can't follow directions

It sounds like you have the CAPD well in hand. Could she have a visual or motor problem? Can she draw, write, do puzzles?
Do you think she has trouble sequencing? Does she have trouble telling you the number after 51 or before 100? Does she say before when she means after, tomorrow when she means yesterday?

Mel Levine’s book, “A Mind at a Time,” helped me spot my son’s sequencing issues. The school never picked them out despite quite a lot of testing.

Most of the kids have more than one problem.

Her artwork is pretty immature and her handwriting is pretty bad too.You can read it but it is sloppy and she still has a fisted pencil grip. I took her to OT for 8 months and then insurance refused to continue. I continued OT and paid out of my pocket but had to quit after amassing a large bill. She got OT
at school last year 1 day a week and I don’t think it helped much. They
dismissed her at the end of the year claiming she tested out. I wonder about
the validity of the testing. At her school the only kids who seem to qualify
are kids with cerebral palsy, etc. She has problems with visual motor
integration. Yes I have also noticed she gets confused on sequencing
esp with math. Do I need to pursue a private OT re-eval?
I guess I will just have to come up with the money myself. Thanks for the info.
I am very frustrated because I do not know what to do next and the school is not much help. She is not getting resource, and I was advised by the school
yesterday not to try to get her placed there because once I put her in resource
it was at such a low level she would always be behind. They said “In a
perfect world, we would get these kids caught up, but we all know that
is not going to happen”. I was shocked that they admitted this but glad to know the truth about how they view special needs students (obviously
they see themselves as daycare providers). They also told me repeatedly
that she would never qualify anyway.

Her drawing is pretty immature. Her handwriting is not great either. You can
read it, but it is pretty sloppy and she has a fisted pencil grip. She was diagnosed with visual motor problems after kindergarten and went to OT but we had to quit after insurance ran out and I paid out of my own pocket for
about 6 months. She got OT last year in first grade at school, 1x a week
for 30 minutes. She “tested out” at the end of the year and the school refuses
to continue OT. Yes I have also noticed some of the sequencing problems
you mentioned. What can be done to remediate these things?
thanks!

How has she tested on Reading Comp.? She maybe a good decoder but not comp. what she is reading.

Helen

Her reading comprehension is not as strong as her decoding skills. She reads
with flluency and expression. Her comprehension is a weakness compared
to her other reading skills.

Since the comprehension is weakness this would cause difficulty with the following the math directions. Search the BB (reading, teachering) on post for Visualizing and Verbalizing; there is a current thread on this program by Lindamood-Bell. People with low comprehension many times do not visualize what they are reading. The lack of visualization hinders their comprehension. The program Many parents have bought the book and done the remediation on their own.

My son has visual/motor and sequencing deficits. Interactive metronome was almost a cure for his sequencing issues. His math took off after that. It was a major weakness before. His motor planning showed improvement as well.

My son’s occupational therapist evaluated him and told me IM was the best thing for these types of problems. She was correct. It can be expensive but I think it is quicker than ot. Also, some have mangaged to get it covered under speech therapy or occupational therapy.
Not everyone has seen the same results we had but most have seen some improvement especially in motor planning. Someone else said it cured sequencing as well.

Alot of the things an OT does you can do at home. Work on those fine motor issues. This is what we did to deal with those as well.

-My son wore a button down shirt every day that he had to button himself.
-He butters his own toast or if the is too hard use cream cheese or soften the butter
-Put a penny in some play dough and have her find it.
-Pouring from pitchers is very important. Younger kids enjoy this. Buy whatever size container she can do herself. You may have to start buying quart or pint size milk until she works up to pouring a half gallon.
- My son does all the family sewing. He does a terrible job but it is usually darning socks and he really enjoys it.

A program for handwriting that my son’s very good OT uses is very similar to one that you can buy pretty cheap. www.callirobics.com
It works on visual motor integration because the child has to do form drawings which require visual and motor planning and integration. She also has them walk the shapes which I have seen really help my son.
All of this isn’t really that much of an issue for him anymore.
Also handwriting without tears is pretty cheap and can be used along side this.

Stephanie,

One other thing. Gymastics can be like cheap OT. They work on motor planning issues.

Helen’s post below about visualizing and verbalizing is right on target. I think it really helps with the comprehension piece.

