Need opinions on which way to go....

http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/capd/michael.html

Hello Suzi, my son has severe CAPD / DAS and we have been dealing with it for years. Read the book “When the Brain Can’t Hear” and it will help you understand the different APD’s. There’s also “Like Sound Through Water” a mothers personal story with her child and capd. Before you seek treatment know what the disability is, it will save you money, time & flustration.
We started preK in addressing “Beamers” disabilities, yes, start early on finding the source of the problem. I started at school / county level and we are currently seeking treatment for him at a local teaching university.

The reading expectations to be on grade level in K are low so it is very unusual for a child to receive a diagnosis of LD at that age. The skills that go into reading can be tested by a competent speech and language therapist. That is what I would do—have her phonological processing, receptive language, auditory processing, word finding skills, ect. tested. The school can even do that. My son had the CELP, PAT, and Test of Word Finding done through the school. You need to request it in writing.

I think it also is reasonable to assume that she will have difficulties and approach it that way. I would start by purchasing the program Earobics which works on auditory processing. Get yourself a copy of Reading Reflex which will help you teach her to read. If she is diagnosed with CAPD, you might also consider doing sound therapy. We did The Listening Program in third grade (son with CAPD) and I wish we had done it much sooner. I know others whose children couldn’t do Earobics until they had done sound therapy.

Beth

and she seems to be able to do most of it except she has a hard time with the frogs on the log game where they have to match like sounding words. There is another part about ending sounds that she absolutely hates doing too. I can’t even get her to do that one very often.

I also just bought Reading Reflex, but haven’t had the time to sit down and read it. I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens with our evaluation next week and the ARD meeting and see if I need to do something extra with her over the summer. Thanks for your advice!!

Suzi

If you have not already done so, I would feel out the special ed administrator and figure out what your obstacles are going to be. They hold the keys for school intervention.

I have read many, many posts here (and have experienced this myself with my boys) that depending on your school’s beliefs on special education, they may try to delay your search for a disability at this young age.

You might get the suggestion to let her repeat first grade (or even Kindergarten). Its called the wait and fail method. There are two camps when it comes to diagnosis before 2nd grade. There is the belief that testing before this time is invalid because children develop and progress at different levels during this time in their lives.

Many audiologists will not test for CAPD before age 7 either. You might want to check that too.

It all comes down to how much you want the school involved. If you are not concerned with what they are willing to accept and how much service she will get during the school day, then go for it and remediate on your own.

But, in my experience, if you think that the school will accept all of this with open arms, you might be in for a surprise.

Also, LMB is the better choice for LDs.

Best wishes.

the school district has been really great working with us. Her SLP (who is also a diagnostician) is a friend of mine and she has been willing to help me out alot. She is the one who suggested screening, she is the one who screened and suggested a full evaluation. The SLP and the audiologist both know she is 6 1/2.

What I do know is that she will not get alot of one on one attention. ST now is just 2x a week for 30 minutes and there are 3 kids in the class. I know the school district will not splurge for FFW or any other kind of program. The SLP says she has similar things she can do, but like I’ve already said, what good does it do a couple of times a week for a few minutes? Also, if they think she is dyslexic, the school district does not provide any help until 2nd grade.

If my dd does have CAPD, it does seem mild. I’m wondering if LMB would be worth a shot over the summer to really help her with phonemic awareness. I would really like to prevent her from getting so far behind.

Suzi

I’m in Dallas too. I hear from several people that Scottish Rite is a good place to go and the big selling point is that everything they do is free. Is that still true? I would have an eval done there when your name comes up if I were you. What can it hurt, even if you have already had an eval done somewhere else.

I had my son evaluated at an LD private school. There are several in Dallas and the cost ranges from $800-1200. I also talked to the LMB clinic. Their eval is about $550, I think. Their program was about $45/hour and they wanted my son 3 hours a day, M-F - during the school day, for 4-6 months. Since mine is in public school I couldn’t really do that with attendance requirements. She said most of their clients are in private school or are homeschooled where it’s okay to miss 3 hours a day.

