How do you know whats right?

for your son…I think we all go through this phase where we “respect” the “experts” after all they went to college they have the sheepskin and they are the ones doing the teaching. Some parents get lucky and get the help their child needs while a silent majority go blindly like a lamb to the slaughter until they find that their child isn’t getting what they need. Other parents feel like their trust was violated…and they become a voice of warning to the other parents. That is what happened to me after I realized all the fighting in the IEP meetings wasn’t getting my child what she needed so I decided to get in the boat, bailing like mad and changing the direction of where the boat was headed.

I also knew deep down inside what was best for my child and I have found that most districts will always do what is best for them, costs the least. I have been at long IEP meetings month after month that went nowhere. Finally, knowing that they would write something that looked good on paper but they could not implement because of lack of expertise, I pulled my kiddo out of the public school system for a year to get her skills up to where she could function in the regular classroom setting. If I hadn’t done that she would probably be in an SDC because that was what the district wanted to do with my kiddo. It was a hard decision and one that I made a matter of prayer.

Home schooling to remediate skills so the child can than go back to a regular classroom unaided might work in some cases, but it sure won’t work with all kids.

My son has NLD, and it really affects him globally, in every setting. There is nothing I could “fix” at home to make him more successful in the classroom, because something new comes up every day, and the demands increase every year.

I guess it is knowing that that has made me learn to be a strong proponent for my child within the school system. I’m sure it helps greatly that I have a school system that IS willing to work with me as long as I do the leg work and send them in the right direction.

I do agree with you completely that I think the parent probably does know, in their heart, what the best placement is for their child. In my son’s case, what is working at the moment is a SPED teacher in the regular classroom during the academic periods, an aid with him during specials, and some time in the resource room each week to do re-teaches, organize projects, etc. I think this is working in part becasue we have an excellent SPED teacher this year, who knows the value of keeping him in the classroom as much as she can, but also realizes that there are times that a pull-out is really needed.

But it’s really hard to keep everything working. I often feel like that guy in the circus with all the spinning plates up on sticks… One momentary loss of attention or vigilance and the plates start crashing to the ground.

Karen

Without knowing this, a decision cannot be made.

The psychologist is not an educator by training, and is looking at the situation from a specific skew.

The teacher (I am assuming this is the sped teacher) is probably the most informed opinion.

However, depending upon who your child is and what his/her specific strengths and deficits are, (and without knowing any more than you have given us) my gut reaction is to say the Principal is right, although not for the reason you indicated.

Sorry that I am not more help.

The question of placement is a good one, and one that, like many other decisions to be made, is often handed over to the parent, who may feel ill-prepared for it. I’d say you need more information about those different settings before making your decision, and the best way to get it is to go in yourself and get a first-hand look. You may have to visit at times when your son is not present, to avoid embarrassing him, but just try to get a feel for how the teacher interacts with the children, what kind of structure (or lack of it) is present, what curriculum is being used, what is the expertise and level of training of the teacher, what other supports (aides, computers, Franklin Spellers) are being provided, how is information presented, etc. You know your son best of all the experts, so try to see all this as he would see it, only you have the added perspective of wanting to find the setting that will be most successful for his learning.

I run a Resource Program and am strongly in favor of the pull-out model over the in-class consultation model, but that’s because I’m using a highly effective intervention that really won’t work in the regular ed. environment — but then most of my kids can’t really benefit from it because their reading/writing skills are so low. My goal is to give intensive help that will enable the child to get back into the regular ed. setting after a year or so, at most. So the important question to ask about the pull-out setting is, “what will it do to help my child be more successful in the regular classroom?” It’s also important to know what the child is missing and how he will make up this missing information, something most IEP’s don’t even address, but which can be worked out, if you insist on it!

As for home schooling, I have to say this is not usually the best option for LD children, except as a last resort, and even then you should go and get some specialized training. I don’t see any advantage, for the child or the parent, in replacing one untrained individual in the classroom (as many teachers are) with another one at home. Teaching a child with a true learning disability is very difficult, and we now know that learning to read is not a “natural process” as once was thought… as Louisa Moats says, “Teaching kids to read IS rocket science!” Add to that the fact that many child/parent interactions have a lot of emotional complications and it’s easy to see why so many parents say “I just can’t work with him/her.” You really need the child’s cooperation and active participation for this to work, so make sure you have it, in full, before you proceed with this option.

What the principal wants for his convenience is not the issue here, it’s what is best for your son, so don’t let them make you feel pressured about making the decision. You can always call a new IEP at any time, so find out what you need to know, let your intuition guide you, and then go in and tell them what you want and how you want it. If it hasn’t been decided yet, tell them you need more time to investigate, set a new date/time in about two weeks, during which you will do so, and then come back with your plan. There are educational consultants/advocates available who can help with this process, and lots of parents/teachers on this website who can help also, but you need to get a handle on what the choices really mean first, with your son in mind. Good luck!

