My son

I forgot to add a few things…

K is very much aware that he’s “different” and has been since 2nd grade. Up until recently he wanted out of special ed and completely mainstreamed. That may be because since Kindergarten he’s been grouped with a Down’s Syndrome child (a delightful boy, full of love and well-behaved) and a boy with PDD. He is good friends with the boys but the other kids probably think he’s like other 2 spec ed boys. K has one neighborhood friend, he occasionally will make a friend from class but it never lasts. He’s not athletic and it seems like at this age that’s what many of the boys have on common.

Now that K’s been pulled back into spec ed for his content classes he seems relieved. The regular class is too much for him because there’s too many distractions and the pace is so fast. He’s more than capable of learning the material but has to move at a slower pace.

I don’t feel that the public school system can move at the slower pace because of all the state and federal mandated testing. Their response is to keep up with the content but not go as deep. He needs to be taught HOW to learn not just filled with facts so he can take standardized tests. I want to pull him and put him in a private school for LD students but K wants to stay where it’s familiar and he knows everyone. He’s looking forward to middle school but I feel he’ll be lost in such a big school. He’ll be able to cope fine but I don’t think he’ll receive services tailored for him, more like a one size fits all.

Geeze, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want K to end up like my brother, a social misfit who can’t hold any job living in his mother’s basement playing video games. That’s what truly scares me. My brother and my son have near identical learning problems. My brother is 43 and my son is 10 so I’m hoping that my son will have a better chance at a functional adult life than my brother.

Have you provided any private remediation?

Many of us have found we need to work outside the school system to get what we need but yes, it is VERY expensive

If hes is reading near grade level, it seems that his problems are pretty specific and could benefit from some intervention

Have you reconsidered meds? Your brother sounds very much like a text book case of untreated ADD. There have also been many people who feel the meds that work for ADHD also work for APD

This is not documented anywhere, just a general observation from some parents and teachers

My sons psychologist said that medication was like putting a truck in the proper gear to go uphill. Unmedicated, he would still get to the top but it would be struggle and a slow go. With the meds, he travels uphill in a more efficient manner

With one source recommending meds and what seems to be a current stall, I would reconsider a trial run

Also, some type of remediation to help him pull the necessary facts from his reading

Do you have test scores from IQ testing, KBIT or something similar, achievement grade level equivalents, etc?

If you could post those I imagine some on the board could give more specific advice than me

All the test scores I have are really old but private testing 3 years ago showed that he had normal to high normal intelligence. His scores on other tests varied so much that the doctor told us LD probably APD.

The school keeps saying ADD but IMO his ADD is highly selective. If he’s interested he can pay attention and get a lot out of the subject as long as he can see the speaker and has lots of hands on learning. We see no evidence of ADD at home or in social settings. The school stopped recommending meds a couple of years ago. All the meds we tried either had no effect or made things worse at home.

Current grade level is 5th. Grade level performance for various subjects: Sight reading 4th-5th, Reading Comprehension 3rd (at best), Math 2nd-3rd.

Currently he goes to a tutoring center (national chain) and it’s helping but it’s slow since I now realize that the program is not geared for LD. He spends 3 hours a week there, 1 hour on math and 2 on reading. When he was tested there at the end of 4th grade he was in the 1st percentile for math and the 7th percentile for reading. The test was given without the accomodations he would have in school. Halfway through the program he tests in the 24th percentile for math and the 27th for reading. That’s a pretty big improvement but he still has a long way to go. What I do like about this program is that it has K doing his work with minimal help. That’s why progress is so slow and also why it may not be the most effective program for him. Contradictory, I know but I know that K has become somewhat dependent upon his teachers.

This morning one of the school’s special ed teachers (not K’s) told me off the record that K is being underserved and it will get worse when he goes to middle school. That confirms my gut feeling that the school is good with developmental disabilities but is clueless with learning disabilities.

