Newly diagnosed with LD, ADHD, Amnestic and Opp. Defiant

Welp, in my experience, sometimes neuropsychs *find* a diagnosis — sort of like, if you go to the doctor with symptoms, they’re going to come up with a theory of some kind for the reasons for it.
That’s a lot of alphabet soup, though, for a kiddo that the school didn’t think had LD issues. Did you sit down w/ the doc and talk about the results and how they connect with what *you* see in her?
And… it’s horribly jolting and upsetting. However, she is *still* the same kiddo she was before the labels. They’re just fancy labels to try to help you help her become the wonderful person she can be — they’re not any kind of Final Judgement. For instance, if she has LDs they could be the basis for behaviors the neuropsych is interpreting as “ODD” — and an awful lot of kiddos with LDs have trouble learning to manage their emotions, but they do succeed, especially when parents will *teach* them lots of the things that otehr kids seem to just pick up. “Post Meeting Depression” does fade after a little bit.

Hang in there.

Good diagnosis are hard to get, and many leave the ‘what to do’ part just hanging. Read, Read, read. You will end up being your child’s case manager. So you are going to have to know your stuff. Its going to take awhile but you have already made the most important steps 1) recognizing yur child has a problem 2) seeking help.

Take a deep breath and get your mind set for long term. Its a long road that you have started down. Take heart that you didn’t wait til 7th grade!!

People will chime in with websites to read. I would start with the front page of LDOnline and go into the ABC’s and LD in Depth. www.schwablearning.org is also a good start. As you read you will pick up the official lingo and the buzz. You know your child well and you will also start to recognise your child in the defnitions, case histories, postings.

Welcome to the club. You may or may not have the correct diagnoses. I think a long talk with your neuro is in order. If he can’t give a good explanation of his findings - you may have to search on. Either way the time to begin your own education in LD/Spec Ed is NOW.

because what if the Amnesia is due to the ADHD/ODD? A good SLP would be able to tell you what his language skills/word finding difficulties are. In addition, she will COMMUNICATE to you what she found so that YOU understand and also provide therapy for his speech and language needs…

Many people including myself who are ADD have word finding issues…it gets worse for me when I am tired or under a lot of stress.

Oh, yea, what’s “amnestic” ???

Yes, I couldn’t figure out the amnesia part. I know that some ADHD kids can be ODD and some can just be oppostional without any disorder. Think about how confusing ADHD can make things. I know of AS kids who were very oppositional as younger children becoming less so later on. I personally think 6 is a bit young to slap this on a kid, unless they are very extreme in some way. Also many younger kids do not know why they are being tested and are suspicious of it for lack of understanding. A good doctor should be able to distinguish those things but not all are good enough to be able to.

But amnesia? I am thinking Patti’s comment on word retrieval is more to the point. There is a big difference! Amnesia implies the loss of previously held memory, for example after an accident. Finding a word out of storage is not the same as forgetting who you are, etc.

Now my question is does the good doc know what he is doing? From my own experience many, sadly, do not. I had a very sad experience with my own misdx and if you want to email me I can tell you.

You need to sit down with this doc again. If that doesn’t answer your questions, while I don’t recommend doctor shopping, well in some cases there is nothing much else you can do. Unless you live in an isolated area, people here can be a big help in this.

—des

Amnestic…Partial or total loss of memory, usually resulting from shock, psychological disturbance, brain injury, or illness. Greek amnsi, forgetfulness

I think it is just a “fancy” word the neuropsyche likes to use for memory issues… :roll:

Just get him to an SLP to get the real deal on his communication and speech and language issues…

Does this child have a history of head injury? If so, I would get him to a pediatric neurologist (not a neuropsychologist) lickety split! In fact, amnesia ( if that is really what is going on) is NOT a feature of LD or ADHD. Many children with LD or ADHD will have difficulties with short and/or longterm memory, but that is definitely not the same thing as amnesia.

Well this is my idea as well. Amnesia doesn’t really have anything to do with a ld. I was guessing that the good doc didn’t know the difference
between memory problems of whatever variety (digit span, word finding, etc) and amnesia, which is a much more serious problem.

I am a bit concerned about a 6 year old getting stuck with ODD as well. Six year olds, lacking some of the maturity and control of older children, might indeed be pretty oppositional— esp if they are ADHD as well. But to actually say he has a disorder, that seems a bit heavy to me. I’m sure there ARE children who show signs of this at an early age.

Here are some characteristics of ODD that I have read on several pages:
Negative attitude, stubborn.
Won’t follow rules or do as asked.
Argues with adults.
Does not seriously hurt others but is unkind to them.
Loses his temper easily.
Annoys other people on purpose.
Gets angry easily.
Argues with friends, classmates, and teachers.
Swears.
Thinks badly of himself.
Moody.
May have difficulties learning or talking about how he feels.
Easily frustrated.
Blames others.
Child may be thought of as a bully.

Some of these things are easily explained as signs of untreated ADHD.
In fact, ADHD was both a differential dx and seen as more likely to be
associated with this.

—des

I do think that the doc used the word Amnestic to describe her short term memory issues. Its just another fancy word they use. My daughter does not have a history of any head/brain injuries, as a matter of fact she has been quite healthy until she started the first grade/new school. Good grief now I’m taking her to a neuropsychologist and having to fight for her rights to a good education. I guess no parent epects this and they will continue to do what they have to for their child NO MATTER WHAT. And, lucky for me I have found this site to help me in my fight. Kudos to all of you.

