Ds 2 just bombed the Barton Screening

[FairProspects]

He couldn't pass any part of it, especially part C, where he just gave up and stared crying because it was so hard. So basically, I do think he is having major problems with auditory discrimination, which makes sense since he has had some speech issues. Where do I go from here? He is making virtually no progress in reading because he keeps recalling incorrect sounds in context even though he has letter sounds down cold. Am I looking at LIPS or Earobics or what?

[PeterPan]

nt

[Mukmuk]

DS used Fast Forword to improve his listening of sounds. From what I gather. it's similar to Earobics, but more pricey (we did the home version which was way cheaper than the in-office solution, but still pricier).

 

You might want to send him for an audiology assessment to determine what type of CAPD he has and what accommodations/therapy are best.

[FairProspects]

I found a recommended audiologist, but they will not test for CAPD until age 7. I'm waiting on a quote from them, and then I plan to do something in the meantime since he'll have to wait at least 9 months to test.

[FLDebbie]

I'd call Susan Barton. She's very accessible and will certainly have dealt with this numerous times.

[Χά�ων]

DS failed as well. I started to break down what he failed and working on those skills.

 

When he is old enough you can have him tested for CAPD and treated. Honestly, start saving. If insurance doesn't cover it the treatments are not cheap. DS just started treatment for CAPD and it is painful on the wallet.

[Lecka]

My son went to private speech therapy and it really helped him. He had multiple sets of consonants and other things (s/sh/ch) he heard as the same thing, as well as eliding all l and r blends to w.

 

I compare his speech therapy to lips, bc they did a lot with looking at his mouth and having him watch the teacher's mouth. Also a lot of minimal pairs, where he would sort similar words. I observed him once where he basically got 50/50 on a sorting thing like this as if he were randomly guessing.

 

The teacher would do things like draw a picture and relate it to his mouth.

 

It was difficult for my son but it is truly infrequent now for him to mis-hear a word. Though it still happens.

 

My son had been in school speech for 2 years and his school speech teacher recommended he go to this clinic. In two years his articulation age equivalent went from 3 years one month to 2 years 11 months, while he was in school speech.

 

At the speech clinic he went 2x/week for an hour (later 45 minutes) for about 10 months, and mostly met his articulation goals in that time (not to 75% accuracy but with everything vastly improved). Now he is that accurate (one year after ending private speech, continuing in school speech).

 

I tried a computer program, not Earobics, but my belief is my son was too severe to use a listening-only program (or at least early on). He really needed the multi-sensory therapy and the actual speech therapy.

 

But that said, his articulation was very poor and he had a lot of issues with intelligibility, multiple unstimulable sounds, and behavior problems and avoidance.

 

I think Earobics is very worth trying and Lips. But if it is severe with his speech then I really would look for a speech therapist who can work with him on auditory discrimination. And, any sounds he does not produce.

 

My son's list of IEP speech goals was a full page of missing sounds, substitutions, and elisions (changing l and r blends to w) so it was pretty clear he needed speech therapy. Then it was a surprise to me to see how he did so poorly on the minimal pair word sorts, I had not realized to what extent sets of letters sounded the same to him. I had thought it was only k/g and d/t because he had such problems with g and d that they were overshadowing everything else.

[Lecka]

/serial my son's speech theratreated overhead by insurance because his scores were so low. But, his clinic had a sliding scale and we would have paid $20/ hour. We could have afforded that.

 

We are taking him next week to an optometrist to see about vision therapy and if he needs it, it will be $75/session and our insurance doesn't cover it. We are waiting to see if insurance will cover OT but after talking to them on the phone it looks like they will.

 

I just re-read The Mis-labeled Child and it is useful. He mentions a type of child who has this speech problem, also motor problems, also vision stuff. I am wondering if my son is that type now. In his language chapter and the next chapter he talks about the hearing thing, not in the dyslexia chapter.

 

I also really like a video on reading rockets, called reading and the brain. It has a video talking about children who do not hear sounds just the right way, they can even measure it with fancy medical equipment.

