multiple ld's

Stephanie,

There is a thread on the next page started by Susan whose child sounds almost like yours. You might find some of the responses helpful.

Kids def. can have more than one problem. Some of this stuff also can be connected. Delays in one system can cause delays in other systems. In my son’s case, his visual problems seem to be caused by his vestibular system being out of whack which goes back to his CAPD. The therapist he is currently seeing says that his visual delays are at least part of the reason for his small motor delays. For my son, anyway, the beginning point seems to be his auditory system.

You might check on this website for more information. My son is currently getting Neuronet therapy and it has made a big difference. http://www.neuroacoustics.com

Beth

Dear Stephanie:
You have asked a very good question. I hope I have some information that will help you. I am a learning disability teacher at the high school level. Well, I am actually going to be teaching first and second graders next year. But, I have taught at every age level (elementary age, middle school and high school) in the field of special education (mental retardation and LD). Before I answer your question, I want to introduce you to a “new” term I have learned and grown to love this summer. I, like many other teachers, have always called LD (learning disabilities). I know that is the official title, but I have been introduced to a “fresh” new term that, in my opinion, focusses more on the child instead of a “disability”. That term is learning differences. If you think about it, our students, your child, just learns differently than other students, and we teachers and parents just have to tap into their brains to see what kind of different methods we need to use to help them learn more effectivley. I hope you decide to use that term. Anyway, back to your question. There are numerous characteristics of learning differences. Here are some of them.
Disorders of attention, poor motor abilities (gross and fine motor), psychological process deficits andinformation-processing problems, oral language difficulties, reading difficulties, written language difficulties, mathmatics difficulties, and nonverbal learning differences (problems with social skills). It is somewhat common to find students that have a difficult time in several of these areas. I have had numerous students that have had difficulties in several of these areas. It appears that you are headed in the right direction. It may be very frustrating to try and find the strategies that work best for your child. But, as a teacher, I can honestly say that you will have the greatest impact on your childs learning success. Children, especially at the age of six, are thursting for love and positive interaction with their families. You are your child’s best advocate. My advice for you in the future is to stay in touch constantly with you child’s special education teacher as well as her regular ed. teachers. There are numerous websights that provide a lot of great info and suggestions. some of them are www.schwablearning.org, www.iser.com, and www.powerof2.org. Also, there is a great textbok that I am using for one of my classes that could be very beneficial in helping you understand the field of learning differences. It is titled Learning Disabilities by Janet Lerner. It is the 8th edition. It is published by Houghton Mifflin Company, copyright 2000.
I am sorry that my response is so long. I hope I have been of some help.

Dear Stephanie:
You have asked a very good question. I hope I have some information that will help you. I am a learning disability teacher at the high school level. Well, I am actually going to be teaching first and second graders next year. But, I have taught at every age level (elementary age, middle school and high school) in the field of special education (mental retardation and LD). Before I answer your question, I want to introduce you to a “new” term I have learned and grown to love this summer. I, like many other teachers, have always called LD (learning disabilities). I know that is the official title, but I have been introduced to a “fresh” new term that, in my opinion, focusses more on the child instead of a “disability”. That term is learning differences. If you think about it, our students, your child, just learns differently than other students, and we teachers and parents just have to tap into their brains to see what kind of different methods we need to use to help them learn more effectivley. I hope you decide to use that term. Anyway, back to your question. There are numerous characteristics of learning differences. Here are some of them.
Disorders of attention, poor motor abilities (gross and fine motor), psychological process deficits andinformation-processing problems, oral language difficulties, reading difficulties, written language difficulties, mathmatics difficulties, and nonverbal learning differences (problems with social skills). It is somewhat common to find students that have a difficult time in several of these areas. I have had numerous students that have had difficulties in several of these areas. It appears that you are headed in the right direction. It may be very frustrating to try and find the strategies that work best for your child. But, as a teacher, I can honestly say that you will have the greatest impact on your childs learning success. Children, especially at the age of six, are thursting for love and positive interaction with their families. You are your child’s best advocate. My advice for you in the future is to stay in touch constantly with you child’s special education teacher as well as her regular ed. teachers. There are numerous websights that provide a lot of great info and suggestions. some of them are www.schwablearning.org, www.iser.com, and www.powerof2.org. Also, there is a great textbok that I am using for one of my classes that could be very beneficial in helping you understand the field of learning differences. It is titled Learning Disabilities by Janet Lerner. It is the 8th edition. It is published by Houghton Mifflin Company, copyright 2000.
I am sorry that my response is so long. I hope I have been of some help.

It’s said that learning differences often occur in “clusters” and my experience tells me this is right. So, sadly perhaps, it’s often the case to have children with multiplie learning issues.

It sounds though that you’ve found your way to good help for her issues and you should see some benefits from them.

I like a book called Educational Care by Mel Levine and recommend it. He has suggestions in there as to how to help children with learning differences. You can go to his site allkindsofminds.org

I recommend the book “The Misunderstood Child” by Dr. Larry Silver. It does a good job of explaining why a child with one learning disability is subject to having learning disabilities in other areas also. The more you know, the better you can advocate for your child.

There are numerous learning disorders and almost all of them are highly treatable. My own child (who was adopted severely malnourished at the age of 3) had central auditory processing disorder (fixed with fast forword) visual processing disorder (much better, though treatment continues) attention deficit disorder (fixed with interactive metronome) sleep apnea (fixed with tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy) gross motor delays (fixed with home exercises that began with swimming and proceeded through gymnastics to karate - she is now an excellent swimmer, a competant gymnast and an orange belt in tong su do) and fine motor delays (fixed with drawing practice which is a whole lot more palatable than writing practice and involves the same muscles).

She also had language delays, treated with language therapy (mostly done at home). She has required extensive remediation of her reading lags most of which we did at home.

However, she is now 10 years old, entering fifth grade in a competitive private school that does not realize she ever had a problem. Her grades (in regular classes with no modifications) are A’s in math, science, social studies, B+ in reading, writing, and computer science, and Honors in Art and Music. Her IQ has risen from 70 at the age of 6 to 110 currently (auditory issues debase verbal IQ and visual issues debase performance IQ)

If your browser excepts frames there are two power point presentations on my church website literacy program that discuss how you can screen your child for learning disorders and/or teach reading. This was written for parents. The website is www.gracefwi.com (click to the links on Reading Program and learning disorders

I’m also happy to discuss it with you, obviously it is a passion of mine.

Shari.

Jimmy,

You sound like a great teacher and a sensitive, caring person. Terms used by professionals speaking to parents can be very insensitive and have left me feeling like I had been stabbed in the heart.

I hope that your good example will rub off on many people.

Just an observation, my son’s W J test stated on it that his testing showed evidence of learning differences not deficits.(lots of low average and broad averages, it still comes up average) I also use the word learning differences with my son. The problem comes up though that help is available to kids with learning deficits/disabilities but how do you get all teachers to understand and help(accommodate) for learning differences ? If it weren’t for the sped teacher monitoring the reg. ed teachers (and my frequent presence at school) and the OHI classification my son would not get help for his differences.He is a bright child who needs more time, clarification and supervision.It is a lot harder to get those from middle and high school teachers without a little extra push.