Odd Child

Have you had his eyes evaluated by a developmental optomotrist? I did this after we did PG and he could read but couldn’t read more than 3 pages without getting really tired. He also has the opposite problem as your child he blends well but falls back in segmenting every once in awhile. I go over a few of the exercises in the PG book when this happens and it comes right back to him. It is weird that it keeps getting lost.

I had him evaluated and found that he did have tracking issues (saccadic and pursuit eye movements) I have been doing exercises on my own because the initial devel optomotrist did not do therapy. I am seeing an improvement. He is reading more fluently and enjoying it more. I will have him evaluated by a new devel optomotrist in Jan.

I am not familiar with those tests. Does he have a problem with comprehension or spelling? I like LMB visualizing and verbalizing for comprehension and seeing stars for spelling type problems. You can do these on your own if you buy the books. I really didn’t find it that difficult.

I gave up long ago on getting the school to give him the services he needs. The only thing they did right was OT. They happen to have a great OT. Sped was just an exercise in self esteem destruction.

Lil,

What’s his diagnosis? Has he been formally evaluated for LD? If the school isn’t doing what you want in the way of testing you might consider getting your own testing done. Your description of your son’s reading reminds me in some ways of my child’s. My son is both gifted and has learning disabilities. His phonemic awareness is poor, yet he reads (and comprehends) well above grade level, although his comprehension lags behind a bit. He is thought to be dyslexic, in the sense that he has difficulty with understanding how letter sounds combine to make words. He knows the basic rules of phonics but generally does not employ them when he reads. Instead, he uses his strong visual sequential memory and his superior long term memory to remember whole words and, if he doesn’t recognize a word, he uses his reasoning ability to draw the meaning of the word from its context. These days we are reluctant to interfere with an inefficient reading style that nonetheless works well for him. We’ve tried to make the most of what he’s got by doing things like teaching him about root words, prefixes and suffixes, so that he will have an additional way to “decode” words he does not know. He also works with a tutor on higher order comprehension because he is much better at interpeting factual information than he is at predicting outcomes, summarizing, anwering “why” or “so what or “what if” types of questions. That has helped a lot with comprehension. If your son is having trouble with comprehension, you are right to be concerned and you should definitely act quickly If he can learn a more efficient way to read, he should. But, it may be the case that even if he doesn’t he still will be able to be an effective reader. So, don’t despair.

Andrea

Hi Linda,

I did have him evaluated for visual processing. He has a slight problem, but the doctor said it wasn’t enough to do vision therapy. He has glasses now (when I can get him to wear them - sensory issues here), but he refuses to wear them in school and the teacher won’t remind him.

Yes, he has trouble with both comprehension and spelling - and V/V and Seeing Stars seem to be the two LMB therapies that he needs. The question is how to do this AFTER he has been at school for 8 hours, and is tired and grumpy and cries when I just have him correct his homework! Did you find the LMB books easy to use? I’m at the point now where I would like to find someone to tutor him, because he cries every time I try to work with him. I’m not sure if he’s still in denial, and has to confront his educational issues when we sit down to work together, or if he’s just plain tired and doesn’t want to do it.

And yes, today my brain is telling me “be careful what you wish for, you might get it!” And then the school would implement the programs improperly, etc. I did pull him from the resource room last spring - he wasn’t getting anything there. They keep threatening to put him back in the resource room when I request appropriate services at IEP meetings - like holding a big axe over my head.

Ah, time to back up and regroup. Thanks for the response.

Lil

Hi Andrea,

He has NLD, APD, inattentive ADHD, anxiety, and a slight visual processing problem. He takes Ritalin and Wellbutrin. He has been formally evaluated for LD by an independent evaluator, has had APD testing both off and then on stimulant meds, has been evaluated by the school for reading, and has had private speech therapy, and been to three different private tutors who don’t understand what he needs. His point discrepancy for “Broad Reading” on the WJ-III and the WISC-III was 19, his point discrepancy for “Broad Writing” was 26 (unmedicated - about 16 months ago). His only school recognized disability is in “written expression.” They let him go from SLP services at the meeting where we presented the APD test results.

We’ve worked on prefixes and suffixes for words - but last week he was reading a list of words in his health book. He came to “decision.” He tried 4 or 5 different words that started with the “de” sound, but the consonant following was always wrong. And he knows the “de” sound prefix as well as the “sion” pronounced “shun” suffix. The only thing he had to decode was the “ci” in the middle. He had no clue whatsoever as to how to get there, although we have reviewed those skills repeatedly.

