Anyone in the know, like mom, Andy, Robin G, Helen , or sock

I’m not an expert on how your son’s test results can get him services. But, I am a stronger believer that a mother’s instincts are right 99% of the time. If you’ve been requesting services for 2 years and not getting satisfaction, it might be time to raise the bar a bit. You might want to contact someone higher up in the school district hierarchy in special ed. Do you have any friends who work for the school district admin? I always prefer to work low-key. But, I’ve known a few moms who were very “squeaky wheels” to the point of creating some havoc and risking some relationships with school personnel. But, in the end they got better services for their kids. One very frustrated mom actually had a lawyer to request a mediation with the district to discuss her son’s special needs that were not being addresses properly. It was an extreme approach. But, it raised a lot of eye brows quickly and things got done. I don’t believe that there are hardly any teachers who will vent their frustration with a nagging parent on to the child. But, balancing resources for special services is a tough job. And the squeaky wheel gets the grease much of the time.

Well- there isn’t any doubt that your son shows the initial red flag for NLD. Sheesh… Unfortuately- NLD does not qualify as a Specific Learning disability under the law. SLD is determined by finding both a processing deficit- you have that- and a discrepency (1.5 standard deviations/22.5 points) between achievement and overall potential. So the number they look at is the full scale IQ score- which is going to be in the mid 90’s? and do the math. If those are your lowest subtest scores on the WIAT- eligibility under the law (which is frequently behind the research by several years) is not going to happen. There are some folks who are advocating that NLD qualifies under Other Health Impaired but this is kind of out there and I haven’t heard of it actually playing out that way. When I asked, I was told that all the gates still need to be met- Adverse effect etc- hard to do this with SS in the 90’s. Those are average range scores by the way- not outstanding but not indicative of big problems either.

Now- there are exceptions to this. Some states will take the verbal score and use that as their basis for the initial discrepency. Vermont (where I am) typically doesn’t do this but some states do. To me it is stretching a point a bit- if the overall score isn’t a good descriptor of a child’s capacity- leaving out half the test is either. These things should be read as collections of information- not just numbers- anyway- your state might do this. In that case however, I still don’t think he meets the gate of discrepency (114-94= 20- but this is only one subtest/skill, not overall reading).

However, your son may (and should) qualify for a 504 plan, which would guarantee him some important accommodations and possibly some remedial services. I think you have to request this -504- wwith the reasons why you feel your son qualifies. Then you meet with the district as a team and the team decides. If you haven’t had your eligibility meeting yet to discuss these results then you can do it right there after the eligibility decision is made.

Hope this has been helpful- I am pretty sure it isn’t what you hoped for but…

Robin

First, if you haven’t been there yet, you will want to check out the extensive resources on www.nldline.com and www.nldontheweb.org great sources for articles, parent bulletin board, etc. etc. I’ve printed off tons of stuff from these sites, highlighted key points and handed it to teachers, family members, girl scout leaders, sunday school teachers, etc.
In Maryland, although my NLD kid is in a private school, I went the route of trying to access some minimal sped services. I never got much beyond consultation, but I did get the label and paperwork trail, so for instance, at end of 5th grade when she was to take standardized tests for first time I could get official accomodations (which she didn’t end up using).

She also, in 2nd grade, didn’t qualify for traditional sped labels, since her performance was beyond fine - very high. Bright kid who compensates left and right. However, I was able to get a specific LD label because of “multiply confirming data.” that a discrepancy existed. Across the board you could see on her test scores (though not in her academic performance) a big gap between potential and performance (not just with the WISC VIQ-PIQ split, but with other, OT, speech evaluations, etc.). The team head told me point blank that she was “going out on a limb” to get the label. But it is part of the law as a criteria that could be used in state of MD.

IF your kid also has ADHD/ADD that can help get a 504 plan.

Sorry I don’t know more about sped laws, hope that helps. I should add that no one on the sped team at the local public school, including the psychologist, had heard of NLD, this was in 1997. I had all the testing done privately and never nagged county for reimbursement; haven’t had time or interest in fighting for low quality low intensity services. But I basically had to educate the team (and these were experienced mostly reasonable people) completely about NLD (hence the above xeroxed articles!).

