helping my son

Yes, by all means have your son’s hearing checked. Our daughter has exhibited some of the same symptoms as your child but not as severe. I suspected aa auditory processing problem. The audiologist confirmed her hearing was functioning normally. A speech and language therapist eevaluated her using several different tests and it appears that she does have a Central Auditory Processing Disability (CAPD). Therapy has been recommended and it will include a computer program called Fast ForWord. I would like to know if any one has had any experience with this program and what were the results? Please, get your son examined! You have nothing to lose and it could lead you in the direction you need to go to help your son!

God be with you!

If you get his hearing checked, take him to an audiologist who specializes in assessing CAPD! Regular audiologists do not have the training for this. You can find CAPD audiologists in your area at http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/ (click on links, scroll to almost bottom of page, and click on CAPD Audiologists).

The CAPD eval is often covered by medical insurance.

Since he has been identified as having visual perception problems, it’s quite likely he has developmental vision delays. You should also get him assessed by a developmental optometrist. Again, this is a specialty area and regular optometrists and opthalmologists do not have the training. You can find certified developmental optometrists in your area at http://www.covd.org.

It’s a good idea to have those two areas checked out (auditory and visual) and pursue any therapies that may be recommended — such as vision therapy or FastForWord. After that, consider doing PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.learninginfo.com), which develops cognitive skills in both auditory and visual processing systems.

My own daughter was not reading at all at 8-1/2yo. The eval’s revealed she was okay on auditory processing but had severe developmental vision delays. (Speech and language eval also showed severe lags in phonological awareness.) She did 6 months of vision therapy, followed by PACE, and then a Phono-Graphix intensive (http://www.readamerica.net). The big gains came during PACE and PG. In all, she went from not reading at all to reading on a fluent 5th grade level in 18 months — because she got the specific therapies she needed for her particular problems.

Mary

A speech and language therapist can only screen for CAPD. To determine the exact nature and extent of CAPD problems, you need an eval by an audiologist who specializes in CAPD.

FastForWord can be dramatically helpful to children who have the decoding subtype of CAPD. Other subtypes of CAPD are not helped as much. My own daughter had visual processing problems, not auditory, and so FFW was not at all helpful to her.

Mary

(1) Yes, definitely test for CAPD and vision problems. The sites given to you by other posters have lists of specialists who do this testing.. As in all medical testing, this may be a very long and frustrating process. Don’t give up.

(2) Eight years old and end of Grade 2 is still very young and still lots of time to get back on track. *Don’t* sit back and let things get worse, but have confidence that *with* help, he can get back to grade level.

(3) Several people on this board speak highly of Fast ForWord for auditory retraining and vision therapy for vision retraining and PACE for memory/cognitive training. **IF** your son has the kind of problem addressed by these programs, then listen to the people who have used them successfully with their children, and yes, use them. But there is no one-size-fits-all program, and beware of spending money on one thing after another; tutoring has to be fit to the individual child’s needs, or it’s just more of what failed him at school.

(4) You mention sounding out words, initial and final consonants, long and short vowels, so he is doing some phonics somewhere. Is he getting systematic phonics teaching in the classroom (ie working out of a book?) or is the classroom teacher still doing guess-and-pray? Is the special-ed teacher trying to teach him phonics? Are you trying to teach him at home?

He definitely *does* need to learn phonics, and what he needs is a systematic and organized program. Most kids who fall this far behind need to review the beginning and work through the first couple of levels for a few months before tackling grade-level work. He *can* catch up, just the way to catch up is to do it right, not dive in on page 100 and do more wrong.

If the class teacher is doing guess-and-pray, and the special-ed teacher is rushed, and you are trying to supplement other ideas at home, he may be feeling lost. The best thing to do is to get a good book or series and work through it, both for completeness of the program and a sense of order and stability for him.

Many people here speak highly of Phonographix and use the book “Reading Reflex”. I personally like the set of “Check and Double-Check” phonics workbooks from Scholar’s Choice. (both very inexpensive) Other people use the Orton-Gillingham manual and/or various CD programs, available from eps (all available online). The important thing is to get a complete, thorough, structured program and help him get all the steps in order.

(5) You can help him yourself; you can read here and on LD in depth and other boards and educate yourself.

Or you can hire a tutor. There are many available, and I am collecting a list of resources if you are interested. A good tutor who works with your child as an individual is expensive but worth every cent.

