give me your thoughts on these results..

Well- the effect of the hearing impairment is evident in her /auditory/phonological processing. Her fluency and weak decoding are not such a surprise either- yes? I am less inclined to worry about the memory stuff- in fact I might ask her what happened on numbers reversed. That would be interesting clinical information. Auditory Working memory is a more complex task that puts greater stress on the working memory. Her memory “desktop” is okay too. I am going to speculate- because I “know” you and this story- that the weak levels of general knowledge impacts her reading comprehension- and I would lean toward leaving her in school I guess to boost that- and the reading/listening she would be doing there. Is she still using the assistive listening thing? That is tough one at her age but it would help make sure that she was hearing what was happening in class and could participate. Is she getting reading remediation now? She is at a good place for a no nonsense Orton Gillingham tutor- that would boost her auditory processing a bit too- and my guess is she would get the multisyllable words- particularly presented as a reasoning task- her reasoning skills are a strength and OG requires that.(This is a bit disjointed because I keep scrolling back up- the WJIII generates a LOT of numbers:) I guess I would leave her Patti- I think that unless your school system is abysmal the best place to acquire school related knowledge is in school- with lots of enrichment from home. She is reasonably successful there and that will make her attitude to ward working better- which you might lose if you pull her again. Sigh.. never easy is it?
Robin

I know you’ve done LmB—just because I know you. Still, her sound blending is way off. Without getting out my WJIII tech manual, I’m way concerned about reading. What interventions have you tried? Did you do straight LmB or put something with it?

To get through H.S. work, she’ll need many accommodations. Don’t forget social aspects of school—friends and the like. If you have strong social away from school, the homeschooling idea may be great. Lots of kids are lonely, though, and feel out-of-the-loop.

Visual matching deals with processing speed. 19th percentile means she’s struggling with that, too. Processing speed has a huge effective on school work production.

She won’t use the asssistive listening device as she is too embarrased even if it is ear-level and no one else sees it she still feels self conscious. I wanted to keep her in mainstream classes but they are talking about putting her in a more restricted environment and that is something I think will decrease her vocabulary. I will go back and do some more multisyllabic work. She is just so sick of doing this kind of stuff. What do you think I should do about her test taking strategies? Is there anything program that would be easy to use to teach her better skills in this area. Over and over again this pops up, she does her work and she studies she just bombs the tests. I know some of this is from misreading things but the other thing is her ADD shows up especially when taking tests.

What is fascinating is my husband tells me that he had the same problems as a kid and to this day he still struggles with misreading things…

I would definitely keep her in an inclusion room for the contents (Sci/SS). Get mods/accomms instead of another placement. By law, they must try these things before restricting the environment.

If you are gentle-spirited, take an advocate with you. Then you have a witness, too. Districts don’t mess with more restrictive placements, unless the child is disruptive. Parents will win this battle—the law and supporting cases are clearly in favor of regular classroom unless child’s behavior inrterferes or unless special teaching is needed. This just doesn’t seem so for your daughter in contents.

It does sound, however, like she needs more than school is giving or could give in Language Arts. What about a 1/2 & 1/2 placement—or 1/3 and 2/3. Afternoons at school for PE/music/Science and/or History & Science. Do LA at home to try & get under this reading. Is that do-able? Then she stays in the social stream, too.

I have known parents who have done part time attendance as homeschoolers. I broached doing this in 7th grade for language arts and they wouldn’t go for it. Probably because I was bringing her back in after the DP and doing my own thing. I will have my credentials as an SLP and Special Day Class teacher by Fall so I probably will have more respect now..

Her hearing impairment explains alot of the auditory processing problems and the way her brain works regarding visual processing of words is like her dad’s. She got the worst of both of us…. Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t the auditory, sound blending portion of the WJIII on an audiotape and not done in real time? We are so used to using our eyes when people talk to us to make up for what we have trouble auditorially processing in our head…We use closed captioning on the TV all the time and that has helped a lot with her reading, only closed captioning doesn’t have a lot of multisyllabic words on it…LOL The other day my husband was reading the RAVEN and she said, “Oh I remember this..and it was from an old cartoon/movie she had seen years ago…” She has a good auditory memory if it goes in and she makes sense of it on the first pass..

They were telling me at the meeting that she would need a lot of support and I know that but when they said smaller classes and with more services I have been there and done that with their level of service. Learning strategies is just a glorified study hall for the masses…and she has done better with the program I have suggested..but part of my problem has been finishing up my own graduate studies… Right now she only receives speech services and some RSP collaboration in English and Math and she is pulling A’s on homework and D’s on tests. This has been a problem for a long time. What she does at home and what she does on tests are two different things…Scantron’s confuse her, They have resorted to Scantrons to conserve on paper.., multiple choice, true and false—mark a or b on the scantron and if you get off one number you just screwed the whole test…. They are supposed to read the tests to her and that rarely gets done…unless I remind them and then they comply. Oh, how I wish I knew then what I know now and I feel like I still don’t know enough…

Thanks..any ideas for the test taking??

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Pattim,

Can’t you ask for her to take a test without the scantron—just circle the right answers? That would be less difficult than having them read the questions to her (not that they shouldn’t if she needs it) and perhaps is all she needs if there is a a scantron problem.

I always tell me college students they can answer the questions on the test first and then transfer. For many people, including myself, that is easier. Of course, that assumes you have enough time, which may not be the case (which why it should be an accomodation).

I feel for you and your daughter. I think my son has the worst of both of us too—overlaid with delays due to undiagnosed ear infections.

Beth

The bubble sheet accommodation is definitely something you can get in the iep. I happened to see the suggestion in a book about adhd kids for marking in the test booklet for standardized tests ( the only place we knew of that bubble sheets were used) and asked for this for my son. As I am also an add/inattentive person, I can remember failing a tennis test in PE for the exact reason of accidently skipping one question, all the rest were marked wrong. Certainly an easy thing to happen.

I have also been brainstorming about tests in class, my son also can’t show what he knows on tests. An ongoing problem. One thing I suggested to the math teacher is to cut the test in pieces and give only one at a time. (As in 3 or 4 problems at a time.) My son gets very overwhelmed when he sees a lot of writing on a page and especially if there is more than one page. Also, extend test taking time for both reg. and standardized tests. Do it in parts over time.

You all are teachers, does this sound reasonable?

Sounds reasonable to me, heck I took tests in the students with disabilities office so I could have some peace and quiet and get a handle on test anxiety. When I was tested for ADD, I passed the TOVA with flying colors but where I blew it was on the reading test…Which bugged the psych as I had passed the vocab and comprehension on the first parts with flying colors and then he figured out what I had done, skipped a bubble….once he lined it up bingo…I was fine…but it sure showed that my mind works fast…I just don’t attend to pesky details, which is what my daugthter does…LOL

What helps for text anxiety is two extra strength tylenol. And another thing I learned was to dump out everything I could remember on a blank sheet of paper before I even looked at the test and started to panic. I had all the information there to pick from after I started reading the test…and this in turn helped me so much..

The teachers in regular ed won’t let them mark on the original test, because they are recyling the exams from class to class and because of the infamous paper shortag and budget cuts in CA.

When my daughter takes tests in the RSP room she can mark on the tests..however getting them to remember her accomodations is hard…I have to moan and groan to make sure that she gets her accomodations but my kiddo always tells the RSP teacher that the teacher doesn’t allow them to mark on the tests and the RSP teacher tells her, “don’t worry about it…I’ll make another copy for him.” :-P