When there is a split sometimes SD can be convinced to take the higher IQ and
look for a discrepancy. You would still not have the discrepancy but if you keep an eye on written expression, between the age of 8-10 kids begin to show problems in this area. If you think he has difficulty in this area request that the school do a TOWL-3 (Test of Written Language). They only begin to use the test at age 8. This test is extensive requires a lot of writing and problems surface.

Helen

My 10 year old son is NLD, and is on an IEP. So it _can_ happen. I also know, however, that it _is_ somewhat dependent on where you live. This is also true in deciding whether it is better to get your child on an IEP or a 504. We found that a 504 was useless for us, but I’ve had other people tell me that where they live, they were able to get their child’s need met better under 504.

Unfortunately, we found that until we got a private, outside Neuropsych eval, AND hired an educational advocate, we couldn’t get the school to budge, inspite of an earlier (possibly incorrect). Then, much to our surprise, they very willingly put him on an IEP that made sense. We didn’t have to get nasty, it was just a case of walking softly while carrying a big stick.

One thing that you mentioned that I think is not helping your situation is that you are “tutoring” your son. I assume this means that you are supporting him at home in areas where the school isn’t doing its job. I learned through a MISERABLE 3rd grade year that I wasn’t doing my son any favors doing this. I wasn’t there to help him during the school day, so he ended up doing NOTHING all day at school (as reported by the teachers, I’m not making this up) then having to help him with unfinished school work on top of home work, often for 3 hours each evening.

But to the school, he still looked fine grade-wise because of all the “intensive care” I was doing at home. His teachers knew (and reported) that there was a problem, I knew there was a problem, but the testing didn’t show it. Instead, he (and we) were told that he was lazy, working below his potential, not paying attention, etc. By half way through the year, he was acting out and being labeled as a “behavior problem” because of the strain of keeping up, even though he’d NEVER been a behavior problem before.

The advocate was the one who told me that I had to STOP giving him all the extra help at home, both because it wasn’t allowing the school to “see” the problem, and also because by extending the “school day” so long every day, I was just addding to his stress level.

After we had the testing done, and had zeroed in on his specific difficulties, we met with the school. We agreed on a reasonable amount of time to be spent on homework, and exactly what kind of help I’d provide. No unfinished school work was to be sent home. Funny thing… with appropriate support at school, and the pressure off to work for hours after school, the “behavior” issues evaporated into thin air… And, he did well academically.

The sad truth is that MANY NLD kids do fine in early elementary school because the work emphasis is in their strongest areas. More and more begin to show academic problems as they go up through the grades. A lot top out, as my son did, in 3rd or 4th grade. Another hurdle that catches many of them is middle school. Quite honestly, I think my son is going to need MUCH more help at that level.

We are lucky that our school system recognizes NLD as a disability, and will assign an IEP based on a discrepency model, even without falling below grade level. But it took the experts, the neuropsychologist and the advocate, to show the school WHY this kid needed an IEP.

At very least, I would try to innundate your school system with information on NLD. Get it into the hands of anyone who has anything to do with your child. It has been amazing to me to see the change of approach by sincere but frustrated teachers once they understood WHY certain things were difficult for my son and why he did some of the things he does. They started to come to ME and say, “I think this is why he had trouble with…”

Good luck. I know other people have given you pointers to the “NLDonthe web” bulletin board. There are a lot of supportive people there (including several NLD adults who can give an “inside” perspective) who have been exactly where you are on this. They can probably give you even more ideas.

Karen

I thought I’d share this piece of news for the parents of NLD children struggling to get services. It was posted by Pam Tanguay over on the NLDontheweb BB. Good news indeed!

