processing disorders

Dear Mom:
As a middle school special education teacher, I understand your frustration. In the past many school districts allowed students with low skills that did not meet the 22pt. discrepancy between ability and achievement, to be put in special education based on “professional judgement” of the team of teachers, tests, admin., and parents. However, more school districts are going to stop the “professional judgement” cases and insist that a student entering into the special education program at their school test within the 22 pt. discrepancy that I discribed.

As your school district if your child could be included in special education based on “professional judgement”. If they insist that is not possible, ask them to consider placing your child in the Federal 504 program. This program is for students struggling in school for various reasons and giving them some support and modifications.

Another option may be to enter your children in the school’s after school tutoring program. Most schools do offer such a program. If not, ask your school to start one. There are most likely other parents with kids also struggling.

To help your child keep up with homework, etc., ask the teacher to keep in communication with you about your child’s work and progress. Send in a spiral notebook that your child will use for
your notes and comments to teachers and their reply to you.
It may be your child’s responsibility to take the notebook to the teacher during class to sign.

Give your children lots of love and support. Teach them how to compensate for some of their lack of skills. Teach them some organizational tricks (homework to be done placed in a plastic sleeve to keep it from getting lost in the backpack). Go over their homework with them. These youngsters must have help with homework.

Sure hope this helps. Good luck.

DR on Kauai

Gosh June,
I totally relate to your post! Especially the part about feeling guilty and wondering where you could have possibly gone “wrong” when you did everything “right.”

My son has to work sooo much harder than most other children just to stay at the very bottom of his class. Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t have a life (just constant work). And although my daughter does not have a LD, she does have a chronic illness for which there is no cure…and I just think…how could this have happened to my children? These are the kids who had great genetics, highly educated parents and were brought up on organic food! ;-)

Both my children are special and I adore them, but they both have such difficult roads in life. And right now I’m extremely worried about my son’s self-esteem. Especially because he is very bright (possibly gifted in a particular area), interested in learning and certain academics just come so much harder for him. I just pray he doesn’t give up or allow the talents he does have to be swallowed up by a growing sense of failure.

In the meantime, I just try to learn as much as possible and look for ways to try and help my son (and my daughter too). There’s a lot of great information on this site about processing disorders and various teaching strategies to help these kids.

Best of luck to you! And just remember, you’re not alone.
Take care,
Laura

Dear Parents,
I am a speech and language pathologist who has worked in the public schools and in private practice. I have worked with may children with auditory processing disorders in both settings and have found a number of programs that are effective with children.
If your children do not qualify for services in the schools you may need to consider outside help. There are several programs being marketed for auditory processing disorders which you might consider. I am familiar with two intensive computer based programs, both of which I have had marked success. Both of these programs create new neuropathways in the brain. One is the Fast ForWord family of programs which addresses auditory processing, language development and reading. It has been used with a large population of varying abilities and disabilities, from autism and Down Syndrome to gifted populations. You can get more information on this by going to www.scilearn.com.
Another training program is Interactive Metronome. This one improves motor planning, sequencing and timing needed for all kinds of learning. Improvement has been noted in ADD/ADHD, auditory processing, language development, some academics, motor skills, etc. You can get more information by going to www.interactivemetronome.com.
It should be noted that these programs are not inexpensive but the average improvement is 1-3 years gains in just 4-8 weeks for Fast ForWord and 18 months to 3 years improvement in just 3-5 weeks of training with IM and when you consider the cost and time required for conventional therapy that has to be done for years it is not expensive.
Both of the above programs are being offered in some school districts across the nation.
Good luck. Your children are fortunate to have you to advocate for them.
MV

Hi June,
Our 9.5 year old daughter has central auditory processing weaknesses (big time) and other visual processing issues. With our independent testing results our daughter did qualify for services but not the type recommended by the outside testers. For example the doctor who assessed Emma for CAP recommended a program called Fast Forward. The school district would not consider it. Well my husband and I went for it. I had a sabbatical for the summer (from my job teaching at a local university) and Emma and I did an intense 6-weeks. She made gains. However, Emma’s timing was way off, so the following summer we did Interactive Metronome. This year Emma is at a special school and making wonderful gains.

Why am I describing this? My advice is to try and work with the schools but talk with your doctors and see what might also help. We have spend Emma’s college fund in these activities. But this fall she was reading at the 7 percentile on the Gray’s Silent Reading. A Feb. re-test has her at the 58 percentile. OUr path has been finding out what is available and then going for it even though the our public school says no.