[Lecka]

http://www.pbs.org/launchingreaders/brain/overview.html

 

There is a video of this narrated by Henry winkler but I can't find it while I'm on my phone.

[PeterPan]

nt

[Lecka]

Iirc The mislabeled Child book had a list talking about when speech problems might be from dyspraxia or might be from hearing speech sounds. I think my son would be about 90% speech sounds from that list, or more. He did have particular trouble with a couple of speech sounds I think, beyond not hearing them, but I think maybe bc they are sounds usually learned as a very young child and he had to learn them at age 6-7.

 

So that might be something to look at.

 

I also read two books about auditory processing disorder, one was "like sound through water.". From reading those 2 books it looked like my son had symptoms in no other area besides confusing consonant sounds. He fit everything in that section though.

 

But as I said he has shown huge improvement (if not 100%, if not equal to someone who never struggled) and now apd or capd is not on my radar for him at present.

[Lecka]

(Also I found out about two weeks ago that my son is 1 point from qualifying as "developmentally delayed" in motor control, so I do wonder if maybe he did have some more motor issues with his speech than I am aware of. They never said anything at the speech clinic, they just told me they were working with him on "phonological processes.". And whatever they did worked. But on the list in the Mislabelled Child, I did think he had everything for sounds and for the other list I only thought it with g and d which were extremely difficult for him. I don't know, though.)

[FairProspects]

I don't think it is apraxia. He has been speech tested 3 times, including 2 private evals, and each time they say he is slightly below normal but does not qualify for services. This includes the expert facility that tries to qualify everyone. He is only missing 1 of the sounds of /r/ at this point and has great fine motor control.

 

This is a child who spent a lot of his 2nd year of life at the ENT for ear infections that wouldn't clear, and I was pushing hard for some interventions because I knew how critical his hearing was at that point. I'm pretty sure all his issues are hearing related or just plain dyslexia, I'm not sure which yet.

[Lecka]

For my son the sound discrimination and dyslexia are very, very related.

 

I looked back at your original post, and one thing similar with my son is not thinking of the right sound when he sees a letter.

 

At the point this was an issue with my son, he was not a new beginner, bc when he was a new beginner he was very, very slow, or else couldn't think of anything to say (vs giving an answer not correct).

 

So with my son -- he was past the Barton level 1, phonemic awareness stuff. But anyway -- I looked for patterns and did not particularly see any, beyond that they would be his old speech sounds I knew he had trouble with. But I would just give him the correct sound and go from there. I really was helped by the Abecedarian error correction videos, on YouTube, he just talks about how he would correct a student who had made a mistake, in a clear way. For my son in quick to provide him with the correct sound also, bc there is no point in torturing him.

 

This really improved over time with just normal practice in guided reading (me listening to him read and correcting his errors or starting to sound out a word for him or pointing at the part of the word he had mis-read). But at the time that was an issue he had completed phonemic awareness, cvc words, etc. He had completed the first 3 levels of I See Sam and the first half of Abecedarian level b.

 

So he did know it but still made mistakes or couldn't think of things when reading text. But this has really improved now. I think he just needed a lot of practice.

 

I would not have described that as his problem, though, and that makes me think it might not be the same issue, though. It makes me wonder if he is really solid on his letter sounds, or else if he needs fewer sounds introduced at a time (a normal thing for dyslexia) and more practice with fewer sounds and only adding sounds a little at a time.

 

If you are suspecting sound discrimination, ime it would be very normal for trouble with letter sounds to go along with that. My son was that way. Even after he could do a single letter, it is more confusing doing it when looking at a word and also having to blend. That is a lot going on and all of it difficult (when learning).

 

I think there is sequencing also with that Barton pre-test. I don't know anything about sequencing, just mentioning it.