When I complained that K was taking 2-3 hours to complete homework they took away ALL homework. He needs to do some each night just not as much. When I complained about no homework, I was told K was completing his work in school. I feel that K needs some homework to be done at home just not as much.

I’m starting the process to get K evaluated and hopefully admitted into the private LD school. Waiting on my insurance to call back with a referral for an audiologist and a psychologist.

I’m also looking into Interactive Metronome, I have a feeling that this will help with some of his sensory integration issues.

When I get some current test scores I’ll post them.

Commercial tutoring centers do not have a good reputation around here for LD’s. And having worked in one for a summer, I do not think much of them for any kid. Almost all of the time there was spent shuffling papers. They were far more worried about making sure that I wore nylon stockings in 100 degree heat than in seeing that the students were doing academically worthwhile work.

A *good* private tutor can teach a student to work independently — that’s actually what I do all the time. I give the kid enough support to get started, and then reduce and reduce the support until he doesn’t need me any more.
Consider getting some one-to-one focused tutoring to help him develop the skills he needs.

If you can swing it financially a private LD school can be a miracle for a child like yours.

My son was like yours (is like yours!) - very bright, a little ADD, a little LD, not enough of any one thing to get a dx, but when it was all put together he was floundering. He is also clearly dyslexic, but didn’t look that way in his initial test scores. We tutored, OT’ed, did IM - you name it.

Last year he moved to a small, private LD school for 4th grade. He is learning, he is reading, and he feels good about himself. He also knows he is different and that he learns differently. It is a HUGE relief to have him in a safe place - where he is not punished for being disorganized or spacey. Where his intelligence is appreciated.

I doubt many things we have done or not done over the years, but this decision was one thing I have no doubts about whatsoever.

[quote:26cb5685cd=”jerirat”]

The school keeps saying ADD but IMO his ADD is highly selective. If he’s interested he can pay attention and get a lot out of the subject as long as he can see the speaker and has lots of hands on learning. We see no evidence of ADD at home or in social settings..[/quote]

Highly selective attention (or lack thereof) is a warning sign of ADHD. It is a common misconception that if a child can pay attention when the subject is interesting to him then he doesn’t have ADHD. Actually, ADHD is all about not being able to stay focused when things are not interesting or exciting. We all know how it feels when something is boring to us but we still have to do it. Those without ADHD can manage to keep going and force themselves to do the boring or hard thing. A kid with ADHD lacks that ability or it is greatly reduced as compared with his peers. A more likely indicator that a child does not have ADHD is if it doesn’t appear at home or in social settings. That is somewhat less reliable when we are talking about inattentive ADHD, as these children mostly run up againt difficulties in the school setting. YOu may not see evidence of it at home except when homework burdens increase. About 70% of kids with ADHD respond to stimulant medication, but it is hard to say which stimulant will work or whether the side effects willl be intolerable. Thirty percent will not respond, but may respond to Strattera. Response or lack thereof is not diagnostic of ADHD.

When somebody struggles with the concept of not being able to focus when things are boring, as opposed to lacking the discipline, I occasionally have success saying “it’s like your brain is a giant nose, and the boring thing is somethign you can’t smell at all any more because it’s been in the room with you too long. It’s not a choice — the brain receptors STOP responding at all. You don’t get the message that there’s something to do. “
Agreed, small private and good is something to explore, or homeschooling… when you’re out of the mainstream, it’s really hard to get a good educatoin in public schools.

are ADHD or ADD! Especially in a child with LDs — ‘school only’ ADD-like behaviours can be mis-dx’d as ADD. To be ADD/ADHD, the inability to attend must be SIGNIFICANTLY below what is normal for the child’s age group — and he IS a CHILD — I had much more trouble attending effectively to boring instruction at age 10 than I do at age 44. That’s not ADD, that’s normal — observing your child in groups is important to judge where he is in relation to peers. Personality has a normal variation for ability to sit still, ability to attend. All kids have their moments — but the ADHD and ADD kids DO stand out if you observe a group of children in various activities over time.