Sharon

My son is diagnosed with CAPD, language disorder both receptive and expressive, and ADD (however we question the ADD as being symptoms of the CAPD), he is also diagnosed with anxiety disorder. (8 yers old, 2nd grade)

For “most” of the day in the regular classroom, he does fine especially math. But where he has to answer questions in written form, the language disorder comes into play. As soon as he knows he has to write something, that isn’t simply copying, his anxiety skyrockets. By the time he has gotten to the point where he can answer the question, the teacher is pressuring him to hurry up, to keep the rest of the class going. He has extra time for responses as an accomodation, but the teacher has learned that if he gets behind, he gets more and more nervous and eventually shuts down. I asked at the IEP meeting, if he could do multiple choice qustions in the classroom during class, and do the writing assignment at home, where the pressure to keep up would be minimal, but they said no.

Several times I have asked the teacher (regular ed teacher in a regular ed classroom) what she feels is the best placement for him. She feels the resource room because of the smaller class size and the ability for the special ed teacher to give him individual attention. HOWEVER, last year in the resource room, when my son was having these same problems, the teacher stated, HE can do the work independantly, and I simply don’t have the time to give him such personal attention.

I asked at the last IEP meeting, why would we remove him from a classroom, and put him back into a situation which was demonstrated NOT to be successful last year, and the response was, Your child has changed, so it would be ok. I need more reassurance than that to make a decision such as this.

There are so many intangibles in each setting that unless you’ve seen them all it’s hard to make a decision. As far as that resource room goes — if basically it’s a place for kids to go to do work independently, then how’s it different from home? Are they afraid you’re providing too much “individual attention” at home (or that you would) with the written work? Are they basically saying your child has changed and can now work independently?

It sounds like the ‘extra time’ accommodation really doesn’t work — so he needs something different to meet his needs. When they say “oh, he can’t take the work home” then keep coming back to “okay, what is your suggestion for accommodating his need for extra time in a setting that doesn’t trigger anxiety?”

I’d disagree w/ homeschooling being a “last” resort — it’s definitely not for everybody, but hanging on to a bad school situation until you’re at a “last resort” situation makes all the resorts less likely to work. A parent may be untrained, but since she’s dealing with one kiddo — and a familiar one, at that — teh training “learning curve” can be a lot easier to tackle. (On the other hand, you’re the kid’s *only* mom — sometimes it comes down to being able to take on one role or the other, and guess which one matters most?) And especially for short-term situations trained tutors can be part of the mix… and with CAPD issues, 1:1 teaching at home has obvious advantages over constantly battling the noise in a classroom, or trying to keep up with language that’s just coming at you a little faster than you can follow. (But… homeschooling out of frustration is a lousy place to start — even if frustration is what gets you to that point, it’s important to figure out a more positive motivation).

Sharon’s given you an excellent overview of the situation. I just want to throw in my 2 cents about you trusting YOURSELF. It seems so unfair in a way that parents have to become para-professionals in order to help their children through this maze, but it’s true. Read everything you can to get your knowledge up to speed. Talk to your child. Enlist the aid of a child advocate but only after you’ve done YOUR homework.

Re homeschooling: Some parents do become experts in learning about their own child’s learning styles but it’s not true of everybody. And I do think some kids end up in worse shape when their parents aren’t able to do a good job. But I’ve also seen kids who’ve blossomed under homeschooling. The best you can do is educate yourself about his needs and how to educate him, and, if homeschooling is something that you could logistically do, then really evaluate yourself, your abilities, and your child’s ability to work with you before you step into it. If the school’s solution is to keep him in a regular ed class with an ineffective, unmotivated teacher, then by virtue of your motivation to do what’s best for your child, you likely would do a better job.

I think the system is only as good as the individual teachers within it. It sounds like your son’s regular classroom teacher wants to wash her hands of him because she feels it’s too much extra work for her. The way most classrooms are set up, that’s probably unfortunately true. And many regular ed teachers didn’t receive much training in working with kids with NLD’s. This is an issue that makes me militant because I believe that with all the brain research out there now, prospective teachers ought to be getting an overview at the very least but they’re not getting it. With an overview they’d learn compassion and understanding and believe me, that really does color how you relate to a child even when you’re not sure how to educate him. Somehow or other the university level needs to wake up. But that’s another story.

Everyone’s looking for what’s easiest for THEM as opposed to what’s best for your child. It’s critical that you understand that.

My son, being the unbiased mom I am , is a caring considerate child. He wants to do his best at what he does, but isn’t always able to keep up with his peers when it comes to speaking, or writing.

