School evaluation back. Please help to interpret what we are dealing with..

[beishan]

Finally we got the report from school evaluation. Educational evaluation and psychological evaluation are combined into one report and we also receive separated one for SLP evaluation. Below is what we got:

 

From Speech Language Evaluation, below assessments were administrated:

 

Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language

OWLS II: Listening Comprehension and Oral Expression Scales

The Test of Word Finding 2

The Test of Pragmatic Language 2

 

The only thing that DS scored in Poor range is Pragmatic Usage Index. Others are all in normal range.

************************************

WISC-V

 

Standard Score

VCI 111 (High Average)

VSI 100 (Average)

FRI 100 (Average)

WMI 82 (Low Average)

PSI 116 (High Average)

 

Subtest scores (Scaled Scores)

 

VCI

Similarities 12

Vocabulary 12

 

VSI

Block Design 11

Visual Puzzles 9

 

FRI

Matrix Reasoning 8

Figure Weights 12

 

WMI

Digit Span 8

Picture Span 6

 

PSI

Coding 12

Symbol Search 14

 

In the report, it states that FSIQ cannot be interpreted meaningfully due to significant variability across his index scores. It also indicated that his WMI score was adversely influenced by observed momentary lapses of attention as well as impulsivity in responding.

 

***********************************************

Woodcock-Johnson IV Test of Oral Language and Achievement Form A and Extended were administrated as well.

 

Test of Oral Language

CLUSTER/TEST  RPI  Standard_Score(68% Band)

Oral Language    85/90  94 (90-99)

Broad Oral Lang  83/90  92 (88-96)

Oral Expression   45/90  76 (72-81)

Listening Comp   81/90  90 (85-95)

Picture Vocab      86/90  96 (90-103)

Oral Comp           83/90  93 (87-100)

Sentence Repet   9/90    69 (65-74)

Undstand Dir        79/90  89 (83-96)

 

Math Facts           91/90  100 (96-105)

Sentence Writing  94/90  106 (101-112)

Reading Recall     60/90  80 (75-85)

Number Matrices  95/90  107

Word Reading Flu 99/90  111

Spelling of Sound  81/90  93 (87-98)

 

 

Sorry for the long post. We are meeting with school in 10 days and would like to collect as much as information from our end before discussing with Child Study team for the IEP possibility.

[Crimson Wife]

I would recommend having a Central Auditory Processing Disorder evaluation by an audiologist experienced with CAPD testing. The low pragmatic language score could be an indication of Autistic Spectrum Disorder but CAPD also can cause pragmatic language difficulties. The low sentence repeat score would be consistent with CAPD. So I would definitely go for the CAPD testing.

[beishan]

I would recommend having a Central Auditory Processing Disorder evaluation by an audiologist experienced with CAPD testing. The low pragmatic language score could be an indication of Autistic Spectrum Disorder but CAPD also can cause pragmatic language difficulties. The low sentence repeat score would be consistent with CAPD. So I would definitely go for the CAPD testing.

 

Thanks. Which professional we should seek for CAPD testing? I forgot to add that he has ADHD PI diagnose from pediatric neurologist last year. Not sure if this will impact the score as well.

Edited January 19, 2016 by beishan

[PeterPan]

The ps SLP can sometimes run a SCAN3 (APD screening).  Otherwise, go to an audiologist.  Around here the university can run it for $35, a great deal.  If you're having issues with background noise (the most common symptom), then absolutely you should get this done.

 

Yes, it looks like they've confirmed your ADHD diagnosis and not found any SLDs, always a happy thing.  Yes, pragmatics should get you social into the IEP.  Are you enrolling him or wanting services or just trying to figure out what you should be doing?  What do you want to *do* with the info?  The pragmatics test has breakdowns, so try to get that score sheet from them just for your own info.

[beishan]

DS is currently enrolling PS. He has been Intervention program for two years and reading support (Wilson Reading Foundation) for 3 years. However, his achievement test on reading still scores poorly on the lowest end of average range. We reviewed his progress last September and agreed that there must be something more going on so we requested the evaluation. The purpose of evaluation is to find out what else school and we as parents can do to help him in the educational setting and daily life. So what you see is that there is no SLD sign showing on the testing result? How about his low average working memory? 

 

The note in speech report indicates that he was found relative weakness in the area of awareness of the setting and the audience, topic management, purpose of conversation, visual-gestural cues and abstractions.

 

In CASL, here are breakdowns:

 

Antonyms 105 (Average)

Syntax Construction 81 (Below Average)

Paragraph Comprehension 95 (Average)

NonLiteral Language 89 (Low end of Average)

Pragmatic Judgment 74 (Below Average)

Total Test 86 (Average)

 

OWLS II

 

Listening Comprehension 99 (Average)

Oral Expression 98 (Average)

Oral language Composite 97 (Average)

Edited January 19, 2016 by beishan

[PeterPan]

Well are they interpreting it as SLD?  They didn't run a CTOPP?  Did your previous private psych run a CTOPP or diagnose SLD?  The ps IEP process is a double whammy.  You both need the diagnosis *and* the effects have to be enough that it affects their ability to receive an education.  So if he's dyslexic but now performing at grade level or pretty close to ability level, with no affects on writing, reading, spelling, nothing, they might say oh, no need for an IEP for that, kwim?  That's a way they can roll.  

 

Or did you have a CTOPP earlier and a previous SLD diagnosis, and the school is accepting that?  

 

No matter what they do, you'll want to work on that working memory.  Did the ps calculate a GAI?  Did your private psych calculate a GAI?  In our state, the GAI is informative but they have to go by the full scale for purposes of calculating gifted.  But you could ask if they can use the GAI for purposes of calculating discrepancy.  Like if they're going by that 100, not a big discrepancy for most things.  Compare against that 111 or a GAI (which you might be able to figure out) and that might be enough to get you to discrepancy.

 

Your Wilson is private or through the ps?  What are you trying to make happen?  If they're paying for Wilson, you would lobby for them to continue and make the point that it's working.  You'd compare test scores previous to intervention.  

 

That pragmatics is a big deal from my perspective.  Is that something you've been noticing?  

[beishan]

The reading support at school is using Wilson reading Foundation as curriculum. It's a gentle version of Wilson Reading but it's taught by certified reading specialist in small group setting. He used to get 5 days of reading support (30 minutes each) but reduce to 2 days (30 minutes each) this year. 

 

No, SLP did not run CTOPP and we did not have previous psych evaluation. We only had neurologist  evaluation for ADHD previously. He got reading support through school intervention due to not meeting benchmark on his reading assessment each year. The school psych did run TOWRE-2 and he scored lowest end of average on Sight words and below average on Phonemic Decoding Efficiency. In WJ IV ACH, he scores low average on Phoneme/Grapheme Knowledgement and Word Attack subtest. They did not give us GAI.

