LD or Laziness?

What seems to be “laziness” may really be exhaustion.

There is a study, done at the University of Washington
that shows dyslexic children work five times as hard as
normal children doing the same work. Talk about tired!

As an example, imagine yourself having a couple years
of a foreign language then being asked to read a complicated
text and then doing a long test with only your few years
of study of that language. Makes your head hurt? ;-)

But the kids don’t know they are exhausted, they think
they are dumb and they are so tired of feeling dumb.

What I did for my 6th grade dyslexic son was turn all four
social studies chapters into a comic book. I followed the
clues the text gave (high lighted vocabulary words and end
of chapter questions). I turned the text into facts and drew
lots and lots of pictures, interjecting humor into a lot of them.
At times I asked that the test be sent home to be
done as an open book test. We used the comic book instead of
the text.

Good books to read are You, Your Child and Special Education
by Barbara Coyne Cutler and A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine MD.
They should help you in your journey.

good luck!
Anne

Hello AA,

Really interesting to read your post, thanks for your insight.
I’m going to look for the book you mentioned!

Anne

Anne, AA, and Margo,
I totaly agree with of you. I am dylexic and ADHD. I am not lazy. I am 45 yr. old and I decided to go to college. It took me 5 hrs. to do the reading and writing part of the TASP we have to take to get into college in Texas. Other people were finished in half the time. I was exhasted. I was so tired, I did not want to finish. I had to read and re-read so much. I passed by the skin of my teeth! I didn’t even have time to do the math part. There was no way I could have done the math even if I had 10 hours. The entire thing was too much!

Margo, please do not make the same mistake I did with my son. I could not understand why he could not find the answers to questions. Homework almost became a war zone. We would both be in tears. I feel so bad now. My son is dyslexic with a high order written and expressive disorder. I read up about dyslexia, and everthing else and the understanding came along with the fact that I realized I was dyslexic too. I was tested because I wanted longer time for testing. I knew I needed it after it took so much time for me to do the TASP test. I’m taking classes now and the tears are coming from me. I cannot understand math problems and percents. One minute I do and the next I don’t. I am getting paid back, a tear for a tear. Does anybody have a solution comic or otherwise, for helping me understand percents and word problems? If I were a young child in school and I didn’t want to do this math (because I don’t understand it) some may just call me lazy. Come to think of it they probably did.

Anne I like the way you help your child study with comic book style. I think I’ll try that approach with my son.. As of right now, IF I can get the teachers to send home notes before a test, I type up a practice test for my son to take. The problem is, even though the teacher has been told to send home notes, and it is in his IEP file to send notes for studying, she thinks she is going to fix his hand writing, so she still makes him copy notes from the overhead. He gets in a hurry, before she changes sheets. I cannot read his notes. It takes me a long time to read through his notes and type up the practice test (I do use the book some). I guess I’ll have to speak up again about the notes before the next test.
Shannon

Anne,

Your point was so aptly put! Can you tell me anthing more about this study, ie the name or how I might be able to find it?

I know teachers who have students make their own commic strips of thier social studies reading.

Hello Katy,

Here is a web site that reports on the study about hard
working dyslexic people -
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s57074.htm

Writing is my job and my joy so making the comic
books is fun and easy.
Thank goodness all my kids are good in math because
that would be a whole different story.

Hello Shannon,

I know how you feel. If my college roomie wasn’t a
math major I would have never gotten past Algebra 101.
Just this past weekend I was making change at a fund raising
booth. Someone gave me a hundred dollar bill and I broke out
in a cold sweat! I counted it out three times to myself and prayed
I was getting it right.

I found this page, maybe it can help
http://www.dyscalculia.org/

Anne - these pages came via Google.com, my favorite search
engine.

Margo,

People with learning disabilities are so incredibly often mistaken for being lazy when often that is the farthest thing from the truth. I’ll bet if you can find a time when things are calm to ask your daughter if she thinks she’s doing her best, you’ll get an honest answer what ever it is. Find a way of asking the question that won’t put her on the defensive.

Good luck.