I wouldn’t mind homeschooling, as I feel the amount of time we already put in at home after school is akin to homeschooling already. But I do believe he needs to be with peers, who are working at the same level or slightly above, for him to be able to see what he needs to be achieving. When in the resource room last year, the other children were way below his level, and when he was pushed to achieve more, he would shutdown and say no. The special ed teacher insisted on punishments for this behavior, which I disagreed with then, and still to this day disagree with.

An aide in the regular classroom during the “writing” period, would be in our opinion to his benefit, however of course with funding restraints, its not going to happen unless we take them to court. He has collaborative services for language arts, where a special ed coordinator comes into the classroom to help, however she comes in when they are doing spelling or daily oral report, and he has no problems with those, its only when writing answers to a question after literary arts.

I just wish I knew what is right. Keep him in the classroom, let him stumble and fall a few times, increase his anxiety level because he feels he can’t keep up, or move him to the resource room and have his anxiety level SKYROCKET because they will try and make him do more than the peers in the group. Uhhggg, maybe its ME that needs the psychologist not my son.

Many children with CAPD are greatly benefitted by AIT. I think you are also right that the ADD and anxiety stem from the CAPD. There is a subtle difference between the attending problems that a child with ADD/ADHD has, and the problems that a child who is “disconnected” with the rest of us has (as in autism).

By the way, who dx’d him as CAPD? Just curious. Just a few years ago CAPD was unknown in our country, and your child would have been labeled autistic.

The neuropyschologist recommended having him tested for CAPD on the basis of several interviews and his IQ testing. An audiologist here (after a long and frustrating search of audiologists who can test for CAPD) tested him, and his dx is poor phonemic awareness, reduced auditory responsiveness in noise, and auditory overload. We have asked the school to remideate with Fast Forword, however it is not being used at our local school (although several in our school district use it, not only for CAPD children, but for the general classes) and that we couldn’t prove that that would work better than the CAPD program they are using. Which basically is nothing :/ We suggested the use of an FM device for in the classroom, which they said would be no problem and wrote it on his IEP as an accomodation, however here it is 4 weeks later, and no signs that its anywhere closer now than a month ago at happening.

Having made several adult friends who are Autistic, I can tell you that by homeschooling you will be sparing your child the potential of years of typically ingrained ause by peers and teachers. Do not think for one moment that LD children get treated with kid gloves by the system. It is not without reason that adults with LD have a high rate of comorbid depression and anxiety. These are well drilled into many by those around them who are callous and ignorant.

Untrained is not what you make it out to be. Many times being able to think outside the programmed box is an asset not a liability. Too often those who reside in the ivory towers of academia and think up things are wrong, and are unable to back off when doubts start chipping away at their theories less they lose face.

Homeschool also has the advantage of taking place in a familiar environment where distractions can be controlled if not eliminated. For many children with attending problems, especially if they are hypersensitive to sensory input (common in ADD and Autistic children) the cacophony of sights, sounds and smells all around can be extremely overwhelming.

I will agree that not all are cut out to homeschool. I myself would make a damn poor teacher. Thank God my wife is able to work with my boy, and his progress is testament to her efforts. (She is also untrained, and we do not use any of the expensive prepared methods that so many private consultants are selling, nor do we use any of the lack-luster programs offered by my local school district.)

Thje decision to homeschool LD children is not a simple one, nor one to take lightly. However, for those who are able to commit to it, it may be the best alternative.

Always remember that no matter who is advising you you being the mom are the expert on your child. Also, don’t under estimate your childs opion on the issue ask what makes you feel good, what helps you understand, is something too easy or too hard.

Don’t let anyone make you think you don’t know that it is all up to them. Ask keep asking questions here and other from people you know.

Patty,

I have CAPD/ADD and I am becoming an SLP. I work intensively with children who have co-morbid problems of CAPD/ADD and ADD alone. Anxiety is no stranger to a child who has CAPD or ADD. The anxiety comes from constantly scrambling to keep up with auditory information in both attending to the sounds and also processing them. Believe me I know the feeling of being dazed and confused and trying to figure out what someone is saying and what they want from me. I think that is why I work so well with the kids, I know first hand what it is like to struggle with these type of problems.

My daughter never did FFW. I am a provider for FFW but I found that Lindamood-Bell LiPS was what got through her problems and lots of one on one speech and language therapy. I paid for my own LMB training because I was fed up with the shenanigans. I was like you a parent of a child with an LD that no one in the district knew what to do with. My daughter was only learning by listening because she couldn’t read. She used a hearing aid and an Fm trainer since kindergarten and she learns auditorially because of the FM trainer. It helped her tune in instead of out… The FM trainer did such a good job that her problems with ADD didn’t really come to a head until 5th grade.