 

I am seeking answer of what issue we are actually facing and why he is so struggling in language learning (reading and writing). I have utilized all resources to help his reading in the past 2 years and he worked pretty hard as well. However, the improvement is limited and we are still not able to fully close the gap after working hard with OG for 2 years. I want to find out if he is qualified for more support resource at school or any other issue we can help to address out side of school.

 

The term of pragmatics language is new to me. After looking the definition up from internet, we did observe the situation in the past. When he spoke, he liked to talk about his own topic. He responded people's question with irrelevant answer. He does not fully understand the meaning of certain words and misused it in wrong setting/people...etc. We did not red flag those earlier as we are bilingual family. Most of people kept telling us that's due to bilingual situation and he would outgrow eventually. His pragmatic language has improved over time when he gets older and gains some social skills. He will respond question to the topic now but still consistently redirect conversation to topic (topic he likes) that is irrelevant to previous one. I was thinking about expressive language (trouble describing events in clear sequence) at the time we requested SLP evaluation as I did not know which term will be properly described the situation. 

Edited January 19, 2016 by beishan

[Crimson Wife]

A test of phonological processing like the CTOPP is important to have done, especially if there are reading difficulties. Another good one to have done is the RAN/RAS, which is a rapid naming test.

 

The school will not test for CAPD because it's considered a medical issue rather than an educational one. You'd need to see an audiologist for that.

[kbutton]

Are they testing social pragmatics as well as whatever is on the CASL for pragmatics? The returning to topics of his interest can be a spectrum thing. But a lot of this is also related to CAPD. I would get a screening with an audiologist. 

 

While CAPD is not considered an education issue, it sometimes can be a qualifying condition for an IEP--they can count it under SLP, but they can count it as it's own thing under other health impairment, but it's tricky to do. You can also get IEP goals for CAPD, but that's also kind of iffy and may be done under speech or something. 

 

http://leader.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1901961 

[PeterPan]

A standard deviation is 10 for many tests, so yes on the reading recall you have 2 standard deviations (what the ps is looking for) between the score and IQ.  The word fluency however is on track for IQ.  That could mean anything.  It could be with a CTOPP the evidence of dyslexia would be there.  It could be he has executive function issues from his ADHD giving him comprehension problems.  They might even go to SLD reading based on that, dunno.  You just have to talk with them.  I think it's totally fair to want weaknesses to be addressed.  

 

The pragmatics can be connected to the ADHD, bumping over to ASD, or connected to another problem, as you've already been told.  If you want that sorted out or have more concerns there, you could pursue that with private evals, where they can slow down and discriminate ADHD vs. ASD, etc.  Again, for the APD question, sometimes the SLP or psych can run that, but definitely an audiologist that has the set-up.  I can see why it was confusing, with so multiple languages being spoken, but I think that development would come across with the amount of language he has.  It sounds like he has a challenge there, so it's just good to get it sorted out and get some interventions in place for it.

 

[beishan]

A standard deviation is 10 for many tests, so yes on the reading recall you have 2 standard deviations (what the ps is looking for) between the score and IQ.  The word fluency however is on track for IQ.  That could mean anything.  It could be with a CTOPP the evidence of dyslexia would be there.  It could be he has executive function issues from his ADHD giving him comprehension problems.  They might even go to SLD reading based on that, dunno.  You just have to talk with them.  I think it's totally fair to want weaknesses to be addressed.  

 

His WJ IV Achievement Form A also indicates issue with reading:

 

Cluster/Test                            RPI     SS (68% Band)

READING                               37/90  81 (79-84)

BROAD READING                  37/90  86 (83-88)

BASIC READING SKILLS       48/90  85 (82-87)

READING COMP                   53/90  79 (75-83)

READING FLUENCY             44/90  87 (83-91)

READING RATE                    89/90  100 (96-103)

BROAD WRITTEN LANG      57/90   86 (83-89)

WRITTEN EXPRESSION       79/90  92 (88-96)

MATHEMATICS                     94/90  105 (102-109)

MATH PROBLEM SOLVING  95/90   108 (104-112)

MATH CALCULATION           92/90   102 (98-106)

BROAD MATH                       93/90   104 (100-107)      

 

Letter-Word Identification      30/90  84 (81-87)

Applied Problem                    95/90  107 (102-112)

Spelling                                  68/90  91 (81-94)

Passage Comp                      45/90  82 (77-86)

Writing Sample                      46/90  85 (81-89)

Oral Reading                         51-90  84 (80-87)

Sentence Reading                 37/90  90 (86-95)

[beishan]

Are they testing social pragmatics as well as whatever is on the CASL for pragmatics? The returning to topics of his interest can be a spectrum thing. But a lot of this is also related to CAPD. I would get a screening with an audiologist.

 

While CAPD is not considered an education issue, it sometimes can be a qualifying condition for an IEP--they can count it under SLP, but they can count it as it's own thing under other health impairment, but it's tricky to do. You can also get IEP goals for CAPD, but that's also kind of iffy and may be done under speech or something.

 

http://leader.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1901961

Will he be able to get speech therapy from school for Pragmatic Language? Or is there any help we can get outside of school? I was googling Pragmatic Language Disorder last night and found it does fit DS. Now we are not sure if it's part of his ADHD or something (CAPD, AS) more. I checked symptoms of CAPD but he does not fit completely. He has good ear while learning violin (play by ear) and good audio memory. He often follows along the storyline well when he listens to audio books. He memorizes whole paragraph from the book and is able to repeat it without a book. He has no issue identifying 4 different tones while learning Mandarin and some other dialect (has 8 tones) from my home country. However, he does fit description of some CAPD subtypes. I will need to get it sort out from audiologist.

[Crimson Wife]

 I checked symptoms of CAPD but he does not fit completely. He has good ear while learning violin (play by ear) and good audio memory. He often follows along the storyline well when he listens to audio books. He memorizes whole paragraph from the book and is able to repeat it without a book. He has no issue identifying 4 different tones while learning Mandarin and some other dialect (has 8 tones) from my home country. However, he does fit description of some CAPD subtypes. I will need to get it sort out from audiologist.

 

There are different subtypes of CAPD and my oldest has the audio sequencing one. She has a really good ear for learning the viola according to hear teacher and did well at the tones in Mandarin when she took a class when she was little (we weren't able to continue after we moved since all the Chinese schools here teach the Cantonese dialect). She mixes up syllables in multisyllabic words, transposes digits in numbers, does multistep directions out of order, and also really complains about noisy environments.

