Question on testing, and news on Lindamood results

Terrific! But I would question the validity of using those measure so close together…maybe check with the psychologist you’re seeing for sure. The bigger question is whether your son has a language-based LD at all; if all testing is above average and improved so quickly I would wonder where his core deficit is. Fluency problems or slowness in reading is probably not enough for a diagnosis of LD; I would wonder about sending him to a LD special school if academic testing measures are above average. That’s not to say there is still a problem, but does it involve processing and using language?

My son is vastly improved but still LD, functions in reg. ed. without help but still has very low letter-word id. and RAN scores and fluency is slow. It was explained to us that this represents his core problem and while it may improve, it won’t disappear.I don’t think LD is cured with any therapies, just the individual becomes more functional.

Good question. We never did get a diagnosis - people with a language orientation do see him as mildly dyslexic„ but on paper he looks more NLDish. And then again, not. He’s not easily labeled.

I think its fair to say that he is partially remediated - after all we have had him tutored for about 10 months now, and now done this intensive work. Plus I’ve done a small amount of PG with him at home. But he’s not classicly dyslexic.
I think his lack of fluency and automaticity reveals a processing issue and I do think he is LD , but what kind, who knows.

And yes, I am flipping out today about whether we shoudl send him to a special LD school. When they tested him in november they had no doubts that he’d benefit from their program. He tests poorly in novel situation so I think some of the improvement we saw with LMB is related to a reduction in anxiety. On the other hand, if he stays at his current school it will be a struggle and he’ll require more intensive remediation. I don’t know what our other options are at this point…

Another LD school we had applied to actually rejected him today because his language/comprehension skills are too high compared to their population!

On the plus side, he clearly soaks up good quality remediation, so if we put him in the LD school he’ll probably really get his reading/writing skills in a good place which allow him to mainstream again later on.

Karen,

This is good news! I am guessing that it means he does soak up good quality remediation. This is a very good sign.

My son has become almost completely independent with his homework. It truely is the most amazing thing. His writing is still a problem but his spelling and math have taken off.

I don’t know what has caused this. I think it is a combination of things for him. The eggs he gets every morning rich in protein and omega 3, the audiblox, the video games which he is becoming quite a whiz at, or the eye exercises. Who knows for sure?
He hasn’t even started vision therapy but I think he does need it to fill in the remaining gaps.

I will say one thing. He said to me today, “Mom, you should tell all your friends to do audiblox with their kids, it really helped me with math, spelling and writing cursive.”
He really doesn’t even like doing audiblox. He always has been extremely self aware.

I am glad to hear you saw an improvement. Don’t be overly surprised if the school is reluctant to initially admit that they see an improvement from something you did on the outside. Give it a little time.

Could the problems with novel situations be motor planning issues instead of anxiety? - just sounds like my daughter and she has trouble with novel situations and is the LEAST anxious soul I know.

I would assume that they gave the “A” and then the “B” versions of the tests, which were develoiped so that pre- and post- testing could have the benefits of the same test structure withuot the problems of asking the kids the same questions. (I did, however, have one kiddo whose had enough background knowledge on one of the GORT passages that it totally skewed his score.)

Most tests, like WRMT-R and WJII have more than one form. If they used different forms of the same test, there would not be a “practice effect.” That is the official term for what you are describing. Those tests are not valid if the same form is given within that time frame.

Smart mom!

Karen,
That’s exciting news! Please let us know what the teachers and tutors say. I’m really curious.

Also, you mentioned he did a total of 68 hours of SS at LMB.
How many hours daily for how many days?

Did your son make any gains in fluency?

..

His tutor said in passing she noticed something carry over - but I don’t have details. When I read with him I could see the difference in his decoding . His fluency is so weak that the improvement is hard to see (he went from 5th to 25th %tile) but I do see it. I think his decoding is slightly more automatic of easy words, so reading them sounds more fluent. This was the only measure that was below average so we’ll start back with great leaps at some point.

His fluency is now in the range of normal too(25-75%)…you may want to revisit whomever gave you the diagnosis of LD in the first place; it is a lifelong condition, and not reversible even with such intensive treatment. Maybe your son needs a different school, but the LD schools in our area(Mass) take kids several years and many many percentiles below normal. He would fit into public school very well, every public school has a range of kids, and yes we have friends who use the public schools in NYC.

That is wonderful, Karen. I have been wondering how your son is doing!!!

68 hours is a lot!! I think that is the advantage of the intensive. At home, we have have done about 10 hours. I don’t know if my son could take the intensive though. He couldn’t last through the hour with the LMB tutor we hired last summer.

On school next year–could you do more therapy in the summer to bring him up to speed enough to stay where he is at? There are no easy answers but he does look like a kid who will mainstream.

Beth

I have known some children, who after intensive therapy, function quite normally. Their parents have gone after the underlying processing problems that interfere with functioning. Others, of course, are much improved but still def. LD. Given similar therapy, it seems to me that which outcome you get depends on the nature of deficit, with some being more amenable to therapy than others.

