visual processor/Dyslexic/HFA?? math & reading....sorry, long

[celticadea]

Background:

so....My daughter will be 5 in August. We've been homeschooling this past year mostly as a test for myself since I've never done it before. Through this I've learned, at the least, that she is a visual learner (not sure if actually VPL...that seems to be a very specific and technical determination). She certainly has difficulty processing information auditorily so read-aloud story comprehension questions are a bit of a nightmare. Memorization/recitation is difficult and she needs visual (or song) cues to retrieve the information. Recently while getting her younger sister evaluated for speech (apraxic), my concerns with my older daughter came up: specifically no matter how much I've taught it, she can't 'get' rhymes, she mixes up the sounds in her words (gymnaskits, gis =disk, disketti - spaghetti, etc...).

 

During her evaluation, the SLP also noticed that she is very concrete and immature in her thinking, very distractable, and struggles with the social pragmatics of language and behavior. She was repeating the questions before answering them, talking-talking about things not relevant, not looking at the SLP when talking to her. The SLP was seeing signs of Aspergers/HFA. And thinks mixing up the sounds in long words and being unable to sequence multi-syllable non-sense words may be residual apraxia. She also says she has slow processing, although I'm not sure if she means just slow auditory processing or 'regular' processing or if they're even different. The OT eval also showed slow processing, low tone and low threshhold for vestibular processing. Bizzarely, she used to be my 'calm' kid and now she's the one that's bouncing off walls and can't sit still through a meal to save her soul. We'd taken away the booster seat from the 2 year old because she was moving around so much that she was going to fall out. So the 2 year old, just had to kneel on her seat and that worked great. The older one can reach the table without kneeling but I'd let her do that if she'd just be in her chair. She's usually half off! silly thing. She's not big enough to reach sitting on a therapy ball or I'd try that ;)

 

For her therapy, we are mostly working on processing and pragmatics and since we've started scripting for her better things to say or ways to act, her odd behaviors have gotten better. Her continual use of movie lines to tell about something has decreased now that I script a better thing to say that matches the situation. If nothing else, I'm much less frustrated by the continual repeating I need to do to get her to do things. I can accept that I need to tell her every morning to take the pull-up off and get panties on(still needs the pull-up at night). We have visual schedules up now and that helps with getting her to do what she needs to get done or to know what will be happening.

 

While reading, _The Dyslexic Advantage_, I'm still seeing so many signs of the dyslexic in her to even include the pragmatic stuff. She is quite creative. I haven't yet found her particular dyslexic strengths. One example, I think of a lot is from her eval: She was asked to name some animal you'd find in a zoo. She responded with the names of the characters from Madagascar. The SLP saw this as concrete...she was asked for names and gave personal names and without any sort of information that would enable another person to know where she got her information (pragmatics). I wonder if this is more showing the creative type of connections that dyslexics make and she spit it out first because she didn't sort through the possible answers and give the one that would make more sense. She loves to sing and makes up songs all the time for what she's thinking. The SLP didn't know what to make of it when she started responding to her questions in song!

 

Today I finally remembered to do the heavy work and vestibular type of OT before attempting school work and that worked much better. She loved her first day of wet-dry-try! I've decided to try out Math in Focus (singapore) because it's supposed to be so visual. It's only been a few days but I notice that she's way more interested in playing with the manipulatives that the math involved. The stuff in the book is material she's comfortable with because it starts at the beginning and she can count reliably up to 12, usually to 20 and can say up to 100. I've read that sometimes VPL kids can get get too distracted with the visual hands-on manipulatives and might be better off without. Since another part of dyslexia is a challenge with rote memory of data, I wonder if that is what people mean by 'needing' a spiral approach. That is not the type I'm interested in but, whatever works, I guess!

 

So....my question: Would I be better off doing Rod & Staff or MCP for less manipulatives (or even Saxon/? for spiral) with her? She seems to have a pretty good grasp of math for the bit we've done. If anything she just struggles with the fine motor skills to write well but that's a time, strength & OT thing. Or would the why that's built into the singapore approach shore up the problems that rote memorization cause?

