I just posted a note yesterday and so far no replies. If anyone can give be advice on what I can do to help my son please e-mail me back. We live in CA in a small town with no resources as well as no support form the school. My husband and I have decided to move to wherever it may be fit for our son to get the most help. Can any of you recommend any locations in CA or another state where he could be helped better.
I have done all I can from my part and now he needs outside help.
He is dyslexic, has a possible auditory processing disorder, anxiety issues, sensory issues and speech issues and he is also quite immature for his age. He is the sweetest boy and it kills me to hear him say things like “I’m stupid and i can’t do anything right”….
Re: please help
Hi Carina,
One resource that you will want nearby, should you decide to move somewhere, is access to a developmental optometrist. For more on the reasons, you can look up vision therapy on the web, or check out my website at [url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-vision-piece]OnTrack Reading—The Vision Piece[/url].
I checked at www.covd.org for one near Riverside CA (the city, not the county) and there isn’t one within 100 miles, so you’re right about the lack of resources. (A similar search shows 78 developmental optometrists within 100 miles of Los Angeles, for example.) You should try the same search using your home city, as Riverside is a big county. Maybe there’s one nearby?
Dyslexia can manifest itself in a lot of ways, but the one that is usually overlooked involves vision skills, such as the ability to converge both eyes to a single nearpoint and hold them there. A lot of dyslexic children struggle with undiagnosed, and hence untreated, vision skills deficits. By the time these children are 9 or 10 years old their other developmental issues seem to resolve, but the vision sometimes never does. Vision therapy can be the answer here, but a good phonics program is sometimes needed after the vision therapy, since any phonics these kids were exposed to often failed to stick because of the vision issues.
Hope this helps.
Rod Everson
OnTrack Reading
Re: please help
Carina,
I don’t know about private schools because they are out of our price range and the ones I’ve talked to here don’t cater to language processing problems (Dyslexia is one), vision problems, etc.. But we recently found a tutor who is teaches Dyslexic students using the Barton method. So, we are staying in public school and going to a tutor. She is a certified teacher and can give them a grade in reading, language, etc. if we need her to. And, I take them out of school for tutoring. They are excused without penalty for tutoring. We have only been going a few months but my oldest child has made great strides in reading and spelling. In just the short time we’ve been going both reading and spelling have improved. My third child who is just beginning to read is doing better than I expected.
The Barton Method is based on Orton-Gillingham. The program is broken into several levels. If you can’t find a tutor who uses this method, you can do it yourself. She even provides training CDs. Start at the beginning and buy one level at a time. I did the first level with my third child and then we found the tutor. Check out their web site BartonReading.com. Some of the things they do seem silly and you might be tempted not to do them BUT I’ve found that they’ve helped my third child immensely. It also starts very remedial. The first level doesn’t even use letters. It teaches hearing sounds. Check it out. It has helped us more than anything else we’ve tried so far.
We’ve done vision therapy (I can’t say whether or not this has helped), PACE and Master The Code. I taught my oldest son to read using Phono-Graphix. It was the best thing I could find at the time but I think the Barton method is much better. It teaches reading and spelling together.
Hi Carina:
I read your post from yesterday and see you are looking for a private school. There are a number of private schools in the country that specialize in helping children with learning disabilities, but they are usually very expensive. The one near me has a price tag of about 18-thousand dollars a year for elementary and middle school and it is closer to 20 for high school. To start, you can look for private schools at sites such as NAIS: http://transact.nais.org/Membership/MemberDirectorySearch.aspx. Keep in mind that a number of private schools though will not be a member of this group. You also can search at greatschools.net for all the schools in your area of California, though it will take a bit of time to find one that may be for special needs. You also could try nild.net for private schools that offer the Discovery Program and a Lindamoodbell.com for that program. Keep in mind that most of your standard private schools are incapable of handling special needs. I attended private school, worked at a private school and currently have a daughter attending a private school. Most of them do not have the resources that the public school system has to handle special needs. You have to be careful when you look at private schools. Georgia recently started offering some special education students tuition dollars to attend private schools, and I cringed when I saw the approved list of schools. I know some of the schools listed are incapable of effectively handling special needs students. Private schools definitely can have some advantages, but it is buyer beware. We have since moved from Georgia and are doing the Discovery Program now—so far so good, but it’s early in the game. Hang in there—My learning challenged daughter is 7 as well, and it’s a tough road. I feel like I’ve already run a marathon, and I know in actuality we are just out of the gates.