When is enough is enough

We did PACE last summer. It is very demanding. For us, it was more demanding than rewarding. I personally think that if you feel like everyone needs a break from therapy, you should take one. Certainly, PACE isn’t a program to start feeling burned out..

Also, there is nothing that says you can’t do PACE next year if you feel it would benefit her. You may have a better sense of that after you observe her using her new reading skills for a year.

Beth

This is an ongoing problem.

We have to do so much outside of school for our LD children
and it starts cutting into the things that keep them going, the
things that feed their soul.

From what I read from you I agree with Beth. This does not
sound like a good option for your child.

My son and I will work for 20 minutes in the morning
and I’ll vary the stuff he does.The rest of his summer will
be freeeeeeeeeeeee! And mine too!

Anne

Also cannot face inflexibility of a PACE program over summer—particularly since a lot of travel to and from a provider would have to be factored in as well. I am considering doing Brainskills from the same company instead—less expensive and it is an at home program, giving much more flexibility. From this Board I’ve taken away that some think PACE should be done instead of Brainskills as it has more exercises. Another view I’ve heard is that’s more true of the visual exercises than the auditory exercies, which are the ones my child needs most. Is this program only worth doing if it’s done through PACE, or could you get results from Brainskills and perhaps fill in gaps later with PACE? I’d be grateful to hear any opinions.

I have seen both programs. There is some loss in variety with Brain Skills and fewer of the more sensory-motor based procedures. The AP exercises are virtually the same. I think it depends on your child. I elected to do the full PACE program because my child has pretty severe learning disabilities and documented sensory integration problems–in other words problems on the sensory motor level. In all honesty, the program was still too cognitive for my son’s needs and we spent a lot of time pounding our head against the wall. It did highlight some problems we weren’t aware of and we did see some gains, but not enough for all the work we did. Outcomes are hard to predict, however, and most people have much more success than we.

Beth

Another option – which ties into the idea that our
children should be able to be regular kids - school during
school time and kids during kid time like everybody else.

We bought the school a computer program for our
son to do at school.
I found one from Lexia, titled Lexia SOS, that was
very user friendly and did not require teacher input
very often (just testing at the end of sections).

I took my son out of an every other day music
enrichment class and had him do the computer
program.

While he has to have an adult nearby, the adult
doesn’t have to ‘pay attention’ to him. The adult
is busy running the time out room for kids in
trouble. Yup, my son gets his only LD help in
the time out room ;-)

Expanding on that -
several moms I know have their child leave school
a period early. They pick them up, take them home
and do remediation work with them.
Then when the rest of the kids get off the bus their
child is ready, willing and able to do whatever ‘normal’
kids do.
This also works going in a period late in the morning.

At one point, in our struggle, I offered to come to school
and work with my son there on ANYTHING, in the library, just so he
would get some kind of instruction.(I’m a Special Ed aide sub.)
I told them they won’t even have to pay me ;-)

In our state you can combine a mixture of school and homeschool
(WA state). Another friend took her son out of 6th grade to get him
up to reading speed and took him in, every day, so he could do band
and pe.

The school ended up liking the computer program so much that
they paid me back for the cost and I’m happy to know that other
children will benefit.

Anne

My son ‘s recent evaluation shows that he has extremely slow processing speed particuarly when it comes to motoric output. Which of course impacts everything . We are grappling with what other services we can fit into his week without overwhelming him. He needs reading remediation 2X a week for the forseeable future. SO I’m wondering: do I address the handwriting and underlying neurological (left/right confusion for example) thru OT, or would a PACE/Brainskills program maybe get at the root? Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

From the posts I’ve seen, PACE is more effective after underlying sensory deficits are addressed, which would point to OT before PACE for your child. My child is also very slow but…had no problem learning to read, spell, or handwrite and does very well on the left/right thing. His problems are very much in the receptive/expressive language area, in addition to the sloooooowness on anything related to school.

Hi Joanne,

I read a lot of posts on a lot of sites, and can’t remember where this came from, but it makes all kinds of sense to me.

Many of the children who are pushed (stressed) by the school and their parents perform very well in the school environment, but don’t succeed as well once they get out into the real world. Many of the children who don’t perform as well in school, but leave school with their sense of self intact acutally succeed better in the real world. Do you want your child to be well adjusted or an ‘A’ student?