 

My other question: should I just try to teach her to read so she could see what I'm trying to explain about the rhyming sounds being at the end of the word? I've specifically not worked on 'reading' since she's young and since she doesn't have the phonemic awareness that everyone says is crucial.

 

Lastly: Can dyslexia cover her behaviors or does it really sound like HFA/ASD? Is there an outline version of The Dyslexic Advantage book?

 

 

 

added info: I've tried Earobics but even after the first couple lessons, it seems to be 'beyond' her. I suppose I should keep working it but it just frustrates her and I don't want her shutting down (which she tends to do if something seems hard, she needs lots of positive reinforcement to get her past the "I don't know" answer for everything. I have to find _something_ she got right and celebrate the heck out of it! :)

 

 

 

ok, so that was _REALLY_ long and probably confusing. I appreciate any thoughts on the matter and help sorting through it. :)

[wapiti]

I don't think you can really know what the bigger picture is - if there is one - until you do some testing, probably including the neuropsych variety for the dyslexia and slow processing angles at a minimum. (FWIW, when SLPs speculate about possible spectrum disorders rather than talk about getting evals, I get irked.) You mention *many* different possible issues and which ones rise to certain levels will determine which get an official diagnosis. That doesn't mean you can't also work on the more minor issues that didn't rise to such levels.

 

FWIW, it is quite possible to be a visual-spatial learner, have a dyslexic-style processing as in The Dyslexic Advantage, have fine motor and other sensory issues, have slow processing speed, have language processing issues involving auditory comprehension and auditory reasoning, and neither have dyslexia nor an autism spectrum disorder. (Ask me how I know.) This stuff is really hard to figure out without professional expertise.

 

I'm a little unclear on whether the SLP mentioned in your post was doing any official testing of your dd. There are tests an SLP could do that might be helpful in pointing you in a particular direction (among others, the TAPS?).

 

On the math, I have never heard of taking away manipulatives from a visual-spatial learner (that's what you mean by "VPL"? VSL is a non-technical term as far as I'm concerned; I subscribe to the view of VSL vs auditory-sequential as a sort of continuum, but not even that linear). Five is certainly a VERY appropriate age for using manipulatives.

 

IMO, and I feel very strongly about this, **teach through your child's strengths** whenever possible.

 

That would include not only allowing but affirmatively using manipulatives if that appears to make a lesson clear. Taking away manipulatives would leave a lot for auditory input, which sounds like it may be a weakness. If she is understanding the math lessons well, I would not change the method of instruction. There are a lot of angles with math programs; timing and amount of review are just one. Method of instruction is another. AFAIK, a left-brain weakness with rote memorization activities is not just a dyslexic thing and may be more related to the type of activity rather than the amount and timing of review. For example, memorizing problems and answers without actually calculating them would be a rote activity. Some visual learners do better remembering when they learn a particular fact in the context of something else. Whether or not that contextual memory is sufficiently automatic probably differs widely among people, even among dyslexics. So, I guess that's a long-winded way of saying that no, I definitely would not switch math programs if Math in Focus is helping her learn nicely.

 

that's my two cents :)

 

Eta, about an outline of The Dyslexic Advantage, there are outline bulletpoints but not until the end of each discussion. I wish they were upfront, and yes, I too wish there was a giant outline of that book :)

[Lecka]

Some things sound like my older son. Math in Focus at school is awesome for him.

 

For him I think the phonemic awareness can be pointing to dyslexia like in Overcoming Dyslexia.

 

I didn't necessarily find a strength for my son yet in reading DA. He is 7 and I think he has time to show me.

 

For reading program decisions I think the rhyming and mixed syllables are enough to think in a dyslexia possibility direction. Or just work with her on phonemic awareness -- as that is very appropriate for her age. Pre-reading for her age is going to include phonemic awareness -- if you want to try it... If she hasn't been taught yet then it is soon to say how she responds to instruction. Maybe she will respond great, maybe not.

 

Other things -- I don't know. Those are the things I have an opinion on right now.

