Kindergarten DeJaVu

For the short term you are doing well to come up with neumonics (sorry, spelling is not right), your “jingles” fit this type of memory aide. Since the work load in school will just increase you want to address the problem over the long term. While others may have other recommendations, many will agree with me that you should look into the Lindamood-Bell program Visualizing and Verbalizing (V & V). Your daughter’s memory for information can increase considerably if she learns to visualize what she is studying. V & V starts at a picture level, then moves to sentences and paragraphs. Perhaps a teacher at your school has training and experience. While you look into this, break information down into very small parcels (important facts) and with your daughter make visual pictures of that fact. Talk about important features like size, color… I’m not great on my Colorado history, but take, say, Zebulon Pike and picture this mountain man with his plaid shirt, mule and pick standing on top of his mountain peak and his name tag or flag saying Zebulon. Ask your daughter to make a picture in her mind and have her describe it to you so that you can see it too. You might also need to ask for accomodations for tests, smaller parts over several days. I used to try to get a short study period for my student right before the test. Trial and error and see what helps. Good luck.

Wow, that’s interesting. My daughter had V/V in her LMB package for about 2 years. I noticed that her comprehension went up about 7 pts. after 1 year.

Now that you explain how they do it, it just makes sense.

Hi Dea,

My son is repeating K. He started today. His memory is very low. 2 months ago the doc said his memory closely matches that of a child with brain trauma. I am searching for ways to help him with his memory. I am using Phongraphix for reading but there are always several letters he can’t remember to save his life.

I’d love to here what you did for your daughter that helped at that age.
Blessings,
Diane

Dea,

We have adapted some of our Neuronet exercises for memory tasks. It has some similarities to how Angela describes V & V except that you add a motor task to help automaticity. He also actually draws the picture—which I think helps kids who have difficulty visionalizing. For example, my son had to learn the continents and oceans in third grade. I took a piece of paper and divided it into boxes (5 by 5). He drew a picture for each one. It wasn’t necessarily anything that you or I would think. His great aunt lives in australia so he drew a picture of her, for example, on an island. He then would bounce on a large exercise ball clapping his hands and his legs in time as he named the continents. He would do one continent per clapping his hand and his legs.

We also bought him a world map and went over the continents with it.

He still knows them to this day.

Beth

Visualizing and Imaging - yes this is part of her problem. We never did V/V but have been doing alot of visualizing and (symbolizing) with the PACE and MTC exercises. She can now see pictures in her head (in K to 2nd grade - she could not see anything). But I don’t think this is a rote behavior for her - there is something still missing. Oddly, she has tremendous visual abilities - in the gifted range. She needs visual ques - but somehow visualizing pictures on her own just doesn’t happen.

I dug out my old ‘The Memory Book’ by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas. They use the term ‘substitute words’ and linking. But it’s very similar to what both Beth and Angela describe. I stayed up last night trying to come up with ideas on how to get her to ‘image’ CO history Chapter 1 information better. Beth - it’s just like the PACE exercise with the presidents names. and the one to remember the list of words. Requires some creativity , but maybe i’ll get better at it. (my dd was never real good at either of those - she could do them, but it took her longer than I think most kids). I liked your example of how your son learned Australia - I think those kind of tricks could help her.

I also am wondering if part of the ‘history’ problem is that she just has no interest in it. She hates to read biographies, Dear America books, American Girl books, Dear Diary etc - says they are too boring. OR maybe the information just gets jumbled in her head and she can’t visualize them like she can ‘funny’ cartoon books. She is telling me on her history information that all the names just confuse her and get jumbled in her head.

Conjoin - my dd split her forehead open (13 stitches) when she was 2. I always wondered if this contributed to some of her issues and if she suffered from a head injury - but her dad has many of her same traits, maybe not as severe. In Kindergarten, she had terrible short-term memory - that of a 2-3 year old.

Tomatis was what turned the corner for us. We had been trying LMB Lips and Earobics - it was very slow going and frustrating for her. After Tomatis she started rapidly progressing. She went from the bottom of her class to top within only like 3 mo after completing Tomatis. We finished Earobics, did Brainbuilder, Reading Reflex. In that 3mo period, she also went from hating school to loving school.

It’s been 2 years since we have done any Tomatis ‘boosters’. With these new issues, I am probably going to have her go thru again. My only hesistation is that it’s expensive and I am debating doing something like Interactive metronome. These responses are also making me wonder if I should have evaled to see if V/V and/or Seeing Stars would help and should have LMB evaluate her. I just don’t have the $$ or time to do all of them.