Here is the latest:

I have a team meeting the first week of June. According to my childs teacher her new diagnoses from a neuropsychologist shoould get her an IEP. However, she did mention that they do not have the resources to put her in a special education class (I thought public schools had special education classes?).

My main concern at this point is that her teacher is defenitely hot and heavy on retaining her since she had failed the first grade due to her difficulties in comprehension of first grade curriculum. Now that she has been diagnosed with ADHD, LD (short term mermory impairment and ODD and has started medication, my questions is SHOULD I LET THEM HOLD HER BACK?

All of the articles that I have reveiwed suggest that I don’t but I know that everyone on the team at my daughters school is strongly for retention.

I really don’t want to hold her back if she will be provided with the special education that she needs in the second grade.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

you are just starting your summer and a lot of strides can be made during the summer…. If she was tuned out more than she was tuned in during the school year…and there is no history of brain injury up the ante on the private therapy so she can catch up over the summer…

However, I still would see if you can go through your insurance and get a comprehensive speech and language evaluation. If she has deficits in speech and language then she would “Qualify” for speech and language therapy. You can also push the school district to do a speech and language evaluation and if she has comprehension issues that could be a “language” issue and speech and language therapy would be part of the special education services she would receive work through those issues..

But immerse her in language based activities, by reading to her and discussing what you have read. Do songs and rhymes and fun things with words. Play Blurt, Outburst, pictionary, Taboo, anything to increase her vocabulary and comprehension…Also, decrease her time that she spends watching tv. There are websites on line by Tracy Boyd an SLP which promote language using the computer…

Hope this helps you!! I am a speech path and I have a HS aged daughter who is hearing impaired, she is also ADHD. She has had problems with comprehension. After we started meds in 5th grade she started to put things together really quickly…

You are on the right track…your daughter is young yet… :) In my daughters case, we have made strides in 4 years that many thought were impossible. And guess what…she was never RETAINED either or placed in a special education class. She got some Resource program help but in a collaborative model and she just receives speech and langauge therapy from me and the other SLP at the high school who is a friend of mine…. :lol:

Well, let me say that as a special ed. teacher and a mom of an LD child, I DID have my child repeat first grade. I think the reason to repeat is ONLY if the school has something to offer that will benefit the child. My child’s school had very good phonics instruction and I felt she might get it with a second year. She did. It didn’t cure everything….she still goes to speech-language and will have a little LD resource next year to help with fluency and comprehension.

Unfortunately, many LD programs have useless programs and the child never gets what they need. So you must carefully evaluate what needs can be met in first grade or second grade with LD help and get private tutoring for the rest. Our child was young for her class and small, so it was a perfect thing for her to spend two years in first grade. I really can’t say there was even one negative thing about it. She went from being at the bottom of the previous class to doing very well the second year, and she did great in second grade this year. Honestly, she would have been totally lost if we had sent her on to second grade after the first year of first grade.

K or 1st grade are about the only grades I’d support repeating, however. The basic reading skills are critical to all the other learning a child will ever do.

Janis

My son was classified as speech and lanaguage impaired at age 3. He ended first grade not reading. The conventional wisdom at that time was not to retain “because he was special ed.” I now realize that was their nice way of saying he won’t ever catch up anyway so why bother.

He is now 11. We have done tons of private intervention. This year we moved him out of public school to the parochial school his siblings attend. We had him repeat fourth grade. The circul. was ahead and frankly it also was very difficult to catch up when you start out so far behind, even with daily work.

It was the best decision we could have made. He still gets some accomodations (terrible speller, difficulty with writing) but he has been on the honor role all year. He is clearly still LD (will get six tests back with four A’s and two F’s!!!). Socially he fits in much better. He was always a bit immature and was on the outskirts of the class socially.

If I had to do it all again though I would have retained him in first grade, which was the first place that I realized how far behind he was. Now it would have done no good to have done the same ineffective circul. again. And there is the rub. Doing the same thing that didn’t work the first time is a waste of everybody’s time. But if you can get him effective help, he will have the gift of time and may not struggle for as long. My son seriously struggled through second grade—you wouldn’t think a child could be so behind by second grade but he was. Third grade was only slightly better—some things had come together but new deficits showed up. Fourth grade was a big improvement and he was scoring in the average range now on all standardized tests. We then moved him to the parochial school and retained him, with very positive results, as I said.

Beth

Instead of ADHD, I prefer the terminology that Judith Bluestone of the Handle Institute (www.handle.org) has coined. She calls it “attentional priority disorder.”

Figuring out WHY a child is not learning is detective work. I agree with the suggestions of getting a speech language evaluation. I also think it would help to sort out various causes of attention issues and rule out ones that don’t apply to your child. For instance, sleep apnea, food or environmental allergies, essential fatty acid deficiency, vision problems, light or sound sensitivities can all impair attention.

If a child is stressed in any of the above ways, especially the sensory ones, the stress can show up in poor behavior.

Where do you live in Maryland? If you live in the metropolitan DC area, I can suggest some practitioners you might want to consult. You can email me privately.