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Hi all my name is Raven….I am a stepmother to a 8 year old boy who was just diagnosed as LD. He has been with me and his father for the last 3 years. I am at a loss as to what I should do now with him….I have so many problems with him at home that I am going crazy, he does things for no apparent reason and when I ask him why he did something I get the same answere ” I Don’t Know” I cannot even tell you all how tired I am of hearing that answere. His speech is slow, writing, spelling, penmanship is horrible, he has a hard time reading, and when we do read if I ask him what the story was about he can’t remember. he just had a MRI done and that came back normal. They put him on Adderol 7.5 mg a day I guess hoping to help him concentrate more, he is very fidgety, (chewing his clothes, pulling on them etc.) The one stong point so far that I see is math. I have 2 biological daughters that are “normal” and being his stepmother I am not very tolerant of his behavior…now that he is older things that are wrong are now more noticeable….he does not have alot of friends, the boys in school now notice how different he is, as do I. His Bio Mother is not much help either. which makes things even harder on me. I do not know how to help a child like this or even where to begin to look for help….I am tired of his Dr. Telling me that “this is just Mikey” to me that is not a good enough explanation. His dr. tells me that I should request that the school put him into LD classes instead of his normal classes. He doesn’t have much for coordination, can’t catch a ball, didn’t start riding a bike til he was 6, and I can’t even let him go ride because he pays no attention to things around him. he loves to play PS2 but he is very limited in his playing……no more than a half hour a day. I just do not know what to do anymore….I feel like I am losing my mind with this child…..I have no patience. Common sense things that he should know(or I think that he should know) he doesn’t. He gets out of the shower without washing up, forgets to wash shampoo out of his hair, cannot tie shoes, wears his clothes backwards, puts shoes on the wrong feet….grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr this is crazy, I am sorry if I seem uncaring, I am not….I just do not know what to do, where to get help for ME and him….there are days that I just want to send him back to his mother and let her deal with this…….But I can’t even get her help now….I would hate to see how he would be if he was living there again. we just got a pet dog about 2 months ago, he is still in potty training, we have told the kids, if you see him going on the floor pick him up and put him outside, well the other day the puppy was peeing on the carpet right next to mikey, Mikey just sat there watching, didn’t move to pick him up to put him outside nothing, when I asked him why he didn’t take the puppy outside He once again said “I don’t Know” I just do not understand this child or these problems I could really use some help here…..thank you all for listening to me babble…..
Blessings
Raven
Re: My 8 year old stepson
Here’s what I recommend.
Call your doctor’s office and ask for a referral to an occupational therapist for an occupational therapy evaluation. Prepare a list of the reasons you just posted: he can’t catch a ball, he is uncoordinated, he cannot tie his shoes, he cannot perform motor tasks typical for his age.
At the same time, ask for a referral to a speech pathologist for a complete speech and language evaluation. For reasons, list the fact that his speech is slow and he seems to not understand simple instructions.
If your doctor will not give you referrals for these two evaluations, find another doctor. These evaluations are normally covered by medical insurance and should provide you with a lot of good information.
When you ask for the referrals, do not mention anything about reading or spelling. Medical insurance does not want to cover anything to do with education. Mention all the physical problems you have noticed.
If you can, do some research before calling the doctor to see if you can find a really good occupational therapist (especially one that specializes in sensory integration disorder) and a really good speech pathologist. If you find one, call their office and explain why you want an evaluation. Ask about insurance coverage. Because they work with insurance companies every day, often they can tell you exactly how a referral should be worded or coded so the insurance company will accept it.
Another approach I would recommend is calling your insurance company directly to ask about getting a complete neuro-psychological workup. You may find out that this is covered by your insurance company without a referral.
It sounds to me as if the speech/language and occupational therapy evaluations will both reveal problems. If they are bad enough, your medical insurance may cover some therapy sessions for them. Also, you can take the evaluation results to the school in order to get some services for the boy (IEP). The neuro-psych eval will cover additional areas of testing.
Nancy
Re: My 8 year old stepson
A thorough assessment is necessary here that includes a neuropsychological component - what are his cognitive scores, are there discrepancies or scatters? I am concerned if you only do an OT or a Speech assessment or both that you are getting pieces to the puzzle and not an entire picture of your stepson abilities and areas of weakness.
What tests were completed? Can you post the scores? That may help us to better help you.
(To be honest, what description sounds very much like my foster son who has several diagnoses).
I think your pediatrician is coppng out by telling you “this is Mickey”. You need more information than that. If the school tested him, what did they tell you? What did the testing show? School testing isn’t always thorough enough to get to the bottom of LD and often must be supplemented by private testing.
You might look under nonverbal learning disabilities in the LD in depth section. Some of what you describe is typical for kids with these sorts of learning disabilities—lack of coordination, poor social skills, needing to be explicitly instructed on how to do things that other kids pick up naturally, poor reading comprehension, attention issues that don’t necessarily improve with medication.
You need to gain a better understanding of what ever is hindering your step son so you can better separate out what he can do from what he can’t do.
Beth