Dea,

I think the transition your daughter has to make is to generate her own images. That is where the drawing is useful—it puts it square on her own shoulders so you don’t have to stay up at night!!! I know our therapist has told me that the drawing is useful because it forces them to make their own associations. V & V has some specific techniques to teach that too, but I don’t know them. The therapy we’ve done through NN has raised his comprehension to above average. I am sure they would be useful, given his memory weaknesses, but we’re too busy putting the fires out, if you know what I mean.

I am also sure interest has something to do with it. I tell the story about my son in third grade and bones. He was supposed to learn the english and latin names of major bones in the body. He told me that he wouldn’t ever need to know that unless he was going to be a doctor and he wasn’t going to be a doctor. Frankly, I let it slide and he never passed the tests but then neither did a lot of other kids. In the end, the teacher gave easy work to raise the grades up and my son got a C that marking period.

But the bones were only a part of health so you probably don’t really have that option open to you. But maybe you need to think about field trips for her. Colorado has to have interesting things you can take her to that are related to what she is studying in class. Then it might have more meaning for her. Nathan loved Florida history last year. It may have helped that we’d been to St. Augustine and other historical sites. He also is the kind of kid who is interested in most everything (except bones). It is one of his strengths.

Beth

I will have to try the drawing part (she does love to draw - maybe that will be the hook?)

We’ve tried doing the visiting the sites - she just doesn’t give a hoot about it unless it has a playground or amusement type activities!

Last night she had a map that she had to fillin the key points from the chapter (it actually was a good execise - had that visual aspect to it). This was AFTER we had read the chapter and I had been quizzing her for the past two days.

Couple things she had to mark were the urban corridor, the continental divide and name the 4 states in the 4 corners. She had the 4 corners labled as cont. divide, cont. divide labled as urban corridor - it just would not sink in. She did come around by the end of the night - but have not quizzed her tonight to see if she still remembers? It’s going to be along year.

It does sound like you are in for a long year. I suspect what you are seeing is weakness meets disinterest. It is hard for her and she doesn’t like it anyway.

With the drawing, it isn’t important that the drawings are good. Just that they are recognizable for the child. This is an adaptation of an exercise for fast naming (word retrieval) so maybe it will be useful in many ways.
The drawing might engage her—my read is that is a big part of the problem.

Nathan isn’t good at anything that is traditionally done in school. Reading, writing, math, spelling…it is all hard for him. I have often made the off handed comment that the only strength he has is that he is interested in so many things. I can see from your posts that interest truly is an asset for an LD child. I will count my blessings more.

Beth

Dea,

I’m glad to hear about your success with Tomatis. We just started it last week. What listening schedule did you use? We are listening for 15 min for 5 days with a 2 day break.

We started PACE this summer and made some progress but now it has slowed down. I spoke to a Dev. Opt (ds has mild vision deficits) that recommended IM and then trying PACE again. Our PACE trainer thought that he was right. Originally we thought that he wouldn’t be able to handle IM but in the screening he did okay.

My son gashed his head at 2 1/2 and I’m curious about that too. We had an MRI done because of his speech disorder. They found an arachnoid cyst that looks like is causing some atrophy in that area (left temporal lobe) The Dr said that that is probably what is causing his problems. But who really knows. We see a specialist in Oct.

I’m interested in V/V but will wait until we finish the IM, PACE and TLP. Maybe next summer. He’s only 6 but I’m a former teacher (sp.ed) and I worry about him falling through the cracks like I’ve seen happen so many times. So I guess I know too much about the system and how it works for these kids. I’m thankful we know so early. I’m really thinking about Dyslexia too. The book Overcoming Dyslexia is really good and it sounds like they are discribing ds.

Without sites like this and people that are willing to share and help one another I would be lost.

Blessings,
Diane

Are you doing Tomatis or The Listening Program? We’ve done both. Tomatis we have to go into the clinic. When we did it - it was 2hr sessions, for 3 days in week. You go for 4-6 weeks and then have 3-4 weeks off and then 4 weeks and then break etc. Now they have it digitized and you have to go to 1.5hr listening and I believe shorter intervals. We found much more ‘benefit’ from the full Tomatis vs. TLP.

You have me thinking about the MRI and the cyst your son has? I’m going to ask her Dr. next time we are in.

My dd’s deficits were mainly in the auditory processing(and expressive language) and she was diagnosed with CAPD. She had a SCAN done this spring and it showed she was now fine (it actually had her above age level??). I do think she has some visual tracking issues that we need to get checked out.