That concept was hard for me, because I bought into the straight ‘A’ thing all the way through my own schooling, and I thought getting those ‘A’s made me well adjusted! :) Wrong! So I have had to rethink this whole concept for my LD son - glad I ran across that post! Hope this helps!

I agree and it was also very difficult for me to adjust my goals and aspirations for my gifted/ld son. He is very smart but the stress involved in the school environment negates his academic achievements. He also has an anxiety disorder and depression. Now my goals for him are to be socially and emotionally well adjusted and able to deal with the stresses life throws at him. I think this will take him further than getting straight A’s in school. When report cards come home, before I even open it, I ask him to tell me what he learned during that quarter. It can be anything from trivial to profound, or even how to complete a project on time. I then look at the report and focus on the skills gained, not the grade recieved.

I agree with Marie based on my own experience. We have done Neuronet instead of OT. As I said above, we did PACE last summer but it turned out it really was premature. I knew that PACE worked best when sensory integration issues were resolved and the therapist we were working with thought we were to that point. Turned out we weren’t. So I certainly would not do PACE if you KNOW you have significant problems on sensory motor level.

Beth

Hi Joanne,

What I am having a hard time accepting is why do these children have to do all of this EXTRA. If the school feels (even suggested) that this program would benefit your child it should take priority DURING THE SCHOOL DAY. That is why these children have IEPs (INDIVIDUAL Education Plan). Meaning other therapies, remediation, etc. may take priority during the school day over academics that they may not be ready to tackle anyway due to their disabilities, differences, etc. These kids should be allowed to be kids after school. Being a working adult, if I knew that I had to bring EXTRA work home every night (like the kids homework, therapy, counseling, etc) which was going to interfere with everything else I needed/wanted to do when I got home, I would be stressed out too! Any especially if this work could have been done during working hours. Then even though I put in all of these extra hours I was still behind everyone else once I got back to work. This is nuts!!!!!!!! Getting to the point, these things should be done during school time by having them in their Individual Education Plan (IEP) otherwise, why even bother with all of the hassle that goes along with identifying, writing and maintaining it. Why stress these kids out with all of this added stuff, do it at school with the paid PROFESSIONALS, right? Sorry, this is a real issue with me, but I think its time we all demanded it be done the right way and not led to believe that we are not doing enough for these kids at home. It is not being done properly at school, therefore parents are being made to feel guilty and supplement.

Joann,

I think you are at enough at the moment. Our kids have to work harder to learn than other kids all year. They deserve and need a break.

Last summer I made my son do work books and reading every day he went to his day camp and we went on vacation.

You can fit in some work during the summer to keep her refreshed. Do some nature/science project stuff at the cottege and enjoy your summer.

Guess I am just having a bad day since I had an IEP meeting. Don’t know why all of us have to pay for tutoring, pay for books, computor programs, other programs because schools are unwilling to try anything different if a kid is ld or struggeling.

Excuse the venting.

Her school does not offer these program, at all. I have been going to an outside agency. I live in Montreal and school baords up here have never even heard of these programs (such as Lindamood, PACE ) let alone know how to implement them. If I left this up to the school, my daughter would fall through the cracks.

I know what you are saying. In theroy the schools should be educating our children. But I feel if I do not take matters in my own hands, that she is the one to suffer.

Thanks everyone from your comment. I keep changing my mind with every one I read. Yes, she should take a break…..but is this short term pain for long term gain?

I really appreciate everyones response. You have given me a lot of information to consider. And I feel now I can atleast make an informed decision.

Well, I would never expect my child to be an A student. All I want is for her to pass school and feel good about the work she is doing. She is barely passing now. If it was a case of getting A vs Bs I would not even consider this program. But it is a case of her passing or failing a few subjects.

It sure sounds like you all have had enough. It’s awesome that so much growth was seen already. We’re struggling with the same problem - how much work to do during the summer because (in our case) my son had a substitute for the last 4 months who wasn’t credentialed and didn’t know what he was doing in my son’s special ed class. It’s a long story, I won’t bore you. My son had shown awesome success with the LMB LIPS program as well, so I’m taking training in it and buying my own kit. I figured why re-invent the wheel when I know what’s successful. I figure over the summer we’ll do a 1/2 hour to hour of LIPS and some EXCEL math to get him up to speed. Have you thought about taking training yourself so the pace (pardon the pun) is not so overwhelming? Enjoy your vacation! My son’s not going to summer school so he gets a much needed break. It sounds like you all need the same break as well. Good luck, Karen.