When I have him summarize stories, he picks the most inconsequential facts, and focuses on those as the most important part of the story - I ask if you have to know that particular fact in order to understand what is going on. He invariably responds “YES!” and of course, the answer is “no.” So yes, comprehension is an issue for him. What does your son’s tutor do to help him with higher order comprehension?

Thanks,
Lil

Hi Lil,

As you know, I have a similar group of problems. On my neuropsych test, I scored below average in blending sounds. Anyway, your concerns are definitely valid as while I can decode most words, I am sure it is not fluent and definitely is part of my reading difficulties. I most likely learned to do what your son is doing in looking at patterns of whole words to decode them.

If you want to go the tutor route for your son, what about contacting the local International Dyslexia Association for a list of tutors in your area? When I did this a couple of years ago, the woman I spoke with was adament in stating that more of their tutors were becoming familiar with NLD. I never followed through on trying to find someone as other issues came up but there seemed to be quite a number of people listed.

Lil, is teaching your son to use screen reading software a possibility? Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that this be a substitute for teaching him how to read. My reasoning is if he could use this piece of software or something similar, it might promote a feeling of independence which would lead to greater self esteem which hopefully would make him more amenable to tutoring.

It is important though to be able to integrate auditory and visual information and since alot of NLDers have trouble doing this, I wanted to throw that caution out there. There are other issues also but no need to even get into those unless you think this is a possibility.

Finally, I have the sense that you like your son’s first grade teacher. Is there a possibility of convincing her to use another program instead of the one that has not worked?

Hang in there.

PT

If your child has nld—this often means he can’t see the “relevent” facts in a story, because often you have to have the social understanding and perspective taking to see what is not being said within the text. It makes perfect sense that he can’t write well—he can’t only use the most relevent facts, he can’t take the perspective of the audience—it can be the mental organization that is stopping him. I have a gifted daughter with asperger’s, and she can’t write anything that requires these skills. She will write a 6 page story of her own design, and can’t write more than a paragraph for a school assignment—if that.
The only thing that has worked for her in 4 years is Visualizing and Verbalizing tutoring—lindamood bell style.
good luck

Hey PT - how are you? :-)

I do really like my son’s first grade teacher. I did tell her very specifically the program that worked for him. I even mentioned that she might do a short review of the work we’ve already done, and then finish the book with him since we didn’t get there. I hope she’ll consider doing that. She’ll get back to me after Christmas.

As for screen reading software - is that like the PleaseRead2002? It reads the text back to you after you input it? I’ve tried that with my son a little bit, but he’s never interested in revisiting his written work to make corrections, and doesn’t seem to hear anything wrong when he listens. It’s hard enough just to get his thoughts down. I DO scribe for him, depending on the length of the assignment - and he is quite good with sequencing, complete sentences, etc. He can do a really good paper with a few prompts from me. Also, his spelling is atrocious. I haven’t helped him input his own writing into the PleaseRead unless I have edited it for spelling first - hmmmmmmm, interesting thought.

I also get unabridged books on tape, with the actual text - and he listens and “reads” at the same time - with a bookmark to keep his place and help make the lines straight. :-) We tried a dark one - he didn’t seem to notice much difference. So he does get practice with listening and reading simultaneously.

Like I said, time to back up and regroup. I need to move forward in a positive direction instead of continuing to believe the school system would help if they only understood.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Lil

Lil,

I honestly think that this is an area they have very little experience with.They can handle the kids who have auditory processing issues but have no idea what to do with kids who have these types of deficits. At my son’s school, they have LMB seeing stars and VV trained teachers and speech therapists. I pushed for him to get seeing stars at school but at the time my biggest concern was getting him out of sped (long story) so I didn’t push that hard. I had the LMB teacher at the meeting and she held these strategies up like they were the holy grail, but my son would not qualify. She made it seem like only a highly trained teacher, like herself could do this. I actually found it easier than PG in alot of ways. I actually used a modified version of seeing stars because I had found other visualization exercises that helped to build the underlying skill of visualizing symbols. It really does work and we mostly incorporate it into the homework he already has.

