New diagnosis...CAPD

My daughter is going to be 8 yrs old. We had her in the Montessori school. It was the most possitive enviroment for our child. Although being a private school they were not able to give the “special resources for our child with CAPD.(Central auditory processing disorder) Therefore, we chose to put her in the public school . Our daughter goes to resourse 5 days at 45 min’s. Shes in second grade. Her progress has been extremely slow. Our daughter is at the begining of 1st grade level in most subjects. Math is almost grade level. Resourse has been a waste of time. We are very blessed that our daughter has a wonderful second grade teacher.
The children in her resourse class are extremely disruptive and is very diffcult to concentrate. I discussed this at her IEP meeting and didn’t get anywhere. Having her in resourse has done nothing for our child. I don’t know if its lack of knowledge on the resourse specialist or our childs enviorment. Therefore , I called the school district and will be having a meeting with the superintendant to resolve our issues. Our daughter is being cheated out of the education she and all children so deserve. We regret taking our daughter out of Montessori. There we had so much support and positive enviorment for our child. She always believed she could succeed,and the bottom line is that if our children believe they can, then, they will. It may take a little longer,harder work and a tutor to help us all . Sincerely, Jenny

Lori,

Homeschooling would be a much better environment for a child with APD than public school. Believe me, once you read all the posts around here, you will see that the majority of parents are very unhappy with public school special ed. services. You can homeschool her if you use the proper methods and materials. Under no circumstances would I trust the school to remediate reading problems for a child with APD. Have you connected with one of the email lists for APD? Here is the one I belong to:

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/capd.html

Public schools will not usually label a child with a reading disability in first grade because the child is usually not far enough behind at that point to have the scores needed to place LD. On the other hand, waiting another year to begin interventions is very costly. What do they use in the summer reading clinic? Will it be one-on-one instruction? I suggest you buy the book “Reading Reflex” by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness and see if that helps. It is a great reading program for children with decoding problems and is designed for parents to use. The other plus to homeschooling is that noisy classrooms are very detrimental for children with APD.

I am a public school teacher of hearing impaired children and my own APD child is in a charter school with a limit of 22 children per class. They are sending two people to Reading Reflex (Phono-Graphix) training later this month so that they can offer reading tutoring for first and second graders using an effective method over the summer. They are taking the approach that it is better to intervene now rather than wait until a child is extremely far behind. This is far better than most regular public schools. If at any time my child begins to struggle, however, I am prepared to pull her out and homeschool.

Janis

Janis,
Thanks for your input. I do have the Reading Reflex and we were using it before she went back to school. The only problem with homeschooling is that I have a 2 years old son that have a massive brain hemorrhage while I was pregnant. He has Cerebral Palsy and too many other handicaps to mention and requires ono on one care for everything. We were constantly taking him to the Dr. and his therapists came to our house six times per week. She it the type that really like structure and doing the same thing everyday. The closer I get to 2nd grade the more I am thinking about homeschooling again but it does put alot of extra stress on me because my daughter needs a lot of time too. I also have a 4 yo daughter. The CAPD diagnosis is so new that we are really just thinking about all the options. I am not opposed to homeschooling her, in fact, I thought I would always be homeschooling her.
She just told me tonight that she wishes she could read so she could read chapter books. It nearly broke my heart. I feel so bad for her.
Lori C.

Lori,

Bless your heart! You can only do so much. I am sure you will make the right decision for your family.

My little girl with APD so wants to read well, too. If the interventions don’t work quickly, I fear that she will begin to feel she is failing. I have read horrible posts on here by parents saying their children are depressed about school and expressing suicidal thoughts. I just refuse to let things go that far. Some of them choose to get psychological counseling. I’d choose to remove the child from the inappropriate school setting! There are rare schools that offer the right interventions, so it is possible that it might be okay. You might have to supplement with outside tutoring, but that is really hard on a young child who is tired from the school day. That is my problem with trying to help my child. She has used up all her energy listening in class all day and she is exhausted by the time we get through with homework, so I can’t do much in regard to remediation.

You have been given a special mission. I hope you find the strength and support to accomplish all that you need to do!

Janis

Lori,

In your situation, where homeschooling could be very challenging because of your son’s needs as well, I’d really look into Montessori schools. Are there any in your area that offer elementary classes?

You may still have to hire a private tutor if the Montessori school doesn’t offer this - some do, however, and although you’d have to pay, it’s often at a reduced rate for the tutor.

In my experience, Montessori teachers are very attuned to finding the best way for each child to learn. It’s the nature of Montessori teachers to think of each child as an individual. You should get loads of support from these teachers.

The only down side to Montessori for a child with CAPD is that a Montessori class is one where there’s constant movement. One of the recommendations for CAPD kids is to have the child sit at a front desk near the teacher. Well, in a Montessori class, the setup is different - there won’t be a front desk per se. But a good Montessori teacher will find a place in the classroom for your child to work where there’s the least distraction.

But more than anything, you should find the Montessori teacher to be someone who’s going to value your advice and judgment and who’ll be an ally with you in figuring out the best learning situation for your child.

(My children attended Montessori schools from the age of 2 through 8th grade. With the exception of one teacher, I’d say they had some of the kindest and most intuitive people I know as their teachers.)

Lori,

I recommend two books for you to read:

“Like Sound Through Water” by Karen Foli…the story of a child with APD as told by his mother. He went to a Montessori School for awhile but had therapy outside of school, too. This book is very easy to read and tells one family’s journey to diagnosis and remediation of an auditory processing disorder.

“When the Brain Can’t Hear” by Teri Bellis…explains different kinds of APD in an understandable way and tells different therapies and management strategies.

Both are available at Amazon.com for under $20 each, and I actually found mine half price (brand new) at Half.com for $12.50 each, but someone told me they had sold out at one point and I’m not sure if they have restocked or not.

I have read a lot on APD, but these books pretty well sum up what we need to know as parents in order to help us make wise decisions. Neither book really specifically promotes homeschooling, by the way. I think that decision must be dictated by individual circumstances.

Janis