We did ALOT of intensive remediation in Kindergarten and it helped ALOT. We have kept her above grade level thru 3rd - we are just now seeing issues crop up again. 3rd grade was our ‘break’ year. We didn’t do any intense remediation last year.

We also did Audiblox (1st grade) and PACE/MTC (2nd grade).

Dea,

We are using the Listening Program. What is the difference between Tomatis and TLP?

My ds’s deficits are Receptive/Expressive Language disorder, Phonological processing disorder, Verbal apraxia and other non-specified LD.

<We did ALOT of intensive remediation in Kindergarten and it helped ALOT. We have kept her above grade level thru 3rd - we are just now seeing issues crop up again. 3rd grade was our ‘break’ year. We didn’t do any intense remediation last year. >

What did you use for the intensive remediation in K? We are using REading Reflex since there is no one is this are using it. It has been recommended by several parents on different lists to use Audiblox. Whats your experience with that?

I don’t want to overload him during the school year. But I want to start looking into programs for next summer. Our SLP recommended FFW. But I’m not sure about that yet. Seems like a lot to ask of a 6 yr old to do. She did use Sound REading Solutions with him this summer. He did well and his retesting showed improvement. What would you recommend based on your expericence with your dd at the age of 6 in K and for the next school year(7yrs and 1st grade)

Thanks,
Diane

TLP does not do the bone conduction or work your right ear. Tomatis is really customized to the individual - based on a special listening test they can work different areas of neurodevelopement. It costs several thousand $$ to do the whole Tomatis program.

In K we did Tomatis, Earobics, Reading Reflex, Brainbuilder and NACD. We burnt out big time after a year -but I did see great progress. (Started K at bottom of class, ended at top of class).

Audiblox seemed to be very similar to some of the exercises we were doing with NACD and thought it might be a good change of pace.
There were things I liked about Audiblox, but we quit because I didn’t like the reading program. By now my dd was in 1st grade and by Christmas I felt her reading was really slipping. I felt it was reinforcing whole word and her ‘look and guess’ was getting worse. Audiblox also really focused more on the ‘visual’ plane and our problems were more auditory. (her visual is very strong)
We did PACE/MTC in 2nd grade. It got my dd over some reading hurdles, but I think MTC is geared for 9 or older. We need to do again.

I would agree that FFW is alot for a 6 yr old. I chose Tomatis over FFW because i couldn’t get my 5.5 yr old to sit thru 15min. of Earobics - I didn’t see how I could get her to sit 90 min of FFW. I had read at the time that best results were with 8 or older (but I know younger kids do it).

My recommendation at your ds’s age is to do the neurodevelopmental and cognitive kind of therapies now - but do age appropriate. Keep up with the Reading Reflex and then look into a reading intensive program in 2nd/3rd grade. You seem to be on the right path!

I have to give this disclaimer when I see this topic, so I hope you don’t mind! The APD literature does not at this point recommend ANY of the AIT therapies. There is not yet research to support it. While anecdotal evidence from parents is nice, it does not mean that it is right for another child. Tomatis in particular can have some bad side effcts like nightmares, and I would not personally even consider it unless recommended by an APD specialist and after there are some research results as to exactly what profiles it will help.

Everything is experimental at the beginning, so I understand that someone has to be the guinea pig. But I’d focus in on the things that DO have some research base first. Or even some that can certainly do no harm like Audiblox and Earobics, and they are very inexpensive, also.

Janis

Janis - I can understand your ‘disclaimer’. There is alot of difference of opinion on sound therapy and not alot of good research.

We see an MD Dr. for our Tomatis. He is the only MD in the US who has a Tomatis clinic. Most are run by SLPs or other type therapists. Our Dr. is a Neurologist and Phychiatrist. He was the head of a large Hospital in Denver prior to starting his Tomatis clinic (they provide much more than just Tomatis). He trained under Dr. Tomatis in France and is very experienced with APD/CAPD, Learning Disabilities, ADHD, Autism, etc. He also does all the testing for The Gifted Development Center (that many folks reference on this site) and he was a co-developer of The Listening Program.

Many (if not most) will experience some sort of ‘digression/change’ when doing the full Tomatis program. These episodes are short lived - last about 2 weeks. We experienced emotional melt-downs and the night terrors you mentioned. These happen because you are hitting areas of undevelopment in the brain(the whole intent/purpose of the program is to wake-up the parts of the brain that are asleep- so when it happens, it’s actually a good indication that the program is working, albeit not fun when it does). The more neurologically disorganized the child is the more likely you will experience these effects. Most likely with TLP you won’t see this(unless the person has very severe APD issues). I know a mother of a Down Syndrome teenage girl who experienced some of these effects with TLP.
The therapist that you see for either of these programs, should be monitoring and altering your program when these effects happen.