Lazy????? Yes my daughter has now been accused by her teacher of being lazy, deceitful, and any number of other labels. Interestingly enough, she was the one to really push for testing of my daughter. After two months of testing, the school cam back and said that she had a normal…low but normal IQ and that she didn’t qualify for any help. At first the teacher agreed with me and questioned the testing. The testing was done by a school psycologist that had never tested childern on her own before. (Just out of graduate school) In her written evaluation she clearly stated that she gave my daughter extra time, revisited many of the questions and in her own words, “prodded her along.” It was only after the evaluation was written did the psyc. talk to me about Mary’s high level of anxiety and frustation. Almost every question required prodding to get an answer and many times she simply refused to answer. At the meeting with the school staff it was clear to all that the psyc. had reached her own limits of frustration with the testing. I knew going into the testing that Mary is so tired of being wrong that she doesn’t let anyone know…I find her in her room at night trying to read by her night light or with a flashlight under the covers…but she won’t read in school and I have to struggle to read with her at night. This is not a lazy child. I was helping her with a money/making change exercise and asked her to write down fifteen cents….she wrote 51 and then looked at me blankly when I told her that she had it backwards… I know that she has some very serious problems…I am working with my own pediatrician to get her a private practive consult….Children’s Hospital in Seattle has a 14 month wait time. I don’t doubt that she has an average IQ….but every lesson for her is like a track race with a thousand hurdles. The icing on the cake came yesterday when the teacher called me and told me that she thought that Mary was LAZY….With an average IQ there was not reason why she was not doing better…Meanwhile, she continues to suffer from very high levels of anzxiety…The teacher just took the eazy way out of responsibility….unfortunately, my daughter doesn’t have that option. In second grade now….it it only going to get harder and harder for her. I wish everyone the best of luck….LAZY…….if they only knew!!!!!!!!!!!

I took my son, (live in eastern WA) to a private
neuropsychologist. Called one week, got in the next.

Can you do this?
14 months seems a long time to wait for Children’s.

Our testing cost $1200 but insurance paid for it.

She sure sounds dyslexic to me.

The way she is being treated - I think I would withdraw
her from school and let her heal.
If you are in the Seattle area there are some private
programs available.
There is even a state parents association.
Forget what it is as it only seems to have resourses on
the right side of the state.
You can email if you want — [email protected]

Anne

I’m always surprised by the conceptual logic of laziness. Unfortunately it still exists as one of those investigation ending summations “Your child is lazy.” as if there were a researched body of evidence and defined characteristics for it. Usually it means someone has given up searching, or they’ve run out of answers. But it almost universally means this phase of the investigation is over. Consider the concept that any child would for no reason willingly devise a complicated strategy of academic anomalies that alienates them from their family, denies them achieving success and estranges them from their peers, causes them untold hours of suffering and benefits them nothing, and that they can cleverly and consistently do this from the primary grades throughout their education. Who can believe the full and complete explanation of this phenomenon is the single word lazy? Who believes that a child, or anyone for that matter, just doesn’t want to learn? There is alot of good, hard research about learning and learning disabilities. There is more published every quarter. Unfortunately in education there is a serious gap between theory and practice, and as far as I know there are no absolute answers.
Sons and daughters are fully complicated people, as a parent you are raising a human being. Education imparts information and skills to students. There are always more students. This sets up a dynamic of difference wherein neither the parents nor the educators may be dealing in bad faith, they just have different ends in mind and different frustrations. One of the strengths and weaknesses of education is that it begins all over again every Fall. Be patient and firm, study and share, you will have to become the best arbitor of your child’s education until they can do that themselves. Lower your expectations of educators as having the kind of power over everything that they once seemed to have when you were a child. If they knew exactly what to do, they would do it. But if you can arrange for you and the teachers and the child to work together to address an educational issue…you’ve got a good chance for success. Of skills your child, or any child, will need to have in order to succeed, how to cooperate to solve problems is worth more than any diagnosis. Be optimistic and take care of yourself. DEZ

Thank you for all of your responses. I still wonder if I’ll ever know. My daughter’s social life has improved significantly this year, so I may have difficulty keeping the ED label after next year. I’m going to try, though. My reason for getting that label (not my choice!) was so that I could get my daughter help with reading in the content areas and writing.

Margo

Dear Elizabeth:

I teach special ed. in Missouri and I know that procedures vary somewhat from state to state, but under IDEA of 1997 you have certain rights under federal law. One of those rights is to have an independent evaluation (one outside the school district) at public expense if you disagree with evaluation results. They must also provide information about where you can have this done if you request it. The school district can initiate a hearing to present a case that its results are valid and appropriate rather than pay for another evaluation, however, it would be mediated by people outside of the district so you should receive a more impartial review of the evaluation. These rights, and others, are spelled out in Procedural Safeguards that should have been provided at the time of the evaluation. (You can also request an additional copy.) My advice to you is to read them, know them, and assert them. You are your child’s most important advocate.
Although there are many knowledgeable, caring professionals in education, there remains a good deal of ignorance concerning children’s exceptionality. I have seen too often well-meaning teachers make assumptions about children that are not 100% correct. The most devastating assumption is that kids aren’t successful because they don’t want to be successful. When kids are berated for their lack of progress rather than encouraged and applauded for their accomplishments, they very often give up and conclude there isn’t any point because they will never do it well enough anyway. They quit trying. So don’t you quit. Keep in there fighting for your child.

