Math Woes (and some reading/language discussion beginning on p.4)

[Drama Llama]

10 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Is an "emergent strategy" sort of a pre-reading strategy? 

Yes.

[Not_a_Number]

Never mind, sorry.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Cake and Pi]

9 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

That's another skill I never had to work with with my kids because it came naturally. It's a good thing to think about. 

Sequencing is one that surprisingly did NOT come naturally to my DS 9. Actually, we still have micro visual schedules up to remind him about the steps for how to get dressed, how to sweep the dining room, how to brush his teeth, etc. and he can't reliably do those things without a step-by-step check list or someone standing there telling him what to do after he completes each step. And yet, he is incredibly good at math.

15 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Sometimes the best way to go forward is to back up. 

Thank you for the reminder!

14 hours ago, Lecka said:

I have had major setbacks with my son with retention.  He really may have known it before!  

I went back through my records and we definitely went over this in March of last year when started RS A. However, we only did the rearranging and renaming activities with numbers 1-3 because got stuck for a long time learning to differentiate 4 and 5. Perhaps he was actually *only* subitizing and last year and not recognizing that the quantity would stay the same even when rearranged. So either he used to understand and has since forgotten, or I mistakenly thought his ability to name 1-3 in any arrangement meant that he knew moving things didn't affect how many there were. I know better than to assume anything now, but I was new to teaching him back then.

On 3/1/2021 at 8:56 AM, BaseballandHockey said:

Does he do the same thing in reading?

No sure I know what you mean? He's not reading yet. We're working on the alphabet, mostly.

 

On 3/1/2021 at 8:56 AM, BaseballandHockey said:

I would probably do the "4 is 4 is 4" stuff with 0 - 5, while still doing counting and number recognition to 11, and then when that's approaching solidity with that, do the "little numbers inside of big numbers" things with 0 - 5 and a little bit of the "4 is 4 is 4" stuff, and maybe counting and number recognition to 12.  I think that place value 0 - 20 will come easier if he has at least a few numbers in that range that he already recognizes, and I also agree with @Lecka that if we always stop at 10 then kids can get the sense that 10 is "the big number", which obviously is problematic. 

Got it! Thanks!

On 3/1/2021 at 8:56 AM, BaseballandHockey said:

I have lots of ideas!  Do you want to start a different thread?  Or should I put them here?

Here seems fine. It's easier than re-explaining his whole back story on another thread. I can update the thread title to reflect the multi-part topic so that it can be searched if someone with a similar kid comes looking for ideas in the future.

On 3/1/2021 at 9:12 AM, BaseballandHockey said:

Yes and no.  SLD is partially defined by discrepancy, and it isn't completely clear to me whether this is a global delay that impacting a wide variety of skills, or something that's more specifically impacting math.

He has always had global delays and is overall functionally like a 4yo -- but with receptive language closer to 3yo and some nice strong 6-7yo splinter skills. Recent ABAS-II was <1st%. BUT he has 25th% overall IQ and his nonverbal IQ was 50th%.

According to his school testing two years ago he was in the 3rd-5th% academically in all subjects. I won't have more current achievement data until this fall when he'll see private neuropsychology. I don't feel like he's had an average amount of growth over that time, though, so the percentiles may be lower now... except that my normal meter is totally broken, and maybe he *has* had a normal amount of growth for someone on his trajectory. I don't know how to judge, which is why I plan to let neuropsych do it for me, lol.

So... I don't think he qualifies as having a discrepancy between achievement and *overall* IQ, but there's a 2+SD spread between his nonverbal ability and his achievement as well as between adaptive behavior and overall IQ. His profile is full of peeks and valleys. Which is to say, he may have SLD in all subjects, or maybe the lagging academic skills are just a result of his other, more foundational sill deficits and language issues.

On 3/2/2021 at 1:26 PM, Lecka said:

Do you have a speech eval with info about phonemic awareness?  

No, surprisingly. He was evaluated before his last language and literacy therapy group at the beginning of the school year, but I just went back through the documentation for his pre-assessment, and it doesn't have any actual data about his levels for phonemic awareness, though I know they tested him for that.

