My 6YO finally had a diagnosis but I don't know what to do

My son has had various dx’s from professionals and tutors and CAPD has been one of those

I pulled him from school for 6th grade this year and homeschooled. It was unquestionably the best decision I have yet made!!!! He has made tremendous progress with this reading and I am hoping to hs him for 7th grade as well(job issues in the air so not 100%)

He too had a gap in his verbal/non-verbal scores. Although the gap has narrowed with age, it remains, and verbal continues to be a weakness.

I think one on one remediation of that weakness will far exceed anything the school has to offer. That is NOT to put the school system down but simply to state that they cannot possibly provide the one on one you can!

We focused on reading. I would recommend you do the same and, at his age, that’s easy. I had to put science and social studies on hold-in 1/2 grade you really have nothing to work on but reading and math

IF I could go back in time knowing what I know now, I would have sent him to kindergarten a year late-repeating kindy would be my second choice

It’s not really about the academics although age and experience do seem to improve verbal skills. My son is immature for 12. When you are delayed, there is a lot of catching up to do. He did not demonstrate pretend play until age 7(yes, one of those dx’s was a spectrum disorder) and now, at 12, delves into imaginary play like a much younger child.

He is being uniquely himself and I adore him for it, but he is out of step with his peers.

I dont know if this applies to your son-it is such an individual decision. My guy just hit 70 lbs so he could easily go back a grade and no one would blink.

But he’s too aware and self concious now. I think retaining him would be devastating at his age

I used the Sound Reading program and thought it worked well. It is very user friendly with specific instructions on exactly what to do each day

Victoria on the board also has excellent advice. She emailed me many suggestions to improve reading

I am only now in May allowing ds to read to himself. Up to now, EVERYTHING we have studied has involved either me reading aloud or him reading aloud to me.

This has been IMO the key to it all. He KNEW phonics from school and Phonographix but he chose not to use it. He would barrel through his reading at full speed and put his head up not having any idea of what he read.

I simply did not let him do that. Even now, as I assign him short reading tasks, I insist he write a summary or answer comprehension questions I’ve made ahead.

Teachers CANT do that-they dont have the luxury of that kind of time

BTW, don’t think we’re homeschooling 8 hrs a day. We are ALWAYS done in less than four and 3 hours is typical!

Lunch, recess, announcements, PE, music, bathroom lines? They take a lot of time.

At his age, 3 hours would be max IMO

I have been suggested the audioblox program. Are you familiar with it?

I have read many good things about Audiblox and have thought about purchasing it and doing it over this coming summer

My reluctance is because of my son’s age and how difficult I anticipate this being in terms of “boring”. The brain is more plastic before age 9 so, in your case, I would definitely consider it

I SHOULD but I am having trouble gathering up the courage to enforce what seems to be a pretty lengthy time commitment(an hour is going to seem like 10!!!)

But yeah, I think it would help with the sequencing stuff. My guy still cannot recite the alphabet or months of the year without reminders.

He’s average to high average IQ, mind you( I always feel obligated to mention that when I tell folks that tidbit)

Sighhhhhh……I probably should give it a go. I would have such perfect indicators of progress should he suddenly be able to recall those difficult sequences.

Audiblox would not be the best choice for a child with APD. My child has a very, very similar profile to yours, although her verbal score is not as low. I’d probably strongly consider doing Fast ForWord, from what you have told me. Then I’d probably do the Lindamood Bell training and teach him at home. If he has severe auditory processing problems, he probably will not have too much of a chance to have the one-on-one instruction he needs in a school.

But let me mention that we DID let our child have two years in first grade. I think it is a huge mistake to send a child to second grade without strong reading skills. But you must make use of the second year to do remediation privately or at home to be sure you are really gaining ground. I generally do not favor retention after first grade.

