Good curriculums for remediation ?

[Murmer]

Backstory: We are pulling our daughter out of school due to major issues with the school.  She has ASD but the school refuses to acknowledge it.  She is currently in 4th grade, reading on a 2nd grade level, math low, writing nonexistent.

 

So found out today that my daughter is even further behind than we thought...I had her do the assessment for Beast Academy 3rd grade...she couldn't even do the very first multi digit addition program.  I realized that basically she only knows 1 digit addition, subtraction and multiplication (basically memorized basic math facts).  But if I give her a math book that says grade 1 she will refuse to do it.  So I need a math program that will hold her attention but basic enough without looking like it was made for a young child.  I loved the graphic novel part of Beast Academy thought it would hold her attention and allow multiple rereads to learn the material but they only start in 3rd grade and that is still too hard for her.

 

Also need a remedial phonics program.  I think she has some phonics skills and is missing others, I need something she can breeze through what she knows but with enough depth if one of the holes.  Again if it says for 1st grade she will not be willing to do it. Any good ideas?

 

TIA

[Code Lyoko]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:   I hear your frustration and am sending you good vibes.  Before I make a recommendation for curriculum, I think it would help to get some questions answered.  

 

First, what sort of official assessments you have had done?  Is it possible your child is dyslexic?  Dyscalculic?  Did the school do evals?  Or through the private sector?  How do you know she has ASD?  Was there an official diagnosis?  If so, how long ago?  Why did the school reject the ASD diagnosis?

[EKS]

Keep in mind that Beast Academy is for gifted math students.  If your child is struggling with math, it likely won't be a good fit.

 

I'd try something like Math U See.  The levels are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc., and it is great for remediation.

[Crimson Wife]

What about Logic of English Essentials? It's labeled Vol. 1, 2, etc. rather than grade levels.

 

I wouldn't use LoE with a child whom you suspect has dyslexia (I'd go with Barton or Wilson in that case) but for a kid who just needs some holes plugged in, LoE would be a good choice.

[Murmer]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:   I hear your frustration and am sending you good vibes.  Before I make a recommendation for curriculum, I think it would help to get some questions answered.  

 

First, what sort of official assessments you have had done?  Is it possible your child is dyslexic?  Dyscalculic?  Did the school do evals?  Or through the private sector?  How do you know she has ASD?  Was there an official diagnosis?  If so, how long ago?  Why did the school reject the ASD diagnosis?

 

She was medically diagnosed with ASD when she was 5 (almost exactly 4 years ago).  Then when she was 6 the school psychologist also said she was ASD.  This year they are doing her reeval for special ed and the same school psychologist says she is no longer ASD because she has an interest in social things...and there is a disconnect between what the school reported and what we reported (her teachers want her to be "normal" so I think they don't notice anything she is struggling with).  This actually shows that she is very much an ASD girl who is interested in social things but has a hard time doing it and the process of holding it together in school means she has no energy left at home...but the school psych doesn't understand this...along with not even knowing what ABA is.

 

She has not been diagnosed with any specific learning disabilities...the biggest issue is that she just doesn't catch on to what was taught to her and no one will go back and teach her the basics.  I have been requesting a Barton esque program for years and have been refused.   For math she just doesn't understand numbers because the program used is so language based and language is very very difficult for her.  (Gap between receptive and expressive language along with issues in pragmatic skills).  She just doesn't have any understanding of place value or how numbers work.  

 

Basically we are working with a child with gaps due to falling through the crack continually, she has a hard time with language and school is all language.  She is capable with learning and at one point last year was almost on grade level in reading...she has not made any progress since that point.  And math is just way to far past what she is able to understand and she really just needs to go back to the beginning and get it more linearly and less words.

SaveSave

[Kanin]

I think the Math U See recommendation is a good one. You will use cuisenaire rods for so much of it, and that will give her a physical feeling for the numbers rather than a language-based one. Ronit Bird is a favorite around here, and you can get her Dots ebook very cheaply. She uses dice patterns to learn math facts and to make numbers finally make sense.

 

If a grade 1 book is too babyish, would your daughter be okay with doing worksheets that you write by hand? You could just copy problems out of a book onto printer paper and she'd never need to know the grade level.

[Murmer]

I think the Math U See recommendation is a good one. You will use cuisenaire rods for so much of it, and that will give her a physical feeling for the numbers rather than a language-based one. Ronit Bird is a favorite around here, and you can get her Dots ebook very cheaply. She uses dice patterns to learn math facts and to make numbers finally make sense.