For instance, I used seeing stars strategies to help him with his spelling words that are sent home. He has to learn to see the letters in his head. I ask him to spell the word doubt, then ask him to see it in his head. I will sometimes say, “Now take a picture, got the picture, good, what is the forth letter that you see.” If he is taking too long I know he is not visualizing. After he got better at this I had him spelling things backwards and forwards. It really has helped his spelling. I learned he naturally made the gestalt pictures in his head that are taught for VV. He has very good comprehension. I have that book as well and think it is pretty self explanatory to do. I think you could incorporate it into the homework he already does if he has reading homework and you can ask him to visualize when you read to him and describe what he sees.

You might want to try to push for this if they have it at the school. You could get him evaluated at an LMB clinic and then bring the eval to the school hoping that they would accept that he needed it. I think if my son needed both or was overloaded I might have pushed harder to get it at the school

I think that you can’t just bypass these skills. They will make your child a more efficient learner which will get even more important as the work gets harder. My son hears a vocabulary word once and gets it. If you say antique he will picture a piece of antique furniture. He does not need to have it taught over and over because the picture that is in his head helps him to understand.

Sounds so much like our Kevin. The pediatric neuropsych who evaluated him said he fits into no neat profile anywhere. He seems (and tests) to be very bright, but with “holes” that seem to have no known etiology. He, too, struggles with reading. We started LMB last summer at a hearing center who was offering it just for the summer. I had planned to ask the SLP who was teaching it to tutor Kevin after the summer when she announced she was getting married and moving away. The few other providers that exist had NO openings. I called The Ohio State Univ. Speech & Language Pathology Dept., and literally begged for help from the professor who teaches the LMB program. A break came our way when one of her former students contacted her to let her know that since she had just had twins, she wanted to tutor using LMB from home. Thank God! Now we just had to pay for it.

We bought the PG program, too, and used it kind of haphazardly, but we need to get back to it, too. LMB is helping him tremendously with phonemic awareness, but I’m not so sure about the comprehension part of it. I know that comes later, with the Visualization & Verbalization part of the program, but Kevin really needs to improve his comprehension NOW!

On the other hand, math is going really well!

It’s interesting. I do know some readers who read very proficiently by ‘sight’ and cannot blend sounds or have phoenemic awareness. I’m one of those who believe that not all of us are programmed to read that way. Some of us, I believe, were meant to do as your son does - memorize whole words - although few do it so well as your son is doing.

You’re not likely to get much help from the school on this and if you asked my advice I’d say sit back and watch for a while. Sadly all this comes with the territory of ‘being a mom’ especially as you’re clearly interested in being a good one.

Good luck.

Hi Sara,

Your point is well taken about sitting back and watching. However, one of my biggest concerns for my son is that he have confidence in language. Most people have confidence auditorily - through spoken language, and visually - through written language. I want my son to have confidence in one of those media. With his auditory processing disorder, he continues to mix what he hears up in his head before it gets to his memory. There is no true remediation for this. There are programs that help, but full remediation is never accomplished.

That leaves having confidence through visual language - good phonemic awareness and decoding skills. I imagine the people who are good “sight” readers also have good auditory skills to help them compensate. My son doesn’t and never will. He scored more than two standard deviations below the mean for an auditory processing disorder.

Another interesting point is that my son was in speech articulation therapy for two years. It was only when I started tutoring him with PG for phonics that he understood how words are supposed to sound. I could repeat them - quickly, slowly, painfully enunciating each sound or syllable - and he couldn’t repeat it back to me. While using PG, I started simply writing the word in small enough sound parts that he could understand what it was SUPPOSED to sound like - and he could articulate the word perfectly. That’s another one of those “if only I had known then what I know now” moments.

Thanks for the feedback,
Lil

Lil, Just to add to Linda F’s very good posts about V/V and Seeing Stars, they ARE easy to use. You don’t need a degree in special ed to understand them. The only LMB program that’s not easy initially is the LIPS program and that too really isn’t hard but people get scared off it. Initially I taught it, with the book open on my desk. I worked my way slowly through it and once I’d done that with one child, the rest was easy.

Seeing Stars and V/V are much easier. Both books are easily readable and the only extra materials you’d need are easily found in your home. You mentioned your concern about doing this yourself with him after school. I’d suggest, if you’re worried about that, finding a teacher you trust (perhaps that first grade teacher you mentioned?) and asking THAT person to work through these programs with your son if you don’t want to try it.

