after the tests

The test results will get you in the ball park but they are written in shrink speak so what they really mean may be subject to interpretation. Psychcomertric testing is not an exact science.

Cognitive therapy is the next step. Good luck getting it. They may slap on a pseudo-psychiatric disorder that way they can make a few extra $$$ by recommending psychotherapy. (something that is unproven) but profitable.

Makes it hard to map a plan doesn’t it? Very subjective. How old were you when you saw it in black and white? I really wish I hadn’t spent all those years denying it…

I’m hoping the results and the interpretation I get makes sense with my experiences, I need to understand why particular things give me trouble. Every career choice I’ve made has been a mistake, and I quite literally can’t afford another failure that big. Even more important, I have to know where my strengths are in order to make better choices, I need to rely on them. It seems crazy at my age that I don’t really know what they are. I haven’t spent much time thinking about that because I’ve always been so preoccupied with trying to fit into the world I thought I belonged in, covering up and compensating (often badly), and trying to force things that kept calling on my weaknesses. I kept saying to myself dammit, why can’t I do this, I’ll just have to work harder and longer until I get it, but I can’t let anyone see me do it. Try again. Don’t leave the office until I get it. 70 hour work weeks and I still wasn’t cutting it. Then I lost the job, another one. I blamed office politics, personality differences, mismanagement, everything BUT the real truth. I’ve spent so much of my life hitting my head against that same wall, I just couldn’t accept that there really was a problem that wasn’t under my control. I have to find a niche for myself based on my STRENGTHS the next time around. Feels like my life depends on it.

Is there cognitive therapy that is meant to improve cognitive skills? That’s what I want to know about. If you’re talking about a cognitive approach to psychotherapy, I tried that 20 years ago and it was a big disaster. One more failure. The possibility of a LD was never discussed, I went there complaining of difficulties socially and on the job, and how totally powerless I felt about whatever was in the way of my success. She insisted I could turn it all around if I just changed the way I thought about everything. Wrong! Can’t do that without facing the demon first. It never occurred to her there was something she wasn’t seeing, didn’t understand, she just plowed ahead with her methods, sure she was right and I was…..uncooperative. My teachers did that too when I was younger. They thought I wasn’t trying hard enough.

Audrey,

Psycho-therapy is not for anyone, especially someone with cognitive deficets. Don’t compare them with Dr. Phil who just give coomon sense advice. The goal of most of these guys is to keep you coming back.

We are psychologiclly damaged no doubt but yapping to some bone head about it isn’t going to fix the problem.

Having an accurate inventory of our strengths and weaknesses is a great thing. There will probably be alot of stuff on your test results that you won’t understand. Ask the person who did the test to explain them fully and take notes. It is some pretty complicated stuff.

Applying the results in a pragmatic approach to your real life problems, that’s another story. Common sense. The tough part is understanding all the parameters involved in a given task. Then knowing all the tasks involved in a given job and then find out if your cognitive strengths and deficets match up. No one has figured out how to do that as far as I know. Trial and error has been my approach but it is very frustrating for everyone involved.

Compensatory skills are important as well but that raises a whole other batch of questions.

I have been told that cognitive therapy woulsd help me greatly and I have also ben told it would not.

To some it up, I think you need to ask your self how much frustration ona a daily basis from 9-5 you are willing to endure. I can tell you this. If I didn’t have a physical disability as well as this brain thing I would be doing heavy labor and realitvly mindless work. When I was doing that I was the most satisfied. I also preferred the company of men that were men.

Audrey,
Take a look at the parenting and teaching ld kids boards, there are a lot of different therapies mentioned there that could be of help. Most of them mentioned have websites you can go to for more info, or contact info to the places themselves. I don’t know that I think it is all just for children, it makes sense to me that it has just as much chance of working on an adult, especially one who is very motivated. Ones I can think of off hand that deal with brain processing problems are Interactive Metronome, PACE, vision therapy for visual processing problems, there are others.
Hope this helps some in pointing you in a direction. Best wishes.
Amy

Amy,

This is great, thanks! Exactly what I was looking for.

Have you used any of these? If so, what did you think? I’ve heard of Interactive Metronome, really interesting approach but I’m wondering how effective it is. PACE sounds right on target, hard to tell from their site though, which really just talks about the theory behind their method…

Audrey

What concerns me about PACE and Metranome is I can’t find any studies that back up their claims other than their own.

Do you know any independant studies that back up their claims.

Pace has a marketing scheme for anyone who wants to sell their product. If you click their link for affiliates they explain their marketing plan. That makes me a bit uneasy.

Before I would sell their product I would want to evaluate its effectiveness.

I am going to do more research into pace.

I’d be really interested in hearing about independant studies documenting the effectiveness of these and other methods.

The marketing is annoying, but most businesses have to do it or people like us wouldn’t know hear them. I just ignore it, the documentation is what’s important.

