possible learning disability? help!!!!

I think you should pursue you gut feeling. Most school districts have early childhood search and serve programs. Put your request in writing to begin the timeline. Talk to your pediatrician and get an eye exam. Since auditory seems to be a strength tie the visual in with it-I’m thinking rhymes, songs, “Sesame Street” type videos. There may be books and videos that you can get at your library. The other tactile methods you are using are good. Keep trying you’re doing well!

I’d locate a developmental optometrist first of all and go get an evaluation there to rule out vision or functional vision issues. All a pediatician can do is the standard 20/20 test. If that checks out, then you may want to pursue a general developmental evaluation.

www.covd.org

Janis

In addition to the other suggestions, you might want to start him on Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com ). This program does a lot of work on visual memory.

Nancy

thank you for your suggestions- i am currently trying to locate a pediatric othalmologist to have my sons eyes examined. in the mean time, does it sound like i’m on the right track when i say that we may be dealing with dyslexia?

I am a mother of 4 and my oldest is 11 and has the learning disorder. I also have an 8 year old, a 5 year old, and a 3 year old . My 8 year old son did not know all his letters and numbers when he started kindergarten at almost 6, and I think that was mostly because he just wasn’t interested. He played nintendo 64 and was a whiz at that (got it for his 4th b-day) he was far better than I could have ever hoped, so I tried not to worry that he didn’t care about abc’s and coloring……….my daughter, the 11 year old on the other hand loved all that school work type stuff at 5…….I thought she’d fly through school and he’d be straggling behind. Guess what? She has trouble and everything just clicks for him now. My 5 year old now loves his numbers and letters. He learned them so fast it just blew me away. What I’m trying to say is that all kids are different and all of them learn at a different rate especially when they are young. Sometimes it’s just a matter of maturity, not intellect or other problems. I would suggest not getting to worked up about it yet. But also follow your heart because you know your children better than anyone. The teachers kept telling me they didn’t think my daughter needed to be tested and I knew she did………..finally I had to go with my gut on that and had her tested at the beginning of this year and guess what?……….LD!

Good luck!
Heidi

Sometimes it is a matter of exposure to the subject matter, as the N64 story illustrates.

i hear what you’re saying. but he truly wants to learn them. this is definately not a lack of interest or laziness. we spent five months on just the number six (at his urging-not mine) and now he can recognize the number six. but it took five long months. i understand that children learn at different paces, but there is definately a deficit for him when it comes to learning names of letters and numbers. the rest of his school work comes quite easily. i think the frustration i have right now is that i feel like i’ve hit a brick wall. for every couple of steps my son takes forward, we seem to then move back two spaces. this coupled with the fact that when i mention my concerns to teachers, friends, relatives; the response is “oh, he’s so good!” yes, he is a good boy…..but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a problem learning! i guess i’m just anxious for some answers.

I think there is a good possibility you are correct but think of it this way-what is going to change at this age by having him tested?

Schools dont have a magic bullet and, frankly, what you have done with him on your own this year surpasses anything they will do regardless of his ‘diagnosis”.

They might pull him out for 20 minutes in first grade and review the work in the classroom but chances are he will be in a small group with kids who learn in different ways and the teacher will present the material in much the same way the classroom teacher did.

Again, your insight about auditory vs visual are more valuable

I would wait until mid 1st grade to pursue the issue. In the meantime, I would keep doing exactly what you are doing and maybe try some programs over the summer. Lots of ideas on the boards!

Why I say to wait?

1-the school may be more willing once official reading expectations are in place in first grade
2-he may read just fine. With his strong auditory skills, he may remember symbols that have meaning to him like words. Lets face it-letters and numbers are pure memorization. You do not have to know A is an A in order to read the word alligator.
3-maturation is an amazing thing. Turning 6 seems to be one of those “leaps’ of cognition

marycas - THANK YOU!!

you’re right- i think i was looking for that magic bullet. i was hoping for a diagnosis and maybe even a quick fix. but i certainly understand what you’re saying about waiting. i am going to continue working with him, and i’ve found some programs that sound promising. i will continue to work with him over the summer. i hear what you’re saying about maturity too. i remember the big leap in that with my older two sons. thank you for your advice, i appreciate it.