 

Here are some links on the subtypes of CAPD (some of these links push a specific treatment and this is NOT intended to endorse those):

http://www.brainbalancecenters.com/blog/2014/02/auditory-processing-disorder/

http://www.capdsupport.org/Diagnosis/subtypes-of-auditory-processing-disorder-apd.html

http://www.gemmlearning.com/can-help/central-auditory-processing-disorder/info/sub-types/

[PeterPan]

Having issues understanding when you're in noisy places (Chipotle, for instance) is the most common marker for APD.  Try a university audiology department or a private audiologist that specializes in APD/CAPD.  They can do an audiology exam and run the SCAN3, which is the screening tool.  At our university, I can get that done for $35.  It would be $380 for the same thing privately.  At $35, yes I'd get it done.  However I personally wouldn't pay $380 unless you are actually having symptoms like difficulty understanding when there is background noise.

 

As far as the pragmatics issues, you can have that and get labeled social delay with ADHD *or* it can tip over to ASD.  The only good way to get that sorted out is to get someone (a psych) who specializes who will SLOW DOWN and take the time to discriminate them.  Here's an article Cricket has been sharing.  I haven't finished reading it myself.

 

The Co-Occurrence of Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children – What Do We Know?

 

Really though, the interventions are the same.  Sometimes people will say ADHD plus social delay kids understand but are too impulsive to slow down and act on it and that ASD kids just don't understand.  Reality is, pragmatics testing until about age 10/12 *under-identifies* kids with pragmatics problems.  So I don't consider a pragmatics test a really strong tool to sort out that question until the dc is older.  Also, 2E and aspie kids are notorious for using their verbal skills to blow through tests when they actually have problems.  Since your dc is flagging on pragmatics already, that isn't the question.  I'm just saying it's a lot of hairs they split and sometimes split in weird ways.  In reality, no matter which way they go, YOU'LL DO THE SAME THINGS.  However, if there's actually enough to push it over to ASD, you'd actually like to know.

 

The challenge is that a ps diagnosis of ASD and private are not one in the same.  For the ps to put ASD in the IEP, they're saying that it is his disabling condition and the condition which best describes what adversely affects his ability to receive an education.  The school can acknowledge social/pragmatics problems and put goals for that under the ADHD (a lower disabling condition) and NOT label him as ASD, EVEN IF he has a medical diagnosis of ADHD.  

 

In our state, this is actually a fight people have, because there's big money associated with each diagnosis.  In other words, if you actually want the question answered thoroughly, without bias, you may need to go private.  It depends on the school and what they're seeing.  If they're seeing (in the classroom, in the school) the social but *not* anything due to self-regulation, repetitive behaviors, etc., they may just put in goals for the social using ADHD or the SLDs as the disabling condition and not bother to go deeper on the ASD question.  They're not there to give you a medical diagnosis, only to say if the symptoms are affecting his ability to receive an education.  

 

So if you want the ADHD vs. ASD question addressed, you would look for a psych or clinic specializing in autism.  One interesting way is to look for a BCBA (a behaviorist that treats ASD) and see if they practice under a psych or refer to a particular psych.  Or you can get an eval through a clinic that specializes in ASD.  That will typically be a multi-factor eval, which can be helpful as it catches things that aren't yet on your radar like OT and speech.  

Edited January 20, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Storygirl]

Will he be able to get speech therapy from school for Pragmatic Language? Or is there any help we can get outside of school?

 

DS11 had poor pragmatic scores during his recent school evaluations. He did qualify to work with a speech therapist on pragmatics, and he has a specific classroom goal that they are working toward. In his case, his goal is related to participating in group work, because his teachers have noticed that he does not do well with this (he wanders away from the group; does not contribute ideas; hides his work on his paper from his classmates, etc.).

 

Because he has limited time with the speech therapist (once a week), he only has this one goal to work on for now.

 

You can ask your school whether he qualifies for in-school help. DS11's scores were particularly low, so it was obvious that he had a need. If you need to get it from an outside provider, you would look for a speech language pathologist who does social skills training. Sometimes this is in the form of a social skills group instead of individual therapy.

[PeterPan]

Story, I was just reading in Teaching Social Skills to People with Autism that group social skills work does not tend to generalize over and is not individualized enough.  The article in the book indicates the paired social skills work, like what Kbutton's dc gets, is more effective.  In that situation they're doing customized work that is actually using things in the dc's life and doing it with the dc's friends. 

 

That's awesome that your school has already given you social skills goals and gotten to work on it!  Must be a relief just to have things acknowledged.  If the scholarship is eaten up by what the school does, then you could kick in to get private services with a behaviorist on top of it.  Might be a strong pairing.  Not now, like not to stress you out.  Just more like ok maybe next summer or fall we could add that person to our team and get some of that individualized, paired work too, working with the other approach.

[Crimson Wife]

Story, I was just reading in Teaching Social Skills to People with Autism that group social skills work does not tend to generalize over and is not individualized enough.  The article in the book indicates the paired social skills work, like what Kbutton's dc gets, is more effective.

 

Like so much else with those "on the spectrum", this really varies from child to child. My DD will often do better in small group settings where she has other kids to watch & imitate than 1:1 with her SLP, ABA interventionist, or teacher. Her ABA center runs a social skills camp in the summer for a month and she made a ton of progress during that. She is much more interested in what other kids are doing (even though she struggles with appropriate peer interactions) than what adults are doing. I don't think we can make a blanket statement that 1:1 is always better than small group.

 

[beishan]

There are different subtypes of CAPD and my oldest has the audio sequencing one. She has a really good ear for learning the viola according to hear teacher and did well at the tones in Mandarin when she took a class when she was little (we weren't able to continue after we moved since all the Chinese schools here teach the Cantonese dialect). She mixes up syllables in multisyllabic words, transposes digits in numbers, does multistep directions out of order, and also really complains about noisy environments.

 

That sounds very much like DS. He mixes up syllables in multisyllabic words, transposes digits in numbers, does multistep directions out of order, and also really complains about noisy environments. However, it does not happen every time though...  I think I will have to look into this more.

 

 

The challenge is that a ps diagnosis of ASD and private are not one in the same.  For the ps to put ASD in the IEP, they're saying that it is his disabling condition and the condition which best describes what adversely affects his ability to receive an education.  The school can acknowledge social/pragmatics problems and put goals for that under the ADHD (a lower disabling condition) and NOT label him as ASD, EVEN IF he has a medical diagnosis of ADHD.  

 

In our state, this is actually a fight people have, because there's big money associated with each diagnosis.  In other words, if you actually want the question answered thoroughly, without bias, you may need to go private.  It depends on the school and what they're seeing.  If they're seeing (in the classroom, in the school) the social but *not* anything due to self-regulation, repetitive behaviors, etc., they may just put in goals for the social using ADHD or the SLDs as the disabling condition and not bother to go deeper on the ASD question.  They're not there to give you a medical diagnosis, only to say if the symptoms are affecting his ability to receive an education.  

