Therapy for CAPD?

When my daughter was in preschool, it was said that she probably has CAPD. She did very poorly on the TAPS test, but I never really saw the signs of it in her. We did the Listening Program prior to kindergarten, and the only real change I noticed was that she started singing. This was a big thing to me, as a matter of fact when she said “Hey Mommy, listen to this….Lucy Locket lost her Pocket….” and sang some of the lines to this song, I cried. Prior to this she never sang songs. How much it helped her learning issues, I am not sure, probably not much. But it was worth it to me. ALso, it is a pretty benign, almost enjoyable thing to do. (I did it with her)
When she went for the CAPD screening in the sound proof booth last year, the audiologist said she passed everything with flying colors. She said that she was certain that my daughter did not have CAPD. I still chase my tail on this, she has significant phonological processing deficits. Puts the wrong sounds in words (cut it with a life, I am infused). Can’t hear the sounds in words well.
So, maybe the Listening Program would have helped more if she truly had CAPD?
Hope this helped!

I would find out if your daughter had the full auditory processing screen or just the SCAN-C. Many audiologist only use the SCAN which many children pass and later when they get a little older, they find they have APD and had it all along!

K.

What is interesting to me is how unpredictable therapy is. My son did the TLP also. I saw improvements with it but he didn’t sing. Then he did Interactive Metronome and he started singing.

Beth

My son, now 9, was a lot like your daughter. He was speech delayed, had difficulties following directions, and had SID (although I didn’t realize it at the time. He was diagnosed with CAPD at age 7 and ADD-inattentive at age 9.

We bought Earobics when he was in K. He couldn’t do it. He ended up doing Fast Forward after first grade. He has done a lot of therapy since.

This is what I would have done, if I knew what I know now.

I would have put him in gymnastics and swimming for SID. I would have done the TLP or other sound therapy before school. We did it—but at age 8. I think it would have made other therapy easier.

I would have done Fast Forward a year earlier—after K, instead of first grade. First grade was a basic waste of time and we have struggled to catch up ever since. He started following directions, understanding conversations ect. I found we had clearest results for receptive language.

I would have used Handwriting without Tears to teach handwriting. My son had a very hard time with writing and it took much therapy to unlearn bad habits from K.

Beth

She had the full CAPD screening with the audiologist. She did the SCAN-C with our SLP, which she did quite poor on. Never really understood this…..

Yes, I think therapy is beneficial for CAPD, especially if you find the right speech therapist. We have the most wonderful, most knowledgeable, most supportive one available, who diagnosed my 7-year-old early on. We also had an audiologist test her, who ruled out CAPD. I learned (the hard way) that there are two camps on this subject. One says CAPD is not present unless certain very specific, very measurable deficiencies are noted. The other camp says certain characteristics tend to indicate CAPD. In their battle with each other, the families are left hanging…

I am convinced my daughter has CAPD. She can hear perfectly, but she often doesn’t get it. She has very few phonetic difficulties now, but she has been in speech therapy for five years. She did the Listening Program and some Earobics. She still says “thangers” instead of “fingers” no matter how many times I correct her. Fortunately, we have been blessed…she has had no trouble learning to read and is doing well academically. Socially is another story. She often misses social cues from other kids and has a hard time fitting in.

Hope this helps!

Well ….I just came from a conference on CAPD and the “true ” or audiological form of CaPD is a very rigid criteria But this really should not matter as any therapist should really treat the symptoms that your child is showing . Trouble with directions or processing can be included in many diagnoses and therapy should focus on that . Sound blending and auditory discrimination tasks that are in earobics and fast forward really require attention and decoding skills that are more mature and complex . The corpus collosum doesn’t mature till age 9 and most CADP testing shouldn’t be done till at LEAST 7 .

Have you heard of the organization Cherub? It’s for families of kids with apraxia of speech and delayed speech. They are working with scientists on clinical trials of essential fatty acid supplementation for children with delayed speech. They are seeing amazing results. If you go to their web site you will find lots of good information. I think they sponsor a list serve called speech diet on yahoo groups as well. The list serve isn’t very active right now but the archives are rich with information from families who have supplemented their children with essential fatty acids and seen dramatic improvement in speech, motor skills, and ADHD.

You may also want to read “The LCP Solution: The Remarkable Nutritional Treatment for ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia” by Dr. Jacqueline Stordy. You can get a preview of her book at her web site www.drstordy.com.