I thought that sounded like a poem that Ennis Cosby might have
written. I went to the website and didn’t find it but I found this -

Patience
How do I learn?
    Some things just come naturally, but
some things never turn my way when I need them to.
    God, how long does it last?
Slow. Slow. Slowly time barely passes.
    Sometimes when I’m not looking, I swear it stops.
Like a rock.
How do I learn?
    Please teach me,
so I can turn time from a rock,
    into a free flowing mountain river on a hot day.
That’s how I learn!
    Like honey, may the sweet flow of the river last,
So I can get past,
    this rock of a class.
            - EWC

© 1998 The Estate of Ennis William Cosby.

Is your child learning anything from this teacher other than to hate school?

I was always able to ace multiple choice questions but failed miserably on written exams. I actually had a teacher refuse to allow me to take an exam because I hadn’t turned in any written assignments and he wouldn’t let me pass the class just because I could pass the test. LD does not stand for lazy and dumb. Some things are too hard to bother with. By the way, I did eventaully graduate from college once I got a DX and some help.

What is DX?

DX = short for diagnosis

Anne

If your daughter reads at a 3rd/4th grade level, she cannot read the textbook well enough to find the information.

Hi Everyone, I have read most of your replies and I can understand all of your problems. I thought I would throw out a question. Have you thought of using Phono-Graphix to teach you or your children how to read? I do this with students and people of all ages. My daughter was taught when she was 19 and is in college reading her books. I have a business remediating learning disabilities. For the comprehension issues, I use visualizing and Verbalizing by Lindamood-Bell and Language Wise by the McGuinnesses. For visualizing numbers, use On Cloud Nine again by Lindamood. For creative writing, use Step-Up-To-Writing by Sopris West as well as the pre-writing program “Inspiration”. I have used all of these programs for some of my students who are passing all of their state tests (VA SOLS) and are going to be able to go to college. By the way, when you are using the methods, you also become better readers and writers. V/V got me through my Neuropsyc courses. Do not go on the assumptions that all your children will depend on accomodations all of their school life and nothing will help. I teach 11th grade English self -contained cross-categorical and my MR students are doing a 3-5 page research paper. I really don’t think that they are MR but so they say. I don’t accommodate any of my students, I remediate. You can’t accommodate and remedate at the same time. The above programs were instrumental in helping my kids write a paragraph for the first time. Email me directly if you have questions.

Shay,

I tried to e-mail you directly, but my computer made lots of noise and didn’t get to the link! I also live in Virginia. My third grade son (SOLs for the first time in a couple of weeks) has diagnoses of inattentive ADHD (medicated), CAPD (even with meds), NLD, and a mild visual processing disorder. He is in the resource room 30 min. a day for “written expression” and works about 3 times a week on Earobics in the general ed classroom.

His ONLY IEP long term goal is “will write a 5 sentence paragraph.” There are no accommodations or related services. I am having another IEP meeting in a few weeks to try (again) to remedy this situation.

One of my biggest concerns is that over the course of the school year, he has become even more reluctant to write - to the point that it is becoming a behavior problem. Plus my perception is that his writing skills have decreased since 2nd grade, as have his semantics. I have asked (repeatedly) for a systematic course of writing instruction for him, and he continues to get worksheets that bounce all over the place. I am very interested in the program you mentioned, Step Up to Writing. Is this the type of program that will teach children the process of writing, rather than the mechanics?

Thanks,
Lil

I can’t even begin to explain what putting the label of laziness on an LD child does to them. Most kids already understand that they can not complete schoolwork, as quickly, as their classmates, so calling them lazy only reaffirms what they are already feeling.

I am attending Weight Watchers. The last three weeks have been on self-esteem. This last week the meeting leader told us a story about a WW Member. In high school her guidance counselor told her she didn’t have the grades to get into a good college/university to become a teacher. She perserved and got accepted to a small junior college. She studied hard and every semester made the Dean’s list. After two years she transfered to a 4 yr university. She graduated and became a teacher. After she was accepted to JR college she sent a copy of her acceptance letter to the guidance counselor. Every semester after that she sent him her report card, showing she made the Dean’s list. She even sent him a copy of her diploma. She has been a teacher for many years and she said that if she had believed she was not capable she would never have had the courage and guts to go to college.

My point and the point of the WW meeting is that teachers, parents, and society have an enormous effect on how young people fell about themselves. Children are very perceptive and they understand quite well when an adult does not beleive in them, so being called lazy doesn’t do anything but bring down, a probably already dwindling, self-asteem.

I would hate to have the label “Lazy” put on my child. I want my child to understand that he can be whatever he wants to be and he can accomplish anything, no matter how long it might take.

K.