A kiddo with deficits like your son needs to have intensive language therapy to help him process and attend to auditory information. You are fortunate because he is still young and with the appropriate therapy he will be able to succeed.

Regarding homeschooling…even though I had all this training in LMB and taught her initally how to read, I found I couldn’t work with my own kiddo in 5th grade. I had to bite the bullet and pay $$’s to a learning center where I also worked with other kids so help defray the costs. She has matured and now will work with me again, thank heavens!! Before and After school we have extensive discussions about her classwork, books she is reading, expansion of vocabulary. I also tutor other kids and we do groups where we discuss mutual homework and do lots of reflective listening and discussion so the kids can internalize their studies. It takes a lot of time to make up for the years when kids were tuned out auditorially due to either CAPD or ADD. I liken it to filling a cavernous hole with a small shovel, it takes a long time but eventually we fill it up one langauge/vocabulary/processing scoop at a time.

Please feel free to E-mail me. I can forward you some links to some on-line articles about ADD/CAPD and Language issues.

best to you and yours…
pattim

Great question. I think some of it depends on what you want for your child and/or what your child will feel most comfortable with. When my own LD son was young and in school, I think he might have been fine in any one of several placement options but, like any parent, I wanted what was best for him. Like you, I was given many conflicting opinions from the experts.

I did this. I went - without my son - to visit and observe as many of the suggested placements as I could. I spent time in the regular classroom and the resource to try to get the “feel” of it. I tried to picture my son in those rooms.

I found that really helpful. Sometimes I could tell right away that what I was seeing wasn’t for him or wasn’t something I could be comfortable with. And the good news is sometimes I could tell right away I was in a classroom that would work well for him.

I’d say visit and observe in the classes that are available to him if you can.

Sara,

I spent last year spending time in my sons resource room classroom. During the time I spent there, I would help not only him, but any other child in the classroom that needed help. He never once “shutdown” while I was in the classroom. I did not spend all of my time just with him. I helped him verbalize what he wanted to write, and helped him remember things like spacing, and capitalization, but again, I worked with all the children, not just him. The special ed teacher feels as though he is spoiled and just needs to be punished into working. He has a bonafide language disorder. What he needs is to be led through the process of answering questions slowly, UNTIL he feels comfortable with the process. I could never get through to the teacher that thought. Numerous psychologists, and educational specialists wrote letters to her, she insisted he was just lazy and didn’t want to do the work. When we removed him and placed him into the regular classroom, I was unable to go to the classroom to help because I changed jobs. While it wasn’t perfect, he rarely had shutdowns, because if he felt out of his element, the teacher helped him OR the other children helped him. Skip to this year…..the teacher is new, and doesn’t feel she can give him the help he needs„ and the other children in the classroom (whole new class) aren’t as compassionate. The special ed teacher is still in the school, and to put him back in that class, just opens up the door again for her to punish him for his disability. So what do I do?

Language and ADD

A detailed assessment is key to determining whether a disorder has an attention or language basis

By Abigail Scott

MANY ADOLESCENTS AND ADULTS with attention deficit disorder (ADD) seen at the Prescriptive Tutoring Center in Providence, RI, appear to have subtle but high-level forms of dyslexia or other language learning disabilities that hinder their ability to compensate for the attentional problem.

The assessment of these individuals must be detailed and address a large array of language functions, according to Patricia Raymond, PhD, director of Neuropsychology Services at the center.

“The combination of ADD and these subtle problems makes it a larger impairment, and these individuals can’t attend and concentrate to compensate for their problem,” she said. “If they had good attention skills, they could compensate nicely.”

Many young adult patients are referred to the center from Brown University, also in Providence.

“We discovered that they had been diagnosed as having ADD previously and would be told they weren’t paying attention or were distractible when reading,” said Helaine Schupack, MA, director of Tutorial Services at the center.

Some students had difficulty in spelling and written language, and some presented with cluttering.

However, people may just appear to have ADD due to a disinterest in reading that results from their dyslexia, Dr. Raymond observed. “They give up and don’t pay attention.”

Differentiating between ADD and dyslexia is not the problem; missing or misinterpreting the subtle language problems or the effect of ADD on language is, she said. “The student feels like something is wrong, but no one else acknowledges it.”

Schupack, a former reading disabilities specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, has worked closely with several of the clients Dr. Raymond diagnosed with ADD. When she used the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching with these individuals, she noticed “classic dyslexic mistakes” as they read aloud. They could do single word exercises with few mistakes but had difficulty reading longer passages and writing papers.

These young adults previously were diagnosed as having general organizational problems, but their difficulty was in the organization of language, Schupack said. “A lot of psychiatrists miss the language component.”

