My daughter, age 11, 6th grade is LD in reading, writing and math. We just had her IEP. She is in a regular classroom with a regular and a spec educ teacher. Modifications are wide-range; small group instruction (spec educ kids go in project room for some activities), modified tests, 1:1 help, extended time and grading scale. She is makng progress, reading at approx 4th grade level and mosly A-B grades. One of her biggest problem areas is (and always has been) speed, she is very s l o w at task; ie, slow reading, slow getting her words down on paper, slow taking tests, slow keyboarding… Is there any type of specific remediation for this? She is tutored in reading every summer, did LMB seeing stars one summer, we work together nightly on her classroom work (to insure understanding) and homework, she’s working on a keyboarding CD rom program at home,..
Thanks,
Denise
Re: now to increase speed
Denise,
Has your daughter had an assistive technology assessment? As you know, all students on an IEP MUST be considered for AT. What did the team recommend? There are several possibilities that will allow your daughter access to the curriculum in light of her strengths and weaknesses. Remediation is one part of the process, access to the curriculum with her current level of performance using appropriate tools is another part of the educational process.
Re: now to increase speed
You ask a very good question. Greater speed with reading can be developed over time with practice. There’s no quick fix sadly. If her schoolwork permits it, I encourage students of any age to read 15/20 minutes a day in a book they enjoy and find easy. Reading easy books helps to build reading speed.
My own son was a very slow worker and for some people, that’s their natural work style. It takes them time. To cut down on the time, I let my son dictate answers and papers to me and I would type as he spoke. That helped a great deal and saved him tremendous time even while taking some of mine. In the ideal world, school would take our children’s working speeds into account when making assigments but till I get to live in that ideal world, I wanted my son not to have to devote all evening every evening to only his homework.
Good luck to you and your daughter.
Re: now to increase speed
Nancy, thank you for your response. We did have an independent neuropsych eval approx 3 years ago hoping to find any underlying issues. They came back with actually stating she wasn’t dyslexic (not severe enough problems- which I doubt), anyway, no executive function or anything else mentioned, just ‘Developmental language disorder- mild, with problems in phonics, phoneme processing, readng, and spelling’, recommended continued spec educ and tutoring -which we do. How else could we find any underlying problems?? She does have a history of petit mal seizures age 7-9, now resolved w/ meds and growth. Her neurologist said ‘she never has to come back’ after EEG’s showed no more seizures. I think, somehow the seizure disorder is related to her learning/ processing problems. Your thoughts?
Thanks!
It looks as if all of your efforts have been aimed at academic remediation. You may want to look at identifying underlying problems, in order to better decide if therapy might help with the speed issues.
NeuroNet (http://www.neuronetonline.com) works on speed issues when the problem is related to an underlying auditory processing disorder.
Interactive Metronome (http://www.interactivemetronome.com) can also be helpful with speed issues (including reading speed), especially when sensory integration issues are involved.
You may also want to check into cognitive training (such as Audiblox or PACE). These programs work on speed at a cognitive skills level. They will have less impact on speed if the child has an unaddressed auditory processing issue (such as the kind NeuroNet addresses) or sensory integration disorder (partially addressed by Interactive Metronome), but can be very helpful once underlying problems have been remediated as much as possible.
Keep in mind that there are no guarantees. Some speed issues are probably genetic in origin and unresponsive to therapy. As far as I know, there is no way to determine this except by methodically treating sensory problems first, cognitive skills delays second, and academic remediation last.
Nancy