[celticadea]

thank you both for your thoughtful replies. I knew somebody would have input :)

 

FWIW, it is quite possible to be a visual-spatial learner, have a dyslexic-style processing as in The Dyslexic Advantage, have fine motor and other sensory issues, have slow processing speed, have language processing issues involving auditory comprehension and auditory reasoning, and neither have dyslexia nor an autism spectrum disorder. (Ask me how I know.) This stuff is really hard to figure out without professional expertise.

 

I'm a little unclear on whether the SLP mentioned in your post was doing any official testing of your dd. There are tests an SLP could do that might be helpful in pointing you in a particular direction (among others, the TAPS?).

 

 

her first eval was an informal one that the head SLP offered after I mentioned the rhyming thing on the section of paperwork asking about siblings and language problems. she now sees an SLP who's been more "formally" evaluating her at her sessions. I suppose I could have asked for a full-on one day sort of eval but I think we're doing well with this method just slower. I'll have to ask about TAPS. I have no idea what criteria or test they're using. I'm thinking of "enrolling" her for public kinder so she can get their baseline testing ("aims web testing") done this summer. she had a formal OT eval.

 

for phonemic awareness, we'd been doing the normal read everyday thing and then as part of MP JK curriculum this year, letter sounds as part of their alphabet books. And that book touches on beginning and ending sounds. When we hit a road bock with beginning & ending sounds, I backed up and tried rhyming sounds and realized that she has no concept of it so I worked on my own with rhyming matching games, etc... no luck. So then I got earobics but it just doesn't seem to make sense to her. I got AAR-pre and we have gotten through to the end of the rhyming section and she's not much better than when we started :(

 

for math, I just started MIF a week ago because the preschool R&S book (inside &outside) had gotten boring/annoying and not much about math at the end. she did fine with Counting with Numbers. I did use number cubes on my own to demonstrate numbers and she has the basic idea of figuring out how many more to get X number and adding in that if you have 3 and go 2 more , you have 5. I suppose it's a bit early to scrap a math plan but I didn't want to struggle through it if it was obviously a bad fit :)

 

is 5 a bit young for a neuropsychologist eval? and, since you insisted...how can a kid have all that and not be dyslexic or spectrum??

 

I sooo want somebody else to figure this out for me. I almost wish we did have education coordinators in MI for homeschoolers. it's pretty hands-off here. I'm afraid to ask the schools for fear of proving that I can't do it :(

[Jennifer-72]

I too find it troublesome that the SLP would suggest ASD but not give you direction as to starting the evaluation process. That said, I really don't think most SLPs would suggest something like that lightly. From what you have writen I really do think you should pursue testing for ASD.

[Pen]

A lot you mention fits with dyslexia (sequencing, sound mix ups), but from what I know of dyslexia, no, it would not cover the whole range of what you observe ( odd behaviors). She could have dyslexia and something else too, or maybe something else would cover it all.

 

Some might not even be anything other than a 5 year old's misunderstanding, like the names of animals given as Proper character names, rather than common names for animal types--unless the tester gave an example like "tiger" of what she wanted.

 

Did anything happen that might have changed things from being calm to bouncing off walls?

 

Sounds like you need more testing from someone who can give you better answers. I don't think 5 is too young. What you would do regarding reading instruction may well depend on knowing whether she has dyslexia or if not that then what (CAPD? ASD?), so sooner knowledge would probably help, rather that waiting.

 

If a math program like MIF is working for you, don't change IMO/IME.

[geodob]

You wrote that: 'She loves to sing and makes up songs all the time for what she's thinking.'

Where you could use songs to develop her awareness of rhyming sounds at the end of song lines?

As she may find it easier to recognize rhyming sounds in song, rather than speech?

Then as she loves to make up songs, she could then think about using rhyming sounds in the songs that she makes up?

Another thing that you could have her do, is to have her practice tapping out a beat to the songs?

Where timing is fundamental to rhyming sounds, as the sound may be extended or clipped?

For example the 'o' in long may be extended to sound out as 'lo-o-ong'. Or the 'ng' may be extended ?

 

So given that she loves to sing, songs could be the key?

