeheartedly.

 

In a recent thread JennW said that if what you focus on and obsess about and teach to are your child's weaknesses, that's what the child is going to identify himself with. There are very, very few educational pedagogies or curricula that don't have this effect on VSL/dyslexic/2e kids.

 

It's fascinating, and wonderfully encouraging, to hear of your children blooming in mid to later adolescence. Have I missed posts where you've talked about what you've seen change/happen specifically, what kinds of things they are doing? Would you mind telling us more about them? I would really love to hear it.

[Guest]

I remember one conversation with my middle child that took place when she was about 3.5-4yo. She was insisting (for the umpteenth time, all on different words) upon calling a particular object by some made up word or a word used to label a completely different object. When I tried to correct her, she just said, "Well, that's what *I* call it." To which my reply finally became, "Well, you can call it what you wish but no one else will know what you are talking about."

 

That is just like the argument in Alice in Wonderland!

 

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ â€

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,†Alice objected.

“When I use a word,†Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.â€

“The question is,†said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.â€

“The question is,†said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.â€

[Guest]

My son was talking to me about this part in the book. He said something like it might be hard to remember the word dog but he could remember dug which was from the original icelandic tongue which was incorporated into viking language which traveled from germany to england. And there is there is hound from hund which is from a indo european language.

 

 

WOW. This is a brilliant example of associative thinking and the unique mental pegs your son has found on which to hang information. It seems so incredibly convoluted and so full of extraneous information to a neurotypical person like me, who tends to discard TOO MANY associations in the search for the most direct route. But it's incredibly rich, clearly meaningful to him, very global. What a great example.

[onaclairadeluna]

Hey, check it out. The Dyslexic Advantage webpage links to this thread. I haven't read their thread yet but there is a book discussion over at the DA site. Here is is...

 

http://dyslexicadvantage.com/group/dyslexic-advantage?xg_source=activity

 

I am off to go read it now.

:auto:

 

It seems like a good place to go ask questions of the Eides...

Edited October 24, 2011 by onaclairadeluna

[Tokyomarie]

:iagree: wholeheartedly.

 

In a recent thread JennW said that if what you focus on and obsess about and teach to are your child's weaknesses, that's what the child is going to identify himself with. There are very, very few educational pedagogies or curricula that don't have this effect on VSL/dyslexic/2e kids.

 

I was fortunate with my 2nd daughter that we were able to remediate a lot of her weak areas during elementary school. Once her auditory processing was strengthened, her reading & spelling improved. She is a classic VSL, so once she "got" the idea of spelling, she was able to use her visual strengths to remember how to spell individual words. But she had to understand the sound-symbol system first before her visual memory would kick in. I had a tough time with teaching writing, but at about age 14, she started to respond to instruction & by age 16 she could produce writing at grade level. However, it still took her a long time to complete essays. She continued to gain steam & got high praise from her college freshman writing instructor for her work. What balanced out the hard work on language skills was giving her plenty of time to develop her talents in art & music, and allowing her time to read books & magazines in her areas of interest, which included birds, music, and cultural geography. That sort of thing just wouldn't have happened had she been in school fulltime.

 

It's fascinating, and wonderfully encouraging, to hear of your children blooming in mid to later adolescence. Have I missed posts where you've talked about what you've seen change/happen specifically, what kinds of things they are doing? Would you mind telling us more about them? I would really love to hear it.

 

My 2nd dd is a fiddler; she plays mostly Irish music. When it was time to think about college (she went at 19yo after doing a 5th, super-senior year in hs), she decided to audition for music school. She really hadn't played much classical, but there are few schools around that will work with a violin student whose focus is non-classical. So, she rolled up her sleeves, we got her a classical violin teacher to help her work up audition repertoire, and she practiced, practiced, and practiced some more during the first half of her senior year. She mostly wasn't aiming for high level conservatories, though she did apply to the one nearest us that does occasionally accept a violin student in their jazz program. She was recognized for her raw talent, and got into all but that one school- where she got some good comments on her audition, but they just weren't in a place to accept a non-tradtional instrument that year. She went to one school for two years, then transferred to a school out-of-state to be near her boyfriend. She still studied music, though it was a BA program rather than a BM.

 

Dd graduated from college this spring. She has opted not to work in music for the time being. Last summer, she and her now-husband started a leatherworking business. They make, amongst other things, leather satchels and leather covers for Moleskine & Rhodia journals. Her talents are used in designing & making their products, as well as the design & photography used on their website. Her husband is also extremely creative & she says that the total product is much more than their individual efforts because they are constantly collaborating on every idea for their product and their website. I will PM you the link to their website. If anyone else is interested in seeing the website for my daughter's business, feel free to PM me.