ADD and language deficits are grouped under issues related to executive function. The ability to carry out these skills, such as staying on task and searching for words in speech and text, is based in the frontal lobe.

“If you want to speak to someone, you need to find the proper words,” Dr. Raymond explained. “Someone who has difficulty sustaining effort may choose an inappropriate word or talk around the word.”

The question, then, is whether the problem is with attention, language, or a combination of the two.

“Anyone can have a word-finding problem; but if they are easily frustrated and have trouble persisting, they may have more problems,” she said.

According to Schupack, the questions many neuropsychologists ask when assessing individuals with apparent language learning disabilities and/or ADD are “How much is language-based?” and “How much is attentional?”

“We see people who have a little of both, and that is the piece we are concerned about,” she said.

Standard assessment may indicate a student has ADD and only a slight weakness in reading, but the synergy between the two problems is rarely examined, Schupack maintained. School systems often have no policies about diagnosing ADD and reading problems together, and most school-based evaluations are limited to scales like the Wecshler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised.

“They report the scores but not the details,” she said.

The Woodcock-Johnson battery scores reading, spelling and mathematical abilities in percentiles.

“It will say math is in the 80th percentile, reading is in the 40th percentile, and spelling is in the 25th percentile,” Schupack said. “The 40th percentile is still within the average range, and therefore the test administrators don’t see a problem.”

Speech-language pathologists and neuropsychologists involved in the diagnosis of ADD and language problems need to broaden the scope of their assessment procedures. Speech-language pathologists should evaluate children with reported language problems in terms of attention and concentration, and physicians should be aware of the possibility of language and reading disorders and consider neuropsychological testing before prescribing medications such as Ritalin.

Dr. Raymond and Schupack conduct a broad assessment that addresses attention, concentration and language function. Tests used in this process include the Boston Naming Test, Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Exam, Nelson Denny Reading Comprehension Test and Gray Oral Reading Test-III (GORT-III). The GORT-III assesses how a student reads a paragraph aloud and how he or she uses decoding skills to answer questions about the paragraph.

Schupack notes how much a student hesitates in responding. “We can look at those areas in a qualitative way in addition to getting scores on rate, accuracy and comprehension,” she said.

Students with just ADD have difficulty with silent reading tasks on the Nelson Denny test—which checks reading rate based on one minute of reading—because of problems with concentration.

“We often will see their reading rate as normal, average or above on the GORT and slower on the Nelson Denny,” Schupack said.

Individuals with ADD often need time to reread passages because their minds drift.

The GORT-III reveals reading errors such as “section” for “selection” or “place” for “palace.” The reader also may misread function words and omit or add endings to words.

“Those are language problems that are indicative of reading comprehension difficulty,” Schupack said.

If a language difficulty is mild, it may go unnoticed until high school or college. “If they are bright, they are able to make do until they get to college,” she noted.

Schupack sees many Brown University students with ADD who had no difficulty getting into college but are having difficulty staying in because of the overwhelming amount of reading and writing involved with their coursework.

Students who have difficulty in language and reading comprehension and may have ADD frequently are distracted by details in reading and go off on tangents when talking. When writing a paper, a student may be distracted by one detail and write the whole paper about that one point instead of the question she initially was asked to write about.

Many students with ADD have difficulty writing the first sentence of a paper, according to Dr. Raymond. “They have trouble excluding information; they either write too little or too much.”

In classroom participation students with ADD can’t formulate an answer quickly enough before the topic moves on.

A neuropsychologist can identify the source of the language or attentional problem in these students and help develop solutions. Dr. Raymond often suggests a tutoring program that incorporates a multisensory, hands-on approach to learning.

Students may need to ask teachers or professors to adapt the amount of material, homework assignments and classes they attend so they don’t have to do papers for every class.

If 20 percent of a grade is for class participation and the student is weak in this area because of ADD, the professor may ask the student to write his or her responses in a short paper in lieu of participation in class discussions.

Some students with undiagnosed ADD manage to get through college and enter the workforce, but they encounter problems when they receive promotions that demand more work. For example, an engineer who is promoted to an administrative position faces the daunting task of writing letters and memos.

Individuals with ADD often report an inability to complete paperwork and a tendency to have a secretary review their reports, Dr. Raymond said.

Schupack sees physicians who come to her for tutoring because they are unable to pass their advanced board exams once they graduate from medical school. They misread questions, answer the wrong questions, and fail to develop strategies for reading comprehension.

Dr. Raymond cited the case of a resident physician whose ADD made it difficult for him to take orders in a rapid-fire fashion. She advised him to talk to the senior resident or attending physician about his attention deficit and ask to debrief for a minute or two when orders are given so he can write down information.