(6) Leaving out vowels in writing is common. It’s not a problem for beginners, but yes, by Grade 3, it is behind where we want him to be. I wouldn’t focus on that issue first, but on the reading, which is far deeper from what you describe.

(7) Reciting back from memory is NOT reading. Unfortunately many primary teachers have been taught to have kids do this, and it leads to many confused kids who are doing exactly what they were taught and suddenly are upset to find out they can’t read.
Reciting from memory is a great skill and useful in many fields (law, medicine, poetry, the church, singing, acting, etc.) so don’t stop him doing it in *other* activities — and praise him for his skill — but it will actually work *against* him learning to read (he has an easy out from the hard job).
Personally, when I have reciters *in reading class*, I won’t let them do it, not ever. I require them to read fresh material each and every time. This is the only way to teach them to read
(8) I am collecting as long list of online resources: research, books and materials, national/international tutoring referral services, etc. It’s still a work in progress, but please just ask if you want to know where to find anything.

Thank you all for your help.
Victoria to answer your questions.
1.He does wear glasses and has been though vision therapy and it did not seem to help.At the suggestion of the Dr. we stopped.He still sees him about every 6 months for checkups though.He had his hearing tested when he was 2 (my father was deaf) and the school has testes him too every 6 months (he has been in speech since preschool) he is also ADHD and Wellbutrin (stimulants he had adverse reactins to).
2.he is just about to turn 9 and neiether me or his teacher is sitting back .She has been working with him all year.She didnot understand how he passed last year.We helped him every night for atleast 3 hours last year so he could.This year we have scaled back since his teacher is helpingb him too.
3.At home we are mainly working on his corrdination skills he is behind in all areas.
4.At his school they start teaching phonics in K and go though 4 grade .SO he is on his third year of them.he does them now one on one with a LD tutor along with spelling and cursive writing instuction.She also just started doing his reading test with him this past week so he can have some things read to him needed .His teacher all year has given him all the time he needed for work along with modifications.At home we are just reviewing spelling words,vocabulary words w/flascards,and his one worksheet(3 nights a week),and corrdination skills (cutting,catching,etc….)We thought if he has too much going on he will get more fustrated.
5.yes I am interesed in the resources.
6.That is what his teacher said but she also said since he dont know the difference in vowels it is becoming more of a problem.
7.It took me most of last year to convince his teacher he was not reading only memorizing.it took me writing sentences with his words in a different way than she did to prove to her he could not read even after he was failing his sight vocbulary tests (he has yet to pass one).
He is getting very fustrated at home he has 3 younger sisters 2 of which are right behind him one is in 1st grade (held her back so they would not be in same grade) and one in K and they are reading harder books than him and they catch his mistakes when they play or see him writing backwards.The onein 1st dont say much she realizes he has troubles.She also has articulation problems like he does.He has had his IQ tested and the school psycologist said his is 155 verbal and his performance is 107.we have a IEP meeting in a couple weeks for next year his teacher this yearis going to work w/ next years and tell her all we are doing this year. and his teacher ants to add it all to his iep which his category will change from speech impariment to specfic learning disability.

Aside from getting a CAPD evaluation for him, you should probably consider PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.learninginfo.com) down the line.

Balance and coordination problems often go hand-in-hand with CAPD. If he hasn’t had an OT eval by an OT trained in sensory integration, that would be a good secondary step to the CAPD eval. The kind of OT that schools provide usually does not address the sensory integration problems of CAPD children, so you may want to consider private therapy. NeuroNet (http://www.neuroacoustics.com) is one of the best for this kind of problem, but is not widely available yet. (There is good information about how auditory problems can affect balance and the ability to learn, if you can work your way through it.)

Once you are satisfied you have addressed any sensory level problems you find (vision therapy is one, FFW and OT are others), PACE would be appropriate. It’s very expensive, however. They have recently come out with a home-based program (http://www.brainskills.com) that — as nearly as I can figure — offers about 1/3rd of the exercises of the full-blown program.

A less expensive interim therapy I would urge you to try is Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com). Both Audiblox and PACE work on cognitive skills development. Audiblox costs about $80 to start (you need the video and book, and the kit of manipulatives is handy), and you have to invest 1/2 hour to 1 hour a day working one-on-one with your son. The results can be extremely encouraging, but sometimes you have to wait 6 weeks to start seeing the improvements. Cognitive skills are sort of like body-building — you have to do a certain number of reps over a certain period of time to start seeing results. Most people do reap good results from the effort, but it takes some time.