 

As for my son (who turns 17yo tomorrow), his talents with computers are just beginning to emerge. 1-1.5 years ago, he was simply a consumer- mostly consuming all the games that teenage boys like to play. In fact, if you ask me, he was addicted, though my dh didn't agree. Recently, his interest in a game called Minecraft led him to set up servers on his laptop & an old desktop. Friends and his sister & BIL log into those servers to play, which means he has to maintain those servers. He's also learning the guts of operating systems & who knows what else. It looks like he's leaning toward computer security &/or programming as a future career. Besides the more technical side of computers, he's also gotten interested in digital visual media- photography & stop motion animation. He's been doing some editing of photos to add special effects & doing some basic graphic design. Today, one of the leaders in his youth program was commenting on his photography skills. She suggested that he should be the official photographer for youth events. In addition, he also has been learning how to run the sound board at church. He currently volunteers on Sunday mornings to run sound for the children's program. I am definitely beginning to feel very encouraged about my son's future.

[Sugarfoot]

Well, I've made it to page 50-something. Wow, so much to think about. DS is a classic dyslexic with incredible spatial strengths, but I already knew that. What I didn't realize is that basically, we're sort of a dyslexic-type family. :D

 

Something that really struck me was the information about brain biology and the distance between connections in a certain part of the brain. (Sorry, I don't have the book in front of me.) In dyslexics, the connections are spaced further apart than in non-dyslexics, but in those on the autism spectrum, they're spaced closer together. That really makes me wonder about the possibility or likelihood of someone being both dyslexic and on the autism spectrum. In addition to moderate-to-severe dyslexia, DS also has expressive-pragmatic speech disorder, which is common to both dyslexics and those with Asperger's Syndrome.

 

 

It's fascinating, and wonderfully encouraging, to hear of your children blooming in mid to later adolescence. Have I missed posts where you've talked about what you've seen change/happen specifically, what kinds of things they are doing? Would you mind telling us more about them? I would really love to hear it.

 

You know, it really is fascinating. Right at about the same time that he took off physically, going from a tiny child to the tallest member of our family, he sort of grew into his own thinking, too. It didn't happen at the same time as others his age, either, it was later, around 14.

 

Filmmaking is something that I never in a million years dreamed he would become passionate about, although he did start setting up elaborate scenes with his Playmobil and then videotaping them at the age of 7. And now, well, what he does just totally amazes us. We've been so fortunate to be able to travel to some of the festivals that the kids have been invited to, and we've met some wonderful professionals in the process. I can't even begin to describe what a shock it's been to hear these people describe my son as a gifted cinematographer and filmmaker. It's just been beyond anything I could have imagined. And here I was, just a few short years ago, thinking that he may never be able to read.

 

Here's a link to their website. DD 13 is the main actress. ;)

 

http://www.dierenfeldtfilm.com

[PeterPan]

Something that really struck me was the information about brain biology and the distance between connections in a certain part of the brain. (Sorry, I don't have the book in front of me.) In dyslexics, the connections are spaced further apart than in non-dyslexics, but in those on the autism spectrum, they're spaced closer together. That really makes me wonder about the possibility or likelihood of someone being both dyslexic and on the autism spectrum. In addition to moderate-to-severe dyslexia, DS also has expressive-pragmatic speech disorder, which is common to both dyslexics and those with Asperger's Syndrome.

 

 

That's a really interesting question. With so many viewpoints on how you get into autism (genes, vaccines, predisposition that gets pushed over the top, etc. etc.), I'm not sure how pat or across the board that would be with the details thing. And would it vary with age of beginning the autism symptoms? Or is it a brain type (in addition to biochemistry) that common to the predisposed? I don't know, that would just be hard to sort through. But as a method of looking back at the child you have and asking if they could both, then that's pretty interesting. The other sad thing to ponder is whether the dyslexic autistic kids DO occur but end up being the ones who are lower functioning. For instance dyslexia, apraxia often occur together, and apraxia and autism often occur together. So it has to be that you get the three together in some cases. And those might not be the kids showing up on these boards as HFA and confusing diagnoses. I don't know. I'm just saying I see lower functioning kids with autism and apraxia going into our speech therapy place, and they just break your heart. I don't know them well enough to know their mix of what's going on, but it can't be pretty. It might be that our own kids' experiences won't extrapolate well to a population, kwim?