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any suggestions

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

My 7 year old son has just been diagnosed with LD”s Auditory, Language and Memory processing problems, as well as visual issues. We have decided to take him out of public school and into a small private school.
There will only be 9 kids in the class.

I met with the teacher last week and talked to her about the processing problems. She met with my son . talked to him and tested him briefly. She seems very nice, approachable and understanding. She has worked with spec. ed before and feels comfortable that she will be able to help. There is also a Special ed. consultant for the school.

My question is I have all the paper work from our Educational Psychologist with the recommendations for teaching etc… It’s quite extensive.I realize some of it would require constant attention( unrealistic even in a small classroom) I am to meet with her again next week where I will bring the report and discuss his needs.

What can I expect from a good teacher? I have also let her know that I am available for anything, volunteering in the classroom to providing anything special he may need.

Any suggestions on questions I should ask?

Thanks so much!

Submitted by victoria on Sat, 08/21/2004 - 6:18 PM

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It’s good that you relaize the teacher cannot be on top of his every action every minute. There are only sixty minutes in an hour and a fact of life is that when you are in a group situation you cannot take all the resources for yourself; this is a fact that a lot of parents don’t accept easily. In fact, one of the goals of going to school is to learn to work in groups and that involves not always having personal attention, being able to do things semi-independently, being able to listen to a group presentation and not always one tailored directly to you.
A good teacher will give him as much personal help as possible within the group situation, but will also encourage him to do things without constant supervision. Sometimes there will be slumps when the constant support is not there, and a good teacher will encourage him over these slumps. A good teacher will also try to give him work that is doable so that he can develop on his own.
You will probably have to do a lot of home teaching no matter what. Don’t blame the teacher for doing her job in the class and not being able to work miracles overnight. Try to get information on what he should be learning next and work on developing skills; don’t worry so much about catching up with homework sheets, but make sure he unsderstands concepts — for example, knowing tens and ones is vital to understanding carrying and borrowing, so before fighting with filling in the answers on the math sheet, make sure he knows the tens place and the ones place and understand that he is trading a dime for ten pennies when he carries or borrows. You should talk to the teacher about homework; hopefully she will understand if he is behind and will accept alternate work where appropriate.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 08/21/2004 - 9:18 PM

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Have you considered doing direct remediation of the underlying problems yourself? This would include getting a developmental vision evaluation to see if vision therapy is in order, sound therapies for the auditory piece (TLP, FastForWord), occupational therapy if sensory integration work is needed, vestibular work (NeuroNet, Balametrics, Interactive Metronome), and a cognitives skills training program.

I realize this doesn’t answer your original question. I am just wondering if anyone has informed you that reducing the underlying deficits before attempting academics is often a very wise move. Some parents decide to homeschool for a year in order to provide these very intensive therapies.

Nancy

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 08/22/2004 - 1:56 AM

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Did you ever consider going through CSE meeting to request a one on one teacher’s aid for your child? It would be good to do this in a new setting/school. It will be someone who whill attune to your childs needs and learning pattrens and should be made available to you through your school district. I have had great success with “TA”s or Teacher Aides who assist children this way. My daughter has been able to stay on academic level due to this help and she is now entering 10th grade. Good Luck

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 08/22/2004 - 3:12 AM

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victoria, Nancy2 and fontfun4

Thank you all for your replys. We recently found out about the extent of my sons problems. We never knew he had any.He is in a highly gifted school and academically doing very well. He went from kindergarten to the 2nd grade( something I regret, but professionals recommended this).

Last year he started out with horrible handwriting, not being able to put thoughts to paper, and a difficult time concentrating. The teacher said he would catch up by mid year because of skipping 1st grade. He never did catch up and I realized there were problems .The teacher told me she had no idea how he learned because he never paid attention in class and would not do his work oin class but would pull high 90’s on all tests.

At this time I went to the principal and asked for assessment and was informed that because he was not working at 2 grades below his grade level he wouldn’t be able to get an IEP or other services. After a strong letter the last week of school they gave me the forms to request an IEP. Now It will take 50 days after school starts for them to arrange the assessments. Which the school psyc. only comes once a week, so that will probably take a couple months, now half the year is gone. My poor son would suffer if left at that school.

That led me to take him to a Educational Psychologist. She then identified the processing problems and referred us to a Developmental Optomotrist. My son is in glasses and started vision therapy. He can now see the board.
We also went a step further and saw a Developmental Behavioral Neurologist. Had 3 days of extensive assessments and his findings were very much like the Ed. Psyc. But that he has OCD as well.

The Ed. Psych. recommends that we serve the public school with a 10 day notice for their failure to identify and assess my son.( I feel weird about this).

I feel he will drown if kept in a highly gifted class next year because the demands will be so much greater, more emphasis on writing, more independent work. I want him to feel good about himself and his accomplishments, like school and be successful.

We are remediating we’ll start seeing the speech and language therapist next week and I started him with Handwriting w/o tears and audiblox. I don’t want to overwhelm him too much we are going slow.

Anyway, sorry for rambling but I’ve been overwhelmed with all of this and what the right thing to do is. I only want to help my son and do what is best.

If anyone has any input please share.

Thanks for listening!!

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 08/22/2004 - 3:25 AM

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victoria, Nancy2 and fontfun4

Thank you all for your replys. We just recently found out about the extent of my sons problems. We never knew he had any LD’s . He is in a highly gifted school and academically doing very well. He went from kindergarten to the 2nd grade( something I regret, but professionals recommended this).

Last year he started out with horrible handwriting, not being able to put thoughts to paper, and a difficult time concentrating. All age appropriate for a 1st grader. The teacher said he would catch up by mid year because of skipping 1st grade. He never did catch up and I realized there were problems .The teacher told me she had no idea how he learned because he never paid attention in class and would not do his work in class but would pull high 90’s on all tests.

At this time I went to the principal and asked for assessments and was informed that because he was not working at 2 grades below his grade level he wouldn’t be able to get an IEP or other services.So I kept trying to help him at home. The Ed. Psyc. told us differently re: the IEP so after a strong letter the last week of school they gave me the forms to request an IEP. Now It will take 50 days after school starts for them to arrange the assessments. Which the school psyc. only comes once a week, so that will probably take a couple months, now half the year is gone. My poor son would suffer if left at that school.

That led me to take him to a Educational Psychologist. She then identified the processing problems and referred us to a Developmental Optomotrist. My son is in glasses and started vision therapy. He can now see the board.
We also went a step further and saw a Developmental Behavioral Neurologist. Had 3 days of extensive assessments and his findings were very much like the Ed. Psyc. But that he has OCD as well.

The Ed. Psych. recommends that we serve the public school with a 10 day notice ?? for their failure to identify and assess my son.( I feel weird about this).

I feel he will drown if kept in a highly gifted class next year because the demands will be so much greater, more emphasis on writing, more independent work. I want him to feel good about himself and his accomplishments, like school and be successful.

We are remediating we’ll start seeing the speech and language therapist next week and I started him with Handwriting w/o tears and audiblox. I don’t want to overwhelm him too much we are going slow. And going to a private school, smaller class where he can get help in the areas he needs help in.
Anyway, sorry for rambling but I’ve been overwhelmed with all of this and what the right thing to do is. I only want to help my son and do what is best.

If anyone has any input please share.

Thanks for listening!!

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