My third grade daughter is having tremendous difficulty in school this year. the school has recently agreed to move to PPT and testing. Many modifications have been added to the classroom for her, which has helped but she is still struggling. She has difficulty with spelling, expressing herself in written form (ideas, not handwriting), and remembering some words at times that she should remember, in addition to a slow processing speed. It took my duagher most of second grade to learn the suffix “-ed” was not spelled “-id”. She also frequently misses letters in words that can be clearly heard. We have had her ears checked by an audiologist thinking that perhaps she was missing a sound, but they checked out OK. Now, I have several questions:
1. Do the CELF-3 and TAPS cover the same things covered in the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test or the Test of Auditory Analysis Skills (TAAS)?
2. Is possible to have poor reading comprehension with good critical thinking skills, ie the book does not have to explicit for her to understand what is being said?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Thank You
She was placed in “small group” reading with a tutor at the end of October beginning November. This has seemed to help her, but of note is that she completed second grade reading on grade level and is now only reading a 2.2 grade level. I have a son 5 years her senoir with developmental language disorder and an auditory memory deficit. When he was in second grade, they told me also that he had a reading comprehension problem to find out a year later, after fighting for testing, that he did not have a reading comprehenison issue at all–it was expressive language. I question whether her issue is truly reading comprehension or a language issue. The audiologist did not check for CAPD, only that her hearing was intact. We had SLP do an eval on the outside but she only did a very brief one….TAPS (at our request) and the CELF which all placed her at average. Although she did very poorly on the Concepts portion of the CELF only scoring a 6 with a mean of 10. I truly believe that a large part of my daughter’s problem is related in some way to phonological awareness. If she looks at the alphabet, she can give you all the letter sounds, but somehow this is lost when it comes to words. She also has difficulty remembering some words and others just take her a long time to recall.
Thank you ever so much. You have been a tremendoous help.
Re: help needed and some questions
Children with language delays almost always have problems with reading comprehension. Reading problems are always just a symptom of underlying problems. The child may have auditory processing problems which show up as phonemic awareness problems, or they may have receptive and expressive language issues with cause problems in comprehension, etc.
What would be ideal is if you could find a clinic that specializes in reading disorders and also has an SLP on staff. A child needs a full language evaluation as well as tests that will look at the underlying reading processes. I would suggest the CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) for one. Schools almost never get at the underlying problems and they certainly don’t know how to remediate them. The sooner you can get private help, the better.
You can find an audiologist specializing in APD by going to www.ncapd.org and go to professional listings. Some audiologists are also SLP’s and may be able to do both evaluations for you. After that, you should go to a reading clinic that specializes in dyslexia for a reading evaluation. Lindamood Bell clinics are one option.
Janis
Once Again Thank You
Janis-Thank you very much. The information you have given me in invaluable to me. Your help is greatly appreciated.
processing speed and executive functioning issues
Is your daughter the one that wrote the cute story? If so, she can write if it is related to her own personal experience and on her own but does she struggle when it comes to expressing factual information, or inference expressively in oral and written form at school in an organized fashion?
With the slow processing speed I think another piece could be
that she is is ADD-Inattentive? I am an SLP, with experience in Literacy development, phonological processing, and kids I have seen that have slow processing speeds and problems with organization of writing are also ADD-Inattentive. Feel free to e-mail me directly, and I will be glad to help you sort things out in regards to the tests and where to go from here…
I agree with Janis on the advise she gave you too, but I think you should look into what is going on her mind when she is in class. Ask her what she does when she is in class. Ask her if her mind ever wanders, you may be surprised.
Re: help needed and some questions
Very true, Patti. As a matter of fact, we have a child like this in the LD referral evaluation right now. He had the CTOPP on Friday and scored fine in all areas. We think the reading issues are stemming from inattentive ADD since the phonological processing looks intact.
Janis
Yep..
I see it too and I have parents who think….oh…you can “fix” my kid…? Just give them more one on one….that will fix the “problem” Well the kid’s have the underlying skills but they don’t have the “stick-tuitiveness” to master their attention…
I have parents who are “clueless” as to what to do…they want “me” to fix the problem…what am I supposed to do go make home visits and be their personal ADD coach to help them get a handle on their ADD so they can give their child the structure and attention the child needs to be successful….I have parents who have $$ and figure if they throw enough money to tutors that their child will make it…but the bottom line is the parent has more influence on their formation of good habits than a tutor does…
testing to be done
Thank you Janis and Pattim for your input. We had another PPT about a 1 1/2 weeks ago at which the school has moved to testing…what I wanted from the beginning. I do not know what is wrong, but do know that something is not right. The will be doing the WISC, 3 tests in reading (1 of which is the TOWL), and several by the SLP. She had the CELF and TAPS done by an SLP at another facility not related to the school. She scored out at 96 in receptive language, 98 in expressive language, and 102 on the TAPS. In the portion of the CELF that dealt with following directions she bombed with a score of 6 and was very attentive at the time the tests were done. ADD is a possibility…I do have a brother-in-law who is ADHD. Her processing speed is slow, and that comes from her classroom teacher who is wonderful.
She wrote the story on her own while watching the squirrels outside. I think she did a great job getting her ideas across. It took her 2 days to write because she did a bit here and there. It seems she has difficulty writing when they tell her to write about something specific.
I will let you know what her tests scores when I receive them. That will not be until the end of April with the way the system. Pattim I will take you up on your offer of e-mailing you personally once we have more to work with. I will also ask her if her minds wanders while she is in school. I didn’t believe she was ADD, but anything is possibel. She does sit in the front of the class.
I know you are both speaking from personal experience when you say that parents expect you to fix their child’s problems and get them throough it. Many parents do expect that and you are right it is not possible. The children do the support of their parents and to pushed to do what they can do which is not always an easy battle. I also have a son with expressive language issues (developmental) who we spent extensive time at home working with along with the SLPs at school and five years later he is doing fantastic, but it came from the SLP at school wtih our support and structure at home. My hats off to both of you for all the help you give our children, which is very frustrating at times I am sure, mostly from the parents.
once again thank you for your input and i will post her scores from all the testing once I get them.
First of all, modifications do not remediate. A child with a problem in reading needs effective instruction and nothing else will substitute.
When you say you had her ears checked, did you take her to an audiologist who specializes in auditory processing disorder or just a regular audiologist who checked her hearing? She very well could have an auditory processing disorder. She should have a full speech-language evaluation also. I would want a test called the CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) to be part of the testing battery.
Question #1: No, those tests are all different. The CELF-3 is not felt to be reliable, so don’t depend on that one test.
Question #2: It is possible to have good critical thinking skills and poor reading comprehension due to poor decoding and/or poor fluency.
On this site are some super articles explaining the kids of effective reading programs which are needed for children with a reading disability. I will give you the links to two:
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/reading_approaches.html
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/mssl_methods.html
Bottom line, schools rarely address reading disorders effectively. It would be wise to get a private evaluation as sson as possible and find a tutor in one of the recommended methods like Phono-graphix, Lindamood-Bell, etc.
Janis