8 y/o dd dx with deep dyslexia

[momsuz123]

I have been on and off the boards a few years now. Well, dd went back to a neuropsych now that she is older. When she was 6, they flagged her for dyslexia, saying she was too young for an official dx. Well, now it is official. Deep dyslexia.

She is both visually and auditory dyslexic. UGH. She is going to work with an OG reading tutor all summer. She has been seeing her for awhile now too.

 

Anyone else have a child dx with this? What worked? What didn't?

[Plink]

I have a DD with double deficit dyslexia, along with multiple additional learning disabilities.  It is a long, LONG road, so be patient with your DD, your tutor, and yourself.  

 

What are you doing in addition to the tutoring?  Gently - Lessons 1x/week won't do a whole lot for this type of dyslexia unless you are working very hard at home.  

 

We had a tutor come 2-3x per week, and did lessons on our own daily, including Saturdays, for the first 2 years after her diagnosis.  We started with LiPS which gave her a great set of tools for working on the auditory issues, and eventually moved up to Barton which I can easily say was the best educational purchase we have ever made.  Even with all that work it took us an inordinate amount of time to get through each Barton level.  Far longer than any of us expected.   We are now down to tutoring 1x/week, but still working with Barton daily.  Her progress is slow but steady, and her confidence is growing.  

 

Expect to have times of progress, and then to hit plateaus that seem to last forever.  There will be snags that come up, and you will be thoroughly frustrated and will think to yourself "we've gone over this a thousand times!"  Yes.  Yes you have.  And you may need to go over it a thousand more.  She is not choosing to struggle, she is not choosing to ignore your instruction, she is not being unfocused or defiant.  Keep re-teaching the difference between the /e/ and /i/ sounds or whatever her personal hangup is, even when you don't think you can come up with another way to re-teach the same thing.  And when you are at your wit's end, call the tutor and see if she can come by daily for a week or so, and give yourself some distance from the situation.  You will come back more refreshed than if you had gone on vacation.  

 

We aren't done our journey, but I do have hope that my child will eventually be a functional reader by the time she graduates.  We use audiobooks and read-alouds for everything other than Reading right now (she is 11), and she has been able to develop a fantastic use of grammar and vocabulary and does well with history, literature, etc.  

 

((Hugs))  Getting any diagnosis is always hard.  

[Timberly]

..

[Heathermomster]

Wowsers...But aren't you glad to know what is up with your child?  

 

I think FairP has a child with the visual type dyslexia and was told to use a morpheme based reading program.  Maybe search that as I could very well be wrong.  Have you used Lips with your child?  I wonder if that would help prior to any more teaching.  Also, has she been screened by a VT?

 

ETA:  Here is a link.

[SandyKC]

BTDT!!  It'll be important to address EACH area of deficit your DD has based upon the neuropsych report.  With my instructional design Master's degree and all the research I did for that, I built a program for my son based upon his neuropsych report and meticulously addressed each of his deficit areas.

 

It helps to go work through the cognitive deficit areas (working memory, processing speed, visual perception, etc.) as well as the academic skills areas.  Also, research shows that working both one-on-one and using a computer-based review program is the most effective means for making meaningful progress.  We used both direct instruction and daily computer-based practice.

 

Auditorily, your DD would probably benefit from Lindamood Bell's LiPS program along with HearBuilder, Fast ForWord, or a similar computer-based program.

 

Visually, you'll want to work on visual perception corrections.  Depending upon the nature of her visual deficits, you might need a variety of programs.  For my DS, we used the Davis Method "Focal Point" activities, DS had vision therapy, and we used Lexia's Cross-Trainer visual perception program. 

 

I've listed all of the programs we used when we remediated my son's dyslexia at: http://learningabledkids.com/reading/how_we_remediated_dyslexia.htm.

 

Another research tidbit is that it takes about two hours per day of direct instruction for three school years to overcome severe dyslexia.  Seldom does tutoring allow a child to make enough meaningful progress because the child needs intense one-on-one instruction each and every day.  It's a lot of work, but it is not difficult work.  It's just highly repetitive.. teaching the letter-sound associations over and over using multisensory methods until the child reaches mastery.  It's like Plink says.. You'll have to go over every thing a thousand times, patiently, lovingly, with compassion and understanding that this is very DIFFICULT for your DD.

 

Lest you second guess your ability to help your DD too.. She would NOT get the kind of help and intensity of instruction she'll need in school.  You'll have people tell you that you should put her in school and let the school do it.. Take heed of our story.. Things did NOT go well for my DS in public school.  They were neither trained nor equipped to handle his needs.

 

Homeschooling to overcome his LDs was the BEST decision we ever made!!  AND.. He graduated from college Magna Cum Laude this past weekend, earning his Bachelor of Science degree wtih high honors! :-D  It CAN be done!  It just takes focused, daily instruction in reading for as long as it takes for the skills to emerge!