Make sure you see a deveopmental optometrist, and not just a pediatric opthamologist. They have different areas of expertise, and if you suspect visual processing issues its the optometrist that is going to look in that area.

5 is not too young to be concerned or to intervene, although I’m not sure of the validity of alot of testing at that age. Probably better to focus on the “symptoms” at this point than worry about if a label fits. I have a friend with 1 dyslexic child and is having her youngest (4) evaluated by our board of ed. after realizing he has some speech/language issues. She’s not looking for a dx, but rather wants the district to provide these services and possibly OT as well if need be.

Goodluck and come visit us here as things unfold!

Before you get a DO to look at him (which will cost $$) consider spending that money on a private evaluation by a developmental pediatrician. Accurate testing can be done at 6 years old. By the time you get an appointment, he probably will be old enough. VT is something to consider after a thorough neuropsych eval, not before.

i really appreciate everyone’s response! thank you very much!!

I just have one simple questin: does it seem like i’m on the right track when i say i think it’s dyslexia?

if i could narrow the path for testing purposes (i am in an underachieving school district-who would rather not help) it would be easier for me to seek outside help if i felt more absolute about my own diagnosis….????

any insight would be helpful. thanks!!

Even though I suggested not worrying about a dx, I do agree with the guest that suggested a thorogh neuropsych. eval. I guess the problem is that even very comprehensive testing doesn’t always yield a clean easy answer. Many mom’s here, including myself, have struggled to define our children. SOme of them don’t fit.

There seem to be 2 schools of thought out there about when to use the term “dyslexic”. I go with the broader definition - “trouble with reading”.

Noone dx my son as dyslexic early on because on tests he demonstrated certain skills and certain deficits that aren’t classicly dyslexic. But as time went on and we arrived at the point where he could barely read in 3rd grade we decided to call it dyslexia.

I think if its a processing based issue and you explore all the processing areas that must work for reading to happen (visual, memory, auditory…to name a few) you are covering all your bases. The tricky part comes in determining if anxiety and/or attentional issues are to blame, or at least are compounding whatever else is going on. For example, we thought my son was dysgraphic at one point - he basically couldn’t produce any written work. Turned out to be anxiety. SO OT for handwriting would have been a relative waste of time when what we really need was a reading tutor and a psychiatrist.

A good neuropsych. eval should point you in the right direction.

Thank you sdkbc, I have a daughter almost 6 that sounds like your son but with a few extra’s thrown in. The one one thing that was suggested for her was the Linda Mood Bell 3 times a week. Not cheap but seems to be worth it. The school system doesn’t want to look at LD when she is getting speech and OT. After testing last year she fell in the bottom 15% and they said she would be fine to go into a regular Kindergarten program( at the bottom mind you ). We held her back in an extended day pre-5 she still knows about the same letters as last year and no #’s. She can’t remember them after working all day. The songs she can remember so I try to find videos and tapes that she can hear with letters etc. Iknow how frustrated you feel I am right there with you. I how ever had to get some one else to do the tutoring it was so frustrating. I give you a BIG congrats for all you are doing. I also hear she just needs time, but worry with each day passing how hard it will be for her to catch up. Her 3 year old sister is answering all questions.

Is it only these numbers that he has difficulty naming? How about colors or objects? How rapidly does he recognize and name other things. From what I’ve read on early detection of dyslexia, if he pauses on naming colors he’s had plenty of exposure and familarity with, that may be a sign.

laua in la
naming colors he’s good at. there’s no delay…but it’s been something we’ve continually reinforced since he was one. i’ve been especially diligent and observant with colors sice color blindness runs rampent in our family. my oldest son is color blind , although it has no effect on his learning, it’s just been something i’m aware of. as far as naming objects, he’s quick with naming things that we’ve been naming for years….cup, plate, food, table, etc. as far as new objects (now that i examine the situation) there may be some delay, but nothing that appears to be an outward struggle. i may have jumped the gun when i say dyslexia. maybe what i’m looking at is visual memory disability (which dyslexia falls under). please don’t think that i’m trying to ‘label’ my son. i just know that there is a learning impairment, and i’m trying to better understand where this impairment exactly is so that I can better understand it and get him any necessay help (programs) that will help him before he falls further and further behind. thank you for your help! anything else that you could add would be beneficial!