“BTW, we are absolutely thrilled to share the news that Dr. Rourke has begun the process of formally submitting his definition of NLD to the World Health Organization for inclusion in the ICD, which stands for the International Classification of Diseases. The ICD is the accepted worldwide medical standard for diseases and disorders. “

Karen

sheesh wake up folks, your all missing the obvious, have your child tested for dyslexia, simple clear cut easy, the signs are there, also a visual perception test motor free should be done.

when verbal is below preformance your know the problem is most likely steming from auditory processing, but when verbal is higher then preformance you know its most likely steming from a visual processing problem, in this case we have the VMI scores, perception at 68% and co-ordination at 16%, since it is the vmi (visual motor intigration) you have to seperate the two, a visual perception non motor test is called for as is testing spicifically for dyslexia. Both processing disabilities and dyslexia are covered under the ld section of IDEA by the way.

Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills (TVPS)

Helen

First -> I spoke with our University and agreed to have the testing, when I described my son, they said he sounds like a NLD. I researched it a bit, and felt although he meets the academic profile, he cleary does not fit the social profile with the exception of being a bit shy and clumsy. ( He is also suddenly large for his age.) He is highly perceptive at reading facial clues, tones and recognizes and uses sarcasm and has a dry sense of humor. He is a strong athlete and has friends and teachers adore him. He is very well behaved and speaks eloquently for his age and never babbles. In fact, he is very analytical and more perceptive than some adults. When his evaluation came back going on and on about the NLD business, I was not pleased because I feel it stereotypes and lumps him in a category that he may or may not fit. Hopefully things might change but curently it gives him 0 benefits or remediation in itself, so I don’t see a point in labeling him. If he can be shown to be with a Specific Learning Disability, I would rather leave it at that, but would of course look into remediating any of characteristics that cause him to fall in or by the other title.
I have tutored him primarily because both his older brothers are dyslexic and so is an uncle and probably grand-dad. My eldest has a real big auditory processing deficit. While I used Phonographix and Writing Road to Reading and Earobics and the Language Tutor for the older guys, he has sat in and taken part. All three have major struggles using a pencil . This guy, the 3rd boy, however, has been the only given precise letter formation and exact sequencing of sounds and letter/sound orientation from age 5. He is much better off than his bros. at this age, but still struggles. His math is now becoming affected due to placing numbers in wrong columns and reversing numbers. I feel that all the time and effort has helped him very much, but like the above poster Karen said, it extends his school day and it should be happening at school , not home. I don’t always have the patience and his writing is so slow it is hard to teach them all together and I end up giving the older boys double exercises and instruction to his one . This remiation is also somewhat “masked “his deficits for testing purposes.
Of the different psycs. that have tested the three boys , I have gotten comments on all about severe and bizarre rotations when copying pictures and the organizational disaray. Although they are all different, they all struggle to read and write very, very much. His one brother qualified for services when they used only a subtest in relation to his Verbal score. However that was a different psyc. and school and they “wanted” kids in the LD program to collect the extra state/fed. cash. I don’t think that is the situation at our school now.

Anyway, I am motivated to get him classification as SLD and take the necessary steps. I will have him retested if necessary. I prefer to present a strong case rather than a weak one where we don’t have to stretch or beg for services. I am considering having him retested using the Standford-Binet which should yield a higher IQ score and the WJIII Achievement . My other guys have always given a “poor showing” on that test of achievement. I will look into having the TOWL—3 and the TVPS as well since they were suggested in posts above.

Anyway, I will share more…. and maybe you who read this will have more suggestions. His testing was as follows:
WISCIII- Verbal 114
Performance 80 (Low score of 8 on Digit Span)
Full Scale 97 (Low score of 5 on Coding and 6 on Picture
Completion &Arrangements, 7 on Symbols)

Wiat-II
Word reading 102
Read Compreh 110
Pseudo words 98 ( He’s had tons of from Sue Jones -Resource Room)
ReadComposite 101

Math Composite 119
Writing composite 117

Listening Comp. 94
Oral Expression 118
Lang Comp. 106

NEPSY
Design copying-25%, Arrows *4%
Visospatial Functions- 61%
Finger tapping 50%, Imitating hand positions 5%, Visomotor precision 9%
Sensorimotor Functions 6%

They went on to say that in summarizing all of the reports that:

Cognitive-The 34 point difference makes his Full Scale IQ uninterpretable.