 

Also I think the normal pre-school phonemic awareness programs include word sorts and sound sorts and "sound bingo" stuff. So it is normal for kids to have this be a weakness and need practice. I tried those things with my son but he couldn't get any correct answers or make any progress. He was totally lost. But if you search phonemic awareness on Amazon those books come up, and also someone on here had a specific book recommended by Susam Barton, recently. I think it might be worth e-mailing her.

 

I personally have some issues with those books, but only bc they were not sufficient for my son. But with more reading I have done I think he would be considered severe. The pre-school books have good research results showing they do help a very large percentage of kids. If your child is on the young side they could be worth trying, though.

 

If you have tried that kind of thing and he is lost or making little progress or tries to avoid it or do things like run away, those would be signs to me that they were not going to be sufficient.

 

There are plenty if kids helped by just Earobics, too. I think kids who are less severe, but that does not mean it is not worthwhile for a large number of children.

[PeterPan]

nt

[FairProspects]

AAR is fine, he just keeps making the same sound problems he has for a year. "Hit" may be read as "hat", "gum" is "mug", and he is starting to make dyslexic errors like "huts" becomes "shut". I don't know if we should just keep plugging along through AAR or not, but at least I figure we can work on Earobics at the same time. LIPS is the recommended pre-cursor to Barton.

 

It's completely frustrating. On one hand, his working memory is amazing, so it doesn't matter how long it takes him to read a sentence, he comprehends it immediately and can blend anything if it is done orally. On the other hand, he keeps producing the wrong sound when he sees a vowel. He hates reading and is really mad at himself that he can' t do it. I don't know if he is dyslexic or just slower to read than to process, but it is driving both of us crazy. If I slow down any more he will just give up. He wants to go fast because he is bored even as he gets the wrong sounds (I realize that sounds like a contradiction, but it is true.) He "knows" the right sounds, he just recalls the wrong ones and cannot put it all together in context and I don't know why.

[Lecka]

Those are not the kind of errors my son ever makes. He has very rarely got the order of letters in a different order. He is more tending to make a direct substitution for another sound.

 

I wonder if it is sequencing? I have seen it mentioned but don't know about it.

 

I have used a notched card with my son to help with blending, and sometimes still cover part of a word to help him. It is helpful but I don't know if that by itself would be enough.

 

[Lecka]

I tend to think Earobics or Lios might both be helpful, but it would be better if someone whose child made that kind of error would make a recommendation.

[LaughingCat]

DD the older, does various related things:

1. failed the Barton test C
   
2. struggles w/speech (articulation) in spite of speech therapy - can say all the sounds but can't seem to always use them
   
3. add/deletes letters when reading (even sometimes after she sounded out the specific word parts correctly)
   
4. struggles to say certain words correctly at all (whether she hears or reads them)
   

We didn't try Earobics but tried Hearbuilder Phonological Awareness w/no apparent change/improvement. We're currently doing Hearbuilder Auditory Memory - no obvious improvement but also only doing very occasionally (so that's one difference because DD has poor auditory working memory).

 

Recently (just before Thanksgiving) I broke down and bought the Lips DVDs (used) and the LiPs manual (new)- DD blew through "getting" the mouth movements/pictures/ideas (note - if we had done this even a year ago, I don't think that would have been the case) - and now if she breaks down a word using them including reminding her as she says the word while looking at the pictures "where are your lips/where is your tongue" then afterwards it appears she can say a word correctly that she has been struggling with (as in #4 on my list). I say it appears because It is hard to get her to do this, so we haven't done as many words as I'd like. Also fwiw, the original name of LiPs had "auditory discrimination" in it.

 

Regarding OP's son - I notice you say he has no problem blending orally but failed Barton C - which seems somewhat contradictory to me. Does he have problems hearing the sounds before blending orally? Do you have to clarify what sound you made? What if you have him blend nonsense words orally? Can he do phoneme manipulations (remove 1st/last letter)?

[FairProspects]

Regarding OP's son - I notice you say he has no problem blending orally but failed Barton C - which seems somewhat contradictory to me. Does he have problems hearing the sounds before blending orally? Do you have to clarify what sound you made? What if you have him blend nonsense words orally? Can he do phoneme manipulations (remove 1st/last letter)?