Linda F’s right about all the many ways you can incorporate S/S and V/V into your son’s regular homework. I’ve taught classroom teachers how to incorporate those strategies into their daily work with groups of students. Much of it doesn’t need to be viewed as a separate program but can be blended into an existing program. For example, always have your son “air write” his spelling words and do as Linda F. suggested - ask him questions like, “What’s the second letter?” “Spell it backwards”, etc.

You might also want to use the LIPS ending grid to teach suffices. I’ve found that to be the very best resource for that. All their multisyllable work is easy to use.

ssssf wrote:
>
> If your child has nld—this often means he can’t see the
> “relevent” facts in a story, because often you have to have
> the social understanding and perspective taking to see what
> is not being said within the text.

Hi ssssf,

As an adult with NLD, I think you said the key words later in your post, mental organization. Actually, my perspective taking and social understanding is fine but as I deal with more and more details, like in a book, I have trouble organizing everything into a coherent picture. If there is a good summary of the book at the beginning, reading that helps in compensating for the deficit.

You said:
>> The only thing that has worked for her in 4 years is
> Visualizing and Verbalizing tutoring—lindamood bell style.
> good luck

That’s great the program has worked for your daughter. I hope at some point to obtain tutoring in it as I had small snippets of success with it several years ago.

PT

Hi Lil,

Yeah, I was thinking of the ReadPlease 2002 software. Scratch that idea:))

I know it is a real letdown hoping that an organization or person will do something you need and realizing that it isn’t going to happen. Just by being aware of the situation with the school, you have already made alot of progress.

Good luck.

PT

Hey, PT

Do you know how great I think you are? :-)

Lil

I’d say there is remediation for his auditory processing issues and working with a good speech/language pathologist might be helpful. I’d also say to give you heart that while my own son with the same issue did not work with a speech language pathologist, he did get significantly better over the years.

Sometimes it’s also that we’re simply programmed to do things later than our peers. We learn to do them - and even well - but later than others.

Always be thoughtful when you’re told - ‘full remediation is never accomplished’. While sometimes that’s sadly true, other times it’s not and the proof of that can only be in the pudding as it cooks over the years.

Good luck.

Do you have any ideas on how I can use visualization to improve sentence structure with my son? He doesn’t use capitals or periods when he writes; although if you quized him on the appropriate use of capitals and periods he would know the correct answer.

I haven’t been able to do this, yet, but I get the sense it could be done. I sense that when he writes he is writing as he talks and not paying attention to how the words should look on the page.

Have you ever done this? Thanks for any help you can give me with this. It has been bugging me.

I think it is great that you are sharing what you know about this technique with the other teachers at your school. I think it could be used with any child to make them a stronger learner.

I highly recommend a book called Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills. It was put together by many professional people and is AWESOME. See if it’s at your library. It shows you step by step what to do. He isn’t so odd after all.

It sounds as though he has internalized the rules for sentence mechanics but perhaps when he’s actually writing, he’s still got to concentrate too hard on either handwriting or expressing his thoughts. He may not yet be fluent enough in those skills to be able to do either of them along with remembering the mechanics of caps/punc. at the same time.

I tell my kids that some people need to get out their ideas first without bothering about mechanics. Those are the folks who’ll have to carefully go back to edit their sentences for capitals, punctuation and spelling. Others like to take care of this as they go along. I always ask the child, “Which way works best for you?”

I have a checklist that kids must fill out after every writing assignment. It includes all the various aspects of sentence writing. For example, there’s a place to check off that they have a topic sentence, details, etc. They check off that they’ve indented, put their title in caps, used Spellcheck or asked others for spelling help, etc. Capitalization and punctuation are part of this checklist.

I haven’t done any visualization strategies per se for this because I use the checklist but it’s an intriguing idea.

No surprise there - I think sometimes Linda and I have the same child!
If you ask him what the rules are he knows them cold. Even tested fairly well on punctuation and capitalization but getting things down on paper is a whole different affair. The other night he was cheerfully writing a page of text and mispelled a word - he substituted an “e” for an “i”.. Now I don’t usually correct his spelling because its so bad, but this was an obvious one. When I brought it to his attention he told me he meant to write an ‘i” but an “e” came out instead. I think that happens with his decoding too - he certainly knows his short vowel sounds - but will still say the wrong sound.