Once people with ADD learn to advocate for themselves, seek appropriate help, and explain the disorder to their supervisors, managers often are willing to make the necessary adjustments.

For more information, contact Patricia Raymond, PhD, or Helaine Schupack, Pres-criptive Tutoring Center, 203 Governor St., Providence, RI 02906; (401) 751-7772. Dr. Raymond can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected], and Schupack can be reached at (401) 751-7889 or [email protected] by e-mail.

Abigail Scott is an assistant editor at ADVANCE.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––—
ADVANCE for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists 7/20/1998

Do you have a fairly open relationship with his new teacher? Perhaps you can share some of these artcles to help her devise some strategies to assist your son? Sometimes new teachers are open to new ideas because they feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start or how to implement ideas. Does the SLP come into the classroom and collaborate with the teacher? That is another option that you can look into. Good luck.

Motivating Student Learners: Classroom strategies for children with CAPD
By Nicole Klimas

We view the world through individual senses—we see something, we hear something, we smell something, we touch something. It’s like the individual pieces of a puzzle. If all the senses are working right, the pieces fit nicely together and we get a whole image,” stated Alan Gertner, MA, CCC-A, FAAA. However, “if the auditory system is not providing the appropriate input and it is not integrating that signal with the other senses properly, the child has an incomplete puzzle or a puzzle where the pieces don’t fit well together.”

The result is an auditory processing disorder, said Gertner, assistant professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Program at Kean University, in Union, NJ, and a PhD candidate at Columbia University in New York, NY. “An auditory processing disorder inhibits or interferes with the neural signal as it travels from the cochlea nuclei, the first auditory center in the brainstem, to the cortical centers for audition and auditory association. An auditory processing disorder may involve specific auditory regions of the brain, or in some cases it may involve the integration of auditory signals with other sensory signals of the brain. If this occurs, sounds of the world are not being compared and blended together with other neural signals. As a result, the child gets an incomplete or distorted picture of the world.”

Because different areas of the brain are affected, students with central auditory processing disorders (CAPD) may exhibit a wide range of behaviors. They may be distracted easily, appear unmotivated and negative, have trouble following directions, or have weaknesses in receptive and expressive language.

Difficulties in reading, spelling and writing might be present; and students may confuse similar sounding words or have a weak vocabulary.

Other clues are difficulty staying focused, behaving as if they have a hearing loss by saying “Huh?” or “What?” a lot, or having poor music and singing abilities.

Behavioral problems caused by the disorder can have an effect on both the home and school environments. Frustration, acting out, withdrawal and low self-esteem are among the characteristics children with CAPD may present with. Testing will help to determine where the processing problem lies and how it can be managed.

CAPD may be suspected if students display poor organizational, attention and listening skills or problems with short-term memory, Gertner said. They may have trouble recognizing speech in background noise, interpreting what a teacher is saying, and understanding verbally presented information. If a teacher talks fast or there are multiple talkers in a conversation, the child may have trouble processing the information and become confused.

Initially, a speech-language pathologist can test a child’s auditory memory or closure. A child who has the common indicators of CAPD is referred to a qualified audiologist, who conducts further testing and makes a diagnosis. Most of the tests for CAPD are well standardized for children age 7 and up, but some tests can be administered to children as young as 4.

Currently, the most common practice of CAPD testing involves the distortion and degradation of speech and sounds to make them more difficult for a child to perceive.

Typically, “children have a redundancy in their auditory system that can fill in missing information based on temporal cues, formant frequencies and vocabulary information,” Gertner said. However, “children with CAPD don’t have the benefit of using these redundant systems in the auditory linguistic facility because they just haven’t developed very well.”

Another means of audiological testing is to add competition in the form of background noise to determine how well the student can separate out the main signal. Gertner also suggests using both Dichotic Digits and Pitch Pattern tests, which require a greater reliance on the auditory system, or the Auditory Fusion Test Revised (AFT-R), which tests predominantly auditory functions and how well the auditory system separates sound events.

In addition, audiologists can perform electrophysiology tests, which Gertner believes will be the future of the CAPD diagnosis. These tests allow the clinician to look at more objective data without requiring a child to do very much.

For instance, the Middle Latency Response test involves placing electrodes around the skull. They show which side has the less robust response to determine where the processing problem lies.

This test “can pinpoint if there is a true processing problem going on in terms of the amount of energy that the brain is using in processing auditory information,” Gertner told ADVANCE.

Other electrophysiological tests that can be performed to diagnose CAPD include the P-300 Cognitive Potential and Mis-Matched Negativity. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other imaging techniques also hold enormous promise, he said.

Children with CAPD are faced with numerous challenges that they must overcome in order to succeed. Because the condition cannot always be corrected, children must learn how to manage it. Management techniques should be tailored to individual needs to help a child fit all of the pieces of the puzzle together.

