School Testing Results

It would help if you would post all the results. for example verbal IQ/performance IQ, subtests scores, and index scores. If she had achievement testing please post these as well. What is the resource room like in your district, or they offering remediation?

They have not given us copies yet - they say they will next week. I’ll post when we get them.

There are cognitive enhancement programs that help with memory. It takes alot of work but it is not impossible.

Two are
PACE which is usually done at a center but they do have a home program. PACE stands for processing and cognitive enhancement.

The other one which is done at home and is much cheaper is audiblox. www.audiblox2000.com.

I do audiblox with my son and it really does help memory. The hardest part is finding the time to do it enough. I hope to kick it into high gear this summer.

I have to say I don’t understand why she all of a sudden experienced failure in 7th. Did something happen that could have caused this change?

I don’t think based on an average IQ you have the answers to your question of why? Was this the first time she’s been tested, was she getting any special ed. help before this? Hopefully she had academic testing, some sort of emotional assessment, a screening for ADD, and other issues that influence the academic achievement of adolescents. To suddenly stop getting good grades is a red flag, not necessarily for learning disabilities. Play detective, has something changed? new teachers, school placement, family issues, relationships with friends, health issues, etc. Involve your pediatrician, too.

I ditto Linda F. We have done both PACE and Audiblox. We have also done Brainbuilder and Sound Therapy (The Listening Program and Tomatis).

My dd was a cement wall by Kindergarten. Her memory was in low handicapped level. She is now in 3rd grade and is a sponge. She still has language issues, but her working memory is above average for her age now(4 yrs over her age). Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t improve working or short term memory!

I would be suspicious as to why she is just now having problems too? If she does have cognitive processing problems, she would have experienced problems way before 7th grade?

When a child has had a minor right-hemisphere trauma, do any of these programs help? If so, which ones? A 2nd grader I’m working with now has a weak working memory. Any info helps—thanks.

Yes they can - all of them. The brain has plasticity - meaning that you can create new neuropathways within it. Matter of fact, a number of the clients at the Tomatis center we go to, are brain injured. They are using the sound therapy for rehabilitation purposes.

We found with doing the sound therapy first - the cognitive exercises were much easier for my daughter to succeed with.

I have seen brain injured patients make incredible progress with therapy. It was my experience working with these types of patients many moons ago that convinced me that my son’s LD could be remediated.
My son’s intitial eval had him as a child with long term memory issues. (I was never 100% convinced of those findings. I think his errors on the information subtest was related to a severe sequencing deficit that has now been remediated.) When I took him for an eval for PACE he was seen as a child with a memory 7 years above his actual age level.
We haven’t done a full re eval yet but I know there will be major changes when it is done.
As DEA already said, you can change the brain.

Often children with non-verbal learning disorders are not diagnosed (because they do not fall apart) until they reach this age. Sometimes it can be inattenetive ADHD. For more information on both of these disorders, go to LD In Depth.

Lil

I’m familiar with NVLD and my dd is not that. She has a language deficit - her’s is all auditory problems(her short term memory problems were auditory issues). Very high visual-spatial and visual processing abilities.

If you don’t address the memory deficits - struggles with school will be huge. I can remember when I first started with this board 4 yrs ago. There were alot of resource teachers here commenting about the auditory memory being impossible to deal with. They indicated those were their most difficult students to teach, nothing you could do about it, child just needs to learn to live with etc.

It really freaked me out because that was what one of the worst areas for my dd. It is not a piece of cake to remediate cognitive deficits - esp. memory. But it can be done - my dd is proof.

The first time we had the PACE test done, my dd scored I believe 3yrs over grade level. But when we drilled down, it was because she scored really high on the visual memory, but she got 0 of the auditory memory questions correct!

Did you do the sound therapy because of the memory or the language issues? Could you please clarify? I have a child with both visual and auditory memory deficits. I’m wondering which direction to go.

We did it for both - really overall auditory processing issues.

I agree with SAR and others who are suspicious of sudden onset of memory issues. I would suspect something else…ADD, anxiety, ????? Those of us with children with memory deficits realized it very early on. Do post scores when you get them and don’t make any decisions at that meeting. Schedule another meeting after you have a chance to get outside opinions on the test scores.

Janis

My son got all the memory things correct. I sat there and tried to do it along with him and I couldn’t remember half of what he could remember. He did well on the visual and the auditory piece. He did extremely poorly on the logic test. The problem was the logic test was that it was all visual puzzles. My son has severe visual processing and ocular motor issues. His logic is better when given word problems. I don’t know why his visual memory tested so high especially when he was in the 20% on information on the wisc. The wisc had questions that asked him days of the week and months of the year questions and he didn’t have that at the time because it involved sequencing.

It is hard to put alot of stake in one simple test. There are just so many factors and most tests are only as good as the person giving the test.

We have mirror image children. How interesting!

You need more clarification regarding your child’s “cognitive processing” or memory deficits. Most CORE evaluations done by the school just do not look closely enough at different parts of the memory or learning process. Many children with LD have retrieval deficits- they can store the information, but they cannot retrieve it when they need it. It is often revealed when they are given a naming task (how quickly can they name previously learned information). Also they are given memory tasks, such as memorizing a list of words. Then you examine functions such as how well they can organize the information to better memorize it (strategy), how well they can produce that information immediately and after a delay (short term and longer term memory/retrieval)- and how well they can recognize that information when they are given choices (retrieval). Then of course you would also want to know if your child has better memory/retrieval of different kinds of information. All this data would help to pinpoint exactly where the deficits are- and how to remediate them. I suggest that you ask for a neuropsychological evaluation to look at the specifics of your child’s difficulties.

Why did you take away TV, computer and such? You say she has succeeded in school with ‘lots of tutoring’ so clearly you recognized that she needs support. And now that she’s been formally diagnosed with a learning difference, have you restored her tv and computer priviliges? I’d understand why your daughter feels as if she’s being punished.

Children who fail in school do get depressed and that deserves to be monitored. Memory can’t be ‘taught’ but some children’s memories improve as they get older. These days some teachers and schools are getting away from memorizing and are realizing that learning and memorization are not one and the same thing. More teachers and schools are giving ‘take home tests’ that are not memorization based and are assigning projects which don’t require memorization.

In any case, she should not be allowed to fail all her subjects and the school must step in with some help.