It lists mixed receptive-expressive language disorder, phonological disorder, and delayed phonological awareness under background. His goals for the almost 4-month-long group look pretty vague to me... "associate targeted sounds with targeted letters," complete targeted phonemic awareness activities "isolating individual sounds, count words in a sentence, recognize rhymes, segment phonemes, blend phonemes, delete phonemes," and complete "language activities including: describing objects, grouping objects into categories, answering questions about a verbally presented story, and retelling stories with salient details" all with 85% accuracy, of course. I know he didn't meet a bunch of those goals, though. He did level 1 of this group the year before, so they automatically moved him into level 2, and by the end of the group they were saying he needed to go back to level 1 for his next language an literacy group.

On 3/2/2021 at 12:57 PM, Lecka said:

My son did some Reading Mastery.  

Oooooh, I used TYCTR in 100 EZ Lessons with two of my older kids. I'm very familiar with DI. I bet I could find a bunch of Reading Mastery practice pages and activities on TPT and extend the 100 EZ lesson enough that they might work for him if he responds to the approach. I hadn't even considered it since everyone keeps telling me he needs a strong O-G program. We've been doing O-G for years and it hasn't been working, so there really isn't anything to loose by trying.

Thanks for sharing your son's experience!

On 3/2/2021 at 6:24 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

I am sorry, I keep meaning to come back to this, but I'm having a busy week.

No problem at all! I'm getting over a many-day migraine and just made it back myself! I'm glad you came back to share more, even though I hadn't responded to previous comments. 🙂

On 3/2/2021 at 6:24 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

I'm a big fan of Karen Erickson at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.  I love her work.  In her book, Comprehensive Literacy for All (Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write)  she talks about several models for literacy,

Just requested it from my library! Thanks! I'm in the middle of Sousa's How the Special Needs Brain Learns right now and was just wondering what to read next.

On 3/2/2021 at 6:24 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

But it does seem as though right now your @Cake and Pi little guy has some delays in underlying skills such as engagement, self regulation, joint attention, language, attention etc  .  . that impact him across multiple domains of development.

Yes, he has deficits in all of that and more.

On 3/3/2021 at 6:35 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

Shared Reading

This is basically bedtime style reading where you and the child share a book and talk about what you're reading.  I'm guessing you're already doing this.

Yes, I read him the same 1-2 books multiple times every day. We spend 1-2 weeks on a book before I feel comfortable dropping it for a new one, and I intend to go though the whole sequence of books we started last May all over again this coming year. The more repetition, the better.

On 3/3/2021 at 6:35 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

Shared Writing: Predictable Chart

This is a great idea! I think he would love doing something like this, too.

On 3/3/2021 at 6:35 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

Independent writing with an Alternative Pencil

Woot! We're already sort of doing this. I feel like I'm doing something right, lol. He's learning to type (Keyboarding Without Tears K) and has had an alphabet chart to point to since I brought him home. However, I the entire alphabet is too large a field. He often gets overwhelmed trying to find a letter.

Someone suggested that I teach him the ASL alphabet recently, but I figured that would be about as easy as anything else, so I bought these AWESOME, big, chunky alphabet tiles for him to play with. They have the uppercase letter inscribed with a slightly roughened texture for finger tracing and the lowercase version (just stamped on) on the one side. On the other side is the hand sign for the letter. He is doing surprisingly amazing with these. I think we've had them maybe two weeks? And he's learned at least four signed letters already, which is incredibly fast for him. I don't want to get too hopeful, but I'm pretty excited.

Thanks for all the links!

[PeterPan]

Some states allow for discrepancy to diagnose SLDs educationally but it’s gone from the DSM. However DSM lists other excluders I think . (Not explained by and then list)

Sequencing issues are normal to ASD. 
 

Might work on APD skills to see if bumps language and phonological processing to get that sound:written correspondence. 