I have done Fast Forward with my son and while it improved direction following for him, I am not sure I would recommend it in your case. My child was unable to do Earobics until after Fast Forward. Also, your child has trouble with understand written directions as well and Fast forward will do nothing for that. I suspect that the underlying issues may be more comprehension which requires visualization. Lindamood’s Visualizing and Verbalizing works on this as well as a program called Mindprime. It is a more scripted visualization program.

Beth

Thanks for the advice. I have posted about my child before and
remember that our kids have similar issues. My daughter has some
NLD like qualities in addition to the CAPD. She also has, in my opinion
mild ADD (inattentive). I am taking her in 2 months for a full blown
IQ/achievement evaluation as we have not had one since the summer
in between kind/first grade. She did not have a split between verbal/
performance IQ then, and I am curious to see if she will now.
I think you are right on the money that there is a visualization issue.
Thanks!

My OT told me gymnastics was the best thing I ever did for my daughter (b4 1:1 OT) and I did it completely unknowingly. A plus is that your daughter is young enough that she won’t suffer the stigma of not being as good as everyone else in the class.

If you are still concerned with her writing abilities, I would re-visit it with the school. Is her writing alot worse than her peers?

Leah

My daughter and several other people in the family including me have trouble with directions, especially multiple directions. She has learned to tell people specifically to tell her one step at a time. I tend to note the directions down and/or repeat them back; I also tell people to go slowly and not fluster me. By the way we and most of the other people in the family are academically advanced, and I’m a university math graduate, so having a little difficulty sorting multiple-stage directions is definitely something that can be coped with.

We also have directionality/ordering/time problems, mostly coped with.

I don’t know Interactive Metronome, but it is exactly the kind of thing that helps us — pattern and order, gradual increase in skill, and enough repetition to get things right. I think Linda F is on a good line in suggesting this to you.

Definitely work on comprehension. I find one of the best things to do is to read orally and stop every page or so (end of nearest paragraph) and talk about what is happening in the story in a natural way. This extends to science and directions on how to do an experiment — get somethiong like the old “How and Why” books, and build as many of the experiments as possible, having her read the directions aloud to you, one sentence or even one phrase at a time, and then together (her leading) you figure out what to do. This can be a lot of fun. Also it extends to math, again having her read the instructions aloud to you, one sentence or one phrase at a time, and then tell you or show you what she should do. If she still doesn’t know what to do, have her make a summary or draw a sketch or use manipulatives to show you what is going on.

CAPD sets people up for expressive and receptive languguage difficulties which will give them trouble understanding written and spoken instructions. Mine had that. Fast Forward did help a great deal, as this program has a strong language component (which Earobics which we also used lacked.) Speech and language therapy also helped. With respect to the math and sequencing issues, I did find Interactive Metronome to help with the sequencing, but mine was okay with math before that intevention because of cheaper interventions done at home.

1) Extensive drills using a combination of Calculadders (timed daily math drills) http://www.childsbooks.com/calculadders.htm and Math Wrap-Ups. http://www.homeschoolconnection.com/ov_ma_wrap-ups.php
2) Putting a 100 chart on the wall, and forcing her on a daily basis to read it forwards, backwards, by 2s, 5s, and 10s. Then forcing her to do it without the 100 chart.
3) Singapore Math used as a supplement at home. You know how the kids in Singapore regularly beat the rest of the world at math? How their learning disabled kids do better than our normal kids, and their normal kids do better than our gifted kids? Well, their math texts are a) a LOT shorter which means they get finished with them during the school year b) better written, written in child-friendly print, and written at two reading levels BELOW that of the assigned grade, so that the kid can actually read his own textbook without adult assistance, c) free of extraneous garbage on rainforest rescue etc, d) cheap, so most homes have a complete set at home e) standardized, so the entire country knows what a kid is expected to know at any given level, and f) available in English here in the U.S.. At the end of their sixth grade math curriculum, their kids are ready for Algebra I, and it is not because they are smarter than ours, it is because their government puts a little time and thought into teaching, while ours is too busy having teachers explore kids feelings about math concepts, and making sure they have the right attitude on politically correct topics. Gag, Barf, Vomit. You can buy the textbooks and workbooks (you need both) at www.singaporemath.com. I would start with their first grade books and move quickly. When I used Singapore Math it was when my kid was at the end of third, and I started with second grade second semester, and needed to do so. I had her caught up to the kids in Singapore, and her school thinking her gifted by the time fourth grade ended, and she was in a good PS at the time.

Thanks for the great info. I really appreciate it!