Crystallized Ability- very strong in the High Average range

Visual Processing-
Object Assembly-37%, Block design 25%, Picture completion & arrangement 9%, ROCF Copy Condition <1% and recall ROCF Short Delay Condition <1% of complex figure. His performance was grossly disorganized. Overall in this domain he is low average range, but performance becomes impaired when asked to organize a visual complex field. They want on to say he had some good scores in visual recognition and his difficulty lies in coordinating the visual/motor aspects of tasks due to sensorimotor.

Sensorimotor- strong evidence of deficit. Fine motor manipulation was in the low end to borderline range on the Grooved pegboard for both dominant 3% and non-dominant 2%.. On the Tactile Performance Test -dominant hand ,1%. but performed low-average 25% with the non-dominant hand and average 53% with both hands. However, his recall of the board was impaired ,<1%. They summarized by saying moderate impairment in visual-motor integration.

Short-term memory- Average

Long term storage and retrieval- High Average

Processing Speed- Low Average

Attention and Executive Functions-performs signifigantly better when strategy use is less important. Shows extreme difficulty on a task requiring simultaneous performance in 2 activities, such as visual & auditory. Also extreme difficulty in ability to switch tasks. (This is seen 100% when I try and work with him. If he is writing, he must concentrate so hard on the process, I believe he hears nearly nothing of what is being taught.)

Reading-Comprehension is good. mistakes are made due to switching the order of the letters. Speed of reading is very slow first quartile.

Writing- okay, however,he is unable to combine simple sentences (0for 6) Spelling in his writing samples is signifigantly below performance than to spell in isolation. Many phonological errors and poor self-monitoring. (So his spelling is lousy, but on the test result it looks good?)

Math- Strong on Calculations and high on word problems. However, difficulty attending to oral information and asked frequently to have numbers repeated and incorrectly repeated numbers.

Language- Great at ability to describe and poor at ability to extract meaning from complex oral material.

Well, that about sums it up. I think I am going to request that the test results be each individually shown as a seperate analysis and then combine them with the results of the future testing. Again to everyone who contributed here, THANKS and we will continue to plod along looking for answers and help.

This sounds like a thorough evaluation- you have a lot of good information and you clearly know your child. Something that occurred to me as I was reading the scores- what are his gross motor skills like? Does he ride a bike, catch a ball, play baseball, soccer etc. (or whatever your neighborhood equivalent is?)

I might consider, rather than putting him through a whle battery of academic and cognitive testing again, having him evaluated by a pediatric neuropsychologist. It sounds to me as if you have some neurological delay that is affecting his output-motor output in particular. The input stuff is pretty good- that is what is showing up in his good verbal skills- and the the poster (Karen?) who pointed out that these are the skills most needed for early school success- which, with a lot of work, you have.

Anyway, your son reminds of a student I had a few years ago who was perfectly bright but couldn’t “coordinate his brain” because he had delays that impacted his ability to “output” successfully. He was sort of clumsy, had a terrible time with any writing instrument, and just processed really slowly so that responses took an incredible amount of time. Listening and writing were impossible for him- to much for his brain to do. He had a pretty good sense of humr- but his social skills - which had been okay when he was younger- sort of stayed younger- and became gradually less appropriate to his age. The neuropsyche eval was really helpful to us at school- more so because the Dr. used to come in and consult with us and explain everything at team meetings in English:) - it was a wonderful thing to have her there.I don’t think you will get substantially different results on cognitive/achievement testing now - in a year or so perhaps- but this is awfully close and I would be reluctant to put him through all that again so soon. That might affect his performance in and of itself. Think about the neuropsyche. If you decide to do this- bring tham all the reports and be really detailed in your history- the more they know the better. Good Luck!

