Very visual 2nd grader, but not verbal....what would be YOUR

Wow! I have a 2nd grader, age 7 today with the same problem. The school tested him and his I.Q. is 109 he tested average to above average on everything except oral comprehension. They told me it is an auditory processing problem. He may hear and see the word cat but he will say sat and he get very frustrated and discuraged. He can only read 3 to 4 letter words and not very many of them. Straight “F” on the report card last year . They put him in an ESE (LD) class this year. He is in speech 4X’s a week and special reading instruction. I feel optomistic he will do better. As far as going to a private facility for testing and paying $$$ (which I have done for my other son) don’t do that at first . Let the school test her fully and then go to social security and file for disablity they will test her for free and you can obtain a copy through your Pediatrician. With a higher I.Q. your child most likley will not qualify for any benefits, but you have a phyc profile on your child you can use as a second opinion. I’m not sure if this helps you in any way but you are not alone. You can also read the book, The out of sync child, that deals with Sensory Intergration Dysfunction.

Good Luck,
Barbara

Well- the problem with repeating numbers is a short term memory problem, which impacts the amount of information she can take in at any given moment. This is a tough one for kids because they miss a lot. It may also be part of the reason she is so quiet- it is hard to think of a response when you aren’t exactly positive about what you are responding to.Frequently kids with SM problems look distracted in class- and if the problem is of enough magnitude, large group instruction becomes pretty difficult. You don’t say- but she may have some auditory processing issues also- they frequently go together. The delayed speech is a real clue there btw- and may also indicate some mild hearing loss? Did she have ear infections when she was little?

It sounds as if the folks at school are doing the right things in terms of providing service- RR for reading and SPL. I am surprised she qualified for SPED also based on the few numbers you posted but I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth either:) Watch her progress and let us know!

Robin

Your insurance told you they would not cover it, I am assuming the doctor or yourself called for preapproval. Been there, done that, refused service. I am hard headed and submitted the receipts by mail via major medical and some was covered. Talk to your insurance a little more, and talk to the doctor’s office to see if they know if your insurance comonay covers under major medical. Nobody gave me this advice I just did it on my own. Even if insurance had not reimbursed some my son was still going too vision therapy either way and I am so glad that I did!!! Consider reading “20/20 is not enough”-I forget the author but it is in a post somewhere in here, just searcg vision therapy and you’ll find it. My father is a doctor and when he heard that I was taking my son for this therapy he flipped, but has considerably changed his mind after watching Spencer play piano-he could not read the music before becuase just like regular reaing he would skip lines and notes. Do some more research before throwing out vision therapy as an alternative.

If she’s like my daughter, she may have both a phonological processing delay and a visual processing delay. The combination makes learning to read extremely difficult.

How did your daughter score on the LAC or CTOPP (tests of phonological processing?). Ours was K level at age 9. We found that the Phono-Graphix developed phonological processing quickly and thoroughly.

Vision therapy helped develop dd’s gross vision skills (visual efficiency skills — tracking, focusing, eye teaming, etc.). VT can often be primarily home-based. Many developmental optometrists will design and supervise a primarily home-based course of vision therapy. Basically, they train you to do the exercises daily at home, and you bring the child in monthly for re-checks and a new schedule of exercises. This can be very effective and low cost.

My daughter also was great at reproducing figures but could not remember sequences of letters at all. In her case, the visual efficiency skills had been so severely lacking for so long, we have to follow-up vision therapy with PACE in order to develop her visual processing skills (things like short-term visual memory, processing speed, visual sequencing, pattern recognition, etc.). This was extremely effective, raising her reading fluency 2 or 3 grade levels — because she could finally see and process the visual information at the speed required for fluent reading.

I think someone else mentioned BrainBuilder 3.0. This software can be helpful for developing short-term auditory and visual memory, which you identify as problems with your daughter. This is a low-cost, low-time-investment approach to try. It can be very helpful to some children, but is very narrowly focused on short-term memory. If there is an unremediated tracking problem, the impact on reading may be minimal.

Anyway, my advice is *not* to rely totally on the school for help and remediation. Their intentions may be the best, but they cannot do everything. If you are intent on optimal remediation for your daughter rather than minimal remediation, you need to investigate interventions outside the framework of school.

Incidentally, if you haven’t visited some websites about vision, I would suggest http://www.vision3d.com for starters. The “unproven” claims just mean that there hasn’t been rigorous medical research in the area. It doesn’t mean VT doesn’t work.

Mary

Yes….she barely qualified. I think because she repeated kindergarten, all concerned did not want her to fall further behind. I think it also helps that the SPED teacher is a family friend and knows my dd very well. I was asking questions about her reading progress before the classroom teacher made the reccomendation for further testing. She was still having problems with “b,d,p”, and was reversing words. She would sound out a word and the second go around it would be backwards, or she would start the word with the last sound.

Her hearing is fine, only one or two ear infections. She had her adenoids and tonsils removed at age 4 (not from health but breathing problems at night and they happened to be just HUGE!). I think started her bad pattern of swallowing improperly…thus the tongue thrust. All the other things sorted themselves out. And she really does not qualify for speech either! They don’t do “s” until age 8…but they felt she would be a good participant. she was so slurpy. Our school has been very helpful in bending the rules when they know the child needs it.

(NT)

I have always called my dd my “non-verbal” child. she has a difficult time telling a story…like orgainizing her thoughts to get it all out right. or choosing the right words. And as for reading, when she comes to word she does not know….”I will ask her to sound it out…make the first sound…do you know the letter…are you listening to me?” I don;t know if it is hard-headedness or if she does not know the letter and does not want to tell me. I just don’t know because she won’t let me key in to her thought process. She often gets words wrong, but uses a word that “Looks” very similiar. Like..there and where. If you took away one letter out and changed it..she wuld be right. It is like she sees the “whole” word as a picture and does not use the individual parts at first try. But that goes along with her visual thing. Very artistic, very creative. She can remember places she has seen years ago and tell about certain details in a building. Very odd!

Mary, you seem to have navigated your way through the ld maze with more success than most, i.e., have found, in timely fashion, the right treatments for your dd, despite the complexity of what you faced at first. How did you do it? Did you have help, or were you able to do it on your own?

Carol

You might want to look at a earlier posting. MaryMN on 8/10/01 “Private Testing Questions — Long!” It is very informative.

Carol