hi,
I am the mother of a 5 year old boy who is looking for more information on diagnosing/testing/evaluating for learning disabilities. My son received private and public speech therapy for a “speech delay” from the age of 2 to just this past March. Silly me, I thought we were “cured.” Now I’m beginning to wonder…he can put together a 100-piece Lego toy with no help but has trouble remembering which shoe goes on which foot. He’s incredibly clumsy and his hand-eye coordination (hitting/throwing) is virtually nonexistent. He seems to have difficulty (recently) with word retrieval and also completing an entire sentence the first time through without having to stop and start over. He does not know all of his letters (he will be in 5k in Sept.) or their sounds. He is a picky eater. He was late learning things like his colors. He is very easily distracted. He talks about things that, if you didn’t live with him, you wouldn’t know what he was talking about, like he assumes everyone has his own frame of reference. He doesn’t seem to be able to remember short lists (like when we’re grocery shopping, I’ll say, help me remember, “milk, cheese, yogurt”…and he can’t get them all. All of this leads to an incredible amount of frustration for both of us, but particularly for him because he is a perfectionist and wants to do everything right the first time out.
What I’m looking for are books or websites (anything!) that can give me a good comprehensive grounding in LD and possibly ADD, so that I can educate myself and get him the best help possible.
Thanks in advance and sorry for rambling!
Polly
Re: where do I start?
Sorry I just read in your post that he is entering K, did they do a kindergarten screening?If he were my son I would get a letter out to the school to evaluate over the summer, not in Sept.
Re: where do I start?
You’ve found your way to a good website if you’re at LD Online but I also like a book by Mel Levine called Educational Care. In fact, I like anything by Mel Levine and if you do a web search, you’ll probably find a website by him or about him. Dr. Levine is a pediatrician whose interest is specifically in understanding learning differences in children and in helping teachers and schools to work effectively in the best interest of the children.
Re: where do I start?
Polly, You can find a wealth of information at cec.sped.org
This is the Council for Exceptional Children website and has many offshoots. Another site you may want to visit isat
http://www.nldline.com this site deals with nonverbal learning disabilities which fit the description you gave.
Check them out and I’ll continue to look through my notes to see if there are more sites available. Don’t give up hope, there is just so much information out there that it may take awhile to find what you need.
Jerry
Re: where do I start?
I forgot the main site I wanted to tell you about. It’s
http://www.CHADD.org This site provides parents of children with ADD information. It’s an excellent site.
Jerry
Re: Here are a few websites to check out....
http://www.neuroacoustics.com has a lot of good information about how auditory processing disorders can affect vestibular development (balance, rhythm, motor coordination) and the ability to learn.
http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/ has a lot of good information about CAPD (central auditory processing disorders). Word retrieval and short-term auditory memory problems are characteristic of a subprofile of CAPD called “auditory decoding deficit”. FastForWord (http://www.scilearn.com) is often very helpful for this type of auditory processing problem.
Although 5yo is young for a definitive diagnosis of CAPD, you can look for a CAPD audiologist specializing in young children and start the evaluation process now. With severe cases the early diagnosis can be very helpful. Your best bet is to call the CAPD audiologist’s office (you can find those in your area by using the search engine at the website — regular audiologists do not have CAPD training) and ask them about an evaluation at this age and medical insurance coverage.
The picky eater thing can be a symptom of sensory integration disorder (SID), which is often a by-product of CAPD. An evaluation by an occupational therapist trained to assess sensory integration would be a good idea. You might be able to get this eval from the school.
Many of the symptoms you describe point to an auditory processing problem. Because your son is so young, NeuroNet would be my first choice of actions to pursue. NN requires some audiological testing to determine if a child is suitable for the program. My second choice would be a full-scale CAPD eval by an audiologist who specializes in young children.
Just about all of the symptoms you describe are typical of an auditory processing disorder and accompanying sensory integration disorder. While speech and language services are necessary to develop language skills, they do not address the underlying cause of the delays — which is all too often an undiagnosed auditory processing disorder.
Incidentally, the “LD in Depth” section of this website has a lot of good information about LD’s and about how to get what your child needs from the school system. Check out the section on “assessment” for tips on how to get the occupational therapy eval, for example.
Mary
Re: Here are a few websites to check out....
Get ahold of the book The Gift of Dyslexia by Ron Davis.
Polly, has he been in Kinderarten this year, or will he be entering in Sept.? Since he got speech in public school was a complete eval. done, and when? You can request the school to do a complete evaluation to identify the suspected areas of disability (if you go this route, do it in writing and get a receipt for this letter to document that they have it-certified, hand deliver and get receipt or fax and save receipt). You can try to find a neurodevelopmental pediatrician as well. This is often an excellent starting point because they can review your son’s health and developmental history (milestones) and screen things like social,cognitive, language and motor development. This dr. can refer you if necessary for further testing. If he is in K what does his teacher think (if in preschool what does that teacher tell you about his abilities)?