 

So if you want the ADHD vs. ASD question addressed, you would look for a psych or clinic specializing in autism.  One interesting way is to look for a BCBA (a behaviorist that treats ASD) and see if they practice under a psych or refer to a particular psych.  Or you can get an eval through a clinic that specializes in ASD.  That will typically be a multi-factor eval, which can be helpful as it catches things that aren't yet on your radar like OT and speech.  

 

Thanks for great information. From the report I received, I can see school thinks that his ADHD (inattentiveness, impulsiveness and self regulation on his emotion) impacts more on his social and education situation. We don't mind to go private to sort it out if we need to. We have pretty good insurance coverage. 

[Storygirl]

It will be interesting to see what progress the SLP can make with my son. We go to a very small Christian school, and he is the only one getting the therapy, so it is one-on-one for now. They did say that there might be some benefit to occasionally pulling in another student or two to work with him on some group activities, so he may get a dual benefit -- both individual and group experiences.

 

We will see how it goes. I don't know how well he will generalize from learning skills in his speech sessions to putting it into practice in the classroom; I suspect that will be a challenge.

 

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I'll mention that he does not actually have an IEP yet. These services are being executed under what they are calling a service plan, where the public school personnel come to the private school to work with him. The IEP is in progress. We're actually pleased at how much help we are getting under this service plan system.

[kbutton]

Will he be able to get speech therapy from school for Pragmatic Language? Or is there any help we can get outside of school? I was googling Pragmatic Language Disorder last night and found it does fit DS. Now we are not sure if it's part of his ADHD or something (CAPD, AS) more. I checked symptoms of CAPD but he does not fit completely. He has good ear while learning violin (play by ear) and good audio memory. He often follows along the storyline well when he listens to audio books. He memorizes whole paragraph from the book and is able to repeat it without a book. He has no issue identifying 4 different tones while learning Mandarin and some other dialect (has 8 tones) from my home country. However, he does fit description of some CAPD subtypes. I will need to get it sort out from audiologist.

 

Yes, he could. How well it works depends a lot on whether there are other things going on that also contribute to the problem (like autism, as mentioned). 

 

CAPD, as CW mentioned, is not something that you have to meet the whole symptom list for. It's unlike ADHD and other diagnoses in that respect--you might have just one impairment with CAPD. My son with CAPD plays the piano by ear, and he also likes audio books. I can describe his behavior pretty well, but I am still not entirely sure what category or subtype he fits into, which may be one reason the subtypes (and lots of things about CAPD) are controversial--there is just a lot of variation. Basically, he can't hear in background noise (but his tests are low normal in this area), and the rate at which he comprehends speech is impaired (he tests in the 2nd percentile for this). We have a lot of mishearing. In noisy environments, he has to watch other people to know what he's supposed to do because he can't hear the directions. Before he learned to read, he made a lot of indistinct sounds in his speech--he didn't really differentiate vowel sounds, he had one or two that were all purpose and not quite in our language! When he started to read and found out that thin, then, and than were three separate and distinct words with different middle sounds, he thought I was playing a trick on him. He still sometimes runs into this with spelling to be sure he's hearing things correctly, but he usually just asks.

 

While schools can attribute a lot of behavior to a problem that requires lesser support. I would not say this is a problem across the board--OhE's school is being very problematic in this regard. We had some difficulty getting services for both our kids, but in both cases, we had one or two ETR/IEP team members who stepped in and very nicely clarified that the difficulties were, indeed, caused by autism (older son), and that the CAPD symptoms my younger son has are very much not the same as speech issues or language issues in the sense that the school is trained to deal with them. It's very situational. I would go into things with eyes wide open, but I would not discount getting more information. I have not seen a reference to how old your child is, but it may also become more clear later on with age. 

 

You can also work on remediating relative deficits at home or with private therapy--those would be low areas in testing that don't quite reach a diagnostic level. 

 

I highly recommend this book for IEP dealings: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E81DHTS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 It's not a book totally about the law (you can use your state's IDEA website, federal IDEA sites, and the NOLO books for that kind of thing), but it's about the people side of the IEP equation--gaining consensus and such.

[beishan]

You can ask your school whether he qualifies for in-school help. DS11's scores were particularly low, so it was obvious that he had a need. If you need to get it from an outside provider, you would look for a speech language pathologist who does social skills training. Sometimes this is in the form of a social skills group instead of individual therapy.

 

 

Story, I was just reading in Teaching Social Skills to People with Autism that group social skills work does not tend to generalize over and is not individualized enough.  The article in the book indicates the paired social skills work, like what Kbutton's dc gets, is more effective.  In that situation they're doing customized work that is actually using things in the dc's life and doing it with the dc's friends. 

 

DS has been in private social skills group since first grade. He is now 10yo in 4th grade. He was paired with other two boys in the group and developed good friendship. The  group runs under Dr Jed Baker's social skills training project. I have already notified his social skills therapist about the finding of poor pragmatic language. She was the one who found that he has issue responding WH questions and wants me to look into language evaluation to sort out.

Edited January 20, 2016 by beishan

[PeterPan]

Like so much else with those "on the spectrum", this really varies from child to child. My DD will often do better in small group settings where she has other kids to watch & imitate than 1:1 with her SLP, ABA interventionist, or teacher. Her ABA center runs a social skills camp in the summer for a month and she made a ton of progress during that. She is much more interested in what other kids are doing (even though she struggles with appropriate peer interactions) than what adults are doing. I don't think we can make a blanket statement that 1:1 is always better than small group.

 

That's interesting!  Now I'll just ask, is that ability to imitate and watch peers going to be consistent across the ASD population?  How common is that skill?  Would it be *predictive* as to how a dc would do in that situation?  

 

And no, I didn't think the book was very good overall.  They'd have one article say one thing and then another contradict, lol.  I also think we could be missing the context of the types of groups or the situations the person was referring to.  I think in the article he was looking at group social skills classes that were working on things *removed* from the everyday situation of the dc.  For instance, I visited an SLP practice that has an ASD social skills group.  They might play games, etc., but it's kids that don't see each other the rest of the time and it's scenarios that aren't reflective of the rest of their week.  So then they don't necessarily have something that is going to *generalize* to a totally different situation like school.  

 

You're saying she's in school, getting group work, and it's working for her.  The article was talking about group work removed from that, not with peers, not integrated into what they're actually doing anyway, and just pointing out the obvious that if you work on a skill somewhere it might not generalize over to a totally different scenario.

 

Definitely interesting though.  I think it's a question the school was asking, like if ds is in that setting can he look at his peers and determine how to act appropriately.  