[celticadea]

she does love song. on Friday it was nice, finally, so we were outside and I was emptying out the sandbox that was flooded(the Wild Kratts were right, worms really dont drown). I was making up a silly song about getting the worms into my bucket...of course nothing "appropriate" rhymes with bucket so I switched to pail. she still had no idea of words to rhyme but it was fun. yesterday she actually asked for words that rhyme with something she would say. at least she's getting interested in it instead of not caring at all or shutting down because she doesn't know.

 

 

 

[celticadea]

Some might not even be anything other than a 5 year old's misunderstanding, like the names of animals given as Proper character names, rather than common names for animal types--unless the tester gave an example like "tiger" of what she wanted.

 

that's what I thought at first too, but the tester thought that at her age, this was one of her responses that showed very "concrete" thinking. I remember it so specifically because I knew what she was talking about before the tester figured it out. it's frustrating watching people not know what your kids are communicating. it happens with the younger one too but that's because her speech itself is unclear not the context.

Did anything happen that might have changed things from being calm to bouncing off walls?

 

 

nothing particular. that's what's odd to me. Shes had a lot of sinus infections this winter. She started nasonex a couple weeks ago but that was well after all this "high arousal" started. she's been doing a lot less crying since starting the nasonex. I don't know that they're related but, for her, I don't think the med is a bad thing. heh, I just realized that her last big flip-out was the day before she started the med (completely lost it while trying to get a sinus X-ray).

 

I asked her OT last week and she said sometimes SPD (sensory processing disorder) kids "flip" with growth spurts. she has definitely grown a lot lately. the most concrete test, for me, is when the spin them in a swing. when you stop, your eyes should twitch sideways for a few seconds (horizontal nystagmus). my kids' don't . it shows they aren't receiving the input correctly and aren't getting dizzy. this lack of input used to scare her so she avoided new movements, couldn't run, jump, etc. Through gymnastics, she at least learned how to jump, skip, gallop, and hop but was still scared a lot. Now she's seeking out the input and running and spinning, and jumping, and fidgeting constantly.

 

A positive with this sensory flip from avoiding to seeking, is that she's not so fearful about everything now. She's finally trying to ride a bike (w training wheels). she'd outgrown every other ride-on toy we ever bought. We even tried the balance bike thing but she just wouldn't move it. Shes still a bit concerned when OT has her do high things but shes willing :) shes also low tone so some of it is actually hard for her and add the decreased sensory input and you can see that it would be a challenge. Now I just need to remember to get her enough exercise before I expect her to be able to attend to something.

 

I'll check into the neuro psych and insurance. glad to know 5 isn't a ridiculous age. thanks!

[Lecka]

I think you might google 'phonemic awareness' on Amazon and see if any of those books look good. Maybe they are a possibility.

 

I do not know it off the top of my head, but there is a progression of phonemic awareness skills, and rhyming is one of the higher-level skills. So it might or might not be a big problem on that.

 

I think I would try to see how she did with a really solid phonemic awareness program, though, as far as that one thing. If she struggles -- I would move forward to more interventions. But at her age ---- it is maybe appropriate for her age.

[celticadea]

:( i have a couple of those phonemic awareness books. they all start at rhyming....we can't get past it. so we play rhyming games with and without cards, we read rhyming stories. I follow words on the page of the books we read. A neat game that isn't rhyming is sound bingo. She can do it but it's SLOW. The 2 year old answers way faster :(

 

They all seem to put syllable counting, word counting, letter sounds within a word after rhyming. From what I've been able to learn, this should be either known or easily able to be learned by this age. We keep plugging away at it and hopefully one day it'll stick. I'm thinking that this week I'll start wrtiing the words on the cards (cat, mat, hat, etc...) and maybe seeing the letters repeating will help her 'see' what I mean. something to try anyway.

[Lecka]

Well I think blending and segmenting are the most important phonemic awareness skills.

 

I ended up with Barton Level 1 for phonemic awareness with my son, though.

 

He was a little older and just nothing was clicking for him.

 

I don't know one to recommend but I wonder if there might be a program that put rhyming later.