Just take a look at the Lindamood-bell (LMB) programs to see what kinds of programs might be helpful. It’s not the only one, but they do offer training and the materials are nice. LMB programs are very appropriate for children with auditory and speech-language problems as one of the authors is a speech language pathologist. I have had most of thier trainings and am signed up for the last one in June.

www.lblp.com

Janis

So glad to hear that your year homeschooling your ds has been such a success. Sounds likes he’s really gotten back on track.

[quote=”Lorna”]His diagnosis is Auditory Processing Disorder with a weak short term memory. He also has speech therapy but that is common in my family. His vocabulary is slow to expand although there seems to have been improvement as his speech improved.]

My dd (now 7.9 yrs old) has APD. We did 2-3 months of Earobics (at home) while waiting to do FastForWord (FFW). We did FFW last summer and it took us a lot longer to finish it than what the description of the program says (FFW should be completed in 6-8 weeks; it took us 22 weeks!).
Anyway - the results were excellent! My girl went from being below grade level in reading and spelling to being above grade level.

I have to say however - her LD is actually non-verbal (which means that the verbal stuff is easier for her than non-verbal), so that for sure helped as well.

[Here is my dilemma: they want him to repeat first grade. I see the logic in this and don’t want him thrown in over his head in second grade.]

My dd’s psychologist is extremely against having kids repeat grades (especially once they hit primary level; i.e. when they are grade 1 and up). He says - what kids need is to receive the help they need in order to catch up. He believes that holding them back can only result in low self-esteem and perhaps depression.

We decided to send our girl to grade 2 but in a great Sp,Ed. program in our local public school. It was the best decision we could have made. She’s progressed beautifully in all her areas of strength - reading, spelling and writing (where she was below grade level in grade 1), and is receiving extra help in math (she is way below grade level in math). She will stay in the same program for another year (grade 3), and will be moving to junior level after that. We will see how she’s doing and what kind of placement should we try to get for her at that time.

Please, keep in mind that all the kids are different. You will have to decide what’s best for your child and your family.

Good luck! I wish you all the best.

Rubby

Hi Lorna. My son had a profile very similar to your son’s when first dxd—overall IQ 125 but huge difference between verbal and performance, with verbal being much lower. He was and is what I call classically dyslexic—he couldn’t rhyme (still can’t very well); he knew some phonics but could not blend or segment to save his soul; he was very slow to learn the alphabet and still doesn’t know the months of the year in order; and may never be able to spell except phonetically.

We took a path very similar to the one Marycas described. For 2nd through 4th grade, our son was in two different schools, had 12 weeks of Phonographix at beginning of 3rd grade, and some phonics-based tutoring once a week for about 15 months. The public school had never heard of Orton Gillingham, or most of the offshoot programs, even though he had a formal diagnosis of dyslexia and was in resource room. The single most effective thing we did was to pull him out of school for the last 20 weeks of 4th grade and homeschool him. I used the SPIRE reading program which I highly recommend—it has been favorably reviewed elsewhere on one of these boards, and is an Orton-Gillingham offshoot-type program. Not only was SPIRE a good reading program, but many of the passages were social studies and science content. So I felt justified in spending almost half of the time on direct reading instruction, knowing he was getting those content areas as a bonus. I also relied heavily on posts here, especially from Victoria, about math. I purchased some of the LeapFrog items for classical music, dinosaurs, space, etc.. We buddy-read books on the relevant soc. studies topics (i.e., Seminole Indians), and my husband supervised science experiments, copied from the district grade-level text, on the weekends. I echo Marycas’s observation that you can do it all in 3-4 hours per day, and can do it even if you work outside the home. I am a full time university prof—I homeschooled till noon and then worked noon till whenever I had to to get my work done!

To keep you hopeful: our son has now just completed 5th grade, without ever being retained, at a charter school for kids with reading disabilities. His most recent performance on the state-required norm referenced test was at the 70th percentile for reading comprehension. We considered this to be almost miraculous, since his reading comprehension was at the 3rd percentile two years ago. So very best of luck to you, I know you can do it.