Our nine year old son has CAPD, as does his 49-year-old father (both actually diagnosed - six years apart), and I suspect that my mother-in-law has CAPD, as well as a paternal nephew (not diagnosed; you know families!) From what we’ve been told - this tends to run in families.

Our son was just diagnosed this past summer. He was helped and continues to be helped tremendously by the Lindamood-Bell program in a one-on-one tutoring program. We bought the Earobics home version, as well, and he uses Earobics in conjunction with speech/language therapy in school. We started out using another program (which I still think is good, called Phono-Graphix, although it is not specifically for CAPD). You can access one comparison of three programs: Earobics, FastForward, and Lindamood Bell (Lips) at http://www.interdys.org/pdf/PS29-Steppingstones.pdf.

FastForward is very expensive, and didn’t fare any better than $60 Earobics in this particular study.

I am not a language pathologist nor an audiologist, but Earobics seems to be helpful and quite engaging for the child.

I know what you’re going through; there are so many programs, and it’s a big-money business, so you never really know if you’re just being sold a line of bologny, or if something really will help.

Good luck!

We purchased Earobics before doing Fast Forward. If a child can do Earobics, I would never spend the money on FFW. BUT my son could not and frankly had to work hard at Earobics even after FFW. FFW artifically slows down speech using the computer and then speeds it up as a child is able to understand. Earobics does not have this capacity.

We saw significant and lasting improvements in receptive language skills following Fast Forward. My son tested low to mid 80s standard scores on receptive language tests before FFW, and tested 108 on latest test. He tested as having decoding issues in CAPD testing before FFW and not afterwards.

Now FFW did nothing for reading, at least directly….so if that is the study (I couldn’t get to website), I would totally agree. And I think FFW has been wrongly prescribed for reading issues when good reading instruction would have been a better use of time and money.

Beth

My daughter has a significant APD. She makes stars in following directions, does great with answering 3 part sentences, and has no trouble with general classroom.

However, she says bathing suip, in lieu of suit, boodoo in lieu of voodoo and cannot sing on key. She cannot remember and sing songs or nursery rhymes and only knows the pledge of allegiance if she is in a group saying it at the same time. She often mimics others when not sure of what she’s supposed to do. (most people don’t even notice). She has many other deficits besides the APD. Loud noises send her over the edge and she has trouble filtering out back ground noises. She is on ADD meds and says “It makes all the noise in the room go away so I can read better”

She doesn’t seem to fit the “mold” I hear about with APD. Makes great grades. I’m still trying to fiture it out.

Yes, I think APD is actually the current lingo but it was CAPD when my son was diagnosed 2 years ago.

CAPD is complicated with many different profiles. Have you read Terri Bellis’ book “When the brain can’t hear”. You might find it interesting.

CAPD and ADD also can exist together.

Beth

I would agree that Earobics or any other program is not for every child. Sometimes it is just a matter of trial and error, which can be very expensive unless you have some way of “testing” the program before you buy it. As I stated, our son had had exposure to Earobics in the course of the school-provided speech/language therapy, and responded well to it, which figured largely into our decision to purchase it for home.

When it comes to reading, the same thing is true with Lindamood-Bell (or LiPS as it is sometimes referred to) or Orton Gillingham or whatever. What I think is so hard for parents is to sort through all of the numerous programs out there and make an informed decision that is relevant and helpful to one’s particular child. There seems to be a real lack of INDEPENDENT research regarding these programs, and of course, the companies pushing said programs only talk about how wonderful they are, etc. We looked at programs ranging in price from $49-$13,700. We are currently spending several hundred dollars per month on LMB therapy, which appears to be helping. Who knows? Sometimes it feels like “rolling the dice”. Our state’s Department of Education recently published on their website the results of their “exhaustive research” into about twenty different reading programs. We had to laugh at their results; many of the ones they endorsed are just regurgitated whole language programs which have been shown time and time again not to work with large populations of students (such as all three of our bright sons - who all required intensive phonemic awareness work). But those are the programs the state has invested in, so what else are they going to say?

We always need to ask ourselves: what’s the agenda here? and, to where does the money trail lead?

There are even a few eric clearinghouses that give a summary of the research. The jury is in; phonemic awareness is the most important component of any reading program.

I am amazed that your state didn’t get this from their so called exhaustive research. ERIC is a pretty standard database for anyone looking into anything having to do with education.

I agree on that money trail comment.