Edited January 20, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

DS has been in private social skills group since first grade. He is now 10yo in 4th grade. He was paired with other two boys in the group and developed good friendship. The  group runs under Dr Jed Baker's social skills training project. I have already notified his social skills therapist about the finding of poor pragmatic language. She was the one who found that he has issue responding WH questions and wants me to look into language evaluation to sort out.

And has someone actually addressed the ASD question??  If he's having issues with WH question words, that's a marker of ASD. 

[PeterPan]

That sounds very much like DS. He mixes up syllables in multisyllabic words, transposes digits in numbers, does multistep directions out of order, and also really complains about noisy environments. However, it does not happen every time though...  I think I will have to look into this more.

 

 

 

Thanks for great information. From the report I received, I can see school thinks that his ADHD (inattentiveness, impulsiveness and self regulation on his emotion) impacts more on his social and education situation. We don't mind to go private to sort it out if we need to. We have pretty good insurance coverage. 

Ok, I think it's bizarre that a clinic would give therapy for social skills for several years and never look at whether this is ADHD with social delay or ASD.  That's a pretty serious question.

 

You're saying he complains about noisy environments, but *that* can be sensory.  Has he had an OT eval?  What we're specifically saying is can he *understand* you talking to him when he's in a noisy environment...  So if you go in Chipotle (which is famously noisy) and you try to talk about what you're ordering and the guy says what kind of beans, can he hear and respond?  Me, I hear fine.  The noise bothers me and I get headaches from it, might have avoidance symptoms, etc, but I can hear you just fine.  My ability to discriminate figure/ground and separate out the voice of the person speaking from all the rowdy noise in the background is fine.  My dd, is right on the line, where she *struggles* to understand what you're saying.  She might or might not get it.  She avoids those situations, because it's so hard for her to hear the voice and distinguish it from the noise.  The strain of her trying to distinguish like that gives her horrible headaches.  She's borderline on the APD screening.  Then you get people who actually are functionally deaf in that situation.  They literally can't distinguish the voice from the background.  

 

My ds was not responding to people, and one of the questions they ask you in an ASD screening is whether you've ever wondered if the dc was deaf.  That's why we took my ds to the audiologist, because we felt like we really needed to get sorted out *why* he wasn't responding.  The audiologists saw it happening too, but in his case it's not a hearing loss, not a background issue, just the ASD.  He just goes into his own world.  

 

Takes a while to get into a good ASD clinic.  The Baker place ought to be able to help you, mercy.  I don't know what they do.  At least a referral or something.  I know I've got two of his books in my house right now, one on meltdowns and another on social skills.  He's not looking at the camera in the picture of him in the social skills book.  Is Baker himself NT?  His picture was pretty bad in that book.  I don't think a NT person would have let a picture like that get published.  They would have had a nicer picture made.  Of course I just wrote the Cruz campaign asking them why they don't bother to hire a good photographer and control his imagery.  The shots, the lighting, the editing on his images are HORRIBLE.  Images matter.  Trump controls his imagery very carefully.  People who feel well and who are in control handle these things.  To me it was like a little hmm, that's odd, when I saw the poor image in the Baker book.  Yup, just checked.  It's on the back cover.  It's underexposed, no eye contact, basically just a cropped snapshot.

Edited January 20, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

DS has been in private social skills group since first grade. He is now 10yo in 4th grade. He was paired with other two boys in the group and developed good friendship. The  group runs under Dr Jed Baker's social skills training project. I have already notified his social skills therapist about the finding of poor pragmatic language. She was the one who found that he has issue responding WH questions and wants me to look into language evaluation to sort out.

Was I understanding it correctly that Prizant was saying, in one of those webinars Lecka linked, that SLPs are doing video/online therapy for school social skills and conversation?  I know he was saying that.  Like he was talking about fading the pauses.  I thought that was really interesting as a way of saying we're going to work therapeutically on what an academic conversation looks like, what it means to listen to a teacher and then ask a question and then let the teacher talk some more.  We're not going to assume that conversation skills in a social group for games and kid play translate over to skills for the classroom with a teacher.

 

I don't think anything we're talking about is saying what you're doing is not GOOD, kwim?  It's more like what's *missing*, how do we need to expand our team or round out our approach, kwim?  To me that would be the question.  

 

So then it's like ok, maybe his group social skills work is hitting skills that carry over to *this* situation but maybe this *other* situation needs to be addressed.  Maybe what they're doing there doesn't carry over to this *other* situation and you add some more tools or modify.  Maybe it's not *generalizing* to all situations and it's going to need to be applied more explicitly.

Edited January 20, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[beishan]

And has someone actually addressed the ASD question??  If he's having issues with WH question words, that's a marker of ASD. 

 

No. We started Social Skills Group when he was in K. His K teacher recommended us to try because he was lacking social emotional control in K (threw tantrum when he did not get his way). She said that one of her students in other class got improved after trying the social skills group. He was paired with other two boys that also have ADHD labels. Therapist mentioned that he shows frustration on word retrieval especially when the conversation speed starts to pick up. It will take him 2-3 tries to get the words that he wants and some kids may lose patience for that. She was afraid it will hurt his social situation. As of WH question, I did mention it to his ESL teacher but she did not observe the same issue when he was in her class. He got referred to ESL service when he was 6 but discontinued when he went to 2nd grade because they see no benefit. He speaks English fluently. What therapist observed is that he answered WHAT question with WHERE or WHY answer. Example like when therapist asked him "What will you normally have for Thanksgiving" and he answered "We are going to Edward's house". I bought some DVD from Super Duper and practiced with him. He is able to answer WH question in the activities without any issue so I was not sure if he has issue with WH question or more culture background knowledge issue as we do not normally celebrate Thanksgiving in the family....Now at 10 years old, if you ask the same question again, he can answer perfectly fine.

[kbutton]

That's interesting!  Now I'll just ask, is that ability to imitate and watch peers going to be consistent across the ASD population?  How common is that skill?  Would it be *predictive* as to how a dc would do in that situation?  

 

Isn't that entirely what the support levels that go with the ASD diagnosis are meant to show? Differing innate abilities to handle these situations?

 

Also, imitating peers and actually interacting with peers at their level of social competence are not the same. And imitating the right things, all the thing, etc. in that situation is very individual too--my son is excellent in many ways at keeping his head down and under the radar, but it's not the same as being NT in a group situation. But, that doesn't mean that a situation like this is always helpful or always lost on kids with autism--I think support people know how to judge and prioritize what will be most effective for each child (including parents--each family is going to prioritize slightly different goals). I think a child's ability to handle any situation grows and changes over time, but you need to watch for what they are and are not truly getting out of the situation and why. 