I haven’t personal experience with them but I have read many posts from parents on this site who have used them. PACE was fairly popular a year or so ago, Interactive Metronome seems to be the therapy du jour lately. I am considering IM for my son for his attention issues but I have to wait until I am back in the states to do it. Audiblox and Earobics have been pretty steady in their use.
You can do a search on each of the boards with PACE (or any other therapy) plugged in and read what parents have said about it. There are some folks here who have been here as long as I have, I started posting here back in 99 when my son was being evaluated for sp.ed. I feel like I have really learned a lot from the parents and teachers here.
Hope this helps.
Amy

Hi Audrey,

I love your subject because I was thinking about that issue today. I probably had very unrealistic expections of testing along with dealing with professionals I didn’t like. I thought being diagnosed with ADD/LD would give me that aha moment and enable me to easily figure out what I wanted in a career. Except one thing - These very same difficulties also affect the career planning process. No one seems to understand that but that is a whole other issue.

I also love the folks who say, well just use your strengths. Uh, in this changing economy, many job functions are being combined where that is not possible. Professionals need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I am unemployed. I lost my last job due to reasons that had nothing to do with LD. I didn’t like it though and the severance pay was too good to pass up. I am struggling with the career issue like you. I thought that Assistive Technology was a possibility but I am sensing you can’t get into it without having another area of expertise like Speech Pathology. So back to the drawing boards.

One strategy I am trying and I have no idea as to how effective it will be is to do research on companies that might look like a good fit for me and then approach them whether they have openings or not and tell them what I could do for them. It is amazing to me just by looking at their literature what ideas will come to my brain.

The positives from testing. When I made tons of mistakes on a staff directory I had done, it was very liberating to know it was because of my LD and not because I was lazy or didn’t care. By the way, my boss made it even worse with her proofreading so I kind of felt like it was the blind leading the blind:))

I also realized that when you read a book, the process isn’t just to read words and memorize everything. I still struggle with remember when I have read but the difference between where I am now and where I was prior to being diagnosed with LD/ADHD is wonderful. When I finally become employed, I plan on seeking the Lindamood V&V tutoring. That does have some type of track record and I was tutored in it several years ago and had small snippets of success.

I also realized that in order to hold onto a job, there are some social skills that one needs to have. While I don’t think I will ever be as good as someone without LD, I aint bad.

I agree with Ball in being skeptical of these various programs. But if you have the money and it doesn’t any harm medically, go for it. I don’t have the money so I can’t take the risk on what I consider to be unproven programs.

Audrey, alot of stuff I have learned on my own. Other valuable tips like organization, I learned from a non LD expert. But it is still a struggle every day. To answer your question, no, the tests did not help me see my strengths. I thought they were quite negative frankly.

What is also hard for me is I am now perimenopausal so the Adderall I am taking is not as effective. But hormonal replacement therapy doesn’t sound like too much of a bargain either. So right now, I have to use a timer quite a bit to make myself focus on necessary tasks. Whatever it takes, right?

I related to your experience about therapists who didn’t have a clue about LD. A psychologist thought I spoke too well to have one. It was a so-called lowly employee assistance counselor who thought I should seek an evaluation.

Regarding behavioral cognitive therapy, the way the counselor did it with you was of course totally worthless because she didn’t realize you had a learning disability. But in my opinion, of the therapist is familiar with LD, it can be quite helpful.

The therapy I had wasn’t specifically cognitive behavioral but I do know as the result of it, my attitude has changed. At my last job, I expected to be able to figure out how to compensate for my LD even though it was tough at times.

Anyway, I am starting to ramble so I had better stop here. Let me know if I can answer any other questions.

PT

You know what is interesting is that a computer geek can tell you all the things that are going on in a computer just to make the mouse move the arrow but the people who treat the brain don’t know what brain processes are going on that enable us to read.

It’s a little scary to know that some pimply faced 15 year old computer nerd knows more about computers than most shrinks know about the brain.

I realize the human brain is a lot more complicated than a computer but computers are taken so seriously by their experts while the brain is so trivialized by it’s experts.

The best person to make accomodations is the person with LD. We need to understand this but more importantly the people who get paid money by pretending to help us need to know this too.

What is sad is that I feel I am more qualified to advise people on this issue than the so called experts and it has become clear to me that monetary compensation for companies that offer acomodation is the only thing that truly makes sense.

Our impairment decreases our productivity and in reality there is no effective treatment that will get us up to speed.

I would like to know what happens after the test to because I have went to at least (4) State Vocational Reh have gotten the same answer. I am trying to understand why I have to keep taking these same test and the Voc Rehab. telling me I have to take the same test in order to help me gain employment I take the test and that’s it. In between I have found my own job.

Linda

Check out the information on Sharper Minds program in Oregon.