My nine-year-old son is a very bright and creative boy. He has low muscle tone, numerous inhalant allergies, and Sensory Integration Disorder (primarily in the area of Vestibular function). He receives weekly O.T., Speech, and Sensory Integration therapy along with P.T. every other week through his school. He may use the classroom computer, dictate, and modify writing assignments to accommodate his low muscle tone. Two different psychologists have determined my son’s full-scale IQ scores to be 126 and 129. He is often inattentive in the classroom, particularly when assignments require written work. He sometimes requires 1:1 attention to focus on class work. When focused, his retention and performance are excellent. My older daughter, who has tested as Gifted, has had a tendency towards inattention in the classroom, but has managed to excel anyway without accommodations. My son’s inattention is so inconsistent and situational that ADHD doesn’t seem to fit. His problems do seem magnified by his indoor allergies this winter and an allergist treats him regularly. He is not on any sedating medications. My son does have a history of ear and sinus infections, which have made me wonder about the possibility of a processing problem. What avenues can you recommend to explore to help shed some light on my son’s situation? I’d appreciate any advice you can give me. His teacher and I have regular contact, and the school has been open to evaluations and modifications of his IEP. Thank you.
Re: My nine-year-old son...
And the name of the program….? Where does one secure this program? What is the cost? Give more data so those of us interested can follow up!
PLEASE!
Re: My nine-year-old son...
There are many different programs out there, they have programs that multiple people can use but, each user must “train” the computer to recognize an individual voice and all of its accent variations. One program the Kurzweil Voice Plus has the capacity for five different users. This is the one that we have for the learning disabilities lab. “Simply Speaking” is another program I think is made by IBM. The Kurzweil program is at least three years old so I am sure that they have improved. You should be able to find it on the net at maybe an office supply store? You could probably check out the price that way. I hope that this helps.
Hi! I understand your situation with your son is frustrating, I have a nine year old daughter who alos has a high IQ (128) and is having problems in school with attention. She has an OCD called trichotillomania. Do you think that he may be avoiding the situation with written work because he will be different than his other classmates? My daughter is VERY worried at this stage about being different than the other children in the classroom. He might be worried that it makes him inferior somehow having to be different to do the same thing that the other kids are doing. Is he being challenged by the class work? My daughter always gets in trouble when she is bored. Even though it will only take her a second to do the work because she is so smart, she would rather not because it is “stupid”. I have a suggestion that might help with reports and things that he has to use the computer for. They have a computer program that you can use to dictate what you want it to type for you. It is all done by voice command. They use the program in a college where I live in the learning disabilities lab. It really would work for your son since you said he has low muscle tone. It is wonderful for students who can think what they want to say but can not function well enough to put it down on paper. I will try to find out the exact name of the program if you are interested. I help tutor the LD students (college level) in Accounting. The computer is a wonderful asset for students with disabilities. I hope that this has helped a little. I would try to find out how he feels about his disablitity and if he is embarrassed? My daughter hates the fact that she is different and needs extra help even though she is gifted.