Thoughts on Planning

[Mom28GreatKids]

Hello Ladies,

 

My little guy with Apraxia will be 4 in a few weeks.  He is wildly intelligent and thrives on structure and one on one interactions.  I am really not one for early structured preschool.  I did that with my oldest two, but with subsequent kids, we waited till they were K age and things went fine.  This dude has me wondering if he might do well with some low key, structured, play based learning this year.  It could very much help with his language and keep him for boredom, in which he struggles greatly.  

 

Here is my question-  there is a great possibility that he will have some SLDs dx'd in the future.  I am not being pessimistic, I am just looking at the facts.  I have read up to 75% of kiddos with moderate to severe apraxia also have co-morbid dyslexia and dysgraphia, and a math sld is very possible.  So, with that in mind, should I. . . 

 

1. Start with normal curriculum choices- AAR Pre, RS A and see if that works and then change if we have trouble.  Or. . . 

 

2. Just bypass "normal" and go with specialized - LiPS + Barton, Ronit Bird 

 

From a financial stand point, # 1 would be more cost effective if he doesn't need #2, but # 2 would be more cost effective if he struggles with #1 and needs #2.  

 

Also, for IEP purposes, this will not be his pre-K year.  I will not call him K officially until the August he turns 6.  

 

Thanks for your help. 

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

Someone with more knowledge than I will probably weigh in here in a minute but I wanted to say that he is so young I would not even consider starting him with Barton at that age.  He is too young.  And keep in mind that kids with learning differences frequently have areas where their brains develop later so a later start for certain things may work better.  You can still provide structure without starting him on something like Barton.  I would hold off on that (if he ends up needing it) until he is older.

 

Doing lots of read alouds, giving him access to audio books he can listen to in his own time, plus playing a lot of math games and word games that don't "test" or drill but simply introduce concepts and vocabulary can be very helpful so I would continue along those veins.  

 

If he needs structure then maybe start a routine of specific house chores.  Start an apprenticeship on one specific thing.  That is his special job. Tell him he is "training" on his job then work beside him until he can do it without any help.  Lots of praise.  Then that becomes part of his routine while you start him on another apprenticeship.  

 

I am sure others will have great suggestions.  I can't speak to starting AAR pre early since I never used that level.  You could look at the Ronit Bird stuff.  There are things that could be used with a young child.   Some would need to wait, though.

[kbutton]

We have some speech stuff and some expressive/receptive language stuff going on, but not the dyslexia, etc. With my older son (the one that is 2e with ASD), we had to have structure. I had never considered preschool until he turned three and just needed MORE input than I could give him. He wasn't diagnosed then, but if he was bored, we were in trouble. He also just wanted to learn, learn, learn. We put him in a Montessori program two afternoons per week, and he thrived. So, I say more structure is fine. For some kids, it's optimal. I would try to make a routine of it if you can, and then vary what's inside that block of routine tasks to keep him engaged.

 

I can't speak to what curriculum to use. From my experience with my younger son (the one with apraxia and language glitches), I would say to do what you can to boost that expressive and receptive language above and beyond "academics," but it's also fine to use academics to do that if it works for both of you. I don't remember if his language scores are glitchy (my son's are passable, but they don't match his verbal IQ). If he's 2e, at some point, he's going to need the vocabulary and words to enjoy big thoughts. I would want to be sure he's acquiring the basic, necessary wiring (morphology, sentence structure, etc.) that he needs to acquire vocabulary and language down the road.

[Lecka]

I would not lump math in with reading, and assume he will struggle in math. I think you will just have to see, but I think that is jumping to a conclusion.

 

On the reading and pre-reading side, I think you need to look at a few things.

 

One, are your language concerns mainly on the articulation side? Is comprehension an issue? If comprehension is an issue, I think building language skills is important. A lot of traditional pre-school is about general language skills, too, and not just pre-reading.

 

Two, do you know about the whole "reading/decoding" thing, about sounding of words? And there is supposed to be a sequence to some extent, with phonological awareness (telling apart letter sounds), phonenemic awareness (segmenting, blending, rhyming), and then phonics?

 

Your child could "hear" sounds properly that he can't say, and then might not need to do LIPS. It is possible. But he is at-risk for that being difficult, but it does not mean it is something he needs.

 

So I think these are things to ask the speech therapist.

 

She may know where he is at in this area. She may be able to tell you. She may be able to give you suggestions.

 

You might be able to show her samples and see what she thinks.