[PeterPan]

7 hours ago, Cake and Pi said:

Someone suggested that I teach him the ASL alphabet recently, but I figured that would be about as easy as anything else, so I bought these AWESOME, big, chunky alphabet tiles for him to play with. They have the uppercase letter inscribed with a slightly roughened texture for finger tracing and the lowercase version (just stamped on) on the one side. On the other side is the hand sign for the letter. He is doing surprisingly amazing with these. I think we've had them maybe two weeks? And he's learned at least four signed letters already, which is incredibly fast for him. I don't want to get too hopeful, but I'm pretty excited.

Very nice!!! And teach the letter on the keyboard when you teach the sign. That’s what I did with ds.

[PeterPan]

7 hours ago, Cake and Pi said:

We've been doing O-G for years and it hasn't been working

His receptive language is age 3?

For us language and reading intertwine. When we bump language the reading goes up. Reading without language comprehension is hyperlexia. (Hack def)
 

The APD would be the most foundational skill to check. Three book series from Therapro /ProEdInc. Also just flat work on language yourself. The SPARC workbooks from ProEdInc are AMAZING. 
 

If he has receptive language he can ear read. If he has the APD he can do print for common words. It’s always language. Audiobooks or ASL or LAMP or picture books, anything. 

[Cake and Pi]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

His receptive language is age 3?

Slightly complicated answer.

He has age appropriate (25th% or so) understanding of *individual* words, or did 1.5 years ago when we last officially checked, but when words are strung together, his comprehension breaks down. Understanding of spoken sentences was <1st%.

We were only ever given percentiles, so the ~3yo comparison is my own estimate based on the target age of picture books he understands when being read aloud to. He does best when spoken to in phrases and very short sentences. (He actually speaks in much longer sentences -- like I said, receptive lags behind expressive by quite a bit.)

He is better able to recall/recite a string of random words without meaning than he's able to recall/retell details in a typical short story aimed at kindergarten to 1st grade aged children.

Do you mind linking to the specific resources you were thinking would help? I'm interested in checking them out. I've asked about CAPD several times, but audiology basically told us that's woooo and not an evidence-based diagnosis, that he has *language* processing problems associated with his language disorder, not *auditory* processing problems. 

[Cake and Pi]

Here's an example of his self-generated speech on a really good day recently. As I've said, his performance varies *dramatically.* On not-so-good days he just says single words or short phrases or scripts, and on bad days he stops talking altogether. He also has days where he doesn't speak much English, but he jabbers at length in jargon. I video recorded this and then transcribed so I got it exactly as he said, translated for pronunciation difficulties.

"You know, unicorn are actually horses they just magical sparkly one that fly in the air with no wings. I need to tell you something. When unicorns get faster, the rainbow gets bigger with more colors. When the unicorn gets very fast, so if someone saw a unicorn in real life and it getting faster, then would see that the rainbow they creating looks like it's getting bigger with more colors appearing, which makes it looks that it's getting wider and more bigger with more color. But some more color appearing when the unicorn stop the color slowly starts to disappear and get smaller and smaller until it's done until the color vanishes!"

So, he's got some really big ideas, and there are some strong vocabulary words in there: actually, creating, appearing, disappear, vanishes.

Now, if I wanted to convey the same information to him in language he would understand, I'd say something like, "Unicorns are like horses. They are pretend. Pretend, magical horses. They have no wings, but they can fly. They make rainbows when they fly. The rainbows get bigger when they go fast. Fast unicorn, big rainbow. (long pause) The rainbows get smaller then they go slow. Slow unicorn, small rainbow." And then I'd repeat that in three different ways using my hands to show the unicorn flying, pulling my hands apart to show bigger and pushing them together to show smaller. I'd show him a picture of a unicorn and a horse. Then at the end he might or might not understand what I said depending on the day, and if I wanted him to remember any of it I'd better tell him every day for several weeks (or longer, if he wasn't interested).

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, Cake and Pi said:

Do you mind linking to the specific resources you were thinking would help? I'm interested in checking them out. I've asked about CAPD several times, but audiology basically told us that's woooo and not an evidence-based diagnosis, that he has *language* processing problems associated with his language disorder, not *auditory* processing problems. 

https://www.therapro.com/Browse-Category/Auditory-and-Language-Processing/  Differential Processing Training Program. Three book series. It's published by ProEdInc but they've become a pain in the butt lately to order from. Therapro will get it right to you. Easy to use.

