Need some advice. I have an 8-year-old daughter with several issues we’re
trying to remediate. We’ve made lots of progress so far. She was diagnosed
with ADHD last Spring and we now have her on 2 meds - Adderall for ADHD symptomes and Paxil for anxiety. Both are working well. She was also diagnosed with a moderate auditory processing disorder, especially difficulty hearing in noisy situations.
My number one concern at the moment is her difficulty with expressive and receptive language, in that order. She has difficulty with finding the right word and using words correctly to convey what she means, even though she has
the ability to do these beautifully in written expresssion. Word retrieval is a problem. She also has difficulty with organizing her thoughts. She’s having trouble socially because these problems are getting in the way of her communicating effectively. She has an awesome vocabulary and excellent writing skills but when she opens her mouth, she sounds terribly unintelligent and very immature. I desperately want to help her. In the area of receptive language, as I mentioned she has difficulty comprehending what was said in background noise. Also, trouble reasoning and responding when more complex language is being used, slow auditory processing speed and weak auditory memory. I am certain that she has developed her anxiety from not
being able to communicate effectively.
Currently, we are doing Earobics for an hour a day, 5 days a week. We are also using the HELP series of workbooks. We have been doing these for a few months now. I’m not sure how much these are helping. I’ve been wondering if we need to try something else. I keep hearing about Fast Forword, although a SLT who I went to see with all her testing, etc. told me
she wouldn’t be a strong candidate for Fast Forword. I’ve heard about
Audiblox 2000, Lindamood Bell, etc. but don’t know how effective each of these would be with my child’s specific problems. How do I find that out?
Can anyone be of help?
Re: Expressive/Receptive Language
I work with LD middle school students. Auditory processing problems interfer with social as well as learning skills. When she is studing or tring to read she needs to learn to be in a quiet place or use head phones. I have students who will wear head phones with classical music (no words). My students also need directions/statements etc. give 1 at a time with wait time in order to process what is said. I am familar with FastForward and Lindamood Bell. You can go online to review these programs. Lindamood Bell may be the better since it is more teacher directed. FastForward has students working at the computer and since she does not process well it will be hard to modify when needed or to repeat when needed. Lindamood Bell does work with vocabulary. The Visualizing Verbalizing part of this program may help her since it will start at the picture level teaching her how to verbalize what she sees. Eventually this works up to stories. The pace is set to match the student. It also has specific components that need to be addressed each time she verbalizes. This is helpful for ADHD/processing difficulties.
Good Luck!
Has anyone mentioned using an Assistive listening device? They work really well for kids with AP and ADD disorders. Does she receive speech and language services? She can learn conversational pragmatic skills in speech and language and then she can practice those in a conversation group, where the kids learn to converse with one another, to take the initiative, how to be better listeners…I am not sure if your SLP does this or not but it is something I defintely will do when I work in the schools…
You may want to check out Tracy Boyd’s website. She has lots of interactive games for speech and language that kids can use online. You can play some of the games with her, print some out for card games etc…
Patti