You can always do an eval with the public school if you haven’t done that yet. Send a certified letter requesting a complete eval and they have so many days to do it. Not sure how the summer plays into the counting though. It may be 6-9 months before that whole process is done….request, summer, eval, report, ARD, etc. Someone else may know about the IDEA legalities. I have not done a school eval except for speech.

The Reading Reflex Book is good and I know there is one Reading Reflex tutor in Dallas. We used her one summer. (Didn’t really help bec my son was not medicated at the time.) I decided to move him to an LD school for next year though….just get everything in one place, during the school day instead of trying to piece this and that together.

but claims not to ever charge a patient what the insurance company won’t pay. I think they also encourage donations. Thanks for your advice. This is so overwhelming and confusing. I’m a mom who wants action now!

Suzi

I have a youngish Kindergartener who was very late to babble due to chronic untreated ear infections, and also did the early speech therapy thing. She also had trouble with segmenting. She couldn’t handle Earobics, so I made her do Fast Forward in PK (age 4) and then followed up with the first half of Reading Reflex, (through th, ch, ck, sh), and then did Bob Books. She’s the best reader and speller in her class, even though she is the youngest, and she has no trouble decoding three syllable words now.

My son also read the kinder exit book okay (“passed”), but when 1st grade started the 1st grade Fall assessment book was A LOT harder than the kinder exit book. It was a big jump in difficulty. My son could not read that book. So he went from being on track at the end of kinder to immediately behind when 1st grade started. He never caught up. He did not “pass” the 1st grade exit book and was sent to summer school where I saw no improvement at all. (Actually there was no feedback, but I could tell at home it wasn’t helping.) Definately do something over the summer that allows you to track progress.

RE: ” I would have an eval done there when your name comes up if I were you. What can it hurt, even if you have already had an eval done somewhere else.”

Depending on the nature and type of testing, you cannot repeat certain tests for a certain period of time, as prior exposure can skew the results (yes, apparently even for our kids with memory issues!). I’m no expert here, but do recall being told to be careful who did the testing for our daughter (where I am, the public system’s testing was notoriously inconsistent and sometimes incompetent; we chose to pay for private, which I realize not everyone can do.)

So, if you have had one eval done, it wouldn’t matter if you had an offer of free services, it might not be practical to use them because of prior testing.

Any experts hear feel free to chime in.

Just FYI, Lots of kids have trouble with the frogs — for starters, you’re supposed to click on the one that *doesn’t* rhyme, when you’re listening for a “rhyme.”

Hi, Suzi,

Let me tell you about what happened with my child. We had APD testing and a full reading evaluation in October of first grade at a university. To make a long story short, she did have APD, but the reading testing showed little deficits if a child can read AT ALL at the end of kindergarten. The chidl would bascially have to not know the letters of the alphabet and be a complete non-reader to score low enough to be called dyslexic at the end of K. As Beth or someone already suggested, if you can get the SLP to give a test such as the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, then you will have an idea of the problems. I had my child repeat first grade this year for several reasons (she was the youngest child in the other class). She has done better but still is a little low in reading. We are having another private reading eval in a little over a week. Truthfully, there is nothing to lose by going ahead and doing the Earobics and Reading Reflex heavily over the summer. But for most kids, testing at the end of K is not going to result in a LD diagnosis. You will have a better view if you have the testing at mid-first grade and end of first might even be better. HOWEVER, please note that I do not suggest waiting for intervention until then. Be proactive and do Earobics and Reading Reflex (which is what I do with my special ed. students anyway). Then next spring if she is still not quite up to level you can spend the $550 or so at Lindamood Bell for their testing or do the Scottish Rite testing. I have heard the Scottish Rite remediation program is slow and boring, so I’d probably not take them up on that part of the offer.