Also I am LD and the guilt that I gave this to my child was overwhelming. I deal with that issue one day at a time and try to keep up with all the wonderful things happening in the world of research to assist our daughter. Good luck and take care of yourself.

Thank You so much for your comments and support it is great to have input from others with the struggle.Thanks and keep on pushing
June Moyer+

My son is almost eight, and he was tested and has been diagnosed with auditory processing problem. I am not sure whether it is in addition to or because of the processing problem that he had speech delay. He could not make sentences until he was about four; he knew, and said many words but could not put the words together to make sentences. He has been receiving speech therapy since he was three and half which has helped him a lot, but he is still not where he should be; he sometimes forgets words or uses the wrong tense, or the words are in the wrong order in the sentence. When he was in kindergarten he was tested, and school started providing him with Occupation therapy as well speech because his fine motor skills were weak; writing was like torture to him. Now he is in second grade, and he spends half of the day in special day class, and continues to receive speech, & O/T. He is weak academically in every aspect; reading, writing, math, spelling, and this has affected his self esteem as well, so we are looking for a psychologist to help him emotionally. He definitely has a problem with his short term memory; we can spend a week writing sentences or doing word search for his spelling words, and yet when he takes the test at the end of the week, he might have spelled only one or two of the 10 words. Also, he still has to sound letters in order to read unless he has memorized the word; this slows him down quite a bit, and by the end of the sentence he can’t remember what he has read. School is a struggle, and has pushed him to the point that he is now so afraid of failing that he won’t even try sports or a new experience.
A friend of mine told me about a program called neuropathways; which is like biofeedback. Basically, they hook up the person with electrodes, and they can see their own brain waves, and can alter it. They claim that within 10 to 20 sessions, they can retrain a child with learning disabilities. Have you heard of such thing? Their web site is www.neuropathways.com. Is this legit? My friend swears by it, and claims that her daughter became calm, her academics improved, her handwriting, and spelling were much improved. Do you think I should look into this?
The sad thing is that my daughter who is now 13 also had and still has to some degree auditory processing problems; however, hers were not as severe, and also unlike my son she is a fighter and does not give up. She is doing beautifully now, but I can’t forget the tough times I went through with her. Her disability has left her with a low self esteem as well even though she is now doing very well at school. I managed to finally convince her to see a phsycologist to help her, and it is going very well but very expensive.

Sorry for my complaining, but it is sometimes overwhelimg to work full time, and then have to deal with all these issues. Any help or suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks for listening.

Hi Mitra,
I haven’t heard of Neuropathways, but I’ve read quite a lot about PACE and AudiBlox and they sound like good programs, although I’m not certain if they are good for CAPD. You’d have to research that. My son also has some short term memory difficulties, but he has been improving a little (I constantly talk to him, ask him questions, actively work with him on memory). I have him listen to books on tape every night as he goes to bed. I’ve been thinking of ordering Brainbuilder which is a program for building digit span (which is suppose to help with short term memory).

I don’t know too much about all the programs available, but before you choose a program I think it’s good to do as much research as possible. Ask on these bulletin boards too. There’s lots of good advice.

A book that is suppose to be really good is “When the Brain Can’t Hear.” I’m not sure the author, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to find.

Good luck to you

Your son sounds very similar to mine except mine is a year older and doing much better now due to lots of therapy. It has been and still is a long road.

First, has your son been evaluated by an audiologist trained in central auditory processing disorders in children? There is a difference between being diagnosed with auditory processing problems by a speech and language therapist and an audiologist. This will give a starting point—different types of problems require different therapies. Delays in speech are very common with auditory processing disorders and are often the first indication that something is wrong. My own son was classified as speech impaired (preschool special education) at age 4 and diagnosed as having CAPD at age 7.

The book the other poster recommended is really wonderful. The author tells of her search to find help for her son—it is both informative as well as compelling.

My son reads close to grade level now and is mainstreamed for all subjects but language arts. His writing however is at a first grade level. He has integration issues and according to audiologist he sees this is impacting his ability to write. He still has trouble with new math concepts—fractions this year but is getting a B in a regular classroom. He was pulled out for first grade and second.

We found that the school was really inadequate to deal with his severity of problems and have pursued most therapy on our own. I have not heard of the particular program you mention–and I think I know most the programs on the market at this point!!! Some that are useful for APD kids are Fast Forward, EArobics, Interactive Metronome, PACE, LIPS, various sound therapies like The Listening Program, Balametrics, and Neuronet therapy.