‘Guest’s’ warning is pertinent, but parents also need to remember that ADD-like symptoms in children are not always ‘evidence’ of ADD. Children with LDs often say ‘it’s boring’ when it is actually ‘incomprehensible. My son spent most of grade 1 gazing into the fishtank or daydreaming about ‘life after school’. His teacher (who is highly experienced and has an ADD child — not uneducated in this disorder!) was CERTAIN he was ADD — but 4 weeks with a spalding tutor fixed his ‘ADD-like symptoms’ by curing his reading problem. He’s still LD — and the ADD behaviours now are a marker to tell us that he needs HELP — but with schoolwork, not with attention. A child who is ADD is unlikely to be able to take advantage of tutoring, even 1-on-1 from experts, according to many statements on these boards. You also need to consider undiagnosed vision problems that may not be discovered in a ‘regular’ eye examination.

Read all you can about ADD and LD’s — In addition to the articles on LD online, I found excellent information at the CHADD site. In the end, you need to be convinced within yourself as to WHAT is the actual root of your child’s problems — only if you educate yourself will you be able to make effective treatment decisions for your child.

Best wishes!

[quote=”Elizabeth TO”] To be ADD/ADHD, the inability to attend must be SIGNIFICANTLY below what is normal for the child’s age group — and he IS a CHILD — I had much more trouble attending effectively to boring instruction at age 10 than I do at age 44. That’s not ADD, that’s normal — observing your child in groups is important to judge where he is in relation to peers. Personality has a normal variation for ability to sit still, ability to attend. All kids have their moments — but the ADHD and ADD kids DO stand out if you observe a group of children in various activities over time.”

RESPONSE: Yep, that’s why I wrote that the ADHD child’s ability to persist with hard or boring tasks is “greatly reduced as compared to his peers.”

[quote=”Elizabeth TO”]’Guest’s’ warning is pertinent, but parents also need to remember that ADD-like symptoms in children are not always ‘evidence’ of ADD. Children with LDs often say ‘it’s boring’ when it is actually ‘incomprehensible.”

RESPONSE: Also very true and good advice to boot. That is why the correct kind of assessment done by someone who is an expert in diagnosing and distinguishing LD and ADHD is so crucial. It is also important to bear in mind that ADHD and LD often travel in pairs and, as Elizabeth notes, failing to address the ADHD may result in diminished response to remediation for the LD.

People are often scared by the ADHD label and sometimes will go to great lengths to avoid it. I blame the media for that fearful response. Really, it doesn’t matter what you call it, so long as you address the symptoms. If a child with LD does not respond well to remediation and continues to display inattentiveness. ADHD (or DSI, or whatever the heck you want to call it) should be considered. (So should other issues, such a developmental vision problems or auditory processing deficits.) Failure to do so may result in a child who is denied the chance to learn as he would be capable of doing with the right support and treatment.

There seems to be two different philosophies regarding ADHD and LD. One is to try to treat the ADHD with medication and see what LDs are left. I have a friend whose learning disabilities did not have a significant impact on him once his ADHD was treated. Patti describes her daughter not really being able to benefit from remedial instruction until her ADHD was medically controlled.

On the other hand, others, like myself and Elizabeth, have taken the opposite approach. My son was diagnosed with ADD-inattentive and learning disabilities. I have worked on remediating his underlying processing and along the way his attention improved immensely. It is difficult to separate out LD and ADHD. I now can see that yes, he is ADD-inattentive but that at least for now it is very manageable. In other words, his attention issues are quite mild once we dealt with the very significant LD. And he has learned about himself—he has to “wakeup” his brain—so when he is having trouble with attention he will go out and ride his bike, for example.

