Hello all,
My son is 13 and CAPD, visual processing disorder, dysgraphic and a non verbal learning disorder. I think. He is not “bad”, he is mild across the board. But I know that it has held him back. It held me back.
I have the special eye doctor to call, the audiologist/therapist to call, what else do I need? I can ask for the OT from my doctor. I want to help the kid.
What do I tell the teachers? Hang on help is on the way? He is in 8th grade in a college prep school. He is an b-c student. he wants to be an a-b student. His teachers want to help. Any suggestions that I can tell them? I am very new to this and I want to go at this full force.
We are in sw georgia where there is NOTHING. we are having to look to north florida and trying to stay away from atlanta, its four hours away. And the schools there are pricey!! We havent found anyone who can test him overall yet in this area. If anyone knows of anyone in the Tallahassee, Valdosta, Albany, area PLEASE POST!
Thank you all!
Universities
The U of GA is in Athens. GA Tech is in Atlanta. Both are 4+ hours away. Albany has Darton and Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, neither has anything that I know of to offer. Darton has a premed courses, I’ll check there. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks!
Re: What do I do next?
There is information about dysgraphia on this website. Click on “LD in Depth” at the top of the screen, then on “writing”. The 90-minute dysgraphia evaluation there tells you which tests can be used to determine dysgraphia. Armed with that, you may be able to find an educational tester who will follow that protocol to determine dysgraphia. (Of course, an OT eval is a good idea too!)
Has your son learned how to type? A common accommodation for dysgraphia, particularly in older students such as your son, is to have the school provide an AlphaSmart. Alternatively, you can provide him with a laptop with appropriate word processing programs on it. There are software programs with word prediction, etc.
If you can’t find a qualified audiologist for the APD testing, you may want to look for a speech/language clinic that specializes in it.
In terms of remediation programs and therapies, you may want to consider the following: TLP (http://www.advancedbrain.com ) to condition the auditory system, FastForWord (http://www.scilearn.com ) to train the brain to process the sounds of speech more efficiently, a developmental vision evaluation (http://www.childrensvision.com ), and occupational therapy. When you are satisfied that sensory deficits have been reduced as much as possible, PACE (http://www.processingskills.com ) is a wonderful cognitive skills training program. If you do not have a provider near you, the company’s home program (BrainSkills, http://www.brainskills.com ) is a good second choice.
Hope this helps!
Nancy
What about his teachers?
Ok, so I know the testing.
What do I tell his teachers? What do I tell them for now? We are going to ask for a meeting with all of his teachers at once to get it over with and to get some feedback from them. But should I go ahead and assume that what I am seeing is true and go with that explaination?
I guess we have a little better knowledge of our childs learning troubles since we did homeschool for most of his years. We did not know about this, we just thought he was just that way. I always thought I was just that way. oh my, how my life could have been different. I hope we are not too late for my son.
yes, he does type. It was his typing teacher that started all of my searching for answers. It is his one A grade. He loves computers.
Please give me some feedback.
Thanks
Re: What do I do next?
Just tell the school personnel what you have told us: you are in the process of testing, you have the CAPD diagnosis and are looking to see if there is also dysgraphia, and you want to work out the best way to help your child. Then let them make suggestions of what they can and will do.
What to Do
Request in writing that school (if public school) test your son for a learning disability in Written Expression. Read the following article which tells which tests they should do: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/writing/dysgraphia_evaluation.html
Keyboarding is essential for kids with problems with the physical act of writing. My son is 16 and was identified at eight. Don’t bother worrying about lost time. OT didn’t help my son much. He uses a computer for his writing.
Also request in writing an Assisstive Technology evaluation.
Thank you for your help!
Thank you all for your help and encouragement.
I will continue to push to get all of the testing that I can for him.
No, our son attends a private college prep school. [he has a sponsor thankfully!] I am hoping that since they have more freedom that they will be able to help him. He has experienced teachers, so I am hopeful.
I’ll post how the parent teacher conference went.
Thank you all !
Isn’t U of Georgia in Albany (or do I not know my geography)? I had my son tested for CAPD by an audiologist teaching at the university where I work. Universities often offer lots of different kinds of testing.
Beth