We have found with our son that it has been critical to address the underlying sensory motor deficits. We have had the most success with Neuronet therapy—an interdisciplinary therapy that focuses on the vestibular system.
We have done FFW with major improvements in receptive langauge and memory, The Listening program which improved the vestibular system, fine motor skills, ability to learn in general, PACE—improvements in visual processing but generally not successful–we did it before the deficits on the sensory motor level were adequately remedied. We will soon start Interactive Metronome.

Beth

I agree that formula based determinations are very difficult to overcome, but you should read The Misunderstood Child, by Larry Silver, M.D. We devoured this book before our child’s assessment meeting and found the information so helpful at being able to advocate for our child. In addition we brought along an outside psychologist that could say a thing or two. His presence helped a lot even though we did most of the advocating. Dr. Silver’s book gave us the confidence to interpret the test result s and then to speak confidently. In addition our outside psychologist was able to state that discrepancy determinations do not always meet the federal definition. The county people then had to agree that the federal regulations require that professional judgment play a part. Interestingly some disorders that impact the class (such as ADHD) do not have normed scores and so it seems some disorders are receiving a more strict attention.
It was suggested to us to get a three ring binder and a hole punch and to place our son’s papers in the binder. When an evaluator would insist that he was at the bottom of average, so still average and not needing assistance, we could open the book and say 1) this does not measure up to the school standards 2) the other students can do this 3) look at the handwriting, the lack of description, the poor language, the spelling, etc. It worked! The school is listening and our child with processing problems (in addition to other things) received an FM personal receiver that he wears (it is a head phone) and the teacher wears a microphone so that her voice is amplified. So far so good. If you honestly believe that your children require assistance and the school has determined otherwise, do not be afraid to send a written request for a due process hearing. You are entitled under federal law to request this and the schools are required to provide your children a free and appropriate education.
Good luck to you

Yes, “When the Brain Can’t Hear” is an awesome book. I loved it. Our 7-year-old has auditory processing problems and it was such a relief to read
about this disorder in depth.

I urge you to read the book entitled THEY CAN BUT THEY DON’T
by Jerome H. Bruns, D.A. Ed for starters. See if your children fall into this category.
Have they seen or been evaluated by a speech pathologist…for language. Possibly their processing weakness could fall under a SP/LANG category.
Do you have any type of remedial programs in your school…Title? Peer tutoring, etc.?
Have you used graphic organizers?
Dwell on their strengths…every child has some.

The best web site I have found on all types of processing difficulties is www.ldinfo.com

Some of these retraining programs sound wonderful, but does it work with older adolescents who brain is almost completely developed. My daughter is 17 and has severe CAPD, that I had to move her to a private school were the class sizes are between 8-10. This has make all the difference.

I always tend to blab on about this but it is really crutial to identify where your kids are having their difficulty. Labeling a child with a processing disorder is all nice and good but why do they have the processing disorder. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming a grossly inadequate system that hasn’t changed in years.

I grew up with LD and had alot of difficulty in school. My label was a visual spatial deficit, that I was poorly organised and had a very poor attention span. The appraoches used by special ed really only addressed what they were seeing, not what was occuring in my head. My real difficulties were that I couldn’t block out background noise, organise my thoughts/memories, had a lot of difficulty developing concepts and I was very distractible.

I always harp on about this too but it is really improtant to help your child to analyse where specifically their difficulties and strengths are. I found this worked best usually when I was doing a task (I.e. reading, cooking, trying to learn something new). It may be hard for your kids to vocalise as well due to their age and the way they are thinking is normal to them so finding their difficulties may require some help as well.

You mentioned processing disorders. Which way do your children learn best, aer they auditory, visual, experiencal learners, etc. There is excellent software available out there, 1 website I know about is www.microsceince.on.ca. Programs such as voice activated software that will type what a child says into a microphone into a word program (we’ll all probably be using this software in about 5 years anyways), Kurswell 3000 that reads and highlights words of books, etc that have been scanned into the program (I think there is cheaper software out there), etc. I saw these programs used at a conference and was amased by how much they would help a child with LD.

There was something discovered in the 50’s called sensory integration dysfunction(SID) by an occupational therapist. I definitely think this was one of the underlying causes to my LD since I perform so much better if I exercise 3 - 4x’s per week. I would explain the disorder but it is really technical,a good book about it is called “The Out-of-Sync Child” by Jane Ayres, I believe (discoverer of SID).