Yes, if you want to say it's woo I could go there. The way they use the term (to imply some mysterious sound processing disability) it's woo. But when you call it auditory processing and test LANGUAGE PROCESSING and are looking at LANGUAGE PROCESSING in each ear, phonologically, etc., I'm with you. And ASHA now has position papers on it. The problem is what they're calling it, not whether it's happening. And then think about it, are we asking audiologists to treat LANGUAGE PROCESSING issues? LOL Yes. And I'm fine with that? Sure, who gives a rip. I'm only about it getting done, not who does it. But then you're engaging in turf wars on who does it. ;) 

Ok, so I can't say anyone else thinks through this the way I do, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. They might just need to catch up.  And remember we're talking very autism specific, where people are wondering about APD with ASD and I'm saying what I was looking at with my ds. Someone else's kid, some other diagnosis, I'm not talking about. I'm talking about my ds. 

https://www.northernspeech.com/speech-language-acquisition/natural-language-acquisition-in-autism-echolalia-to-self-generated-language-treatment-level-2/ There's a brief video here about the role of echolalia in language acquisition. Watch it and hold that thought.

Now go look at the toc for the DPT I linked above. What do you see? We acquire language from bits to whole but kids with ASD (and whatever else, I'm no expert) go the opposite direction, whole to parts.

So the REASON they are going back and doing such thorough intervention, the REASON kids with ASD end up with such a laundry list of bizarre seemingly disconnected language issues, is because you have this reverse order language learning occurring leaving bizarre holes that could vary by person, depending on what their brains did.

So that's how you end up with my ds with massive memorized language, less when can't script, and hyperlexia with reading. What should have happened was learning:

-pitch--via cooing/babbling, infants of 18 months have fully developed intonation patterns, look for the data but I think that's the number I read. It's one of the earliest things. So our kids miss cooing and babbling, don't develop intention, and are monotone. No joke. APD materials will address this first stage, see the toc. 

-bits of words=phonemes--now OG tries to hit this, but it's mostly reading. Then you're like dude, the kid can't SPELL! Well my ds couldn't spell because he was memorizing spelling separately from the auditory processing of hearing a word and recognizing the sounds. They were disconnected, separate in his mind. He needed to do dedicated, completely auditory work with phonology. OG is NOT ENOUGH. And there are SLPs working literacy who get this and are talking about it and idiots are like oh no stop slamming the OG! 

-parts of words with meaning=morphology

-grammar=syntax--how words fit together 

I forget what else because my brain is tired. You can find another of my rants and it will all be there, lol. Just keep making the parts bigger and you'll see.

This is how I think of it with my ds and how I intervene. I am looking for where the glitches occurred and stepping in with systemtic intervention. What did *not* serve my particular ds well was to assume the holes were not there. But hang it up on finding an SLP to do it. They sorta want to do something. I really like systematic, and when you just sorta do something on my ds you miss things. So systematic is where I'm at, no assumptions, just looking for those holes.

So I did Barton with him and he became hyperlexic, reading without proper comprehension. He could do a multiple choice comprehension test and bluff you out, but he didn't really UDNERSTAND it. He couldn't draw a picture of "A frog sat on a log" after he read it. Zero real comprehension. Hyperlexia. 

So we did intervention with all kinds of materials from ProEdInc, but we didn't back up far enough. Now we're doing the APD stuff which is really that even small bits of language processing piece.

I know when I started this 10+ years ago with my ds I had these kind of romantic voices around me and notions like if you made it fun, they would do it, blah blah, like it was all a personality issue. Sorry. In our house it's all LANGUAGE. Every day of the week, almost every single problem will connect back to LANGUAGE. It's the never-ending pit. Math uses language. Self advocacy and interoception uses language. Reading (of course) uses language. Life skills will use language. 

So you're not getting away from it and yes it's ugly enough that you end up with it getting pushed through the school system. The intervention specialists get assigned language IEP goals because you can't afford to have an SLP do that much service. And the SLPs are scare of grammar (typically) so they give you these really generic answers. Like our current (really beloved honestly) SLP put something about "perspective taking affecting his language." I'm like fine, but he has LANGUAGE issues.