I think since there’s a chance your son *could* have a problem. It might be a good idea to start working diligently on letter/number recognition skills (I wish I had done more of this with my son!). Make it very multi-sensory. Cut out letters and numbers in sand paper, have him write letters and numbers in shaving cream on a plastic table, in sand, etc… Even work on air-writing and visualizing (like Lindamood-Bell’s Seeing Stars). Then start working with Phonographix Reading Reflex. I think all that would be a good start for now. You can also do a Google search and order the book “Developing Your Child for Success” by Dr. Lane. It has some very good visual/balance, etc… exercises. I’ve used it quite a bit with my own child.

laura in ca-
i have been working with him (one number at a time). we started with the number six. we drew the number six in shaving cream. then did the same with sandpaper. we drew a huge number six on the driveway and walked on it. we cut out the number six using different textures. we would look in the newspaper or magazine and cut out number sixes. it took five months for him to be able to recognize the number six without counting on his fingers. i’m happy there was some success, but boggled by the timeframe.we didn’t do these activities occassionally, it was everyday that we sat down and did SOMETHING. sometimes it was longer than others, i try to let him lead me in how long we ‘play’. as some other people have said, i know i’m doing more with him then they would if he was ‘labled’ and receiving special services in school. but what i need to know is exactly what type of disability we are looking at so that i can narrow my research and focus on his specific disability and find the best program that we can work on together. i appreciate your feedback, i’m going to look for that book and program you recommended!

I can’t claim to know much about this but there is a difference I think (I heard Dr. Wolfe on RAVE-0 at the state IDA conference) between kids who have global rapid naming issues (colors, objects, and letters) and those with difficulties in just naming letters. The rapid naming isn’t really taught, just because you worked with your kid on colors and objects- to my knowledge you didn’t specifically teach rapid naming.

My understanding is that the rapid naming for letters specifically is more a reading/ symbol association issue while the global rapid naming has broader language implications. Gee I wonder if I qualified my statements enough. :-)

Hopefully someone can add light— Sue? Janis? Nancy?

—des

A person needs to have a vast vocabulary and be wired for word retrieval…to label quickly. It is something that can be practiced but some people are wired much slower than others. I have found those that are slower processors have more difficutly with the sound symbol relationship for reading. As a consequence their reading speed never really takes off like it should because of this RAN deficit.

Well Sdkbc,
It sounds like you are doing alot to help your child. That’s a good thing! Sometimes it’s really difficult to narrow things down. You can always request testing through the school district, although I’m not sure how accurate their testing is with children under 6. (Although there’s talk that my son’s school doesn’t test accurately at any age!). Eventually you may want to get a really good neuropsych evaluation.

You might want to read Sally Shaywitz’s book. Also, another one is Rosner’s book. I can’t recall the title, but it also has some visual exercises in it as well as other areas of processing. I think you can get these through the library too.

How is your son’s lanaguage skills? Ability to describe past events, visual events, things? Are the visual memory difficulties limited to letters and numbers? These are questions you need to ask yourself. Look for patterns of weakness and strength.

des- thanks for the info on rapid naming issues/RAN deficit. i will certainly read up on this.

laura in ca- i have tried to get the local public school to evaluate, and they want to wait until second grade (this is their ‘unwritten’ rule). i must add that we happen to be in a failing school in a failing school district. the public school is currently (again) on the academic warning list…..need i say more? this is why my children are in a private school - which poses the problem that they do not do testing or evaluation for learning problems…ugh!!
however, i am going to the library tomorrow to try and find those books you recommended. as far as his language skills….it’s funny you asked. i just started sitting down and evaluating that. to begin with, he was a late talker (the youngest of three children- not unusual) and his vocabulary has improved greatly over the past year and a half. but i started noticing that he would try and explain something to me and get stuck on a word (almost always a noun- object, place, etc) and finally say, “you know, that thingy thing”. and he was good at trying to ‘describe’ what it was, but wasn’t quite able to get the word for it. then i would play the guessing game and say, “hat? tub? farm?” until i said the right word, and he’d say, “yeah, the farm”. is this associated with his troubles with his letters and numbers? it seems to fall in line with memory and retrieval, but i have no idea….but i’ve started to journal all these instances and have added it to my growing pile of information!
thanks again for the wealth of information everyone is giving me. i welcome any other insight or ideas anyone wants to give me!