To simplify all this, I’d recommend the CAPD eval and OT eval to start. I’d also start Audiblox right away. Once you’ve done any sound therapies recommended by the audiologist, I’d do PACE (if you can afford it). These approaches may not solve all his problems, but they should help a lot.

Sure hope this helps your son a bit.

Mary

Thanks for spending the time to type all this. I think I agree almost entirely with what Mary MN posted.

We hear and see two kinds of complaints — kids who just aren’t getting helped and are dropping through the cracks, and kids who aren’t succeeding even with help. Your son is clearly in the second group; he’s getting all kinds of help, maybe too much. You are right, he may be feeling overloaded and frustrated.

I would go with what Mary said, get him an evaluation from a CAPD specialist, and try Audiblox, which many parents say is a great help’ and consider PACE which many people say is worth the money (Discuss with audiologist and other parents what is suitable first, however.)

I personally also have a coordination/balance problem, and the *worst* thing you can do is to apply too much pressure. Nervousness causes muscles to tense and what little coordination has been gained goes away. I would recommend activities which are fun and normal for his age and which teach coordination as a sideline — swimming, karate, rollerblading and skating, yoga, trampoline, skiing, art and calligraphy classes, cooking, crafts, music lessons, etc. His coordination will improve slowly but steadily if he is working at something he really likes and can take pride in (especially if he is better at karate or swimming or skiing than his classmates and sisters). Varied activities, two or three times a week in different things, changing over the seasons, will reach all parts of his body and allow him to find some true interests. Individual sports and activities (karate rather than basketball) will allow him to learn at his own pace and not suffewr comparisons — check that the instructor does not teach by shaming slower kids, also. Lessons now are worth every penny in physical control and self-esteem later.

In reading, I would back off a *lot*. Back off the vocabulary, back off the speed, and back off the pressure. Find out what he actually can read independently. From the sound of it, he’s essentially a non-reader still. That’s OK! Find out now, not later after twelve years of faking, and now he still has the time to catch up. I’ll send you copies you can use for an accurate reading inventory if you want, at the cost of the copies. Once you have a realistic measure of what he can actually do on his own, **start working there and no higher**. His teacher and LD specialists are working their hearts out, but if he’s on primer level and they are four books ahead of him on second reader, their efforts are doomed to failure and frustration for all involved. It is a blow to the teacher’s pride to have to back up and re-teach things she thought she had taught so well, but try your hardest to convince her. I make this easier for both student and teacher by saying it’s *review*. Well, in a sense it is review; he has seen it before, just not been given time to integrate it into his own thinking. Remember, it’s not a race to rush through the books and to generate the most pouinds of paper the fastest. Your goal is to make sure he has reading skills for the rest of his life, so invest time now, as much as it takes. Two or three years of review now may look like a lot, but he’ll still be in elementary school in that time. Catching up in middle and high school and college is harder if not impossible. So back off now, get a good re-start, and he will get up to grade level later.

we have backed off alot .We have to go over his vocabulary (we only do it a few times a week)he has never passed a test and his grades are suffering now since thay have to read their own tests on every subject now.He just guesses we know that because if a test is read to hi he gets mainly As but if it isnt he gets Fs.The school said as long as he comprhends on a higher level he should stay with that level.All the students but DH are on the same level book and do the same work.His does get modified on the amount of writing to do as long as he knows it verbally.He does wrestle and has the past 3 years when it is inseason.he just started soccer which he loves he is the oldest on the team he just missed the higher group cut off date by 2 days.he actually scored a goal yesterday and it was his first game.he is in baseball too and he missed that cutoff date too so on that team he is the oldest too he is small so it helps him.He just started riding his bike so.We live in a very small town so everyone knows one another and he plays well with the neighbor kids.
His teacher has proposed that next year he does reading one on one at his own pace.He will have phonics more intense next year too and one on one with a Tutor.He puts more of the pressure on himself he wants to do what all his friends are doing in terms of reading and writing his teacher has said this he knows he has the ability and gets fustrated at himself so easy.We dont push him to do any of this just as long as he tries.He plays the guessing game when he reads and the school psycologist has seen this and mentioned it too.

I have a 7th and 9th graders that need help with their reading comprehension and reading speed. Does anyone know of software that could address these issues?