Robin

Well, I’m sure hoping that some of these problems are a delay. But when 3 out of my 4 struggle to write and I recall the struggle and still hate writing, it is indicitive of a familial deficit. For poor old me, I could never figure out which hand to be writing with, they had to tape my paper down to the desks and slants for cursive still go many which ways and I always mix print with cursive. D & F handwriting grades spoiled the otherwise splendid report card.
The clumsiness is not so apparent in his gross motor skills. I was first familiar with the NLD term when they through it out for his bro. about 3 years ago and inquired about those skills. His teacher and I said NO Way. That boy is the most graceful, balanced and natural athletein the school and excels so quickly at any thing he tries. By age 10 he has achieved Junior Olympic Status and is Mr. Personality Plus of the year. Just because he had the high Verbal(in fact identical score) and low (not so low) performance score does not place him in the category. I found the whole diagnosis of NVLD when applied to him laughable at best. The weird physical things on him that we felt were so odd - were that he would watch tv while standing on his head for long periods of time and loved to spin around and would never get dizzy. He often wrote his very long first name and other words as a perfect mirror image. When asked to read the backwards words back he would and so would the older brother now that I think about it. He would even argue angrily that ‘dear’ did say ‘read’ and ‘was’ for ‘saw’ etc. for long periods of time. The only way I found to turn it around was having them make the sound and write the sound, one at a time for each letter of the word. A tedious process, but it worked for well. This guy, was 5 at the time and participated the best he could at the time.

Although not the blessed with his brothers coordination and grace this guy is very adept athletically. All physical milestones were met early. He walked at 11 months. He rides a bike, plays baseball, soccer, tennis & swims competitively. He learned to water and snow ski real quick and is probably considered high average, maybe top 85% for sports. He played a flute at school and learned music without problem and loves arts and crafts. Draws really nice pictures with detail which IMHO appear well done. He did at late age 4, however do a strange thing, when asked to draw an apple tree, he drew it perfectly, yet upside down with the roots to the top of the page. He also can write his name as a mirror image, but does this infrequently. I suspect all his training with proper letter formation has hidden a natural directionality problem.
His clumsiness is like mine. Sort of spatial, I suppose. He may have a tendency to knock something over at dinner and has like a body unawareness of left and right, directionality difficulties, so to speak. Of all my guys, this one is the latest to learn to tie the shoes properly. They finally get it around about 7 yrs. old (thank goodness for velcro.) Luckily, my parents saw my struggle as a young girl and sent me to ballet classes for 5 years. Although, I was usually funnily going the opposite way of class, it did help me not bump into so so many things and did teach some gracefulness. I am thinking directionality or lack of must somehow play a large role here. Mirror images and changing directions can be cumbersome, and some sort of therapy or exercises in this area would benefit him. Perhaps for both his physical body (I doubt he’d go to ballet) and also in terms of exercises with paper/pencil or computer. As for the writing, it is certainly the physical process itself and also something additional which is grossly delayed or deficit.
Our psyc. evaluation went on to say that he should keyboard, which I think is fine and dandy. However, I am a firm believer in the Writing Road to Reading and I want to work on the weak area and get the mental imprint made and not ignore the weakness. I feel it is crucial and essential that he continues to write. His brothers have been badgered by me for years and although the writing isn’t gorgeous, they are legible. I found the sloppy letters and digits lead to poor sound symbol imprinting and increase the qty. of mistakes in the math, using the dictionario and spelling. They may not like or enjoy the drills, but it sure helps them and they stubbornly will confess the benefits. It also enables far-point copy and note-taking skills which he will need before middle school.
Back to the testing, I don’t think the results will vary dramatically either, but he is very close to qualifying for services and if a different test would make the difference apparent, it is worth the effort and expense. Back to the student with the familair profile, do you recall the specific recommendations or therapy the neuro-psyc. suggested be implemented?

Have you ever had your son evaluated for sensory integration disorder? This is done by specially trained OTs. My son has both visual processing and sensory integration problems as well as CAPD. He also has a split in his IQ with verbal being much higher and also doesn’t seem to fit the profile of NVLD. The desire to spin set off a red flag in me—vestibular problems. We have come along ways in solving my son’s vestibular problems through therapy and the audiologist who is treating him told me that directionality (which my son is finally mastering) is build on a stable vestibular foundation. Although my son has a good conceptual math sense, his spatial and directionality problems kept him in sp. ed. After five months of Neuronet therapy (http://www.neuroacoustics.com), his special ed teacher told me what wonderful progress he had made and that he should be in a regular classroom in fall for math.