 

The individual work helps my son get sheltered practice--he can train his brain to think things through and work on keeping that "deer in the headlights" feeling at bay. Practice in a broader setting and then troubleshooting that practice helps him generalize. His competence varies from one situation to the next--he tends to appear very atypical in some groups and very mature in others. For instance, in a Lego Robotics class (gifted enrichment class outside a school setting), we were asked if he is older than his chronological age--the teacher was shocked to find out his real age (he was in the middle of the pack age-wise in this multi-age class, and there were at least two other 2e ASD kiddos in the room, both older, one a total social butterfly). In other classes at the same location, we get odd looks and interesting questions. He might or might not engage or know how to ask questions without feeling conspicuous, etc. 

[PeterPan]

Isn't that entirely what the support levels that go with the ASD diagnosis are meant to show? Differing innate abilities to handle these situations?

 

I don't know.  :)  I know it's a question the school was looking at, like what happens when he's in a situation where he doesn't know what to do?  Does he look at his peers?  So then is the ability to do that indicative of something, and then precisely what?

[Lecka]

"Peer imitation" is a skill (in my world).  You can do it prompted or unprompted.  The long-term goal is to do it unprompted.  My son is doing an awful lot unprompted now.  He notices what peers are doing and chooses to do what they are doing, too. 

 

He started with zero imitation skills.  As in -- they say "do this" and clap their hands.  He is not able to clap his hands.  They say "do this" and touch their nose.  He is not able to touch his nose.

 

A lot of kids start with a higher level of imitation skills. 

 

For other kids -- they need to *notice* before they can imitate.  That is the joint attention and referencing, I think.  You need to notice, and you need to imitate.  This was two separate things, worked on separately, for my son.

 

He was very, very low in both.  Very, very low.

 

Now he is very often both noticing and spontaneously imitating. 

 

So it is very odd to me to think of these skills as "something where you do it or you don't."  If you don't have it, at whatever level, you work on it, so you can move up to the next level, and work on that level, etc.

 

I think what Crimson Wife is saying about her daughter ----- it sounds like is it partly her personality.  And then partly -- she has a peer interest, she has a motivation to do what her peers are doing. 

 

My son does, too.  I don't think I would describe it the same way, but he is interested in peers in a different way than he is interested in adults.  The same as my other kids do not want to just be around adults all the time.  There is just a difference between peers and adults, I think.  Like -- why ask why, they are just different. 

[Lecka]

And following on ---- where does peer motivation come from?  This is from my perspective, with my son previously having very little motivation or ability (and the two things build on each other) to interact with anybody, a peer or an adult.

 

When we start to do things to make him have a skill and a pleasure in interacting with an adult, then we are kind-of doing things on purpose.  We are being intentional.

 

So ---- in my case, we are doing those SAME intentional things to help him have a skill and a pleasure in interacting with peers. 

 

So -- it is the same approach for us.  We want both things for him -- peers and adults.  We want him to have a skill and a pleasure with both adults and peers. 

 

But, peers  and adults are different, so we can't just address the skill/pleasure for adults (or peers) and assume it will all be the same for peers (or adults).

 

That is my take. 

 

There is learning that kids do where they learn with/from adults ----- and there is learning kids do where they learn with/from peers. 

 

I value both of them.

 

If somebody starts at a higher level on the "1-5 scale" ----- well, maybe that is a strength for that child. 

 

But it doesn't make a lot of sense to look at it as "protective."  It is a good skill!  It is a great skill!  It is important!  But I don't see how it is protective.  It is just ---- certainly better than not having it, and there are many opportunities for learning and participation that are available when the skill/motivation is present! 

 

But "protective" sounds like it is static and unmoving ----- as if, on one hand, you couldn't have a bad experience or lose pace in your skills, such that it got harder or less rewarding to be in a peer group (of a certain size/structure).  And on the other hand, as if there was nothing you could do to work to improve the skills or motivation.  B/c -- it is just not some static and unmoving thing. 

 

(We look at things in little pieces though, too, where maybe you start with liking to be physically present with peers, observe peers, etc., but interacting is going to come a little later, and then there is "responding" vs. "initiating" where maybe one of these is a strength for the child and the other needs more work, or maybe they both need work, etc.) 

Edited January 20, 2016 by Lecka

[beishan]

Ok, I think it's bizarre that a clinic would give therapy for social skills for several years and never look at whether this is ADHD with social delay or ASD.  That's a pretty serious question.

 

 

The more bizarre thing is our insurance paid for it. It was actually first billed under adjustment anxiety and later switched to be billed under ADHD diagnose code after we got the label from neurologist. 

 

 

You're saying he complains about noisy environments, but *that* can be sensory.  Has he had an OT eval?  What we're specifically saying is can he *understand* you talking to him when he's in a noisy environment...  So if you go in Chipotle (which is famously noisy) and you try to talk about what you're ordering and the guy says what kind of beans, can he hear and respond?  Me, I hear fine.  The noise bothers me and I get headaches from it, might have avoidance symptoms, etc, but I can hear you just fine.  My ability to discriminate figure/ground and separate out the voice of the person speaking from all the rowdy noise in the background is fine.  My dd, is right on the line, where she *struggles* to understand what you're saying.  She might or might not get it.  She avoids those situations, because it's so hard for her to hear the voice and distinguish it from the noise.  The strain of her trying to distinguish like that gives her horrible headaches.  She's borderline on the APD screening.  Then you get people who actually are functionally deaf in that situation.  They literally can't distinguish the voice from the background.  

 

He complaint about loud noise which made him exhausted. When I brought him to see circus show (with loud music), he wanted to get out in the half time and appeared to be very tired. But sometimes he wants me to turn on high volume of his audio books while we are in the car ride because he claims that he cannot hear. He can hear and understand both languages (mainly speak to him in Mandarin when not doing school works) fine in noisy environment.

 

I asked for OT/PT evaluation but school denied it as they claimed that they did not see issue with motor skills. I may need to go private route.

 

My ds was not responding to people, and one of the questions they ask you in an ASD screening is whether you've ever wondered if the dc was deaf.  That's why we took my ds to the audiologist, because we felt like we really needed to get sorted out *why* he wasn't responding.  The audiologists saw it happening too, but in his case it's not a hearing loss, not a background issue, just the ASD.  He just goes into his own world.  

 

Takes a while to get into a good ASD clinic.  The Baker place ought to be able to help you, mercy.  I don't know what they do.  At least a referral or something.  I know I've got two of his books in my house right now, one on meltdowns and another on social skills.  He's not looking at the camera in the picture of him in the social skills book.  Is Baker himself NT?  His picture was pretty bad in that book.  I don't think a NT person would have let a picture like that get published.  They would have had a nicer picture made.  Of course I just wrote the Cruz campaign asking them why they don't bother to hire a good photographer and control his imagery.  The shots, the lighting, the editing on his images are HORRIBLE.  Images matter.  Trump controls his imagery very carefully.  People who feel well and who are in control handle these things.  To me it was like a little hmm, that's odd, when I saw the poor image in the Baker book.  Yup, just checked.  It's on the back cover.  It's underexposed, no eye contact, basically just a cropped snapshot.