One approach is direct intervention. Each problem a child has due to CAPD is targeted in therapy conducted by a speech-language pathologist. For instance, if a child has specific problems with auditory memory, the clinician can use pattern imitation or repetition/memory games that develop auditory memory.

“Each speech-language pathologist needs to constantly assess the techniques they are using with each child to make sure they are staying ahead of the child and helping them improve,” stated Sheree Reese, EdD, CCC-SLP, associate professor in the Speech-Language Pathology Program at Kean University.

CAPD also can be managed by manipulating the environment and increasing or improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Auditory distractions can be minimized by modifying the classroom setting or implementing FM or infrared soundfield systems. Classroom modifications can include carpeting, closed windows, and efforts to reduce or eliminate noise, echo and reverberation.

Children with CAPD should be in a structured classroom where listening becomes a very important issue, said Gertner. A simple intervention strategy to combat noise is to put tennis balls or carpet pieces on the bottom of chair and desk legs so they do not add to the background noise when moved.

Gertner feels strongly that if FM or infrared systems are used, an audiologist should conduct measurements to ensure sound is of equal intensity throughout the classroom and not so loud that it damages or diminishes a child’s hearing. Children with CAPD may benefit from using personal FM systems.

Compensatory strategies also can help children manage CAPD. By understanding the disorder, students can advocate for themselves and take the steps necessary to manage it in different situations. For example, a child who is experiencing problems in class should ask questions, request that the teacher slow down, and inquire about feedback on their progress.

Programs such as Fast ForWord®, by Scientific Learning™, based in Berkeley, CA; Earobics®, by Cognitive Concepts, based in Evanston, IL; and Lindamood-Bell™, by Lindamood Bell™ Learning Processes, based in San Luis Obispo, CA, may benefit children with CAPD. However, when using these programs, clinicians must make sure that each child’s specific problems are being addressed.

Tape recorders and organizational tools, such as calendars and file cards, are simple compensatory strategies that can help students with CAPD, advised Gertner.

“Pre-teaching” is another helpful strategy. The teacher sends home information about lessons that will be taught, so parents have the opportunity to introduce the subject to their child. Children who are familiar with a topic are better able to follow the lesson when it is discussed in class.

By recognizing the disorder and learning how to work within its boundaries, students can control and overcome their CAPD. Appropriate management can lead to a student’s success, Gertner said.

For more information, contact Alan Gertner or Sheree Reese, PhD, at Kean University, 1000 Morris Ave., Union, NJ 07083; (908)527-3273.

Advance Magazine for Speech and Language Pathologists

Hello!
I was scanning through the responses and your last letter and felt that Ihad to respond. Is there another school in your district that your son could attend? In my district, in NJ, we have an open school policy whereby any student within the district can attend any of the other schools withinn the district so long as the parents transport. There is an exception to the transportation (our district is a “walking” district meaning buses available only to S.E. students who need to atend another school if their home school does not have a clss for him) only if the child is in special education.
I would love to meet this Resource Teacher and find out just what the heck she was thinking!!! I teach Resource, and feel that if a child isn’t doing well, it is not that that child is lazy, it is that ihave not found the right way to reach him! What child does not want to do well? Especially an 8 year old, and to consider punishing him into learning is horrible and extremely old fashioned. Positive reinforcement along with good, solid teachng to his learning style would work far better.
Please look into asking the Child Study Team to find an appropriate placement within your district–AWAY from the woman claiming to be a Resource Teacher. Remember that a good CST is suppopsed to work with you, and if your son is not being successful, it is their job to find out why and to rectify the problem. If they are not willing, or , as in manyCST, overworked, then you must be the advocate and look around to find placements in other school systems that yours does not have. Again, in NJ, if your school does not have an appropriate placement, then you are wihtin your rights to request, or demand, that they pay for one out of district. Due Process can be called up if you feel that you are not being treated fairly as well. It does not sound as if this is called for, but sometimes mentioning that youare considering it scares the you know what out of them and they realize that they need to pick up the ball and fix what needs fixing.
If you are wondering “who is this woman?” I wil tell you that I have been teaching for 13 years (now teaching Resource to 2nd-5th graders)and have been recognized for my teaching on both the local and national level, so I do know of what I speak. I would also suggest that your son check out “Ennis’ Gift”. Even at his tender age, he knows that something is not quite the same as the kids around him, and acknowledging this is important. I have always explained to my students (on a level appropriate) why they have difficulties and that they ARE NOT stupid and they seem to be more accepting of themselves. They can make a little joke of “oh, there goes those goofy Bs and Ds agian!” and allows them to catch themselves at the difficulties when they occur and realize why they happened.
The movie, “Ennis’ Gift” lets the kids see that they are not alone, and see kids their age, as well as adults who have embraced their differences and used them to be successful in life. If he conmtinues to run into teachers like that Resource TEacher, he will need to begin to build inner strength to combat the negative messages he will be faced with. They bring their own problems in attitude, self esteem, and behavior. He is so young and there is still a nice window of tiime to get him to love learning and find enjoyment in school regardless of his past experiences.I hope he can do this.
One more thing, I have an LD myself, so I can relate to children like your son!Mine went undiagnosed uintil late in life, so I was left to feel dumb on many occassions in school by supposedly well meaning teachers. During the time I went to school - a Catholic school - you were either a good student, or you were lazy. I had difficulty finding words. I knew what I wanted to say, could go around the word to describe it, but the more the pressure was on, the harderit was to think of the word. I even had a picture in my mind as to what I wanted to say! Amazinbgly enough, I found writing a way to get around that. I wuld leave those spaces blank and when I rememered the word, I would go back to it. It would take a long time to write my papers, often geting them in late, but my teachers never knew. They thought I wrote well and could not understand why I could not recall or say things in class at thespeed of everyone else. I now perform in community theater plays and have had to give speeches because of my awards. For these, I memorize my speeches as if I were doing a play. I panic a bit when I have to speak without prep (I am afraid I will sound unprofessional if I cannot remember simple words). My fellow teachers have just accepted me and kid me about my brain leaking, but I can let it slip because I know why, and I know I am doing fine.
I know this is long, but maybe you will find something helpful in here!!! Let us all know how things are going!!!!!
Cat

