I am trying to understand one of my son’s learning issues. I’m hoping that some of you can help me understand it better and have ideas on how to address it.
J. is in fifth grade. When he has to write a page of answers re: spelling and vocabulary, he has a difficult time organizing his writing on the page. For instance there may be 5 questions, labeled A-E, with each letter having 4-9 parts. He needs alot of assistance setting up his notebook paper and recording his answers in the proper place–that others can easily read.
On a math worksheet, he might have a similar problem. He won’t leave enough room between math problems so they run together.
If he’s putting his name in the top right hand corner of a paper, he doesn’t always leave enough room to write it.
I’ve never thought that he has vision problems…but does he? Is it an organizational problem? executive function? Motor planning? Your ideas will be appreciated!
Re: spatial issues??
I would guess it is a visual-spatial problem. My son got much better after a combination of vision therapy and Neuronet therapy. PACE, which we did later, helped as well but he had made big leaps before it. This fall when he was in a regular math class for the first time I had to explicitly teach how to set up a page. Now, in the second half of third grade, he has learned to fold the page to line up the second set of numbers. He is holding his own now.
Beth
and I do think it was related to her severe developmental vision delays. She is much better now, after having been through vision therapy and PACE (http://www.learninginfo.com). She is still not particularly neat with her writing, or organized, but at least she leaves enough space for her name, lines up her answers, etc. (She is in 5th grade now.) I would at least check out the vision angle by taking your son in for a developmental vision evaluation. (See http://childrensvision.com and http://www.covd.org)
We also had an OT eval done. Although my dd had some very specific small motor problems, they found nothing severe. Maybe in some children the spatial issues are related to motor planning problems, but this was not the case with my daughter.
Mary