[PeterPan]

Another research tidbit is that it takes about two hours per day of direct instruction for three school years to overcome severe dyslexia.  Seldom does tutoring allow a child to make enough meaningful progress because the child needs intense one-on-one instruction each and every day.  It's a lot of work, but it is not difficult work.  It's just highly repetitive.. teaching the letter-sound associations over and over using multisensory methods until the child reaches mastery.  It's like Plink says.. You'll have to go over every thing a thousand times, patiently, lovingly, with compassion and understanding that this is very DIFFICULT for your DD.

At what age do you make the ramp-up to that kind of intensity?

[PeterPan]

Expect to have times of progress, and then to hit plateaus that seem to last forever.  There will be snags that come up, and you will be thoroughly frustrated and will think to yourself "we've gone over this a thousand times!"  Yes.  Yes you have.  And you may need to go over it a thousand more.  She is not choosing to struggle, she is not choosing to ignore your instruction, she is not being unfocused or defiant.  Keep re-teaching the difference between the /e/ and /i/ sounds or whatever her personal hangup is, even when you don't think you can come up with another way to re-teach the same thing.  And when you are at your wit's end, call the tutor and see if she can come by daily for a week or so, and give yourself some distance from the situation.  You will come back more refreshed than if you had gone on vacation.  

 

Any tips on vowels?  Right now my ds is starting to get /a/ vs. /e/ by looking at how the speaker forms it, but he can't hear the difference at all.  He'll try to figure it out by saying it and feeling his mouth, but if his own production isn't accurate (which it often isn't with apraxia), then he's sunk.  He's definitely not hearing it.  From talking with some people on an apraxia list, it turns out vowels are a huge, huge bugaboo with these kids.

[SandyKC]

At what age do you make the ramp-up to that kind of intensity?

My son was 11 when we started working two hours per day on reading remediation.  We had 30-45 minutes of one-on-one instruction, 30-45 minutes of Lexia Reading, Earobics, and Simon Sounds It Out (whichever we were working through at the time), and 30-45 minutes of side-by-side directed reading practice.

 

We had daily math lessons, handwriting practice, cognitive enhancement programs and vision therapy we did each day. 

Most of our reading practice was non-fiction science or history-based.  We often had project-based science activities or videos, and History Channel or National Geographic videos for some social studies.  

[SandyKC]

Any tips on vowels?  Right now my ds is starting to get /a/ vs. /e/ by looking at how the speaker forms it, but he can't hear the difference at all.  He'll try to figure it out by saying it and feeling his mouth, but if his own production isn't accurate (which it often isn't with apraxia), then he's sunk.  He's definitely not hearing it.  From talking with some people on an apraxia list, it turns out vowels are a huge, huge bugaboo with these kids.

 

And vowels are one of the most critical elements since they are few in number and are part of every word!  The main way we worked with my son on his articulation of the sounds was through strong, exagerated, drawn-out differentiation.... I still hear myself drilling the five short vowel sounds!!   Funny thing.. I was even thinking about them as I was driving today even though my DS just graduated from college!!  It was so MUCH drill and practice, lots of soap in a pan, finger paints, etc.  It's both fun and frustrating while progress is made one successful practice at a time.

:thumbup:

 

[Plink]

Any tips on vowels? Right now my ds is starting to get /a/ vs. /e/ by looking at how the speaker forms it, but he can't hear the difference at all.

Have you tried LiPS yet? It is fantastic, straddling the line between speech therapy and remedial reading instruction beautifully. They do a lot of work with mirrors, noticing jaw placement for the vowels and learning how that feels so that the kids can then teach themselves to "see" sounds even when they can't hear the difference between sounds in their own speech.

 

Barton has the kids tapping their vowels (repeating a vowel's key word, and then the short sound multiple times before even attempting to sound out the first letter in any word) which we found fantastically helpful too.

 

I have a storyteller, so in addition to all of our lessons we also assigned the vowels personalities based on the key words in Barton. We would then spend a few minutes each day using the tiles to act out silly scenarios which helped cement the link between the letter shape and the sound. Those tiles are Key to learning. The Barton apps are great, but not for the first level. We really needed to play with the blocks. We still do, in fact - there are giant domino trains built on my table daily as we review our sounds. You wouldn't believe how rewarding kids find it to knock over a tower of sounds that they know, or to push their line of dominoes over. The lessons, however, go much more quickly with the app,

 

Ugh, I feel like I'm not explaining myself well at all. I guess my main point is to review, a lot, even to the point that it seems silly. Start with LiPS if you haven't yet, and go from there.

[Timberly]

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[Pen]

No one ever used a term like deep dyslexia for my ds, so I am not sure if any of what I have to offer is relevant.