 

My perspective for this is -- for my sons, for LIPS, it is something where bc their articulation and the level of their phonological issues (or the combination), they need speech therapy anyway.

 

And then it makes more sense for me to supplement speech therapy, with what they are actually working on in speech therapy, than to have a separate program I do that goes in a separate order.

 

But I am saying that mostly about LIPS.

 

I think if you want to do AAR and see how it goes, that is fine.

 

You can accept the sounds he makes, or just be doing exposure.

 

But for LIPS I would be concerned if he couldn't articulate the sounds properly.

 

This is based on my sons, though. They don't have apraxia. But they both have/had some issues with phonological stuff, and articulation.

 

And for them, to some extent they need to go together.

 

And then for some sounds, they may not produce those sounds, and I may not be able to prompt them to make those sounds.

 

And I think for LIPS you would want them to be promptable!

 

So that is just my thoughts.

 

I think if you find out your son is promptable on all the sounds, or that he correctly hears sounds even if he does not correctly produce sounds (or is pretty close, close enough to go ahead) then that is a different situation.

 

My sons' speech was still pretty unclear when they were turning 4, so that is where I am coming from.

[Mom28GreatKids]

Someone with more knowledge than I will probably weigh in here in a minute but I wanted to say that he is so young I would not even consider starting him with Barton at that age. He is too young. And keep in mind that kids with learning differences frequently have areas where their brains develop later so a later start for certain things may work better. You can still provide structure without starting him on something like Barton. I would hold off on that (if he ends up needing it) until he is older.

 

Doing lots of read alouds, giving him access to audio books he can listen to in his own time, plus playing a lot of math games and word games that don't "test" or drill but simply introduce concepts and vocabulary can be very helpful so I would continue along those veins.

 

If he needs structure then maybe start a routine of specific house chores. Start an apprenticeship on one specific thing. That is his special job. Tell him he is "training" on his job then work beside him until he can do it without any help. Lots of praise. Then that becomes part of his routine while you start him on another apprenticeship.

 

I am sure others will have great suggestions. I can't speak to starting AAR pre early since I never used that level. You could look at the Ronit Bird stuff. There are things that could be used with a young child. Some would need to wait, though.

Oh I definitely am not suggesting Barton now. Ha ha. I am thinking later for that. Lots of people have had success with LiPS and then Barton. That is what I was thinking. He definitely wants to learn, loves games, and has an insatiable appetite for information. We already read tons. He already has chores that he helps with.

[Lecka]

I think there is a big difference between kids who are doing LIPS for just sounds or other areas, and kids who also have more serious issues with articulation.

 

I think a lot of the people who have success doing it at home, have kids who have no articulation issues, or comparatively minor issues with articulation.

 

It is not comparable to my sons' speech (articulation) needs.

 

If you could combine LIPS with what he is doing in speech, that could be really good, too.

 

It could also be a non-issue. His speech needs may not be very similar to my sons'. They both have/had several consonant sounds that they were years late in developing (with a lot of speech therapy involved), and so sounds that can be early in some programs as they are usually earlier sounds that kids develop, were ones where they were later.

[Lecka]

LIPS 4th edition is available at superduper.com, and it has a nice blurb there I think.

 

(I have not used it or seen it, but I have looked at samples and video of someone using parts of it.)

 

For me -- I read "students progress from articulatory movement to sound" ---- and for me, I think if the child doesn't *have* the articulatory movement and that is why you (me) are taking kids to speech therapy ------ it is like, that is something I think would be an issue in doing it at home.

 

And then, ime, bc my sons were *in speech therapy* anyway, this is stuff that they are doing in speech therapy to some extent. And then it gets into the whole issue of doing two different things instead of supplementing speech therapy (my preference).

 

But I only think that about LIPS. I don't think it is an issue for other things you mention.

 

And, my sons are not that bad (younger) and pretty good (older) at math. So I don't think you need to go from "child is in speech therapy" and automatically think they also need more remedial kinds of math instruction instead of more typical-pre-school maybe-go-slower.

[Lecka]

I also think it is possible, you might even find out your tberapy practice owns LIPS! Or you might find they have something similar that they do that is just not a packaged curriculum. And then you might think that is enough, or that you do want to supplement it.

 

Here -- they do similar things and I have been satisfied.

 

But for my older son -- he was in 2 hours/week of private speech plus school speech the other 3 days, for a year, when he was working on this stuff. So it was not something where I was going to go through it on my own over 3-4 months like I can read about here (and when there is not the articulation issues).