Martial Arts and lifting weights helped me alot as they are more individual sports and children don’t have to worry about performance in being part of a team. I think any individual sports or group sports kids can be a part of are great to help a kids self esteem. You may want to look into allergies as well, alot of my son’s difficulties stemmed from an allergy to milk. Consulting with a hmoeopathic doctor is a good step (ours helped our son alot) as they treat the causes to problems vs the symptoms.

I know about guilt, my son inherited LD from me. No one was better at pointing that me except maybe for the doctor who diagnosed him. He explained he had LD (expessive language disorder) and looked at me and said in an accusing tone,”We know where he got that from, don’t we.” After that I was really upset until I realised my son doesn’t have the time for me to be guilty. I’ll have plenty of time after he’s grown up and successful.

Worrying about the future is hard, none of really knows what it holds. Being open with your kids will help alot and making sure they feel good about themselves. I did have trouble with drugs and alcohal as a youth but I also grew up with an abusive father and a mother with a drinking problem, so that probably didn’t help. I usually tell parents this as well to help them feel better and I guess me about my son’s future.I grew up with lots of problems with learning, etc and I graduated from College and have some University certifications. I work in a neurobehavioral program in a hospital as a rehabilitation therapist and I work in a facility for children with psychiatric challenges.

I’m sure your kids will be OK with such a caring mother. Don’t blame yourself, it’s not your fault or your kids, for some of us its just reality.

All the best,

Brad

Brad - Great stuff again, as always.

Sensory Integration therapy really helped my daughter. She has global LDs AND significant processing delays in ALL areas and went to SI OT for about 14-16 months. She went from not being able to write, to a child who can write as well as any other child in the class. Ability to transfer from the board improved, as well as coordination. Her motor planning and SI are both in the high average range now (they were hardly on the graph before). I firmly believe that part of this was developmental; however, I don’t think she would have improved this well in a year without the intervention. My evaluator suggested the SI OT b/c her gaps between SS and IQ were up to 36 pts. so she though SI was possibly playing a part.

I remind her already (9 yo) that her children will probably have some problems (she’s adopted) and we also live in the trenches of Reality. I agree with your statement that children don’t have time for a parent to live in guilt - same for denial - I could deny all I wanted, but my child still couldn’t Read! Knowledge is power and the more we learn and teach or children the more equipped they will be. One of my favorite comments from my daughter is “Mom, just because you don’t know the answer FIRST, doesn’t mean you don’t know the answer.

I am in the process of reading “educational care” by Mel levine. It does a fabulous job of describing the various things that have to be working properly for children to learn to read, write , make friends etc. He doesn’t use labels, he just describes how these processes can break down and how you might think about addressing the deficits. Its helped me organize my thoughts about my son’s confusing array of “symptoms”.

Leah,
Hi! My name is Missy and our son has FINALLY been diagnosed with several learning disabilities. He also has significant problems with processing information in many ways. Even when we are trying to explain something that we believe to be quite “simple”, he just cannot understand. gets frustrating to all involvved.. especially his older sister that jsut believe he isn’t trying hard enough, but we know he is. What is Sensory Integration Therapy? Sounds like it helped and is still helping your daughter. Our son is in the 7th grade and I am on a major mission to make his life a little easier for him … and us. let me know. Thanks, Missy

I too have a son who suffers from several processing disorders, he is now 15, almost 16. He has never seen a psychologist, never had much support, was labelled lazy, couldn’t be bothered etc. I had to do something for him. We are in England, and there is really no-one here who wanted to know. I ‘surfed’ the net and found a doctor in cincinatti Dr Robert Keith. (Tartan Products) He is a star! He encouraged me, gave me a place to look, and I was able to get my son tested at Manchester University..it’s about 40 miles from here. He was the first person tested there for processing disorders, (auditory) and once his teachers were told of his disability, they took it all on board and he has made a huge improvement. He also suffers from visual stress (irlen syndrome). We only found all this out 18 months ago. He is a different person!!!!!!!!!! His life is changed so much, HE has changed so much! He wants to study forensic science and history at 6th form college next year, and go on to university to study forensic science and archaeology. Good luck to all you out there who are experiencing difficulties getting help for your children. By the way, I am a teacher of SEN children with 16 years SEN experience, 22 years a teacher…my son’s school told me I was an overprotective mother and was making excuses for him! i just ignored them and continued searching for answers. Remember, educational testing only tests for educational difficulties. Keep searching, keep notes on your observations of your children and look for patterns. This always helps. Good Luck, and Happy New Year. Please ask if you have any questions.