Perceptual issues and tactile intergration?

Vision therapy is good for remediating sensory level vision problems, but it is inefficient at best for remediating visual perception problems. I would recommend having him do PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.learninginfo.com) this summer if you can afford it. PACE does a lot of work on training fine visual perception skills — including fine saccades, visual/motor integration, short-term visual memory, visual sequencing, etc. My daughter had severe developmental vision delays and was in vision therapy for 6 months. However, it wasn’t until she did PACE after VT that we saw significant gains in her reading.

My daughter also has some fine motor issues which affect her writing. Usually some occupational therapy helps. I’m not sure about tactile integration, but assume it is related to visual/motor integration. Although my dd now scores very high on the usual visual/motor integration tests, her actual performance on tasks requiring fine motor control is lacking — e.g., when cutting a circle from paper with scissors, she is extremely slow and has her nose right up to the paper.

My dd also had speech articulation issues.

Since your son seems to have issues similar to my dd’s, I would expect that you would see significant gains from PACE just as we did.

Mary

Mary-
I know that these programs have worked for you and your child andd that you are a very articulate advocate for their use. You also seem pretty level headed about who they work for and who may not benefit:)

Having read you posts for a long time I know that you also continued to work on reading with your child while doing the therapy. I think that this is critical and that we always need to remind parents- especially parents who are new to this LD maze that none of the cognitive therapies that are springing up all over will teach their children to read. They might- and I am not completely convinced though I will always listen- help make reading more possible, but unless someone is also using good multisensory methods to directly teach reading, the child isn’t going to learn to read. Increasing digit span doesn’t teach reading, nor do any of the other activities. Please, always remind folks of this:)

Robin

Tactile intergration is part of a of the sensory intergration dysfunction. His nervous system is underdeveloped in touch, so his nervous system has a hard time interperting diffent touches. Some with this can feel the slightest touch and can only tolerate certian fabrics (touches). Some you have to almost puch for them to really feel it.

You might want to look at dyslexia as the root cause for having problems with Language arts. My daughter, now 5th grade, was the same way. Very bright - 140 IQ can do math concept which are taught till high school but she cannot spell or write. She still has a 1st grade being 2nd grade spelling level cannot spell simple sight words. She can memorize them for a test but does not have any retention of them. Because of the dx our school has worked with us to modify her work. She is not counted off for spelling mistakes unless it is a spelling test. She is docked for grammer mistakes (capitalize name, first word of sentence). Depending on the writing assignment she gets aid in class from her teacher (prompting) or we work with her at home. We are looking at next year some work with diations (sorry about spelling I’m dyslexic also - she takes someone writes). Most dyselixc are very smart - Einstion and JFK
as two examples.

Good Luck
Margaret

One of the advantages of these boards is that a parent gets the benefit of a variety of viewpoints — provided people take the time to post. My take on the original post is that the primary problem is not lack of reading instruction, but unaddressed perceptual deficits. While reading instruction may be critical to eventual success, it doesn’t strike me as being the critical missing piece for this particular child at this time.

Mary

Thank you for your infomation about the tactile stuff.
Yes my sons teacher and his speech therapist said he is dyslexic my son does have all his work modified and he dont get marked off for spelling and his spelling list is down to 3 words a week now.His teacher all this year used different grading on his papers than the rest of the class.I am looking into OT for this summer to help him with his fine motor skills he cant write very well and has lots of trouble rembering how to form letters in print and cursive,He really confuses letters while reading and similar words and it is really starting to affect his comprhension due to less pictures and harder level of reading.Next year in school all his test will be read to him as well as all reading assignments eiether by his reg. ed. teacher, his LD tutor, or myself.We already know who he is going to have next year and she only lives 2 blocks from us in a very small town.She already is starting to observe him and talking with this years teacher(who was a GOD send) after lasy years.Since the state has mandated testing now they are teaching so much harder in school.I have 3 younger girls 2 of which are in 1st and K and they read far much more than him and spell alot more correctly.The one in K is reading his 2 nd grade books that are rewally hard in my eyes from what I did in the 2nd grade.

(there is always a but I guess) Reading and writing and spelling are huge issues for this young man who is quite bright and is accommodated to a fair thee well according to the later post. My thought wasn’t necessarily just meant for this thread though. I quiver a little inside when I see cognitive therapy recommended without a strong recommendation for good instruction too.

Robin

Robin, if I can step in a minute. Hearing bits and peices about what PACE/MTC is may be confusing. PACE addresses more than just cogitive issues.

PACE not only addresses cognitive and visual issues, it also addresses auditory issues which help lead into a reading program. PACE and MTC is an excellent choice to teach reading because it addresses a lot of the skills needed to read. Plus, Master the Code IS a reading program. So, when Mary talkes about recommending PACE for cogitive issues, PACE also addresses other area plus then, provides a solid, progressive, systematic reading program.

Here is just a few things that PACE addresses … concentration, orientation, divided attention, processing speed, visual memory, reversals, accurate saccadic fixation, visual span, auditory recall, auditory blend, segmenting sounds…

As you can see, I could go on and on. Then after all of this, MTC provides the student a reading program.

I just want to you to know more about the components of PACE. Donna

I am always glad to learn something new and I am not really familiar with PACE. Thanks!
Robin