When there are problems, it’s always a good idea to get evaluations of the three major sensory systems — auditory, visual, and motor. Rather than doing more academic testing at the moment, I would go to a more fundamental level and make sure all of the sensory systems are functioning the way they should. The usual exams do not test for the problems most commonly found in LD kids, so here is what I suggest:

A CAPD eval by an audiologist who specializes in this area. There is a search engine that locates CAPD audiologists in your area at http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/

A developmental vision eval by a developmental optometrist. You can find certified DO’s in your area at http://www.covd.org

An OT eval that includes a sensory integration assessment.

Many insurance companies cover all of the above evaluations. Your best bet in order to get coverage is to call the individual professional’s office first. They usually can tell you what you need to do to get insurance coverage (referral from GP, or…..).

Once you have assessed sensory/motor function, you might want to take a look at cognitive training programs such as Audiblox or PACE. Some of the reading difficulties you describe sound like sequential processing problems. Cognitive training programs do a lot of work on developing directionality and sequential processing skills.

Mary

There’s a difference between having a disability and qualifying for services. Legally just having NVLD doesn’t do squat and it’s harder to get services because so much of school really is the verbal stuff. Lots of kids with NVLD really *do* get along pretty well in school. (I know, lots of them don’t!!! ) And where they struggle is so often attributed to attitude, etc. :( :( Talk to people at the school and see if you can find somebody you *won’t* need to educate as far as believing that it’s a disability, not a bad attitude… and then rally your documentation, etc. But efforts at the person-to-person level can be equally if not more powerful, since just as the issues for the kid are all tied in with attitude and organization and all, getting cooperation adn creating an atmosphere where the kid can succeed are even *harder* to make happen with a piece of paper with directions on what a teacher is supposed to do.

It isn’t actually scary:) the pediatric neuropsyches that I know are really nice- and the tests are kind of fun (I guess- this is what I am told by the kiddoes who have gone.) They look at neurological things like dominence, integration, reaction time- and whole variety of others that I- being a lowly whatever- don’t understand well enough to try to explain.

Many of the Neuropsyche’s recommendations were for activities for Mom to do at home and I don’t remember those- we were already doing most of the school suggestions. They had to do with various ways of limiting the amount of output required to show mastery, the use of things like a slant board and large print, It was a few years ago and I sadly can’t recall them all. I do know that we worked really hard on handwriting in reading and writing sessions so that the imprint would become automatic- so you are right on on there

I had one more thought about NLD that I wanted to share though. NLD- if all these people are right about it- (which makes sense to me by the way) is a contellation of symptoms- just like our more “traditional” LD’s are a constellation of symptoms- or Autism Spectrum disorder is a contellation of symptoms. You can have some of the indicators without having all of them. So- it is conceivable to me that the part of the brain where social skills knowledge fires up isn’t affected in your son’s case. I think- especially with the family history you kindly shared- that it is likely that your boys would benefit from some of the instructional accommodations and practices recommended for NLD. You have a child with difficulty processing certain types of spatial information- not horrible difficulty but different enough from his strong verbal skills that the discrepency between what he can and cannot do must frustrate him.(especially when he watches other kids do with ease things he finds really hard) There are some good ways to support him. And think about the neuropsyche- I think you will get some good information that will explain a lot of confusing things.

Robin

Sue, I have anticipated this battle and refusal of services. That is why he needs to somehow get the SLD classification. If not, I’m afraid he will get nothing. The psyc. has agreed to do the TOWL -3 on Monday. She showed me the test and it is basically a blank piece of paper where he is given a topic to write about and must structure sentences and spell independently. He most certainly will bomb this in a very big way. Do you think the deficit in written expression along with all the scores we previously posted for him would get him the SLD classification?
If not, I will proceed with retesting him, with hopes that the highly verbal Standford Binet will yield a higher IQ score and the deviation will occur from the WJIII. It may or may not make sense to some folks, but at this point it has become a strategical game of how best to get him IN the program so that he qualifies for services. Without classification, we are faced with ‘carrying’ him through school (which is how he and his two brothers exists now.) The alternative would be to sit back, stop tutoring him, and watch him sink this year. Then with his self-confidence and esteem as well as his grades in the pot, we would start the testing process all over again when the school finally recognizes that there is something wrong. That painful process could take 1-2 years and there is no positive way of looking at that. I wish things did not have to be this way, but it is the reality of our school systems special services. We have to deal with what we have and play by ‘their’ rules,…. at least initially.