[Pen]

I don't recall Modern Curriculum Press being rhyming oriented??? And I think the Bob books start into reading where there are rhymes, but you don't have to focus on that as a practice, just that it makes the reading funny???

[celticadea]

I was thinking of trying the bob books. all this phonemic awareness stuff is pre-reading so not part of a phonics program per se. I haven't yet tried a real phonics/reading program since we stalled at the rhyming and ending sounds in the pre-reading alphabet books from MP and now AAR-pre. I think I'm just going to try teaching her to read and see what happens.

 

according to Ms. Barton, she's not old enough for level 1 yet but I may use it if we still need the help later.

 

 

[ElizabethB]

My daughter could not rhyme until age 7, she was reading at a 12th grade level before she could rhyme. My son could rhyme at 4 or 5 but is still working through 1st grade phonics (he is 2nd grade and has been working on phonics since K. He is progressing, but not anywhere near as fast as my daughter learned to read.)

 

Do you have the Talking Letter Factory DVD? That's an easy way to learn letter names and sounds. You don't have to be able to rhyme to be able to learn sounds and blend.

 

It's easiest to learn to blend with 2 letter syllables, and long vowels are easiest. Also, R, L, M, and N blend better than most consonants. So, start working on things like ma, no, lo, my, etc. I like the 2 letter syllables of Webster's Speller for anyone who may have an underlying language problem. (And, even if you don't, it's a great program to be able to teach a young child to read to a high level, the syllable division makes it easy to read multi-sylalble words.)

 

Here is how I used Webster's Speller with my son in K. (He is working through another phonics program now but should finish soon and be able to go back to Webster's Speller. We still review the syllables frequently.)

[celticadea]

Elizabeth B, thanks for the reassurance that a kid can learn to read without rhyming. I dl'd that movie. she knows her letters & sounds but reinforcement is always good and it gets great reviews :)

 

I'll look into Webster spelling. it looks intriguing.

 

thanks!

[Pen]

I was thinking of trying the bob books. all this phonemic awareness stuff is pre-reading so not part of a phonics program per se. I haven't yet tried a real phonics/reading program since we stalled at the rhyming and ending sounds in the pre-reading alphabet books from MP and now AAR-pre. I think I'm just going to try teaching her to read and see what happens.

 

...

 

Sounds like a good plan. And she is only 4 years old. While I don't think early warning signs should be ignored, it is still and age when many children are not yet reading or ready to do so, so even if she does not yet get the reading it does not necessarily mean there is a serious reading problem.

[celticadea]

I'm pretty happy today. After a couple times telling her how M A T sound and then go together to make "mat" and last night she asked about her night gown (mommy's little dreamer). I read all of it and then pointed out the M O M M Y sounds and how they go together. Wasn't overly impressed but she accepted what I said.

 

Then this morning, she decided she was going to be teacher for the day (I think I may incorporate this as a regularly scheduled activity!). As she was telling us the day, month etc. I asked her to tell me what letters spelled "May". I was expecting her just to tell me the letters. Without prompting, she said mmmm aaaa eeeee....May! At first I was worried since Y threw a bit of a wrench into what I'd already told her but then...the way she sounded it out, it worked! haha also reminds me of something I learned from all the ST they get....vowels really have more than one sound to them, example long A, ends with a long E sound....so telling her that Y said E and A said short a still worked ....hehe!

 

I decided to move ahead with the phonemic exercises in AAR - Pre and did the sentence length (long v short), word counting, and sound blending (sh....eep = sheep) and she's done fine as long as she actually pays attention/hears what you said.

 

I'm happy to hear that other kids have learned to read before rhyming. That gives me hope.

 

I'm still concerned if a classical education in the strict sense, is possible for her but, if nothing else, my attitude and motivation to keep working has been bolstered by her today. She did great 'teaching' us (...a version of oral recitation, so the info got in there and she is capable of getting it out in some method), positive results on phonemic stuff, and simply showing that she really has retained what i've been working on with her even if on a normal day, it doesn't seem like it.

 

thanks for all the great suggestions. I'll still be checking into the neuropsych eval and her behaviors still throw me but I will try to hold on to how I feel today when we have the bad days.