 

If a grade 1 book is too babyish, would your daughter be okay with doing worksheets that you write by hand? You could just copy problems out of a book onto printer paper and she'd never need to know the grade level.

 

Thanks for the Ronit Bird suggestion!  That looks like a great resource to plugged up a few holes and allow her to perhaps start in a higher level in another system (IE instead of 1st grade she would be able to do 2nd since this looks like it will plug the number sense skills she seems to miss since she is really good with the memorized math facts).

[geodob]

The school saying that she is no longer ASD?

Relates to a major discussion of ASD and Autism. Where research is concluding that ASD appears differently in boys and girls, and that a new diagnostic model needs to be developed for girls. As the current model was developed with boys as the model.

Which has also wrongly lead to the conclusion, that ASD is more common in boys than girls.

But this is a result, of girls being diagnosed, with a method developed for boys.

 

I'll  attach a link to an article in Scientific American, earlier this year:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-different-in-girls/

[Hilltopmom]

Um, also, a school psychologist isn't allowed to make (or unmake, in this case) diagnoses.

[Crimson Wife]

Um, also, a school psychologist isn't allowed to make (or unmake, in this case) diagnoses.

 

School psychologists can make an "educational" diagnosis of ASD and they can say that the child is no longer having any educational impact from ASD. That doesn't take away any medical diagnoses. Lots of kids with a medical diagnosis of HFA or, if they were diagnosed a few years back, Asperger's/PDD-NOS don't qualify for an "educational" diagnosis of ASD.

[Code Lyoko]

School psychologists can make an "educational" diagnosis of ASD and they can say that the child is no longer having any educational impact from ASD. That doesn't take away any medical diagnoses. Lots of kids with a medical diagnosis of HFA or, if they were diagnosed a few years back, Asperger's/PDD-NOS don't qualify for an "educational" diagnosis of ASD.

Agreed. (But a school stating that a child is no longer ASD or dyslexic or any number of things is not accurate and shows how ignorant school psychologists can be.).  

 

This can be a huge issue.  At least locally the schools here are just looking at whether whatever the child is diagnosed with is still significantly negatively impacting their functionality.  They are not looking at how to help the child thrive.  They are looking to see if they can stop providing costly and time consuming remediation/accommodations if the child seems to be functioning enough to get by (and their criteria may be very different than a parent).

 

And yes, as geodob mentioned the criteria for diagnosis for ASD needs to be redone.  Girls frequently present very differently than boys.

[Crimson Wife]

Basically we are working with a child with gaps due to falling through the crack continually, she has a hard time with language and school is all language.  She is capable with learning and at one point last year was almost on grade level in reading...she has not made any progress since that point.  And math is just way to far past what she is able to understand and she really just needs to go back to the beginning and get it more linearly and less words.

 

The language issue is a common one for kids with ASD. My daughter has it, OhElizabeth's son has it. Even if your child speaks fine, she may have difficulty with the higher level language skills. Has she had any recent comprehensive language testing, like a CELF or a CASL? If not, I would highly recommend it. Even if she doesn't qualify for services based on the testing, the pattern of subscores can help ID areas of relative weakness.

 

One program that both OhElizabeth and I like is by Super Duper. Her son is using The Grammar Processing Program and my daughter is using The Processing Program Vol. 1. The grammar one seems a bit more basic so that would probably be the one to start with.

 

You will need to build the foundation of oral language in order for your child to have good reading comprehension. Otherwise you'll get a situation like if I'm trying to read something written in Italian. Sure, I could read it since I did study both French and Latin. However, I'm not going to understand more than the very basic gist of what it's saying. In order to understand it fully, I'd need to have a much better understanding of the language.

[Murmer]

The school saying that she is no longer ASD?

Relates to a major discussion of ASD and Autism. Where research is concluding that ASD appears differently in boys and girls, and that a new diagnostic model needs to be developed for girls. As the current model was developed with boys as the model.

Which has also wrongly lead to the conclusion, that ASD is more common in boys than girls.

But this is a result, of girls being diagnosed, with a method developed for boys.

 

I'll  attach a link to an article in Scientific American, earlier this year:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-it-s-different-in-girls/

 

After our "chat" with the psychologist we went home and found a heap of research about the difference between girls and boys and will be presenting it during the official IEP...this same psychologist didn't know what ABA is so I don't know if I trust her judgement very much.

 

School psychologists can make an "educational" diagnosis of ASD and they can say that the child is no longer having any educational impact from ASD. That doesn't take away any medical diagnoses. Lots of kids with a medical diagnosis of HFA or, if they were diagnosed a few years back, Asperger's/PDD-NOS don't qualify for an "educational" diagnosis of ASD.