 

Well...we don't see him directly. We are just in the group that using his way to run social skills group. If I get to see him, I will let him know.  :laugh: 

 

[Crimson Wife]

And has someone actually addressed the ASD question??  If he's having issues with WH question words, that's a marker of ASD. 

 

Not necessarily. It's a sign of Specific Language Impairment as well, at least according to my Communicative Disorders textbooks. Many kids with ASD have language delays but so do plenty of kids not on the spectrum.

 

[Crimson Wife]

I think what Crimson Wife is saying about her daughter ----- it sounds like is it partly her personality.  And then partly -- she has a peer interest, she has a motivation to do what her peers are doing. 

 

My son does, too.  I don't think I would describe it the same way, but he is interested in peers in a different way than he is interested in adults.  The same as my other kids do not want to just be around adults all the time.  There is just a difference between peers and adults, I think.  Like -- why ask why, they are just different. 

 

There's also the issue of gender. One reason that females with ASD often receive the diagnosis much later than boys is because girls often are more interested in social interaction and may be able to"fake it" by imitating peers up until the social environment gets more complicated in late childhood or adolescence.

 

I suspect that if my DD hadn't had the language delay she probably would not have received the ASD diagnosis because the other symptoms (handflapping, sensory seeking behaviors, inconsistent eye contact, difficulty understanding complex emotions, missing the forest for the trees, etc.) were fairly subtle.

[PeterPan]

Lecka, you just started such a HUGE rabbit trail in my mind.  Those are really good questions, like *is* our dc interested in interacting with peers, under what circumstances is he interacting with peers, is he *learning* from peers, etc.  Good questions!!  And it seems like ds' track record is sometimes yes, sometimes no on the interacting.  Learning, wow, that's a harder one.  That requires listening, collaboration.  

 

Wow, what a lot to think about!  I think I'm going to look at my pile of books here a new way, looking for this.

[Lecka]

That is a good point, Crimson Wife.  I hadn't thought of that. 

[PeterPan]

Beishan, yes, if you're seeing mixed things, where it's not really clear what is causing what, then getting it sorted out by an audiologist is a good thing.  And it can be sort of subclinical like my dd's, where it's enough to give her a problem but not enough to get her to a diagnosis.  They just say it's a relative weakness and gave her suggestions on how to compensate.  But really, even that process was helpful.  The audiologist could tell us *which* ear was her dominant ear, so then she knows how to seat herself in a classroom or noisy situation to improve her input.  And also it was helpful because the audiologist herself deals with this, and she could talk about what she does, how it affected her schooling, etc.  So I think it's fine to get an eval to be told no, kwim?  I think it's better to eliminate things as issues than to MISS them.  I'd rather do an eval at this point and be told NO than not to do the eval and realize something is giving us problems that we can't put our finger on.

 

Yes, some schools will do OT for sensory and some apparently won't.  I think that stinks, because sensory regulation is a huge issue in the classroom.  But still, the point of the school is to make sure they can receive an education, not to give complete medical care.  They're not going to do everything that you would do privately or to the extent. 

 

An ASD clinic will typically have OT, SLP, psych all under one roof.

[kbutton]

I don't know.   :)  I know it's a question the school was looking at, like what happens when he's in a situation where he doesn't know what to do?  Does he look at his peers?  So then is the ability to do that indicative of something, and then precisely what?

 

You might take a look at this link: https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening%20Tools/DSM-5(ASD.Guidelines)Feb2013.pdf

 

I don't know if this book would help, but it's been updated (I found it helpful in its old form): http://www.amazon.com/Syndrome-Autism-Spectrum-Tourettes-Anxiety/dp/1849059675/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[kbutton]

Lecka, you just started such a HUGE rabbit trail in my mind.  Those are really good questions, like *is* our dc interested in interacting with peers, under what circumstances is he interacting with peers, is he *learning* from peers, etc.  Good questions!!  And it seems like ds' track record is sometimes yes, sometimes no on the interacting.  Learning, wow, that's a harder one.  That requires listening, collaboration.  

 

Wow, what a lot to think about!  I think I'm going to look at my pile of books here a new way, looking for this.

 

I am going to PM you about this.

[PeterPan]

You might take a look at this link: https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening%20Tools/DSM-5(ASD.Guidelines)Feb2013.pdf

 

I don't know if this book would help, but it's been updated (I found it helpful in its old form): http://www.amazon.com/Syndrome-Autism-Spectrum-Tourettes-Anxiety/dp/1849059675/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Cha-ching! The library has this.

[Storygirl]

I'm finding this conversation about imitating versus interacting with peers extremely interesting. Because it makes me think of my dad. He is 82 now, and I really think he is probably on the autism spectrum, although no one in my family has ever suggested it. He is just socially withdrawn and unemotional with family and always has been. He is very hard to connect with. However, when sitting on an airplane, he will make small talk with the person sitting next to him. I find this very strange!! In fact, I've found it funny that in some cases he can be more social than I am (I don't talk to strangers sitting next to me on the plane, for example). I recently had decided that being a businessman for 60 years has made him learn the superficial social skill of engaging in small talk with strangers, whereas he has never completely learned the skill of engaging on a deeper level with his family.

 

So what you all have just said is ringing bells for me. I think Dad learned to imitate these social skills but he didn't learn to genuinely interact socially.

 

Sorry we are taking over your thread with this, beishan! Feel free to redirect the conversation back to your original issues!

[geodob]

You wrote that you: 'mainly speak to him in Mandarin when not doing school work.'

 

While their are a lot of advantages to being bi-lingual.

One language needs to be established as the dominant one.

Much like handedness.

So that this language, becomes the one used for 'general thinking'.

As we can't think with a mixture of 2 languages?

 

Where you also said that 'it will take him 2-3 tries to get the words that he wants.

Though I wonder if he has the same problem when speaking in Mandarin?

 

You highlighted his Digit Span test.

Where I wonder what his score would be. If If he repeated back the order of the numbers, in Mandarin?

As perhaps this is his normal way of thinking of numbers?

 

So that basically what I wondering about?

Is what language is his dominant way of thinking?