 

He can blend real words orally but not nonsense. I suspect that he is using very strong reading prediction/comprehension to compensate for not hearing the correct sounds. He can't do that with nonsense sounds and it becomes apparent. This is what my older ds does too.

[Lecka]

http://www.superduperinc.com/About/FAQ/Earobics.aspx

 

I did think this link is interesting, for Earobics step 2 it says it teaches phoneme sequencing skills. I wonder if that would the right kind of thing? I am just guessing though, I don't really know. I think if you look at lists of skills and can see what ones he does have, that can be helpful.

[Lecka]

I am going to say how I use the term sound discrimination. For example my son heard k and t the same Tate and cake were the same word to him. English just had a large number of homophones to him. If you wanted him to listen to you say "k t k" and pull down a colored tile for each sound, he would pull down all the same color tile. If you wanted him to sort picture cards of words starting with k or t into 2 piles, he would not understand what you were asking him to do. He was like that with more than just k and t, though.

 

But he did not confuse the order, and I think the Barton screening also looks for that, and I think it is called sequencing (though I am not sure).

 

My son also does not confuse syllables within words, that I have read is common with dyslexia.

 

I think that is also sequencing and not discrimination.

 

Sorry if I am not being helpful, but it does sound very frustrating. I think If you can be more specific it can be helpful (even though I am sure it is obvious to you, but I think different issues can sound the same sometimes).

 

 

[Lecka]

I wonder if he can orally blend nonsense words?

[LaughingCat]

 

He can blend real words orally but not nonsense. I suspect that he is using very strong reading prediction/comprehension to compensate for not hearing the correct sounds. He can't do that with nonsense sounds and it becomes apparent. This is what my older ds does too.

 

 

From this information, and having used Hearbuilder Phonological and Memory, which are supposedly similar to Earobics - I would go with LiPs instead. Our problems were similar and I wish now I had bought it earlier. I will say however, that I feel it is overpriced :( FWIW, I think I could have done fine from the manual alone and possibly even from the DVD's alone (esp. the first 2, we haven't used the last 2 much due to the move toward syllables/endings and away from the actual mouth/tongue/air pictures) - and with a little more understanding could even have pieced what we needed from googling. But still the total price was a lot less than the speech therapy I paid for oop and made more difference.

 

However, even though you said he had no problems with working memory, I would still give him tests for auditory working memory outside of meaning. Reading the sentences and understanding them may appear to be good working memory for the same reason as you stated above - good compensation to create comprehension - but how does he do with nonsense? Strings of numbers or words strung together randomly?

[PeterPan]

nt

[Lecka]

A book I like called Phonics A-Z by Wiley Blevins and available at my library has a couple of pages about Lips (using the old name ADD auditory discrimination in depth) and he talks about the children touching their chins and feeling their chin drop for a syllable, feeling their mouths make movements and using that to know the order of sounds physically and by looking in the mirror.

 

I think that is how it helps the kids have a way to know the order of sounds.

 

In the book I read it was talking about it to teach kids how to segment, though.

 

That is my impression of how it would work.

 

http://www.sterlingpublicschools.org/district/ci/interv/pdf/interventions/Phon%20and%20PA/LIPs.pdf

 

This is the fcrr report, it says students are taught to see, hear, and feel the sounds and use that to check their accuracy.

[LaughingCat]

The first part of lips is all about teaching the sound to where your lips/tongue/breath are when you say them.

The second part of lips is about segmenting. In the DVD's they drop the pictures pretty fast and go to colored squares and the name of that lips/tongue/breath (like "lip poppers") and also add in a whole slew of endings (like "tion"). They also move to segmenting syllables. We haven't dropped the pictures OR gone to syllables - because the strength for DD is in recognizing the lip/tongue/breath - at this point, after all the work we've done, she didn't need any help with syllables.