 

At the time he was ending K/starting 1st, and his articulation score was age equivalent to 2 years 11 months and his number score was below 70, so that is some context too, lol.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Lecka

[Lecka]

I have not done this, but another thing I have heard mentioned, is to ask the speech therapist if she can incorporate letters any time, and if you ask maybe they will do it, if maybe they don't generically do it for his age.

 

My younger son is using some hand prompts right now (like -- he makes a hand motion that he associates with a sound and how to make it), and sometimes he uses those when he is practicing letter sounds.

 

My older son, in pre-school, had flashcards he went through at speech for the sounds where he was better, and he would make the hand motion while he said the sound, when he saw the letter.

 

This is both with school, and here they use Zoo Phonics in Kindergarten, where they make a motion with the letters.

 

Well, my older son could make the hand motions (from Zoo Phonics), without being able to remember the sound.

 

But with the speech hand motions, they teach them to associate the hand motion with something they are doing with their mouth, so it does help them remember the sound (or what to focus on when they make the sound).

 

But this is where ---- if they are doing it anyway, but think he is younger than the age where they also use letters, you could ask if they could use letters.

 

And/or, you could ask about using the prompts (if you have them anyway) when you are doing letters with him at home.

 

But I understand you might not be doing this kind of speech therapy (or right now). But it is an example I guess.

 

Overall I think there might be ways to add in letters, or to add in speech prompts when working on sounds.

 

But here is the thing too, when I looked at LIPS, I felt like for some things, my son was already doing something similar but using a different name for it (of a cute kind of name) or already had a different prompt associated with it.

 

So it would mean either teaching him a new prompt when he already had a prompt, or making sure you knew what he was using in speech, and replacing the words to be consistent.

 

Or, it could be the kind of thing where some kids adjust well to a different name, and it is no big deal, but I think it would be confusing for them.

 

But I think the speech therapist might be able to just look at it and say what prompts she has used, and you could write it down, it might be pretty simple to do that.

 

My younger son has other people he works with, and part of my job as a parent is to keep up with his articulation prompts and share them with other people, so it can be consistent -- so it is something I am pretty aware of. But I could see this being unnecessary, too.

 

It would have helped my older son, I bet, but it is like -- he memorized the Zoo Phonics motions and then it did not help him with all the sounds. I also was frustrated that their animal for s was "snake" and so it would require him to segment "sn" to think "snake" and know the beginning sound is "s." It is a pet peeve to me. But my daughter did great with Zoo Phonics, so it is not like it is a bad program.

[Mom28GreatKids]

Yes, Lecka, not jumping to math issues because of speech issues. We already have a child who probably would be given a math sld if evaluated. He is super bright and has compensated well. So I am thinking family history more than anything for the math.

[Mom28GreatKids]

I know OhE used LiPS with PROMPT therapy successfully. I agree there could be trouble with a child who has trouble with articulation may have trouble executing LiPS, but I am thinking OhE coupled LiPs with the prompts and that really helped I am sure she will chime in here when she is able.

[Lecka]

I think that could be really good, actually.

 

Personally, I might take in the LIPS stuff to the therapist, and ask if she can incorporate it. Then you can see how she uses it and be able to be consistent later on (or at the same time). For me, I might only work on the stuff that is more of review or stuff that is already decent, and leave alone the newer/harder stuff.

 

But you could still see how she did it.

 

Then you could really have good consistency, if not at the same time, but when you review or are doing more with blending and not just learning letters/sounds (potentially).

 

For me, I think it would be time when he had some things you could work on where he did not need physical prompts. Unless he is ready for some greater mental challenge to add in.

 

If he is mentally at his limit without letters, I would not add something in.

 

But when some things are easier I think it is a good time!

 

You also might be able to incorporate some things without "doing LIPS" and then have that foundation for when he is older.

 

I think that it is something where it could make more sense to let him get a little farther along in his speech, though. But on that side, if you think you will use it anyway, then it is no harm to try it and then do it on the lighter side for a while, and then more when he is older.

 

I think I have also seen my kids to get exhausted, especially when they were pre-school age, with their speech. And then much less exhausted as they have gotten older. I think I would wait a bit, if it tires him out to make his sounds. But it might do the opposite and make it more engaging, too. He might see all his older siblings and want to do what they do.

 

Sometimes kids do better with a challenge, and it could be an easier way to track his progress and for him to see what he is learning. It could be motivating that way. It also might give him a chance to show what he knows.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Lecka