HELP!!

Have you ever looked into his executive functioning processes? How is he overall? Is he a slow to warm up kind of guy? A slow mover, easily distracted, does it take him forever to do things? How is he when he starts a project? Does he finish it or does he give up? Does he maintain interest in activities or is he easily bored?

I worked with a kid a few years ago who was a slow reader, spelling was difficult. Underlying it all was an executive functioning issue and once that was addressed he started putting it together. He still is very methodical but at a faster rate and…….but he can focus now and feels better about himself.

Well no,… he’s not slow to some things. He can sit down and put together a $100 lego project without interruption and he’ll go through the first four levels of any videogame challenge if left unattended.

you might research this learning style-I found some good stuff on about.com but can’t remember where :) A search ought to give you several sources

Movies, legos, video games all fit this learning strength-school, which is mostly auditory input, does NOT. Language skills seem to be weak(something to do with auditory sequencing???)so that reading doesnt become easy simply because its visual input.

Is the spelling difficulty with spelling tests or use of words in writing? While my son(5th grade) still struggles in writing, he is able to do well on weekly spelling tests. I use his visual memory-have him ‘take a picture’ of the word as a whole. He can actually do this and spell the work backwards just as easily as frontwards-this way you know hes visualizing a word snapshot. Sounding out just didnt work for him.

We are now doing remediation to teach all the phonics/sounds he has difficulty with in the hopes of inproving his reading/comprehension, but, if we hadnt gone purely visual on spelling tests, hed be getting Fs instead of As and Bs.

Parenting a LD child is also a good board to post on-moves quickly!

Sounds like he tunes into what he wants to and this is exactly what I was looking for. He needs to be pulled out of his interests and into learning vocabulary, language and strategies that will help him be successful throughout his life so that he can be a responsible individual when he grows up. An assessment needs to be done to see how well he attends auditorially and visually, what his strengths and weaknesses are and also to determine what is preventing him from making progress in reading and other areas of difficulty.

Basically I think your son may be ADD-Inattentive. I am the mother of 2 boys, one a teenager and the other an adult and they are both creative individuals who were lego princes and they are still videogame kings. Take it from me the sooner you get to the bottom of his behavior the sooner you can make gains and avoid further problems in the long run…

I can’t diagnose at a distance, especially with only a couple of paragraphs of information, but well over 90% of the kids I tutor with your son’s patterns are missing foundation reading skills. The basic intelligence allows them to “succeed” in a non-structured, memorization-based primary school reading non-system. It looks like the kid is reading, when he is actually reciting from memory and guessing. Then when the work gets too difficult for these approaches, he has nothing to fall back on.
If this is the case — and it most often is — the solution is to go back to ground level and teach reading foundations systematically. Improvement can often be seen within a few hours, and a real turnaround often in six months to a year.
Some people here will strongly suggest various brand-name systems such as Lindamood Bell and Phonographix, and these have good reputations and prioven track records when used thoroughly. But any tutor who understands structured reading skills tutoring can teach with a wide variety of materials.

What were the actual numerical results of testing? I suggest you post the test results including subtests in standard form. There are a number of people on these boards who interpet tests on a daily basis.

Hang in there.

Hi Doug,

While I agree with Victoria about kids missing the basics, I’ve also found that a significant number of kids who just didn’t “get” reading, and who continue to avoid it are doing so because it is visually uncomfortable for them.

Have you looked at any of the information on vision therapy? If not, I would spend a little time in that area and see if they are talking about problems similar to those you see in your son.

Do a vision therapy search on google and you’ll find some very helpful information.

Good luck…..Rod

I would try Phono-Graphix first, either at home using the book “Reading Reflex” (widely available in bookstores) or using a certified Phono-Graphix tutor. This program teaches decoding skills quickly.

Also consider getting a developmental vision evaluation (more info at http://www.childrensvision.com and http://www.covd.org.), especially if your son learns decoding skills quickly with PG but remains very slow at reading text. From what you describe, he is a good auditory learner but probably does not process visual information easily.

The slow writing may indicate motor planning problems. Take a look at Interactive Metronome for this.

Also consider Audiblox and PACE, which are good programs for developing visual processing and sequencing skills.

Sequential Spelling is an approach that almost always works for very poor spellers. (http://www.avko.org)

The DyslexiaSupport list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com is a good source of information on these and other approaches to reading and spelling, even if your son tested as not dyslexic (which indicates the problem is likely to be poor reading instruction and/or poor visual processing skills).

Nancy

Were either of your son’s ADD-inattentive? If so, how did you get the diagnosis? And also, what did you do to help remedy the situation?

Both of my son’s are ADD-Inattentive and one of them is more hyper like my daughter who is also ADD. Getting my head out of the sand was the biggest remedy to the situation, talking with specialists like pediatricians who deal with ADD day in and day out and then getting them on medication with a behavior modifiication program made a huge change…There were so many signs of their problems for years… and it wasn’t until things came to a head with my youngest and I went to my peidiatrician and told him, something isn’t right and I don’t know what else to do that I was able to put all the missing pieces together for my daughter and then my sons…

My oldest son who is ADD read in kindergarten, he was extremely outgoing, easily distracted, played legos and video games.. creative writing and story telling were his gifts and being artistic, he would draw pictures all the time during school lectures… but following through and procrastination were his downfall. In college even though he was gifted he couldn’t focus and ended up on Academic probation. Then he gave two years of his life on a mission for our church living in Mexico which helped him learn good habits…He has grown up a lot, but when he went back to college, he dug himself out of academic probabtion but finally realized that his distractibility and procrastination have became problems again…he finally decided to try medication to help with his ADD.

