auditory processing disorder - remedial materials?

[Evergreen Academy]

I'm in the process of setting up evaluations to have ds8 tested for CAPD and other learning disabilities, and while we wait, I'm hoping to find some recommendations for things we can do here at home to help him move forward in his learning. He was evaluated by a neuropsychologist a bit over a year ago, and was found to have difficulty in the areas of nonverbal reasoning, and attention span. At the time, the doctor recommended doing just what we were doing - short lessons, focused short readings with narration, as much hands-on as possible. This did work well, but we've reached the point where I feel like he's hitting a wall in many areas, and that I need more tools to help him.

 

He continues to have an extremely short attention span, and difficulty retaining information after reading or listening to it, not to mention until the next lesson. He has deficits in both expressive and receptive vocabulary and I can see these increasing as he gets older, and the gap widens; it's particularly notable as I'm asking him to read books that are appropriate for his age and reading level, but that he can't comprehend because there are so many words he still hasn't assimilated into his vocabulary.

 

As background, he joined our family at 3, with little speech in any language. While he made great strides in speech therapy and tested out after two years, I noticed, from the beginning, differences in the way he aquired and assimilated language as compared to two of our other children who joined our family as non-English speakers. He was also born 9 weeks early, and this may be part of the picture.

 

What I'm hoping for now, as we await further testing, are suggestions as to materials folks have found helpful in working with kids with processing issues - ways to help increase his vocabulary and comprehension, and make learning meaningful for him. He loves science, and I'd appreciate suggestions here as well. We use mostly living books, but because of his issues with vocabulary, there is SO much he isn't getting. I'd be grateful for anything folks would like to share.

[Walking-Iris]

I use Wordly Wise for vocabulary, also English From the Roots Up. Jane Ervins Reading Comprehension books are helpful and were written with LDs in mind. Both of these programs are challenging and not my ds's favorite---they can be hard, but I like them because they push my ds out of his comfort zone. I like to push it because his anxiety keeps him from wanting to risk sometimes.

 

Sometimes with some kiddos it's best to strike a balance between living books/classical/cm methods and worktexts/books. My ds really seems to work better with texts and scheduled lessons in a workbook. Not what I had envisioned when I set out to homeschool but he likes knowing when it will be over, what is expected of him each day, and he benefits from spiral/cumulative reviews.

 

My ds also has a hard time with retention if he has to just read and listen---he has to DO. Just try to keep lessons short. After about an hour and half I give my ds free time for another hour and then we start again.

 

Visual schedules/workboxes that a child can check off work great. It would be mutiny if I said we're going to read and talk about such and such. He needs to know "read how long? how much? talk about what? for how long?" etc.

 

I'm using ScienceWorks and RS4K. Unit study approach to science works best for my ds. If we stay with one topic for up to 10 weeks it helps him own that science topic.

 

ymmv but I've found that having music or even an audiotape playing helps my ds pay attention when we're doing something totally different. It would distract me, but he seems able to focus better with the auditory stimulus. And visual stimuli need to be zero.

[Tokyomarie]

SuperDuper Inc & Linguisystems are both great resources for auditory processing & language learning materials. The Earobics CD-ROM program is also good. I just saw another software program listed here recently that sounds good but I don't have experience with it & can't remember the name! My gal with CAPD/receptive & expressive language disorder did her remediation back in the late '90s. Do you have a speech/language eval set up to get a current read on his receptive & expressive language function? The CAPD eval will also, hopefully, be telling. If you are able to get those evals within the next couple of months, I wouldn't necessarily change anything about what you are doing right now. It would be good to get testing scores that are not influenced by formal remediation. If you study the resources available while you are waiting, you'll know the options, but will be better able to make an informed decision about which materials to get.