This sounds like lags in development of cognitive visual skills to me. If he had vision lags on the sensory/motor level, I think he would have had trouble learning to read.The difficulty with part-to-whole, noticing letters in words, sequencing, bright but dumbfounded by small things, poor spelling, all sound like my 10yo daughter. She has severe congenital astigmatism corrected to 20/20 with glasses. At age 8 she was able to learn some decoding but had great difficulty reading with natural expression and fluency. A developmental optometry exam showed severe developmental lags in her vision skills. Vision therapy brought her eyes up to age level (skills such as speed of focusing, field of vision, tracking, etc.) on testing and helped her reading fluency slightly, but otherwise we saw no major improvements.Then we did PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.mentalskills.com) which aims at developing cognitive skills. PACE is especially good at developing visual skills (especially sequencing, pattern recognition and short-term memory), but also works on many other areas including logic & reasoning, strategy, auditory skills, etc. The turnaround in her abilities was astounding!The book “Learning Problems: A Cognitive Approach” has a chapter on sequential processing. Apparently this is quite a different skill area than simultaneous processing. A child can be developed in one of the areas and have serious lags in the other. Although they undoubtedly have some genetic or physical basis, these areas also tend to have large developmental components. In the same way a person may be able to improve the strength of abdominal muscles by doing sit-ups and other exercises, a child can improve sequential processing skills with appropriate exercises. Sequential learning in particular is associated with academic learning. This is what we saw with our daughter — very bright and creative, but poor at academics.The Audiblox approach (I haven’t read the book yet, but have the set) addresses some sequential processing issues and could be very helpful. PACE offers the most comprehensive approach to improving cognitive skills in a variety of areas and works quickly, but is considerably more expensive. PACE tends to work well with older children because it is fairly interesting and fun to do. Audiblox is probably more tedious for an older child (and the parent who does it), and likely doesn’t accomplish as much, but still could be very worthwhile.My daughter’s printing is very slow, laborious, and messy. A recent OT exam shows her hand strength is not what it should be, and she has some problems with wrist extension. I figure OT will help her handwriting. Although this is probably related to her other problems in some ways, I see it as a separate issue in terms of treatment. The visual-motor integration part of the exam showed her several years ahead — a result, I think, of the work we’ve already done with vision therapy and PACE.Mary: My son is 14 and dysgraphic, so I figure he has some kind of
: dyslexia. He has never been tested. Maybe I should have him
: tested? Anyway, over the years, both my dh and I have noticed that
: he has real trouble learning in a part-to-whole, sequential way.
: He cannot put small parts together and make connections. That gets
: him very confused, and he has absolutely no idea what I am trying
: to get across. We have noticed this many times, (giving him
: directions and chores to do, math, writing assignments, soccer
: strategy.) I have read that this difficulty can exist if there are
: visual perception problems, but I don’t know where to go from
: here. Sometimes this bright boy seems so dumbfounded,like there
: are lost connections in the brain. What should I do? Have him
: tested, so that I understand this more? What does a 14 think about
: himself, if parents haul him off to a neurologist? Is it worth it?
: I don’t want to kill his self esteem. What about Jan Strydom’s new
: book? Any information in that book that might help? (The Right to
: Read) He has always been a good, fast reader. He flies through
: Science Fiction books. Oh, he also cannot spell - he does not even
: notice what letters are in a word. He claims that he cannot write,
: however he can compose very creative stories. It’s the physical
: act of writing that is the problem. Thanks for any help.