 

He had had some hearing problems with sounds and speech difficulties for which he had speech therapy for several years. That had finished at the point when I started to intensively work with him with his reading problems.  That is there were still some speech issues and some trouble with some sounds I was aware of, but no longer enough to qualify for an IEP in those area.

 

We struggled around for awhile looking for a reading program that would work for him until I found High Noon, which for us was the one that worked (but it seems to be individual for different children). Since it separated out different vowel sounds to work on one at a time, it was also some help in making sound associations.  We worked very very intensively, 90 minutes daily at home, 5 days per week, plus 1 hour of IEP reading/writing at PS, then 30 minutes daily on weekends. No breaks till he got to a point of fluency.

[Lecka]

For vowels, another idea is for him to touch your face when you are making the sound.  plus, looking.  

 

You can be his articulation clue when his own articulation is not accurate. 

 

I still like the error correction videos from Abecedarian, even though i don't do them exactly.  He has you go back, and model correctly.  Or just model correctly.  When you model correctly, you can put their hand on your face and feel the difference, plus looking.

 

Also, you can stand in front of the mirror.  It can be *easier* b/c you can point out the part of the face to look at.  It is easier to know they are seeing what you want them to see, in front of the mirror, sometimes.  

 

wwith myu son, to some extent, i think the sequence was correct production first, then he started hearing teh sonds.  But all the instruction about what the production of sounds looked and felt like, really really helped him.  He was in speech therapy focusing on articulation, though.  They were also working with him on hearing the sounds.  It is hard for *me* to say if he wasn't hearing the sounds first before he was saying them..... it just seemed like, even after he was saying them, he still had to go back to his touching methods to consciously identify sounds.  automatic sound identification, without going through those steps, took quite a while.  

 

I think it is good to celebrate every step of progress on the way!  I spent too much time feeling like ---- well, he is a little better, but he is still so far from seeing a letter and instantly making the letter sound.  I had a deficit mindset, and it would have been better to look for successes instead of "never measuring up."  But -- I didn't realize it was going to be a longer process.  

[Atilla the Mom]

Vision therapy is definitely important, but the auditory issues need to be tackled first.  I discussed what worked and didn't for my kid on a couple of the CAPD threads in this forum, including the one on "The Listening Program" today.  After you have gotten phoemic awareness down she will be able to learn from OG methods, and after she can consistently sound out words,  vision therapy will help her with the visual processing issue. Once she has some visual processing ability I would have her memorize the first 1000 most common slght words, (which will help her to read with fluency and comprehension; you cannot have the memory spacve to understand a story is about if you have to keep sounding out words like "the", "of", and the infamous "you." Vision therapy will also help her track better and keep her eyes from fatiguing and giving her headaches.  After that I would go with fluency drills.  I think there is computer based software for that now and it gets built into speed reading software, but this is also a resource. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Speed-Drill-Packet-Word-Lists-More-297672

 

Again, fix the auditory issues first.

[PeterPan]

Vision therapy is definitely important, but the auditory issues need to be tackled first.  I discussed what worked and didn't for my kid on a couple of the CAPD threads in this forum, including the one on "The Listening Program" today.  After you have gotten phoemic awareness down she will be able to learn from OG methods, and after she can consistently sound out words,  vision therapy will help her with the visual processing issue. Once she has some visual processing ability I would have her memorize the first 1000 most common slght words, (which will help her to read with fluency and comprehension; you cannot have the memory spacve to understand a story is about if you have to keep sounding out words like "the", "of", and the infamous "you." Vision therapy will also help her track better and keep her eyes from fatiguing and giving her headaches.  After that I would go with fluency drills.  I think there is computer based software for that now and it gets built into speed reading software, but this is also a resource. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Speed-Drill-Packet-Word-Lists-More-297672

 

Again, fix the auditory issues first.

Atilla, you're sorta new to the boards or have a low count, and I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to reply to people.  My ds has the little list going on, and as you say it's challenging to know how to triage and what to tackle first!  I appreciate it.  :)

[LaughingCat]

. Once she has some visual processing ability I would have her memorize the first 1000 most common slght words, (which will help her to read with fluency and comprehension; you cannot have the memory spacve to understand a story is about if you have to keep sounding out words like "the", "of", and the infamous "you."

 

I found recently that what appeared to be an ongoing issue with 'little words' like the/of/you was actually due to the big words taking up too much memory space rather than issues with the little words.  I figured this out thanks to ElizabethB who suggested a program that contains nonsense words mixed in with the little common connector words (The nuz is flarting in the drez).  DD can read lists of the little words with no issue and when reading a simple 'real' sentence (The boy is swimming in the pool) reads the 'little words' the same as other words (there is still glitchyness) but when reading harder sentences she does not miss more of the other/harder words like you would expect instead she  starts missing more of the little words.  Then I tried those mixed nonsense word sentences and  Bam! she sounds exactly like she does when reading harder sentences -  read most all the 'nonsense' words perfectly - but dropped/changed little words left and right.