I asked the psyc. about the TVPS and she said she didn’t have it, but,it was the same test we already did, just with a different name on it.???? They did agree to have him do the TOWL III.

I don’t understand the attitude part because he is not fitting the NVLD social profile. He is sweet , obedient and tries very hard at school and at home. He just has a visual processing deficit, below ave. processing speed and is dysgraphic and I need to prove it in that way. No one would even look to say lazy or bad attitude, but if he is not helped to progress to his intellectual potential, the lazy, bad attitude could be right around the bend.

That’s what we’ve found with our son. He is most affected in the visual/spatial area. He also has some motor issues, but they are mostly pretty subtle. He reached all developmental milestones as a young child, and learned to ride a bike at a reasonable age. He was never the first to master something, but he wasn’t the last either. He has more fine motor problems than gross motor… At 10 he still can’t tie his shoes tight enough to keep them on, or cut food with a knife or butter a roll. He can print neatly, but V-E-R-Y slowly.

In the social area, his deficits are subtle too. He is out-going, friendly, and generous to a fault. He has a close knit group of nice friends. But he is not socially saavy and has no “street smarts”. The school staff tends to run interference between him and the “cool” kids who sometimes target him. The trouble is that he’s so gullible, that he doesn’t realize he’s being used by these kids.

I was not aware of ANY of the social issues until after his dx of NLD, when I started discussing things with his teachers and realized that his perspective on what was going on at school wasn’t totally accurate. From what I’ve read, too, many NLD kids don’t really have social problems until the middle school level, when even “normal” kids can have a hard time fitting in.

Even though he doesn’t have a lot of trouble socially now, heading into 5th grade, we’re trying to be proactive, and provide social skills and pragmatics training for him, both at school and privately, hopefully to help him BEFORE he runs aground in middle school.

From everything I’ve read of NLD, (which is a lot) you are right that the expression of the various weaknesses can vary greatly from child to child, as can the severity of the disability as a whole. ALL sources say that the problems increase as the NLD child gets older, and that the earlier intevention is started, the better the long-term outcome.

Karen

Unfortunately, I have to say that I think you’re right. You have to find the best way to work YOUR school system. If a designation of SLD for written expression will get him in, great. I think we might have had that work too, since that was my son’s biggest problem area too.

The trouble with NLD kids, especially the pretty bright ones who compensate pretty well, is that they often don’t have a MAJOR deficit in one specific area… They just have all these minor deficits that really affect them globally. My son has just minor fine motor problems, and minor processing delays, minor problems with visual/motor planning, minor problems with executive function… put ‘em all together , an you have a kid who has to work WAY harder than his classmates to produce 75% of the output they do.

Karen

Yup. My son (10) didn’t get the “lazy, bad attitude” label until he hit the wall in 3rd grade. Until then, noone could say enough good about his attitude. Funny thing, now that he’s on an effective IEP, we have had NO more reports about laziness or a bad attitude. To the contrary, he is praised by all his teacher for his great work ethic and enthusiasm.

I just wish I’d found a way to get them to give him the IEP he needed at the beginning of 3rd grade when we begged for it to be reinstated. Believe me, we didn’t want to watch him flounder in 3rd grade, and we helped him after school all we could. That didn’t in anyway help the fact that he wasn’t handling the school day, however.

I hope and pray that you are more successful in talking your school system into helping BEFORE your son falls apart emotionally than we were.

