Any one else feel like this?

As a parent of a child with auditory processing problems, I can relate. It can be so frustrating, especially since you are not sure what they won’t do versus what they can’t do. After much therapy, my son doesn’t do that very much anymore.

A few ideas. Have her look at you and then repeat back what you want her to do. When she isn’t doing it, ask her what did I ask you to do. If she tells you, say “then do it”. If she doesn’t know, start over having her look at you and then repeat it back. Don’t expect her to remember more than one command.
She may not be capable of remembering to go brush her teeth and then put her shoes and socks on. I have heard of some people making it a game where the child reports back after doing one thing to find out the next thing to do.

Look into having the child evaluated for auditory processing problems. My son was 7 when he was evaluated. You need a specially trained audiologist. If you think your child is much younger overall, you might also want to take her to a developmental pediatrician.

My son was immature and really still seems younger in many ways. He has a slew of processing issues but with good therapy has made a lot of progress.

Beth

Boy, have I been there!

I understood my son much better after getting his various disorders diagnosed, and then reading up on them so that I knew what was probably going on in his brain. As I read the articles about his processing problems, I also came across very constructive advice for dealing with issues similar to the one you mentioned. Beth has given you some very sound and wise advice.

Of course, I still have good days when I am patient, and bad days. On a bad day, my litany seems to be “Why do you wait until I YELL before you do what I asked you to do? Do you think I LIKE yelling?!?” Fortunately, as I get more practice, we have far more good days than bad. :-)

You are not alone!

Lil

It can be veryhard to parent a child with learning differences. I know it was for me and there were certainly times I lost my patience and even my temper. My own son could not at age 5 ‘go and get his jacket’. He would kind of get lost on the way to his jacket and wander off to a different room and start to play with toys and 10 minutes later while I’d have to go looking for him.

As parents, we’re sort of programmed to expect our children to be able to do certain things at certain times. We really need them to do those things as often our energy has to go to a younger child or our jobs. We need our children to grow each year in their independence and to be able each year to do a few more things than the year before.

It helps to be able to give yourself a break although we can’t all do that. Sometimes a grandparent can step in and offer some help and a break for a parent.

That you feel guilty about what you say is a sign that you care about what you say to your dear child. That caring will come through even when your words aren’t the ones you want them to be.

Doesn’t one else feel like this? Oh, my gosh. More times that I ever want to admit. I’m a pretty easy-going parent, but by the time I’ve asked him 5 times to go upstairs and brush his teeth so he won’t miss the bus, I just sometimes wonder how I can continue to deal with so much frustration. Sometimes I just want to crawl out of my skin and be somewhere else.

He just has no sense of urgency about time, no attention to detail, no ability to break a large project into small tasks and space them over time.

Much as I hate it, he functions best if I make a request and then steer him gently to where the task needs to take place and then make sure he does it then and there. Then I don’t get into my bent-out-of-shape mom mode because I’ve asked 6 times and no progress has been made. The nagging thing seems to just make us both frustrated.

I think that he literally just can’t hold a thought for very long. Each request goes in and then is quickly replaced by the next unrelated thought that crosses his mind. I just have to remind myself that he’s probably not intentionally ignoring me 5 times but my emotional reaction is like he IS doing it intentionally.

I was feeling so frustrated with my son yesterday especially. We have been so focused on reading remediation that it was really discouraging to see him fall apart in another way yesterday. I had left him to complete a worksheet that I know he could read and do in terms of his ability to actually read and write at that level. I looked over and he was twirling his pencil and gazing off into space - so here we’ve come so far with the reading and then he just doesn’t do what he is now capable of. Oh, and he forgot to turn in “our” homework twice this week. Sigh.

Its good to know you aren’t the only one feeling this way.

Karen,

This is going to sound a bit strange but I swear it works for these hyporeactivevestibular types.

Before sitting down for homework do something physical that encourages the integration of the eyes and balance. We, either jump off the 2nd or 3rd step to have him grab a broom handle or get socks in a basket while jumping off the steps (you have to encourage him to land balanced on 2 feet not just throw himself off the stairs.) or we ride the skateboard trying to get the ball in the kiddy basketball hoop.
My son loves doing these things so much. It can even shake him out of a bad mood.
My son’s IM instructor taught us this.
We do this before homework and it makes a huge difference. I sometimes even try to get it in before school but you know how mornings are.

In general, I concur with the group. My son can be as spacey as they come.

Our son, also, has Central Auditory Processing Disorder, along with Receptive & Expressive Language disabilities. We, too, have found that 1) making sure he’s looking at us as we’re speaking to him, and 2) having him repeat whatever directions we’ve just given him works very well, too (although not 100% - that’s for sure). This is also the technique that the classroom teacher uses with Kevin.

Kevin’s evaluating neuropsych wrote in his recommendations that the teacher, when beginning something new in class, should specifically direct Kevin’s attention to her by either touching his shoulder or saying his name, and then go on from there once he’s “on board”. This helps him a lot in school.

If it’s any consolation at all, my husband wasn’t diagnosed with CAPD until the age of 43. In the fifties and sixties, when he was growing up and trying to deal with the very rigorous demands of private preparatory schools, he just learned strategies to “cope”. Now many of his frustrations that he remembers from school and even as an adult professional “make sense”. This gives us much hope for Kevin, because at least we’re helping him get the “tools” he needs to learn without so much frustration (we hope!).