I don’t think one approach is necessarily right or wrong. Personally, I was uncomfortable with medication unless I was sure that what I was observing was not due to processing issues. Still, I must admit I kept Patti’s thoughts in my head many times as I wondered about my son. My son is 11 and now functioning well with limited modifications and without medication (this is after years of therapy and tutoring).

My son has had motor issues like you describe and therapy has done him a world of good. You might look into Interactive Metronome—it helps the type of sequencing issues you describe as well as motor and attention. We also saw social benefits—my son seemed much more “there” after IM. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much with organization!!

I think if you can do an LD school, it would be great for your son. I think it is very difficult to get much significant help beyond elementary school in the public schools for LD.

Beth

The idea of change can be scary to people including children so I would not freeze on the fact that your son says he prefers to stay in his current school. Go and look at the private LD school and see if you like it. If you do and you can afford it, have your son look at it too.

Then go from there. If this is something you’d feel strongly about, pleasantly insist with a ”mother knows best’ that he give it a try. He can always return to public school.

I agree with Sara. My son didn’t want to leave his school and his friends. But once he understood that there was a better school for him, and that he wouldn’t need tutoring and that homework would be doable and meaningful for him he became excited.

I thank you for all your replies and input.

I’m not convinced that K has ADD to any great extent. I have a brother and 2 nieces (his daughters) with severe ADHD and they have benefited greatly from meds. Since K has never been hyperactive and his attention is only a problem intermittently at school it seems to me that it’s a school problem not an attention problem. For me and my child meds are a last resort and I have to be convinced that it is necessary.

In second grade I took K to my chiropractor and started treatment there. About a month afterwards his special ed teacher mentioned to me that K was paying attention much better. I hadn’t told her about the chiropractor. Even K said his brain had stopped buzzing. He never could explain what he meant by buzzing. I continue with the chiropractic adjustments because they seem to be benficial for K. It’s purely an anecdote, don’t know of any peer reviewed articles to back this up.

Also, when K eats a clean diet he is more focused. Heck, I’m more focused when *I* eat a clean diet, too! By clean I mean no refined sugar or flour. But that’s a hard diet to stick with but K is old enough now to associate how he feels with what he eats. He asks for oatmeal for breakfast!

Monday, I’m taking him to be evaluated for Interactive Metronome (there’s a center 30 minutes away). I’ve contacted a psychologist for an assessment and testing. I’ve also contacted the only audiologist in the area who tests for APD and K is scheduled for tests in the next 3 weeks.

I’m still leaning toward the LD school for K. I’m profoundly grateful that I have that option even with the cost. I told my DH that we could wait another year or so to replace our 13yo and 9yo vehicles. The LD school is contained within a private school and DH and I even talked about sending our 6yo DD there so K wouldn’t feel as if he’s being punished. Plus it would make the logistics of getting the kids to school easier.

Right now his special ed teacher seems to be taking our concerns seriously. I feel that she is a very good teacher but has a large caseload. K has had only one homework assignment in the last week but it was the kind of assignment that I feel he needs.

Thank you again for answering my posts.

you are on top of it! This is what I saw in my son also — a school problem that had symptoms that looked like an atttention problem — NOT an attention problem. This has been confirmed over and over again in the last 5 years since we ‘began’ this journey.

Our greatest source of support has been a local montessori private K-8 school via it’s summer programs — if I had had any possibility of sending him there I would have! Go for the LD school if you can swing it — I haven’t seen anyone report that they regretted such a choice!

Best regards…as someone said to me, ‘Stand your ground and believe in your kid!’

Since others have covered the issues of public schools not meeting the needs of LD kids, I’ll just comment on the homework issue. Two to three hours of homework was totally unacceptable. You may as well have been homeschooling. To me, that excessive amount of homework time was an indication of one or both of these things: the work was above his level of finctioning and was inappropropriate to begin with, or, he has serious attention issues and couldn’t focus to get the work done.