[beishan]

geodob

 

English is his dominant language. He is basically using English to learn Chinese now. Here is his bilingual exposure history:

 

birth - 14mo

All Mandarin 24*7

 

14mo-4yo

M-F attending full time daycare center

8am-6pm English

6pm-8pm Mandarin

WEEKEND - All Mandarin

 

5yo-8yo

M-F attending public school + after school

8am-6pm English at school

6pm-9pm English at home

Saturday 12:30-3:00pm Chinese school

 

8yo-10yo (present)

M-F attending public school + after school

8am-6pm English at school

6pm-9pm English/Mandarin at home

 

 

He has very limited oral Mandarin now but is able to understand 50-60% of daily conversation in Mandarin. It took him 2-3 times longer to retrieve Mandarin words than English. When learning to read and write in Chinese, his retention is very minimum. He tends to remember more complex words than simple words. Generally he speaks English smoothly and has great vocabulary.  Occasionally we observe that he has difficulty to retrieve words and end up he needs to repeat part of sentence few times before he can grab the word and continue with the sentence. But it does not happen all the time. 

[Crimson Wife]

By age 10, a typically developing 2nd language learner exposed to the 2nd language from toddlerhood should be fluent or very nearly so (there may be some quirks like difficulty using -s for plurals if the 1st language does not include a plural marker). If he's experiencing language issues in late childhood, that's a sign of some sort of LD.

 

Now I'm not a psychologist and I'll need a lot more coursework & training before I can get my certification as a SLP so I can't really help you interpret the test scores. But it is my opinion that you should pursue further testing including a CTOPP or other test of phonological processing, a RAN/RAS, and the CAPD battery from an audiologist.

[MistyMountain]

I think doing something to improve his working memory would be a big help. The language testing area you highlighted also seems to be related to working memory and I notice in the reasoning his figure weights is higher then the matrix reasoning scale score which also could be a working memory thing. If you can't hold multiple pieces of info in your head at the same time then the matrix reasoning area can end up lower.

 

I also notice his processing speed is higher then other areas which probably means he rushes through things without stopping to think.

Edited January 21, 2016 by MistyMountain

[beishan]

I think doing something to improve his working memory would be a big help. The language testing area you highlighted also seems to be related to working memory and I notice in the reasoning his figure weights is higher then the matrix reasoning scale score which also could be a working memory thing. If you can't hold multiple pieces of info in your head at the same time then the matrix reasoning area can end up lower.

 

I also notice his processing speed is higher then other areas which probably means he rushes through things without stopping to think.

 

What you said above is very true. Psych put the similar comments in the report. He observed that his WMI score got impacted by his ability of attention and impulsiveness (choose answer without finish looking all options).

[Arcadia]

By age 10, a typically developing 2nd language learner exposed to the 2nd language from toddlerhood should be fluent or very nearly so (there may be some quirks like difficulty using -s for plurals if the 1st language does not include a plural marker). If he's experiencing language issues in late childhood, that's a sign of some sort of LD.

I agree. Given his language instruction/exposure history, something is off. A child is likely to lose the reading and writing ability for chinese with reduced exposure time but verbal ability stays (stagnate but not regress) if the child gets to use the language daily in conversation.

 

Given that his first 18months is in chinese only, long term memory should be there for verbal for whatever vocabulary he was exposed to.

 

ETA:

If he can remember the complex chinese words easier than the simpler ones, attention could be the issue. As in there is more to see and absorb in complex words (more strokes) than simple ones.

Same might go for math. The harder ones might have less careless errors.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Arcadia

[beishan]

I agree. Given his language instruction/exposure history, something is off. A child is likely to lose the reading and writing ability for chinese with reduced exposure time but verbal ability stays (stagnate but not regress) if the child gets to use the language daily in conversation.

 

Given that his first 18months is in chinese only, long term memory should be there for verbal for whatever vocabulary he was exposed to.

 

 

Within 1st year of switching to all English at home, his oral Chinese regressed from 90% to 10% even he still went to Chinese school every Saturday. Now I asked him if he remembers certain words that he used to know when he was 5, he said no. This year, I quit Chinese school and started to homeschool his Chinese. We focus only on speaking and listening. I use only oral instruction and do not force him to look at the textbook. He retained what I taught him after lessons and is able to apply it in conversation immediately. And his oral Chinese is progressing after we quit Chinese school.

 

ETA:

If he can remember the complex chinese words easier than the simpler ones, attention could be the issue. As in there is more to see and absorb in complex words (more strokes) than simple ones.

Same might go for math. The harder ones might have less careless errors.

 

That's interesting point and I think it may be true. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by beishan

[beishan]

Thanks all for commenting above. We went to IEP eligible meeting today and DS did qualify for IEP under ADHD. During meeting, they mainly focus on his working memory and ADHD. But they did put down he has reading difficulties so it's addressed in his IEP. His Wilson reading with reading specialist will continue 30min x 2 times per week to work on his reading skills. They will have special ed teacher push in his class twice per week to support his language arts (both reading and writing) for the rest of his 4th grade and extend to 45min x 5 times per week each for reading and writing on 5th grade. He also gets speech therapy twice per week, classroom aide for science and social study next year when he is on 5th grade, both individual and group psychological consulting with psychologist once per month, enabling text to speak feature during state test for math and tons of classroom modification. I have not done reading the whole IEP draft yet but those are pretty much on top of my head after meeting. 

[beishan]

Ladies

 

Thanks for the great advise at the beginning of year when we started our IEP process. During passed summer, I finally took DS to do private dyslexis evaluation. Below is the score.

 

CTOPP-2

 

Phonological Awareness = SS 88 (Average = 100), 21%

    Elision 50%

    Blending Words 5%

    Phoneme Isolation 37%

Phonological Memory = SS 92, 30%

    Rapid Digit Naming 25%

    Rapid Letter Naming 37%

Rapid Symbolic Naming = SS 92, 30%

    Memory for Digits 16%

    Nonword Retition 50%

 

***************************************************

 

He got diagnosed with a Oral and Written Language disability consisting of dyslexia, dysgraphia, syntactical issues and poor working memory. Wilson reading, reading assistance are two things recommended for decoding and fluency. In addition to that, he also needs to work on retelling and sequencing. Is there any suggestion?

 

[PeterPan]

Is he still in school?  What do you want the school to do and what do you want to do privately? 

 

You've done the right thing getting the evals and the diagnoses.  You can make a written request to the school for them to do fresh evals to consider your new evidence.  This should get SLDs into his IEP and get whatever services they'll offer.  Some schools have really good services (OG trained people, very good) and some are not.  I know, it's hard to imagine in this day and age, when it's so EASY to know what the correct intervention is, but there are still schools not providing OG-based instruction to dyslexics.   :svengo:

 

Your problem is that if you begin private interventions *before* the school retests, you'll move how he presents, making it harder to get the SLDs put as his disabling condition in his IEP and to get proper services and accommodations.  So you need to prioritize any changes you need made to his IEP, get the testing done, and as soon as that testing is done pronto begin private (presumably better) services.  Are they recommending 3-4 days a week?