Every parent needs to decide what is best for their child, what they can afford and what they feel comfortable with. For us, Tomatis was a life-changing program for our dd.

Dea,

It sounds like you had the about the best possible provider of Tomatis in the US! Obviously, that makes a big difference. I hope he is doing research as he uses it so the rest of us will have more information to decide about it! It is worth everything when it works for your own child, though. I understand that!

Janis

Dea,

What is the NACD?

He has done several field studies with sound therapy(particularly when TLP came out) - locally in CO as well as around the world. He is an MD Dr. with a clinic - he is not a research center. To do full blown reseach takes alot of time and alot of money. Frankly I prefer to have him doing what he is doing and offering new and improved ways to get therapies that he does do out to the masses (ex. development of TLP, and digitizing the sound system in the ‘electronic’ ear.) His wife told me once that his bedtime reading material was learning about the ear and how/why some kids develop APD issues. He has a grown daughter who had severe CAPD.

(BTW -there are not alot of Tomatis centers in the US because you have learn how to speak French and get trained in France. Tomatis is not new - Dr. Tomatis has been doing it since the 60s.)

National Academy for Child Development - they can be found at NACD.org

The main developer of TLP(and Brainbuilder) is the son of the founder/director for NACD(Robert Doman Jr.). The developer of Audiblox did a portion of his reseach based on the work of Glenn Doman (Robert Doman’s uncle).

Yes, I am somewhat familiar with Tomatis. The fact that it has been around so long does make me wonder why there hasn’t been more research. But, as you said, since research is expensive, unless there is some financial motivation to do it, it may not get done. That is why most of the research on Fast ForWord has been done by the company that produces it…they have an expensive product and a lot of incentive to see it promoted, apparently.

Janis

They had alot of reseach done because the developers were all tied to a University(Tufts). As far as Tomatis goes (and all of the other Neurodevelopmental programs) - these programs are developed based on the research that you CAN create new neuropathways into the brain. They know that the vestibular system plays a role with creating these new pathways(there HAS been alot of research in this area). Tomatis uses selected sound frequencies to exercise the vestibular system and they can actually somewhat pinpoint the brain (balance/SI, creativity, speech/language). What they don’t know is ‘why’ it works and why does it work better on some people vs. others, why do some people need boosters - others don’t.

There are a number of ways to exercise the vestibular system. Neuronet and institutes like Handle - use alot of movement to exercise the vestibular system(as opposed to sound - although I understand from Beth that her Neuronet provider is now also doing some sound). Just plain old walking/running exercises it. One of our exercises when we were doing NACD was a daily 15min fast-walk/jog using good cross-pattern movement. Dr. Minson told me that the most perfect listening curve he has seen was from an athlete who was wanting to gain an extra ‘edge’ for Olympic tryouts.

Providers like Dr. Minson are not going to spend millions of $$’s on ‘blind study’ reseach to prove that it works. He already knows that it does and has enough experience to continue to improve upon what he already knows. He doesn’t need this type of reseach to ‘drum up business’. He already has clients that come to see him from all around the world.

As with any ‘professional’ that you about to spend alot of time and money with, you need to do your homework on their credentials and ask for references. How much experience do they have, do they believe in what they are doing or are they just out to make a buck? If they tell you they can ‘cure’ your child - run like heck and look for something else.

So true, Dea!

Janis

Is the ‘quirky disorder’ dysnomia or word retrieval?

In any case, does she have an IEP? Sometimes children with ‘quirky disorders’ are allowed to do projects in social studies/history classes rather than memorize. I’d explore that in her next IEP if it’s not already written into this one.

And rather than have her memorize every fact in the book, start big. Memorizing is like hanging things up in a closet. We need to get the big things hung up on hooks before we can figure out where to put the small things. Take the chapter and try to put into a few words what it’s about. War. New Homes. Indians.

Then go on from there breaking that one big concept down into its smaller parts. War breaks down into battles. Indians break down into tribes. The tribes have names. The battles have names.

Trying to help her understand the concepts will make memorizing the details a little easier even with her ‘quirky disorder’.

For my own son who had trouble memorizing, I’d make up sample tests for him to take at home. It helped him to memorize if he could see how it might look on a test in school.

Good luck.