Please tell me more about remediation using Inspiration and the other computer programs. My daughter, currently a junior, has never had any remediation, despite having visual-perceptual tests in the 1st to 3rd percentiles and a graphomotor disability which decreases her IQ an additional 30 points. She has struggled with writing since 3rd grade, always becoming frustrated and exhausted with assignments. No one has helped her to find the best methods of utilizing adaptations. Accommodations include time and 1/2 and, theoreticallly, a notetaker. She used books on tape for her AP history class this year, and found that her retention of the material increased dramatically.
College LD coordinators have been highly supportive, and surprised that her school has been so unsupportive. They have all mentioned Inspiration, word-recognition and other programs. Of course, the expectation is that she will be quite comfortable utilizing any adaptations.
What is the best method of finding which programs will be of the greatest assistance, and then finding individuals to help her integrate those into her daily work?
Did you have any experience with working during college and/or high school?
Given the extra time required to complete work, did you need to take a lighter course load?
Thanks.
Mary

Mary H -

My daughter is only 9 years of age but is already using co-writer, an Alpha Smart and a computer in the classroom. It is part of her IEP - the use of assistive technology. The AT district specialist also recently gave us a copy of Draft Builder, but we really haven’t tried it out yet. We also have Kidspiration, which is a younger version of Inspiration (we bought it ourselves). Depending on your child and their interest, AT can be a wonderful tool. Have you read Richard Wanderman’s First Person Essay “How Computer Improve the Writing Process for Persons with Learning Disabilities”. It is a great essay and very encouraging. I would see what I can find out about AT for your daughter.

You can download the insprations software for a 1 month free trial off their website (www.inspirations.com). The inspirations program is called thought webbing software, it helps people organise their thoughts by identifying their main point, then branching off into the subsections of their topic. I am going to purchase itt for myself when I go back to University.

It sounds like your daughter is an auditory learner more than a visual learner, there is also a program called Kurswell 3000 (It’s costly but there are cheaper variations out there). How it works is you scan in the document froma scanner and it is inserted in to the Kurswell program. The program will highlight the words while it reads them.

Another useful tool is the Dragon 5 software. It is voice activated software that will insert in to a word program whatever a person says into a microphone. It is realatively cheap ($80 - 100) and is very accurate with what you say. It will not add puncuation so people need to say period, question mark, etc but the nice thing is the word program does have a grammar check component to it that will ensure it all makes sense.

You can find these programs at www.microsceince.on.ca (let me know if this is the wrong website and I’ll look it up). I’ve seen all of these programs being used at a conference and was very impressed by how useful their applications would be for someone with an LD.

I went to College and University. The key for me was being aware of my deficits, how to compensate for them and understanding how I best learned. Once your daughter has done that I’m sure she’ll do well. I never used computers in College and now wish I had since I use them all the time to compensate for my deficits (diagnosed LD as a child and in special ed).

My course load didn’t need to be altered because school wasn’t as difficult once I started to compensate for my deficits. Your daughter should be allowed to tape her classes on to audiotape, talk to the Special services department of the College.

I work with people with disabilities now for a living. One way to identify how useful the software may/may not be is:
- specifically what purpose will the software serve and how will it benefit your daughter
-in which areas will it be used (writing essays, studying, learning lectures)
-ensuring it is given a couple of weeks as it may take a little while to master the program

I am not suprised the school system was unsupportive. Their support to me was a teacher calling me stupid, trying to send me to a segregated school and putting me into segregated classes at a regular highschool without my family/or my consent (ended up in advanced in the end). I’m sure your duaghter will do great in school.

Good luck,

Brad

I wonder if this is a new teacher? She obviously does not understand children AT ALL! I truly believe every child wants to learn, but not every teacher wants to teach! You have rights under IDEA- the school district should pay for any testing you request. My advice is to put all requests in writing. Send a copy to the head of Special Education, the Superintendent of Schools, and a Board of Ed. member. Ask for a neuropsycholgical to determine the specific disability your child has in order to find a program geared to address the problem. If you are not satisfied, find a good parent advocate. DO NOT use one from the district. If you hire an advocate that works directly for you and not the district, they will have YOUR best interest at heart. Good Luck!-Vickie

Margo. Please find someone to test your child for auditory processing disorder, and visual stress, as well as dyslexia. It sounds to me that your child may be suffering from one or more of these, or maybe something else. Please find someone to help. Keep fighting for your child. I am a special Ed. teacher in England, ( 22 yrs as a teacher, 16 of them in special ed) my 15 yr old son has APD, visual stress and is dyslexic. I was told I am an overprotective mother! I fought, searched the internet for information, bought books, found someone to test him, and now he can name his difficlties, his life is much less stressful for him. He is making wonderful progress at school, scores have increased, teachers happy, support where it’s needed, contact with me ( the mother from hell!!!!!) frequent etc. We are ALL happy he is more settled and making progress. I try to fight for my pupils too, but sometimes I hit a brick wall. Money, lack of interest, I’m wierd, etc can all be what I hear…among other things! Keep pestering, ask questions and good luck. DON’T STOP FIGHTING. Janet.