Our 2nd son we knew something wasn’t right when he was in kindergarten,and by 2nd grade he had a devil of a time reading, spelling and writing. He would spend hours dictating stories of his own creatiion, making costumes out of paper bags, playing legos and videogames… He was in his own little world and we had him in to the pediatrician many times to talk about his behaviors. The Dr. would talk to him and we thought he would change and he didn’t. Finally when HS hit we tried medication and what a difference that made. He made honor roll for the first time in his life…He was capable he just couldn’t pull it together and medication has helped him learn to focus and attend instead of drawing pictures all over his papers…..

When I went into the Dr. with my youngest child’s LD’s he looked at me and said, “I think she is ADD and recommended she be seen by a specialist in ADD at the university. There was a 6 month waiting list to get in and the ADD specialist had his assistant call and tell me to cancel the appointment as he felt her LD’s were due to her Hearing Impairment..I said no I want him to see her as.I think there is something else going on.

When we finally got in and the ADD specialist saw her he said, “I see what you are talking about and I owe you an apology…We started Concerta..and finally this bright little girl who was ready to give up told me..after medication strarted…”Mommy, I think I finally know what it feels like to focus…” My heart broke….

So much money and time had been spent on remediation but she stagnated because she couldn’t focus…We couldn’t remediate until we were able to get her to focus…and still we have years to make up for in regards to language…

This is what I have been trying to share with other parents…It doesn’t matter what program you use, if you can’t get the child to focus and attend you are not going to remediate them..no matter how much money you spend…We spent $1,000’s…before we realized this….So much of it depends on not only their IQ, but their attention, emotional maturity, motivation, and parental involvement…

All the bases covered succinctly. If I read that exact post several years ago I could have saved myself alot of time and my son alot of agony.

I wish more people understood exactly what real remediation (not the school’s version) can accomplish. We are about 60% there having done phonographix and IM.
I have no doubt that once my son’s vision issues are fixed he will just sail through,even excell and this will all seem like just a bad dream. Maybe I seem to some like an in denial polyanna but the real story is that I have seen this kid grow tremendously so far with alot of work and I can’t envision him not going all the way.

He may always have a few issues, but so what. Most people do.

I have seen people “disappear” from this board, whose kids after much intervention were functioning pretty normally. I was inspired by those stories when I first began working with my son. Alas, it hasn’t been quite so easy.

I am not sure what makes the difference, given similar types of approaches, but certainly the more complex and widespread the problems, the more difficult it is. It is seemingly easier to remediate more severe problems in one area than milder multiple problems. I think this is because the later child has less ability to compenstate.

Although my son (and others I know whose kids have also had much intervention) are def. still LD, he is still functioning at a much higher level than he was before. And we’re still trudging away, although I am beginning to suspect we are dealing with life long disabilities here.

Beth

I think that is just it. Those who are successful disappear. I am sure someday most will just say, “Your son probably never had much of a problem to begin with.”

I hope that is what they say. I don’t care if I am really the only one who knows the truth. Let them just think he is just a regular kid or maybe just a very bright kid.

I told my son’s soccer coach’s wife a little about his history–after she told me he had the most potential on the team. I don’t think she really believed me, so you are right–people just will think there wasn’t much of a problem.

The kids I am thinking of had significant problems but with hard work and some luck, they are doing well without accomodations. It is certainly worth striving for but, in any case, you will always know you have done all you can.

Beth

I too feel like maybe my son’s reading difficulties are going to be a lifelong disability. Maybe his brain just isn’t “wired” for it. It seems like no matter how much we read and decode it just isn’t “clicking.” We cannot progress any more.

What’s really hard is when I talk with my son and point out to him all the things he can do really well, he later tells me that if he could pick only one thing to be great at it would be reading. Reading is like a room where it seems like everyone else can find the door and enter, but he can’t.

Hang in there, Laura. Perhaps the therapies you are thinking of doing will make enough of a difference. With my son, it isn’t that he isn’t progressing. He is. It is that reading still isn’t easy or natural for him and he avoids it like any thing. I think there still are some underlying processing issues that all our work has not totally remediated. But he is much better than he was before.

Your son’s comments must break your heart.

Beth

Laura,

I have heard that one of my son’s friends announced one day “why don’t I have a math disability instead of reading disability…”. So your son is not alone…

Do not despair… My son has both: auditory and visual issues and finally he is making progress. Actually he started making progress 1.5 year ago only at the beginning there are still so many issues that it seems like they are stuck at some level of skills. I think they are just gaining automaticity. Since they cannot really read what interest them, it is hard to keep on reading.

The first book that my son read with interest was “White Fang”- an adaptation of the Jack London novel (it happened just this month). It was with pictures and big font (!!!) plus the story was interested enough that he was able to read a chapter a day (sometimes with me reading another one to keep the interest). He is now reading “Robinson Crusoe” from the same series. We bought the books from KBToys- on sale- four hard cover books for $8. He was delighted that he bought books for himself. Initially, I did not want to have him read “second class” literature (adaptations not the originals), but now I will give him to read whatever he will keep on reading….

Being interested in eth story had really made a huge difference in his attitude.