Interesting that you say he almost always loses nouns. I personally also lose nouns, almost always nouns, frequently in speech and sometimes in writing, in several different languages.
I am even worse, downright amazingly awful, on names. Yesterday I parked in a not-very-familiar place a couple of blocks from the hospital and I wanted to remember the name of the cross-street; coming out I thought Barlow? Bristow? Bowman? Well, I knew it began with a B and was very English and was two syllables and had a long o sound in it somewhere; turned out to be Bradford. Using the clues that you do remember is helpful in narrowing the search down.

No idea of the cause and probably there is no complete cure. I do pretty well by having a large vocabulary and talking around the subject — either finding a synonym, especially in writing, or describing the object in speech. My ex-husband who is very smart caught on to this trick and teased me about it, making me aware just how much I do it, some days every few minutes; when the teasing stopped being kindly, well that’s one reason he’s an ex. I do know it is a lot worse when I’m tired and ill.
I got the huge vocabulary by reading a lot and it really has helped.

Interesting that you say he almost always loses nouns. I personally also lose nouns, almost always nouns, frequently in speech and sometimes in writing, in several different languages.
I am even worse, downright amazingly awful, on names. Yesterday I parked in a not-very-familiar place a couple of blocks from the hospital and I wanted to remember the name of the cross-street; coming out I thought Barlow? Bristow? Bowman? Well, I knew it began with a B and was very English and was two syllables and had a long o sound in it somewhere; turned out to be Bradford. Using the clues that you do remember is helpful in narrowing the search down.

No idea of the cause and probably there is no complete cure. I do pretty well by having a large vocabulary and talking around the subject — either finding a synonym, especially in writing, or describing the object in speech. My ex-husband who is very smart caught on to this trick and teased me about it, making me aware just how much I do it, some days every few minutes; when the teasing stopped being kindly, well that’s one reason he’s an ex. I do know it is a lot worse when I’m tired and ill.
I got the huge vocabulary by reading a lot and it really has helped.

Another thing to consider is private testing from a good educational psychologist. This would be less expensive than a neuropsych and you could ask for specific tests. I had some private testing done with my son when school testing didn’t indicate any problems (which surprised his 2nd grade teacher who was certain that “something was wrong” and we’d learn something). My son didn’t get tested until 2nd grade, but that wasn’t because they wait until then, it was because his problems were not so obvious. I know other children were tested at a younger age.

Also, sometimes school testing may not be completely accurate. For example, a local friend of mine went into the IEP meeting with tape recorder in hand and asked specific questions about how her son’s testing was conducted. She learned that when he didn’t understand something they took more time explaining it (which was not the way the test was designed to be given!). Also, they restarted a couple of tests, and even “fed” her son answers in a sort of round-about way.

Yet, you do have a legal right to testing though the school district. You might want to try calling other schools in the district, or nearby districts, and ask at what age/grade they test students for suspected LDs. I would think that with your son having been a late talker that would at least qualify him for some testing through speech.

From what you’re describing it sounds like your son may very well have a rapid automatic naming and word retrieval problem (just like my own son). By the way, I learned about my son’s deficits through private testing with the Woodcock Johnson II (at least I think that was the one? Hopefully I’m retrieving that correctly!). One more thing to look into, although I don’t know enough about it at this point, is Specific Language Impairment. It’s a language processing disorder often related to dyslexics with RAN and word retrieval difficulties.

Victoria’s comment about the helpfulness of having a good vocabulary is an important one. From what I’ve read and pondered it seems like the most valuable thing you can do for a child with word retrieval problems is build up their vocabulary. If they can’t find the word they need they need to be able to come up with similar ones. My son wants to call things “thingies” too but I tell him, “There’s no thingies! I need a word or description.” Then I clap my hands and say “Quick!” It’s almost like a family game. Recently he was studying for a vocabulary test where the answer was something like “The outline of a thing.” He’d say, “hummm” for thing, explaining that I’ve told him he’s not suppose to say the word thing!