Given your def. of LD as a life long condition, do you think that deficits that respond to therapy are not LD? For example, my son was classified as having visual motor LD in K. Today after much therapy he is pretty normal. His RAN tests within normal limits now but I still see residual effects just the same. (he was in 8th percentile two years ago, 50% now). Is the later more LD while the former not?

Beth

There are lots of underlying problems that interfere with academic and everyday functioning; some are LD, some are depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, etc etc. My point is that a kid who is remediated to the normal range of academic functioning after just a short(not many years) period of tutoring may not fit the diagnosis of languagebased LD that private LD schools look to as their population. These are kids with very different profiles from the kids who just have weaknesses in reading, writing and math. No, it’s not all or none, there is a continuum of difficulties mediated by personality traits, family functioning, and physical skills but I think some of the folks who post here and then move off when their kids “catch up” may have kids on the mild side or kids with weaknesses that improved with maturation and training. There are not many parents of kids in middle school and high school who post here with “mild” problems, I suspect that by then the kids are either adjusted/caught up or are more clearly LD. How kids are classified by schools for services and having a diagnosis of LD are not necessarily the same; it varies from state to state. That’s great that your son has made progress….I think we overlook maturation as a contributing factor along with therapies.

We’ve seen quite a few parents come on here who have relied on the school system for remediation. These children did not mature out of their problems. The test scores are at times, sad. Bright children who have not gotten what they need.

I think maturation is a factor but one that often is prompted by appropriate therapy. Some kids are simply stalled at a certain level of development and without intervention will always be behind. My son’s optometrist told us in K that his tracking problems were developmental—they would fix themselves. I was relieved. Two years later, his eyes were no different except now he was clearly off the curve. My son is now working 1000 piece puzzles in his spare time. Two years ago this child got a 5 on the object assembly on the Wisc III.

I went for the maturation idea when my child was a preschooler, ignoring my physican sister-in-law who thought I ought to get him evaluated. He was a boy, he would catch up. I was wrong.

I do think some parents with kids with fairly severe LD are able to remediate their children. Shari, who still sometimes post on this board, comes to mind. Her daughter had motor planning, CAPD, and visual processing issues (that I can remember). She had problems across the board academically. She worked intensely with her for years. I was inspired by her story when I started working with my son. We did Fast forward which cured her daughter’s CAPD. My son’s decoding issues (receptive language) were cured with FFW but then it was obvious that he had integration problems as well, which are much more difficult to remediate, at least with our present state of knowledge. Now, prior to FFW, Shari’s daughter’s CAPD was pretty much a life long problem too. So, I think some of it isn’t severity but present state of knowledge. We know how to fix somethings, can get around other problems, while others we do not.

I thought it was interesting though that you mentioned middle school as a threshold for LD. I had been thinking last night that by then I will accept what we have with our son and stop trying to remediate his deficiencies (he is almost 10 and I have been working with him since he was 7). He has come along ways but still doesn’t fit comfortably into a regular class. His reading is still impacted by processing problems and his writing is way behind. In math, he catches on slowly but this year he is getting it. His teachers keep saying that they have worse—but I don’t find that very comforting. Still, only a couple years ago, he was the one at the bottom of the pile. In K, only the inclusion Down’s kids did as poorly as he!!!

Beth

Ironically we moved into our apartment specifically to be in a catchement of a great public school. But class size is an issue for my son, who is disorganized and inattentive. I do think a few years in a small class where he can solidify not just his reading, but also his writing, study habits etc. could save him from years of frustration and anxiety. Sure wish I had a crystal ball.

If he doesn’t get in (and we should know any day now….) we we’ll do LMB this summer and hope for the best at his present school for 4th grade. But ds himself said that given the choice he’d rather change schools , not struggle, and not have to spend all his free time doing LMB and tutoring.

I do not doubt that ds has true neurological differences, compounded by emotional responses to his problems. I also believe we have remediated some of his reading disorder, perhaps by blasting new neural pathways, perhaps by just giving him the repetition he needed. I think we have to look for a combination of core deficit “cure” through OT, IM etc, and deficit compensation. We are lucky we started early and I am starting to believe ds could not only be mainstream, but perhaps a good student by middle school. He is also blessed by having superior intelligence and there’s no doubt in my mind he this has allowed the remediation at LMB to work so well. The socratic approach they utlilize really appeals to him.

Progress isn’t linear, our son made small gains with huge effort in 3-5th grades and we were tearing out our hair, now in 6th he’s getting A;s and B’s and loves school, still spends FAR more time on homework and studying than his friends, has refused tutoring this year and we said ok, but is adjusting to life in a 750 student middle school pretty well. But looking at his spelling, organization of written work, and slowness of reading you’d know he’s still LD. A psychologist we spoke to said spelling, handwriting and writing are the hardest to remediate and I’d agree. Sounds like you’ve done well.

The best discussion about this issue I had found in “Overcoming dyslexia …” by Dale R. Jordan.

He classifies a few types of dyslexia based on problems with auditory and visual issues and based on assessment provides some idea how such individuals might perform in school.