Janis

sounds logical to me! I think I will just work over the summer with her. I’ve ordered some easy reader books and learning games to play. I’ll continue to do earobics with her. Can I ask another question. Do you know what the difference is between the Earobics 1st (which was up to 7) and 2nd (7+). She is really pretty bored with the majority of Earobics 1. I’m having a hard time getting her to want to play the games. She does most of it with no problem w/ the exception of the rhyming one. Would it be of benefit to go ahead and buy #2 and work with her on those. Can I work with her on harder parts of #2 and combine it with couple one part of #1? Thanks!!

Suzi

Suzi,

I actually have the Earobics 2 cd at school but have not started any child on it yet. But I see no reason at all not to go ahead and install #2 and still work on the frog game on number one. I encourage children to keep repeating the items until they get it on that one. Eventually, it just clicks if you practice consistently. But that does seem to be the hardest game for many kids. The clown game is hard for some as well. The train game is hard when the medial sounds must be discriminated. That’s great if she’s finished with all those games! You may not need to be overly worried about her reading if she has found those games to be easy. It indicates her phonemic awareness is not terribly delayed.

Janis

Hi suzi: 6 does sound kind of little…..here (we live in the woods though) the university wouldn’t do a CAPD til my kiddo was 8. ANYWAY- yo’re the mom and know when something is awry. lucky to have scottish rite facility.
re: Lindamood Bell; Our experience is that they are the real mcCoy- V $$$ (what better thing to spend your $$$ on though)- quite stellar gains in reading- but not so with spelling, speech. speech though much better with 10 year old (some r trouble and v. lazy wth family). LMB testing: $500- your insurance MIGHT pay
5 hours a day, 5 days a week, 5 weeks, $65/hour.
I dunno about sylvan.
good luk!suzi wrote:
>
> My 6 y.o. kindergartner is being evaluated next week for
> CAPD. I’m almost certain she will receive a CAPD diagnosis.
> Her SLP did a Scan-C test in which she only got about 1/2 the
> answers correct on 2 sections, then couldn’t do the 3rd at
> all. We are seeing someone in the audiology department at
> Dallas Children’s Hospital and then Dr. Brinksi afterward.
>
> My pediatrician has urged us to go have complete testing done
> for LD through Scotish Rite in Dallas. We have sent in the
> application. I do not have an appointment yet, but I am
> told it is a 6 to 9 month wait. This really bothers me as
> this will put her well into first grade if she has a LD other
> than CAPD. I really hate waiting until 1/2 of first grade
> is nearly over with to be able to fully help her if she needs
> it.
>
> By the way, she is reading in Kindergarten, but it is very
> slow going and she is not always consistent with applying
> phonics rules. I think she struggles. Half way through K,
> her teacher told us that she was having a hard time hearing
> ending sounds in words…thus the SLP screening for CAPD.
> The SLP is also screening her for phonemic awareness, however
> I don’t have those results yet. Her teacher does expect her
> to be able to read the exit book for kindergarten. She was
> recently tested for IQ and was above average. She has also
> been in speech therapy since she was 3. Her SLP fully
> expected her to graduate from ST this year. She was so
> wrong. My daughter hit a brick wall with ST this year and
> has not progressed at all. She actually regressed a bit.
>
> Now I’m considering going to someplace more private like
> LindaMood Bell or Sylvan Learning Center etc. How
> expensive is testing and treatment at LMB? Would you as a
> parent or educator want to see her tested sooner than 1/2 way
> through 1st grade? I really want to be proactive and on top
> of this, however, I also don’t want to over react to the
> situation. I would love any words of wisdoms from those who
> have been there, done that! Thanks in advance!!
>
> Suzi

Now my son who was really bad at most of Earobics could do frogs…..

Beth

P.S. Definitely do not do Sylvan. Either Phono-Graphix or Lindamood-Bell and some others are good.

Janis