Oh Yes, my son will spell things wrong that I know he knows cold. The other day he wrote a sentence. I mars in March. Supposed to be, I march in March. So he knows how to spell it but just didn’t. He gets 100 on most spelling tests but doesn’t always use what he knows when he writes. He is getting better, though.

I think it is part attention, and part that he just almost is not even looking at what he is doing. You know when you look at something but you don’t see it because your mind is somewhere else. That is him. He is so into the story, (he loves to tell stories) that everything else takes a back seat. It is funny he doesn’t expend alot of effort in the creative part. He can write a really good story in a very short time. Well it is good once it is deciphered. He will have a nice introduction, a detailed description of characters, a good summary. All the things that can be difficult to teach because it is the higher level stuff.

I have tried the checklist thing and it doesn’t really work for him. There is just too much to correct in his writing. He will write an entire page without a single period or capital. Someone else here gave me that suggestion before. It works if what he writes is something short but his assignments are getting longer now.

I think I have to get him to slow down and write in chunks. Maybe if I say, “Write 6 sentences on this topic.” He writes sentences every week for his homework, so I know he knows what a sentence is and how to write one. I think if I can just get him to see how it should be and how it should look maybe things will click.

Joan, Thank you so much for your advice. Do you think I should be really worried about this since he has the other part of writing down? I keep telling myself “He will figure out the sentence thing eventually,” right?

Linda, it just isn’t something I worry about any longer. I insist that my kids who struggle with writing mechanics use a computer. When they get older, their papers will have to be typed anyhow so I get them used to keyboarding right away. I tell them that the computer, as a tool, will be their best friend. I usually make this recommendation to their parents when the child is in 4th grade, sometimes 3rd grade.

Word processing programs can automatically fix a lot of those sorts of mechanics problems. Then the children have less to go back to correct themselves. I continue to teach them writing mechanics by using several different old books I’ve collected through the years. I focus on just one area at a time so as to not overwhelm the child with too much to think about. I still think that’s the key problem - that, for a child who struggles in mechanics, we expect too much too soon. We have to teach and reteach and reteach; there’s no other way.

I like the book “The Source for Dyslexia and Dysgraphia” because it really brings home the fact that some people have too much to concentrate on at one time and that’s why another area - like spelling or punctuation - is ignored by the child. The child is working too hard with no areas committed to automaticity yet. That includes handwriting. So when I have a child who’s making lots of mistakes in his or her work, yet can pass multiple choice type tests of writing mechanics, then I know that, while the child understands the rules, s/he isn’t yet able to apply them. For whatever reason, those children have an easier time with a computer.

Well, my husband and I talked to the Assitant Superintendent of Instruction today about the reading. He actually didn’t think I was crazy when I gave him examples of how my son reads. He even wrote down “Reading Reflex” and “Phono-Graphix” since I told him we needed to start there. He’ll talk to sped about being more receptive to my input at IEP meetings. Of course, we have to have yet another one to make any real changes - but I’m hopeful (again - hope it works this time).

Lil

Joan,

Thank you so much. You are right. My son struggled with dysgraphia which has been remediated through OT. He still must be struggling with this new skill not being automatic. He writes fast and legibly but so many of his skills, writing, spelling etc are new, so time might help.

I had planned on keyboarding for the summer. He is in third and I really do want him to learn cursive, first. I am not one of the ones who feel that cursive is unimportant. There are many jobs that would be closed to a person who could not at least read in cursive. As a nurse, I would not be able to read a chart unless I could read cursive and read it well. I fear that introducing the computer too soon would solve one problem but possibly cause another. Thanks to OT he is doing pretty good with cursive.

Joan, you are a wonderful teacher. Thank you so much for your insights. It really has helped me to see the big picture.

Lil,

You might want to document what was said at that meeting. I have walked away from many meetings where I thought we were all on the same page only to have everything fall through the cracks. I would write a gracious letter stating, “I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to discuss the situation with my son. I appreciate you talking to the team about introducing phonemic awareness training with a program like PG etc etc….”

So it seems like you are just saying thanks but what you are really doing is making sure that it is clear what is said and what your expectations are. This is how things happen in business all the time. It makes people accountable and really shouldn’t be insulting if done professionally.
It really helped me to keep everyone targeted toward the specific goal I wanted reached.