Jordan uses term developmental dyslexia, which describes children who do have moderate problems, but with remediation can reach the low average /average performance and with added strengths in other areas can function in school with moderate difficulties. This does not mean however that they would perform like that without remediation given just time.

He gives an example of a boy with visual problems and shows his writing before and after visual therapy (3 weeks period if I recall properly). Amazing change, before the therapy this boy’s writing was virtually illegible.

I am totally with Beth, having even moderate delays in several areas creates a child that really struggles although does not have very severe problems in any of them; vide Beth’s son or my son, who really did not have severe problems, but have them in auditory, visual, motor planning, attention.

I agree with SAR that the kids in LD schools are really the ones with severe problems, but that does not mean that they will stay with these problems for ever.

I just hung up with them, and they did use the same form for the GORT, which I think casts some doubt on their test results. I do see improvements at home, but with my son’s great memory, there’s no way doing the same passage within 6 weeks didn’t help him.

With some of the other tests I can see that there wouldn’t be a practice effect necessarily because he wouldn’t know if he had the right answer or not the first time- but in this case allowing him to read the same passage is definitely going to play to his comprehension strengths. No wonder comprehension went up.

So there you have it, you have to be a little cynical of test results…

or so we believe. We believe the school we’ve identified as being a good fit for my son addresses language disibilities that manifest themselves as reading/writing problems. They are very careful in their screening , and require at least average intelligence, but I suspect its skewed to above average. There will be kids there with severe but narrow disabilities, and some like my son with multiple mild deficits. As long as the remediation works…

Sure- I think each LD school is really different and as such can remediate certain difficulties better than others.

What I refer to (and I think SAR was talking about such schools as well), are schools that have mostly children sent by school districts. In such cases, these are more likely the children with severe/multiple problems otherwise it will be hard to convince the school district to pay for such option.

I remember when Sharin said her daughter repeated 3rd grade and it gave her the opportunity to solidify the skills she gained through remediation.

I think part of the LD school agenda is to concentrate on remediation and provide the children with a bit of a break from tasks that they cannot perform well yet. This gives them a chance to improve the basics (like reading and writing skills, or math facts) without the pressure of doing regular school work in other areas (like preparing book reports, weekly spelling tests on words that they cannot decode yet, or learning vocabulary in isolation since they cannot read the story when these new words are used).

I think the fact that he wants to change school is a big key. I would do it, if he gets in. Kids’ attitude is everything.

Beth

I think most LD schools are oriented towards kids pretty severe. I spoke to a psychologist who evaluated my son’s reading last fall about private LD schools. She told me she wouldn’t recommend any for him because he wasn’t far enough behind. Some of the schools in our area are very pricey—and do not get school district referrals.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions but there are none here!!

Beth

When I researched LD schools in my area, it seemed that most of them were for children with very severe LD’s as well. Also, I was told that many of the children had emotional difficulties also (which would not be a good environment for my son).

And yet, although my son’s disabilites are are mild, I’m amazed by how debilitating even a few mild disablities can be. I think maybe the combination can make a big difference. Some are more obvious and others are less noticable.

It seems to me that good language skills and a strong memory should be very helpful in whatever academic setting you decide to put your son in. Those are very important skills. I think your son will be fine in ANY setting (private, public, etc…) you choose, because you are an observant, involved parent who will ensure that he gets whatever help or remediation he might need.

It’s been my experience that LMB regularly uses the same form of norm-referenced tests for pre and post testing. My supervisor and I questioned them about test validity last year with regards to a student who was in my resource room. We never did get a response, but if you do, I’d love to know what it is!

Thanks for your support. I’m finding this a difficult decision given the fact that private remediation seems to be working - but I think he’ll make faster progress and be happier in a school designed for kids like him.

I agree with Beth, it’s important to listen to what your son feels might be the best situation for him. Also, I can completely relate with your concern about class size and the benefit of a smaller more attentive environment. Those are two very good reasons to go with that decision. Good luck! I hope it all works out. It sounds very positive!

I have “heard” that often LMB will produce records that show outstanding improvement when it isn’t really all they say it is. (Did that make sense?)

We had the reeval done by an independent and reading comprehension went up 6 pts. in 1 year of 2x/wkly 1 hour each. I was happy with that. We’re do for another reeval in about 1-1/2 yrs.

A student with LD may have some or even a great part of their current reading problems remediated; however, they still have LD. Just because they are able to benefit from remediation, they must not be excluded from the diagnosis. Not every kid, on the other hand, fits perfectly into one diagnostic “slot.”

Just because a kid is making reading progress does not exclude him/her from the category of LD-Reading. I want to make this perfectly clear. The life-long condition that created the problem—and need for continued intensive intervetion—still exists. (Some evidence of this should be apparent in the evaluation.) Just drop the ball for a few years and “watch the LD come back.” (In reality, it never left to begin with!) We should not have to do this in order to retain either a label or its supporting services. Neither should kids with LD be penalized for the interventions provided by their parents and schools.