Laura in CA

just wanted to say thank you for all the great information!!
i have recently met with the resource teacher, again, at my son’s school (he is in private school). i have now decided to wait it out until first grade before i request a formal evaluation/testing.
WHY? because of all the great advice i received here!!
1) the local public school does not want to evaluate- they say he’s too young. they want to wait until second grade. if i force them into an eval i fear that they will simply say that there is just a developmental delay - which can prolong the process of a formal and accurate eval. (there is a whole can of worms regarding the sp. ed. teacher here which i won’t get into!)
2) the cognitive leap children make between kindergarten and first grade is often surprising. ( i know that it was with my previous two sons) so waiting through the summer and watching him the first quarter of school may be beneficial.
3) as some of you have said, what i am doing with him already surpasses anything the schools would do. i will continue to work with him through the summer.
4) get my ducks in a row: i have documented, journaled, and kept all the worksheets he has done. over the summer, i will compile a THOROUGH folder containing all this information, as well as continue to document my work from the summer. if nothing else, this will prove my point to the public school, and make it more difficult for them to ignore me….which they have done so far.
5) we only have eight weeks left of school - getting him an eval at this time will be impossible.
6) further study son’s legal rights, both federally and state. an informed parent is the child’s best advocate

i still believe (110% sure) there is a learning disability. but waiting until the end of the first quarter of first grade can only provide me with even more documentation. we will still be catching the problem early, so hopefully we won’t be trying to play ‘catch up’ for too long.
again, i want to thank you for your enormous help and insight!

This is very similar to my five year old daughter- who is now in kindergarten and won’t turn 6 until july.
she has throughout the year learned all her letters but still has trouble with numbers over 10 (and we’ve worked our way up from 3)
I had her evaluated by a psychologist who found her cognitively bright but problems with phonemic awareness… and now we see speech pathologist for expressive language issues… some of it I believe is her age/her rate of development/readiness. but I keep pursuing it- I am looking into lindamood bell and am now getting the school involved to be in place for next year/first grade. Good you are doing something now. Compliment yourself for being on it so early.

You may want to try using the Davis type program at home. It is basically making the letters of the alphabet using clay and lining all 26 letters up. You need to do upper and lower case. It is worth a try and this seems to help lotsof kids who could not assimilate the letters previously.

Patti - I read your post about naming and word retrieval speed (I’ve been away) and found it very interesting. My son has a huge vocabulary and no obvious retrieval issues in his day to day language. He knew all his colors and could name them, as well as the alphabet either early or on time. But the break down for him seemed to be putting the letter sounds with their letter represenation on paper. His fluency is really lousy, and his spelling atrocious. Sounds like he isn’t wired for fast retrieval or words in a reading context. He is also a slow processor. Does this sound like a description of issues that make sense? I guess I ‘m still trying to put my finger on his “root” problem. In your experience does ADD medication improve retrieval for this type of kid? Just wondering…

what my daughter does off meds. When she got on meds it made a huge difference. Other kids that I have seen who are slow processors have better reading times when they are on meds. In my daughter’s case she doesn’t have the vocabulary to know when she is reading words that she pronounced them incorrectly. Some of the other kids I worked with who were just slow processors could tell that they couldn’t pronounce the word correctly when reading but they were able to figure it out from the context of the sentence.

For my daughter on meds her spelling has improved tremendously, organization for writing and sentences has improved. Of course we did a ton of remediation but we didn’t really take off until she started meds. Her reading improved with Read Naturally and lots of reading every day. Considering the ADD/CAPD/Hearing loss comorbidity she is doing great.

Hi, folks,

I’m with the LD OnLine team at WETA. We’re in the process of producing a new half-hour television show for parents of young struggling readers. We want to show parents what they can do when they suspect their child may have dyslexia. This show will be part of the Reading Rockets series Launching Young Readers. You can visit www.pbs.org/launchingreaders to see what earlier shows in this series are like.

I’m looking to talk on the phone with parents who have experience with a young struggling reader, preferably kindergarten up through third grade, just to get some background on the piece — particularly parents of kids who attend public schools. If you’d be willing to spend a few minutes on the phone with me, you can e-mail me at [email protected] with your phone number or just call me at 703-998-3293.

Many thanks,
Christian

Christian Lindstrom
Senior Producer
WETA TV
2775 South Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22206
p) 703-998-3293
f) 703-998-2060

Hi!

Did you realize your post showed up in the middle of another thread?
You might want to post it as a new topic :-)