So what I can't get someone else to do, I do. That's it.

What has not worked is hoping the system will fix it or the professionals will fix it or even that it can be fixed, lol. What has worked is putting in time with systematic materials that catch the holes and back up far enough to find them. What has worked is building a team where each person does what they do well. I'm systematic and detail oriented, so I do that. Another person is great with social conversation. Another is good with perspective taking. So if I do technical work and they generalize it and I hear it in structures in everyday speech, we're winning. 

There are SLPs who try to specialize in language. Reality is they wanted us to do that and we were already funding multiple hours a week and burnt out from the driving. Could someone else have done it? I don't know. I'm just saying I have been doing this made hunt asking for help for 6 years now and the answers are usually pretty generic. (The same therapy for everyone, blah blah.) I think build your team as much as you can and do what you can yourself. 

 

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, Cake and Pi said:

He is better able to recall/recite a string of random words without meaning than he's able to recall/retell details in a typical short story aimed at kindergarten to 1st grade aged children.

So sentence repetition is actually a VALID INDICATOR of where his language is!! I don't have charts handy, but you can google it. 

And I think you're spot on noticing what level of books he interacts with for read alouds and how much support he needs to understand them. Lexile takes syntax into account. I keep track of the lexile levels of my ds' read alouds, because the lexile levels definitely go up with language work. Definitely be tracking that!! 

I think you need to disentangle the narrative language component there. It's not shocking that he's having narrative language issues and that's a separate intervention. https://mindwingconcepts.com/pages/methodology

So what you might do is watch tonight some of the videos from the SGM people. They have some nice 1 hour learn the method kind of videos on youtube, and I think at that point you'll have a lot of things click. 

You can't see it very well on the charts, but the SGM materials come with the syntax and language pieces that need to be acquired for each stage of narrative language. So what I find is there's this toggling where we teach structures, push to get the narratives using those structures, then teach more structures to advance to the next level of narrative. Back and forth.

So conversely, if you think about the narratives he *can* give and look for where they are in that chart, you may see they correlate to his level of language. And it tells you what to *focus* on to get him going forward, kwim? It's ok that he doesn't have COMPLETE NARRATIVES, kwim? We just want to be taking steps forward through the stages, and that's how.

[PeterPan]

You realize how long I had to think about this stuff before it clicked in my mind? Hahaha.  I mean seriously, I used to sit up reading, scratching my head. Or I'm just slow, lol. 

I'm saying if it feels like rocket science, it is and isn't at the same time. It's very complicated but there are outlines. Maybe let it sink in and then just one *one thing* kwim? Don't stress about it ALL, kwim? 

[PeterPan]

My Friday night reading. It just came. 🤣

[PeterPan]

https://www.proedinc.com/Products/31159/sparc-for-attributes.aspx  This is from the SPARC series, which was amazing for us. It could catch little holes ds had and move him from understanding it receptively to using it in phrases then sentences and finally in narratives. Very systematic and easy to implement, ADORE. Can't say that it's what your ds needs (because I really don't know the whole situation), but if that's what you need it's awesome.

[Clarita]

I am not sure if any of the math manipulatives you have are similar, but I may suggest using Montessori golden beads to demonstrate place value. It may help because the golden beads for place value is literally a string of 10 beads for the "ten rod", 10 ten rods connected together to make "100 square" and 10 hundred squares stacked up to make 1000 cube. So literally each place value has that number of beads in it.

My son is also starting to learn the numbers past 10. It helped him a lot when I actually built a ten rod with him using the unit beads, then slowly built a second one (while counting) to 20.

[Mimi50]

Hi I am an adult with dyscalculia and dysgraphia. Along with DCD math by far had been my biggest struggle. I didn’t know all of my multiplication tables until last February. Place value I don’t have good grasp of. So maybe taking little break playing some math games. Reading some living math books might help. Give your self and him little time to figure your out where you go from here. Hearing about your son makes feel guilty. For complaining about not being able to add fractions on paper. I can cook and bake with no trouble. So I need to stop whining and be grateful. Sending hugs to you and your little boy.