Thanks to all for reading and posting to my previous. Here is some additional color on my daughter’s situation:
My daughter, age 16, is a Junior in highschool. Home schooling is not an option as she resists learning from me. Tutors have saved our relationship at a tremendous cost.
In terms of background, my daughter and I often read outloud to eachother. I have first hand knowledge of how her comprehension can regress. Vocab is a major issue and inference is sometimes almost non-exixtant. She does not often discern well, main idea from details.
With the exception of signing her name, she prints. She never did learn cursive. The schools said not to worry about it. The schools say this a lot.
Even now, if she uses unlined paper and does not focus, she writes all over the page. Yet she is a capable artist. She can draw people and animals but has a problem writing letters and numbers. She uses the PC for most documentation.
She knows and remembers the words to thousands of songs and wishes classes could be taught to music. Just last night, ” Putting on the Ritz” was on the radio and she thought it was nice that someone wrote a song about the cracker. This stuff happens all the time. She puts the “L” into literal.
She is a card shark and can beat just about anyone.
In many ways, she seems to be a young child tossed into the highschool world and is barely coping.
I had basic testing updated last week. Her scores:
Verbal IQ/106
Performance IQ/111
Full Scale IQ/108
Her IQ used to be 118. The Phychologist specualted that the difference between now and then was probably attributable to vocab issues. I am greatly bothered by what seems to me to be a loss of 10 IQ points.
All Woodcock scores were in the low to mid 90’s.
She had considerable difficulty with non verbal concept formulation and the ability to analize abstract patterns to the point she was unable to perform any of the Block Design subtests.
The Phychologist had no doubt that my daughter had a reading disability and probably additional disabilities. She felt that the aditional help/tutoring had prevented her from further regression. She did not feel it was necessary to do additional testing. I strongly disagree. I want to know the specific nature and extent and what can be done to help her learn. She also thought that my expectations of collegemight be unreasonable. So I will bite this financial bullet in January. I will use someone else for further testing as I am not comfortable with someone who does not want to get to the bottom of this. ( Truth be told, I felt like slapping her for jumping too quickly to conclusions).
She recently took an unofficial ACT at Huntington. Reading was at 14. Other scores were 18. I am thinking that with additional help and focus she can bring the 18’s to 21. I am being realistic about the reading portion. She is scheduled to take the official test in April.
Assuming there is adequate emotional maturity, I prefer to see her at a very small liberal arts college where she can obtain the kind of support she needs. I am in complete agreement that it may take her 5-6 years to complete, if she stays the course. She wants to be an Elementary school teacher. To get paid, she will also need a masters. I am not seeing this at the moment. She is CPR certified and has no issues with blood and guts. I would like to expose her more to the Healthcare field. I do know for certain she will do something with young children.
I have my own issues with community colleges. It’s not the schools. Actually, I have found that most teachers are more willing to go way out of there way to help those who help themselves. Rather, it is that most kids do not finish. They are there to meet parental expectations until it is obvious that they do not belong there and they find other things to do. I take classes at these schools ( Harper and Oakton). I see the drop out rate. I see the influence these kids have upon eachother. My daughter is easily influenced by peer groups and needs to be with kids who want to learn.
If any of you have additional thoughts, I am all ears which to my daughter means someone with many ears. I have not lost my sense of humor, yet.[/b]
Re: Who Knew Part 2
I do think other testing with a good neuropsychologist who help further pinpoint her deficits and explain why her IQ has dropped. I have heard of this happening before. Large drops (like 20 points) can occur from absense or partial seizures. But I have heard of LD kids without seizures having drops in IQ as well.
In the meantime, you might want to start researching intervention options. Lindamood-Bell’s Visualizing and Verbalizing is a great program for helping with comprehension. Extremely expensive, but it really is the best. I’ve taken my son there and have seen teens and even adults enrolled in their program.
If homeschooling isn’t an option, what about private school? I know that’s expensive, and there may be other places you want to put your money.
Re: Who Knew Part 2
IQ drops in students with language problems are *very* common; the vocabulary and the literalism issues just aren’t as important when younger because they’re developmentally more in tune with that age.
THe relationship is *way* more important than any academic gain of homeschooling … you’re mom and there’s only one of you :-) Keep up the reading and talking and sharing.
WOuld a college like Landmark be an option, or one that has a good LD program (I think Marhsall in W. Va. has a good one, too)? I’m not sure that just a small liberal arts college will be able to deal with the genuine LD issues. On the other hand, it really sounds like the most important part of the education is the atmosphere, which she will rise or sink to. On the third hand, getting a current evaluation at school can save a lot of bucks and pave the way to getting any accommodations in the college setting (and simple things like extra time on tests can make a HUGE difference and not be embarrassing). n
I have to concur about CC’s — I remember attending them and realizing that students got out of them *exactly* what they put into them, and a certain sizable proportion of students were … we had a word for ‘em … and it was just a matter of time before they were doing unskilled labor (which they probably should have been doing then, since that often inspires people to get that college degree… but sometimes that can be its own dead end, too. A year “off” would be worth considering, though. If she is going to college to meet parental demands she’ll be in just that same boat…)
Many schools — especially CC’s — have things like Learnign Communities and TRIO and GOALS for students who recognize they need to surround themselves with folks who want to succeed.
See a Pediatric Neuropsychologist
I think you should find a Pediatric Neuropsychologist to evaluate your daughter. It seems your daughter has great scatter in her IQ subtest scores. The Pediatric Neuropsychologist would look at the testing you have had done so far and then do additional testing. You need to do some reading so that you can find a Pediatric Neuropsychologist that has experience testing the LD population. Here are some links.
http://nanonline.org/downloads/paio/NANPedNeuroPar.pdf
http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/resources/resources_interface_frameset.html
and then select the following link:
Evaluation of Developmental Learning Disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorders
Helen
Re: Who Knew Part 2
Have you considered an Occupational Therapy eval with regards to sensory integration. A good OT with a sensory integration experience may be able to help with the focusing, spatial organization, processing issues if any, etc…Just a thought. Lisa
I’m with you on the health care field
It seems to be a tremendous area of growth that isnt going anywhere
Some of the associate degrees for things like Physical Therapy Assitant(PTA) can be quite lucrative if you live in an area of need.
I work in Early Intervention and this is definitely a way to put together the two fields. Might be something to look into based on how your state works.
I think the media overdramatizes the need for perfect grades and ACTs. Scholarships seemed to be based more on grades than ACTs My sons ACTs were excellent but his grades and class rank were nothing to brag about; he only took 2 years of foreign language(hows THAT going for you) against all recommendation to take four
Yet, he was accepted at every college he applied for, including the University of IL engineering program(a big deal)
Now, THATs the program he dropped out of after 3 months. He was wayyyy underprepared-he hadnt even taken calculus and his peers were graduates of AP calculus and beyond
He was most definitely overwhelmed and felt ‘stupid’ for the first time in his life(this is one of my non-LD kids)
So, yeah, I understand what you are saying about failure to follow through at community colleges, but there are dangers with what the “competition” looks like at regular college as well
Perhaps small liberal will give you the best of both worlds
I guess I lean towards CC because if it doesnt work out, you are out less money. We took quite a hit with ds!
I think you have an excellent plan. We have a few more years to deal with the LD kiddo here so Im anxious to see how things work out for you-please keep us informed.