 

The hard part is that my child does have education impact she is at least 2 years behind AND has not improved in reading (only known because the test score was in her IEP vs. what they told us at PTC) in the last year!  With special ed...again a really good reason to bring her home at least I can't do worse than the school is currently.

 

 

 

The language issue is a common one for kids with ASD. My daughter has it, OhElizabeth's son has it. Even if your child speaks fine, she may have difficulty with the higher level language skills. Has she had any recent comprehensive language testing, like a CELF or a CASL? If not, I would highly recommend it. Even if she doesn't qualify for services based on the testing, the pattern of subscores can help ID areas of relative weakness.

 

One program that both OhElizabeth and I like is by Super Duper. Her son is using The Grammar Processing Program and my daughter is using The Processing Program Vol. 1. The grammar one seems a bit more basic so that would probably be the one to start with.

 

You will need to build the foundation of oral language in order for your child to have good reading comprehension. Otherwise you'll get a situation like if I'm trying to read something written in Italian. Sure, I could read it since I did study both French and Latin. However, I'm not going to understand more than the very basic gist of what it's saying. In order to understand it fully, I'd need to have a much better understanding of the language.

 

 

One of the evaluations is the CELF...but I don't have those results yet...we found out about the removing of the ASD because the psych asked us to come in and "chat" but it wasn't an IEP.  The really results meeting is in Dec :( So I am researching getting everything set up and then officially withdrawing her right after the evaluation meeting. Because the state of Vermont requires a bunch of paperwork nonsense.

[Crimson Wife]

One pattern to look for on the language testing is a big gap between single-word vocab scores and sentence-level comprehension & expression scores. On the CELF, the subtests to look at are Sentence Comprehension, Linguistic Concepts, Following Directions, Word Structure, Formulated Sentences, and Recalling Sentences. The 1st 3 of those are receptive language and the 2nd 3 are expressive language. If you're seeing average-to-high vocab scores and much lower scores on these 6 subtests, that's a sign you'll need to really work on language skills.

 

The further along in school a child gets, the more complex the language that he/she will encounter. If he/she doesn't understand the more complicated sentence structures, he/she is going to really struggle academically.

[PeterPan]

Why December?  You need to find out the legal timeline.  There's a limit on how long they can take, unless you say yes when they ask to take longer.  ;)

 

Just because she doesn't not qualify for services from the school that does NOT mean she would not benefit from interventions.  Crimson explained to you how to look at the CELF scores to see if there are gaps there that need intervention.  My ds is dyslexic, on top of his autism, and the language issues from the autism were holding back his reading as much as the decoding issues of the dyslexia.  

 

Even though it seems complicated, you're going to need to take things one piece at a time and start working through them.  Schools are notorious for not doing enough intervention, because intervention and therapy costs $$$.  The materials are pretty easy to pick up and use yourself.

 

I would push up that meeting to get those results so that you have time to think through them, figure out the implications, and make your game plan for 2nd semester.  You're not going to be able to take those reports and turn them into a plan in a week or two, not during the holidays.  They can email you a pdf of the report now.  They can be compelled to follow the legal timeline and give you the results sooner.

[Code Lyoko]

Why December? You need to find out the legal timeline. There's a limit on how long they can take, unless you say yes when they ask to take longer. ;)

 

Just because she doesn't not qualify for services from the school that does NOT mean she would not benefit from interventions. Crimson explained to you how to look at the CELF scores to see if there are gaps there that need intervention. My ds is dyslexic, on top of his autism, and the language issues from the autism were holding back his reading as much as the decoding issues of the dyslexia.

 

Even though it seems complicated, you're going to need to take things one piece at a time and start working through them. Schools are notorious for not doing enough intervention, because intervention and therapy costs $$$. The materials are pretty easy to pick up and use yourself.

 

I would push up that meeting to get those results so that you have time to think through them, figure out the implications, and make your game plan for 2nd semester. You're not going to be able to take those reports and turn them into a plan in a week or two, not during the holidays. They can email you a pdf of the report now. They can be compelled to follow the legal timeline and give you the results sooner.

Not only are schools frequently concerned about the time and money involved, even if they want to help and don't care about the time and money I have found that often the people involved simply do not have the training and depth and breadth of understanding to actually be able to accurately assess the issues and come up with truly workable solutions to help the child thrive. Frequently it takes a parent to do the research and push through on what may be needed.

 

Hugs.