I have read various articles on homework, and a lot of homework is NOT considered to be beneficial for most children. Six or seven hours a day in school should be enough with maybe reading and a little math practice at home. And of course, studying for specific tests such as science or social studies. Be glad he doesn’t have much homework and seek out private LD therapy. I’m sorry to say it, but I think you are wasting money at a tutoring chain. They do not know how to remediate and your son is really falling further behind his peers. His sight reading level is not what needs to be looked at. You need to know how his word attack (decoding) skills are. Hopefully the neuropsych eval will include thorough educational testing.

Janis

K has decent word attack skills. He can read aloud grade level material with few mistakes. Comprehension lags far behind. His comprehension is slightly better when he reads aloud as compared to silent reading. I’m looking into the Lindamood-Bell Visualization/Verbalization program. His teachers have used similar methods in helping learn to read but not with the comprehension. There’s a seminar end of January that I’m tentatively planning to attend. The closest center is a good hour away so taking him there would have to wait until next summer. I may take him simply to be evaluated and look into doing the program at home. But first I’m interested in what the audiologist has to say when they test for APD. The audiologist is a licensed provider of Fast ForWord so I wouldn’t be surprised if they want K to do that.

K’s lack of comprehension is what’s been killing us with the homework. In our county homework is for reinforcement and does not count towards the grade. In the regular 5th grade classes kids average 1-1/2 hours each school night but that also includes 20 minutes reading. The kids usually have 45 minutes to an hour during school to get started on homework. The teachers don’t give homework on the week-ends except for the occasional long-term project. In 5th grade, it’s assumed that the students already are decent readers and are comprehending what they read and know how to cheery-pick information from the text. The emphasis is on writing the information gleaned from the lessons and textbooks in their own words. This is far beyond what K can do.

I agree that the learning center is not the best place for K but he’s learned more there in 6 months than he has in a couple of years of schooling. It’s far better than school where he has to keep up so he can take the SOLs at the end of the year. He’s actually starting to get math and he can figure out the main idea from a paragragh or page. This is a big improvement. I feel that they are teaching him skills but now I realize that there is probably a better way. We’ll continue until our contract is up but I won’t be adding any more time.

Thanks again for everyone’s great input and ideas! I wish I’d come here sooner.

My son’s visual motor deficits had him looking very much adhd in the beginning of this long arduous journey. I have been looked at like I am crazy by some when I suggest he might have it and others when I have stated I think he might not. I have gone back and forth so many times.

I get annoyed with those who imply that there is anything scary about any diagnosis. The only one I don’t want applied is the wrong one.

I am one of those who believe you try to address the deficits that are more clearly defined that could potentially be causing attentional issues and if that isn’t working by all means try the meds.

I would have tried them after doing all the therapy if anyone would give them to me (just for those linguring issues that only I notice) but no one will at this point. He is just too far along.

It is kind of ironic considering my early opposition to meds. :roll:

You might want to consider doing IdeaChain at home instead of LMB V/V. IdeaChain is completely laid out so that a parent can do it without training, and it is very similar to V/V. Their support is reputed to be very good. Website is http://www.mindprime.com

Nancy

Thank-you, Nancy! Idea Chain looks really good and I went ahead and ordered it.

We went through something very similar to what you are excperiencing with the schools with my 13yo son. We fought for over five years to get him diagnosed and get the services he needs. Finally I gave up the fight and started homeschooling him.

What strikes home with me is that they are breaking federal mandates. An IEP is just that, an individualized education plan. Most schools try to fit the child into whatever services they already offer, but federal law requires that they offer the services the child needs. That is why they get extra funding. If they do not have the services in place to help the child, they are supposed to hire whatever staff is necessary and obtain anything else they need for the child.

I remember well the days of my son coming home from school and doing homework until supper and bedtime. You can have his IEP amended to say that he gets homework, just with accomodations. My son used to do either odd or even questions so that he got exposed to all of the material, just in a smaller quantity. That is what we did and it worked pretty well for him.

Good luck.