In answer to your question, I think we all feel as you have expressed, on a more or less regular basis!

Good luck and God Bless!

LD kids are just so inconsistent. I think that is what makes it hard. I think they operate so near the edge that just being a bit off makes everything fall apart.

My son’s teacher told me he got all the regrouping problems wrong on a test after getting them right on every quiz!!!!

Beth

Hi,
I don’t feels as bad today, Jessica actually did as she was told but before this is was bullying her brother (her brother is 5)

Thanks for all the lovely words sometimes I think you just need to know you are not alone, I can feel I am alone fighting for Jessica’s needs.

I must say homework was hard last night to many things for her to do at once.
Writing, remembering and writing neatly to much for her to do at once.

I sometimes forget to talk to her and ask her what she just heared me say.
She did tell me she hasn’t got any friends at school this is an old problem with her, her brother doesn’t want her hanging around either.(I understand that) I’m mentioning this to her teacher tonight.
Anyway Thanks for all the surpport,
Liz

You bet. Used to happen with us a lot. My wife should have just bought herself referee shirts. Between our son’s ld issues and mine, we would (and sometimes still do, and he’s soon to be 21) have “misunderstandings” of what was said or intended. I suppose it’s easy to explain away as processing issues for the two of us, but in 3 dimension land (reality), it can produce some conflict. Mix in some inuendoes, sarcasm and muttering and it makes for quite a time. When our son was younger, there would always be a point where I would have to be reminded to not give so many instructions at one time, to have him look at me when I was instructing about some task, to answer back and repeat what he heard… all pretty much what the others have posted. To answer your question… yes.

This is the first time on this website for me. My daughter is 9 and in 4th grade. She has been in speech since second grade (can’t make s, ch, z, j) and in reading resource since second grade also. She has always struggled with school, and has a definite problem with reading comprehension, also multiple step word problems. It’s like she cant put all the information together. At last years reading resource/speech review I brought up having her tested for LD. I was discouraged by the resource/speech teachers from doing so. She is not the slowest in her class, nor is she at the bottom. She has problems focusing, and unless I’m constantly on her she will not do her homework, study, etc. We’ve recently moved to a new district and at conferences last week, her teacher brought up having her tested for LD. I don’t know how I feel about this. I go back and forth thinking maybe she is just slow, unmotivated and lazy about school work. I certainly don’t want her to keep struggling or really hating school. If anyone can give me some ideas of what I’m up against, I’d really appreciate it.

thank you
Chris

Have her tested. Speech issues often go hand and hand with LD so she is already at risk. If you figure out where she is having problems, you can get her help. No child wants to be lazy and unmotivated at age 9. I think it is a clear signal that something is wrong.

Beth

Thank you Beth—My gut tells me something is not right. Dows anyone know of any resources that I can check to learn more about the connection with speech problems and learning disabilities?

Not that I want to be diagnosing your child because I surely can’t, but I would think that speech problems associated with difficulty in school point to some type of auditory processing problem.

If you search using that term you will probably find loads of information. Also, make sure that when they test your child speech therapy or even an audiologist is involved in the testing procedure. You can request this.

My son does not have auditory problems so this is not something I know alot about. I might also suggest that you post your questions under new topic requesting information on speech issues and LD. There are some people who have been through this and have found successful methods of remediation. Some like earobics which is fairly inexpensive and something you can do at home and others have found fast forward useful. Fast forward is done usually outside the home and can cost quite a bit.

Beth from FL is right. Speech issues often don’t exist by themselves in a vacuum, as we thought they might when our son started receiving speech therapy in kindergarten.

Later, in the second grade, we finally got to the bottom of it all, and he ended up being diagnosed with central auditory processing disorder, as well as both expressive & receptive language disabilities. All can be remediated, but we wish we had gotten a quicker start for Kevin’s sake.

The real kicker is that when the SLP performed her evaluation to get Kevin okayed for speech services back in the beginning of kindergarten, she ended up with scores that would suggest to anybody who knew anything about these problems that Kevin had more issues than just speech alone. Did she share those scores with us - as required by law, I might add? Oh, no. She buried them in the speech IEP paperwork, and we were not copied on those scores at the time of that IEP meeting. Again, big no-no. The scores just coincidentally resurfaced when the school psychologist started taking a look at Kevin in second grade for an MFE.

The original SLP is now gone (thank goodness; besides just general incompetence, she was blessed with personality of a brick), and Kevin has a wonderful SLP who is addressing all of these issues.

Good luck!

Hi
Chris I think you should as I have always known there was a problum with my daughter, I am glad it has been daigoinsed as well as it actully has a name.
I was always told she hasn’t got a problem but I think you know deep down there is and if that is how you feel about it then do something. I have told my daughter she has problems and she has to work harder then the other children.
Update on Yesterday I mentioned to her teacher about the no friends issue teacher was pleased I had mentioned it and she think the problem is she wants to play with her brother but brother doesn’t want to play with her, I surpose she feels sercure with her brother as he understands her better than anyone and they do have a “twin” like bond(they aren’t twins). Her teacher is going to pear her with some one. To see if that works.
Take care
Liz