Hi… I am brand new to the boards. I have an 11 yr old son who has been identified gifted and LD in reading. He just got the LD dx two weeks ago. He has never received any reading help in the public school he has attended since K. He has been in a gifted enrichment program since 2nd grade when I used private IQ testing scores to get him qualified.
Since age 5 we’ve had a lot of testing done over the years….starting with an auditory processing disorder and language processing disorder, which he received therapy for, both private and in school. I’ve suspected a reading LD all along, but his intelligence was able to mask it until now…. 5th grade. Prior testing always showed his reading at grade level or in the low avg range….not enough to qualify for services. BTW….he is also ADHD Primary inattentive!
He is really a neat kid….sensitive, brilliantly creative, compassionate, very high level and analytical thinker, but the frustration in school has taken its toll on his self esteem and we’ve seen the secondary anxiety and depression. Luckily we’ve got great support on the emotional end…a pediatric psychologist and he will be working with a mentor next year as he transitions into middle school. IEP will be in place with accomodations, but I am about to negotiate the IEP update for reading services. He is on meds for the attention issues, as well as the mood issues.
This is where I need help. He is very weak on decoding, fluency, and comprehension. Spelling is a complete disaster. He will do anything to avoid writing exercises and while he has pretty good ideas….his writing is full of gramatical errors and it is pretty nondescript. Processing speed is VERY slow. Recent IQ testing showed his Verbal IQ WISC was 139, PIQ was 106, Full Scale IQ 126. On the reading portion of his psycho-ed testing (Wechsler Individual Achievement Test 2nd), he scored a 90 in reading comprehension, 93 in pseudoword decoding, and 102 in word reading.
With these spreads, its obvious to me he has a reading LD. I did this testing privately (as I have had all his testing done). I will be having him work with a private reading tutor also. My question is this: What types of reading services should I ask for 6th grade? I have a whole list of accomodations and modifications I will ask for, but I am not sure of what type of reading support/lab in middle school to ask for.
Thanks for any input
Re: Gifted and LD
wow- your son sounds like a clone of mine! verbally gifted, dyslexic, probably add-inattentive, anxious, and just plain quirky.
We just this year (4th grade) moved him into a private LD school. However, last year we had great gains in decoding from sending him to Lindamood Bell for 4 weeks. If we had hadn’t been able to send him to his new school we would definitley have sent him to LMB for the summer. The intensity of their work produced much better results than the 2x a week OG tutoring we were doing. (we did both, but the LMB was noticeabley effeective)
We found that between the tutoring and the psycho therapy there just wasn’t time for anything like audioblox. I did try to fit in more condensed therapies such as Interactive Metronome during the summer.
The Parenting a child with LD board tends to be more active with parents if you are interested.
to gifted and ld
What state do you live in and under what diagnosis does your child now receive special ed services? Do some investigation on your own and find out what services are available at the middle school; our large public middle school offers no individual reading services, instead offers a generic study support period that is more like homework help plus behavior control support. In my state your child would not qualify for LD dx as achievement scores are in the average range; special ed in Mass. does not offer services to help above average kids reach an above average potential. I would go with private services.
Re: Gifted and LD
Thanks for the input. SAR…. I’m in Oklahoma and his current IEP is classified Speech/Language…..which is the classification he was set up under back in 2nd grade when we were more concerned with the language and auditory processing weaknesses. At that time we didn’t have the dx of ADHD Inattentive, anxiety, or the reading LD.
I have actually hired an advocate mentor for my son (check out www.school-coach.com) to help him (and me) adjust to the middle school change. She will help me advocate, plus help him with study skills and self advocacy. I am currently in talks with her on what the middle school services are out there to fit his need because my IEP meeting is within a couple of weeks. Here in OK, professional mentor/coaches are a new concept…..I don’t know if they are common in other areas of the country.
I will be very discouraged if I find out that in 6th grade, they offer no remediation services at all and instead just offer a study hall type organizational class. I know the schools resources are limited by budget and they have to allocate their $ to the most needy, so I am prepared to go private too with the reading services. But I want whatever services they offer for reading LD at that age and grade level. Most of all….. I want the accomodations that he desparately needs for the transition to middle school.
Re: Gifted and LD
There’s a great little online group of GT/LD parents — http://www.gtworld.org/ (then click on “GT-Special” to get to the right frame).
Do be prepared for minimal support at middle school. Hunt down the teachers who will appreciate a bright but “different” child. This is a time when perception is everything. One teacher will see his strengths; another will only see that he’s not competitively worthy of being considered “gifted” and will resent accommodations (and then there are the ones who think bright kids *should* just have to work harder, those little brats… read the envious teacher…). One ally can make a huge difference in his life.
Consider options to “resource room” too — maybe he’d do better as a “library assistant” (especially if behavior problems are relegated to that resource room). Hey, teach him to shelve over the summer and the librarian will love him :-)
Re: Gifted and LD
I’ve heard that here in California middle school services are also REALLY poor to practically non-existant, but hopefully you’ll find out about more options and programs that may be available for your son through your advocate.
By the way, if you have the financial resources, you may want to look at Lindamood-Bell for private help with reading. I really like their program, but it is very expensive and you’d need to figure out if it would be appropriate for your son.
Audiblox will work nicely. It can remediate kids pretty quickly whose performance IQ score is lower than verbal score.