I tried to get the school to allow us to change to another school in the district, with me providing transportation. They said no. That the instruction at the local school must be changed to fit his needs. Unfortunately that comes from higher up, and the school feels they are doing ok. I on the other hand see what a lack of education he is getting. *sigh*

I’d be sending a periodic email (start with every third day, then every other…) to half a dozen people with “Just to let you know that as of (today) my child still does not have the FM device which he was determined to need on ______. It is especially important that this be done in a timely manner, both because each day without it is a day he does not have access to his education and the curriculum being delivered to the other students, and it is important to determine whether in fact this will be sufficient to meet his needs, as he may need additional interventions such as Fast ForWord, as we discussed in the IEP meeting on ________.”

Hi Patty,

I agree with Cat, you’ll probably have to find another placement for your son that will work. You already know that the Resource setting where he was last year wasn’t working, I’d ask the special ed. administrator’s at your district to give you some other options, and then go visit them until you find one that’s right. It might mean making some concessions in other ways (most districts won’t provide transportation if you change schools by choice), but if you find him a setting that works, it could mean the difference between a wasted, frustrating year and one in which he makes reasonable, or even outstanding, progress. Our kiddo’s can’t afford any more of those bad years, since they’re already behind in the first place!

Sharon

Patty,

As a special ed. teacher and mother of a child with a CAPD, I can relate to how you feel. It does not sound like your child’s school has really done anything to help his APD. Under no circumstances would I put my child back in that resource room with that teacher.

In my many years of teaching in several different states, I have seen more poor resource programs than good ones (largely because school districts will not invest the money to initiate good programs). Basically, If I had a child with phonemic awareness problems, other reading problems, and APD, the only way I’d consider putting my child in a resource room would be if they were using an Orton-Gillingham based program and/or Lindamood Bell. I’ve read enough to know what works, and programs that just tutor reading, writing, or math with no real remedial strategies will not do much to help a CAPD or dyslexic child.

I am prepared to stop teaching and homeschool my own child if the day comes that she is not being treated well at school and given a reasonable amount of quality services. I will not let her sink into a feeling of failure and depression just to try to make her fit the “cookie mold” educational system. I would not worry about the socialization issies at all. Homeschooled children can join all sorts of outside activities, particularly in an area where they excel, rather than being at the bottom all the time like at school. And a parent can become an expert in teaching their special child. Who has more incentive to find the very best strategies for your child?

Are you aware of all the CAPD (now called APD) resources on the internet? Go to www.ncapd.org for a wealth of links including a parent discussion forum.

Janis

APD is that Auditory Processing Disorder?This is the term the school told me last year about my son.

Janis, thanks for your words of encouragement. Sometimes its just so hard to know what is right. We will be making a homeschooling decision by the end of the year. My son wants to stay in school, I want to homeschool him. We are giving the school the rest of the year to “get their act together”….while at the same time we are tutoring him at home. We have given the school tons of information, as they have no other APD students in our elementary school, but have yet to see anything come of it. We shall see.

debb, yes ADP is Auditory Processing Disorder. Please have your son checked by a qualified audiologist, it makes a world of difference to know how to help your child.