Karen

Our guys really do sound pretty similiar. I am so used to his brothers that were so cool and savvy at his age, he really is a refreshing contrast. I’m going to research the social interventions & preparations and begin discussions with how to handle situations. He will be in a quiet small Christian school when he reaches middle school & high school and that should minimize some of the problems that would arise in our city school.
My major concern truly is the writing. When his brother reached the 3rd grade and everyone else’s writing was legible it was a real problem. He was ridiculed unmercilifully to the point of a near breakdown. His very best work would be all smeared misspelled erasures that he was told to “do over”. It is like his writing aptitude should be a 10, but his work product is a 2. I hadn’t realized the severity of the situation until the school psyc. pulled me aside after the evaluation and shared a copy of the human figure drawing of the Bender. The normally happiest little boy in the world had drawn a self portrait and it had no eyes ,ears or mouth or much of anything. He was walking around with head facing the ground and wanted to quit his favorite sport.
We were going to immediately remove him from school but chose not to with spring break at the weekend. After a nice vacation he returned with ego intact and we put him on an IEP and the teacher was very apologetic for riding him so hard, but she just truly had not understood his disability. Now he can write legibly, but the process is still tedious and he will be word -processing more and getting classroom outlines for middle school. We are going to make sure and not repeat this scenario. That is why i find it is worth it to run around secure all the evaluations and go in with a strong case that they would be hard pressed to turn down. I have looked at the description of the WJIII and it has a very strong oral sectiona and a writing evaluation, so that with the TOWL-III should close the deal. At least we hope so.

I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you! Robbie’s biggest problem at this point is also written output. He finishes about 75% of the written work assigned to him in class. His timed math tests are never above 70%, sometimes closer to 50%… Every problem he has answered is correct, he’s only finished half of them or so. Because he had great teachers this year who made it their business to learn about his disability, and learn to assess him in ways other than strictly written output, he did very well. Besides, in our school system, there are no letter or numerical grades through 4th grade. But as he goes up through the grades, if he starts with only completing 75% of assigned work, that means he’ll START with a “C”, and can only go down from there.

So at this point, we’re working on getting them to give him direct keyboarding training so that hopefully by the time the need for written output becomes critical, he’ll be able to keyboard instead. Unfortunately, that only addresses part of the problem, since it’s not strictly a fine motor problem. He can type something (albeit slowly) if it is fed to him word by word. But just as when he writes something manually, getting the words directly from his BRAIN to the paper is very, very difficult. And we can’t use voice recognition software because he also has a (again, minor) speech disfluency which makes the VR software completely unable to make heads or tails of what he’s dictating, even after him spending many hours “training” it.

It’s never easy.

Karen

What exactly are your sons difficulties? Looking at the scores you posted he seems to be excelling academically

Wiat-II
Word reading 102
Read Compreh 110
Pseudo words 98 ( He’s had tons of from Sue Jones -Resource Room)
ReadComposite 101

Math Composite 119
Writing composite 117

Listening Comp. 94
Oral Expression 118
Lang Comp. 106

these standardized scores show he is at or above grade level in all areas except listening comprehension which is very mildly depressed (but not in what we would typically call the disabled catagory) what kind of trouble is he haveing in school that you believe he is LD? are you haveing to tutor him every night to maintain these scores? or have you hired private tutors? Unless you are in a state that has mandated gifted laws as an advocate I dont believe I would be able to get your son classified as ld, he is working up to grade level, and is surpassing his ability level in many areas.
unless you can prove his true IQ is higher and therefore he is not achiveing to his ability level, or that you have been providing sp-ed at home to maintain his academic levels i dont forsee your son as being classified ld in the near future.
good luck and keep us posted
P.S. how did you son manage to score so high on the writing portion of the wiat with his motor difficulties???? you might want to ask for subtest data on the writing composite you might find scatter in the scores.

Hi Beth
We also got sensory intergration therapy, If we had stayed with it(the school only paid for 3 mos.) and followed through, he might be alot better off.

To this day Tim cannot take the host at church, and the dentist is another story.

He was always fine tuned to the way material felt, whether it was too rough,
or the way something tasted(texture)of food.
It must have to do with the capd neurological disorder.

Bye
I aways enjoy reading your posts!!