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Have you ever taken a class to learn about your child's LD?

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Just wondering if anyone here has ever taken any classes, like at a college or JC or maybe a seminar somewhere just to learn about their child’s LD? I am such an analytical person that I want to know everything there is to know about my daughter’s language disorder. I know I can ask an expert, but I thought maybe taking a class I could learn more.

My friend told me that one of her neighbors has a child with an LD and she ended up getting her special ed credential or something like that just so she could further help her own child. I was thinking it would be interesting to take classes that a speech therapist takes, but I’m not sure what kind of a commitment that would be. Maybe an online program or something.

Just curious.
Kathryn

Submitted by scifinut on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 1:00 PM

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I haven’t found any real “classes” on my dd’s various LDs as those are usually taught within another curriculum, if they are actually taught at all. (Its amazing how much more information you will get just by reading up on the specific disorder.)

I was able to take a couple classes on my dd’s Bipolar Disorder. It was very helpful.

Good luck.

Submitted by jnuttallphd on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 1:09 PM

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I have a reading disability myself. So out of curiosity and and a desire to know I have also taken classes. I took three classes on the teaching of reading and one class of the teaching of writing. Although these classes didn’t answer all my questions, they have made me feel much more confident about reading and writing. Taking the classes as made the whole area of language processing less mysterious. I still do a lot of outside reading in these areas. As new books are mentioned on the forum I am also getting those to read.

Submitted by Frazzledmom on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 3:32 AM

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Hi Everybody

I am currently taking an independent study class of ADD/ADHD for “clock hours” that count toward renewing my teaching license. I am taking the class to better understand my husband, my youngest son, and a handful of students I have encountered. I’ve only made it through the first few sections but it’s already been info overload and challenged some of my misperceptions. According to this teacher/researcher, there has been very little research that solidly links sugar to hyperactive behavior. For that matter, apparently diet changes supposedly only help 5% of ADD/ADHD children and those are very young or have food allergies. That was a major challenge to me….I’m a big believer in diet affecting so much.. Anyway, I’m trying to squeeze in time to study between sorting, trashing, packing and being summer activity coordinator for my boys.

Submitted by Rod Everson on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 4:06 PM

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[quote=Frazzledmom] For that matter, apparently diet changes supposedly only help 5% of ADD/ADHD children and those are very young or have food allergies. That was a major challenge to me….I’m a big believer in diet affecting so much.. [/quote]

Hi Frazzlemom,

You mentioned your husband and youngest son, and then the above info about diet. There was a fascinating study done with fish oil in England. Both ADHD symptoms and reading levels improved after three months of fish oil tablets were administered.

Use Google to find “oxford-durham study” if you’re interested in reading the study itself. I think there’s a PDF of the entire study that you can download.

Also, I am convinced that when reading problems run in families, developmental vision skills are usually affected and these are not usually picked up by a family optometrist or an ophthalmologist. I’ve written about this on my website at ontrackreading.com and this would be a good page to take a look at [url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-dyslexia-puzzle/my-take-on-dyslexia]My Take on Dyslexia[/url]

Rod Everson
[url=http://ontrackreading.com]OnTrack Reading[/url]

Submitted by Frazzledmom on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 6:24 PM

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Hey Rod

Thanks for the info about fish oil. I”ll definitely look into it. As to the vision problems I’m all over that….in the “What are you doing this summer” strand I mentioned that my youngest son has completed 16 weeks of vision therapy and we are now playing catch up with reading. I am truly surprised that regular optometrists and opthomologists don’t pick up on these problems. It makes me wonder how many children are falling though the cracks unnecessarily.

Thanks again! Have a safe and fun 4th of July!

Frazzledmom in Eastern WA

Submitted by Rod Everson on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 8:57 PM

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[quote=Frazzledmom]I mentioned that my youngest son has completed 16 weeks of vision therapy and we are now playing catch up with reading.

Frazzledmom in Eastern WA[/quote]

Interesting, and congratulations for figuring it all out. I personally think that vision therapy would help over half the LD population immensely, but it’s a tough sell.

Have you seen any significant changes in your son’s ability to pick up reading since the vision therapy? Just curious.

Rod

Submitted by Frazzledmom on Fri, 07/06/2007 - 2:51 PM

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Regarding vision therapy…..

My son can read through a paragraph without complaining. Teachers report he can get through longer chunks of text, but slowly. He is tracking better and his eyes are working together so the words don’t pull apart or mush together. Having said that, it’s slow going. He hasn’t become excited about reading yet and there are many phonics rules he tuned out or has forgotten since it was all so difficult for him. We have an vision therapy CD ROM that we will use regularly once our lives are predictable again. I’ll probably go back and forth between the vision therapy and online phonics practice.

Frazzledmom in eastern WA

Submitted by Rod Everson on Sat, 07/07/2007 - 5:22 AM

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[quote=Frazzledmom]

I’ll probably go back and forth between the vision therapy and online phonics practice.

Frazzledmom in eastern WA[/quote]

Yes, you’ve hit on one of the reasons vision therapy doesn’t always get the credit it deserves. Just because a child can finally handle print visually doesn’t mean that they know what to do with it.

I work with a lot of 3rd to 5th graders who, following vision therapy, are quite easy to teach but they definitely need the phonics instruction. Generally they were so confused visually when the classroom teacher was explaining phonics that it never sunk in.

Incidentally, I used to sell the phonics workbook that I use with my clients but it got to be too much of a hassle. However, I did put the multisyllable approach that I use on my website along with all the wordlists you would need to implement it as well as the worksheets I used as preparation. Go to ontrackreading.com and on the sidebar click on the Multisyllable Decoding-1” link if you’re curious.

Or, here’s a link to it (I hope): [url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-phonics-piece/multisyllable-decoding-1]Multisyllable Decoding-1[/url]

The method is one that I developed myself, and it’s a bit unorthodox, but I’ve used it with nearly 100 kids now and they take to it quite easily because it’s so simple to use. I’ll discuss it more if anyone is interested. Otherwise the discussion on the website is comprehensive.

Rod Everson

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