Can Anyone Tell Me About Children's Learning Disabilities?

[jyl]

Is there anyone here who is knowledgeable about this? I am wondering if my son needs special assistance/education, but don't know what is within the bounds of "normal" and what is not.

He is six, articulate with oral English, creative and skilled at drawing and building things, but has a lot of difficulty learning written words. Our friends describe him as a very smart boy and don't observe any problem. However, I find teaching him to read an extremely difficult/frustrating task.

Please send me a PM if you have some background in this. Thanks.

[Joe Bob]

The schools are the best place to get an evaluation. My twins had a speech issue due to being identical and not having a lot of interaction with other children until preschool.....they got speech therapy for two years and now are in the middle of the pack and socialize fine.

The SF area should have a TON of evaluators both in the public schools and the private sector. Get an opinion from his school admin.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by mikez
The schools are the best place to get an evaluation. My twins had a speech issue due to being identical and not having a lot of interaction with other children until preschool.....they got speech therapy for two years and now are in the middle of the pack and socialize fine.

The SF area should have a TON of evaluators both in the public schools and the private sector. Get an opinion from his school admin.

Mike, this is called "twin speak" and is normal with most twins. I have worked with several families who had twins and so far everyone of them did this.

Drove the parents nuts as the twins would talk amongst themselves and no one could understand them. Finally once they started going to school and in some classes it slowed down but they still revert to it at times.

JoeA

[Joe Bob]

Yup....they also were very shy.....so we held them back a year as well.

Worked out very well with their younger sister two years younger but one grade back....most of the school activities are the same time and it's made life a LOT easier as opposed to a two year gap. I don't know how people cope with 4 or more kids or age gaps of 3 or more years....

They now tend to take a leadership role as opposed to being in the back of the pack. The youngest is also very assertive and takes crap from no one...but that may have something to do with parentage....

[Paul K]

John,
get your son tested. I always struggled with math- but it wasn't until I was half way through my bachelors that a professor suggested I get tested- turns out I have a severe calculation disability. Above average intelligence, but the math skills of a 7 year old. All those years in grade school excelling in English but being ridiculed by math teachers- don't let him go through that. I have a cousin with a similar problem to your Sons- like dyslexia but just with words. He went through the same BS I did. I guess I'm kinda rambling- get your son the help he needs asap!

Cheers,

Paul.

[Tobra]

My male in laws are all dyslexic, my father in law can barely read, but is a wizard with mechanical equipment and spatial relationships. He is like freakin Rain Man when it comes to estimating length and width of a room, or glancing at a concrete slab and telling you how the water will drain off. My younger brother in law has better hand-eye coordination than anyone I have ever seen, and is a wizard with numbers, but had a very difficult time getting out of HS. He was diagnosed as dyslexic when a little kid. They have a ton of resources at CA public schools for this stuff

[SLO-BOB]

Originally posted by mikez
The schools are the best place to get an evaluation.

Maybe that has been your experience, but ours has been quite different. We have had to battle the school system since my son started school. Next year he starts high school and we are very worried. The schools in our area do not recognize a special needs student unless his disability is profound. We had my son evaluated by professionals who determined that he has asberger's syndrome- a high functioning form of autism. Bottom line is he is very intelligent but learns differently than other kids. He also lacks typical social skills which make him a source of great amusement for his schoolmates. The teachers are typically apathetic and unwilling to help unless we show up at school and drag them by the ear. Granted, we live in a small town in Wisconsin-not exactly on the leading edge of progressive education. However, we thought that a small school would focus more on our son than a large urban school. I'm not sure we made the right choice.

Here is what you need to do.

A-ALWAYS be there for you son. All children need to know that home is a safe, happy place-even more so a special needs child. Schools are like Lord of the Flies incubators. You WILL need to intervene because other children can smell even the slightest difference and attack both emotionally and physically.

B-Have him tested by independant professionals. The schools are not qualified to adequately evaluate your son, nor do they have the budget to hire someone who is qualified.

C-Never accept a situation you know is wrong for your son hoping that the school "knows best". It's been my experience that they either don't know, don't care, or simply don't have the time or resources.

Hang in there-good luck.

[Joe Bob]

Bob, my answer was tailored toward my CA Schools experience and that the poster was in SF.....two areas of liberal excesses in regards to public assistance. %^B

See...LIBERAL gubmints does have it's merits......

Even in my area when the schools were out we had to pay private therapists to assist in the twins development during the summer months. Fortunately the situation wasn't chronic and only an environmental symptom that was easily rectified.

[SLO-BOB]

Originally posted by mikez
Bob, my answer was tailored toward my CA Schools experience and that the poster was in SF.

I took note of that so I tried to word carefully as not to suggest you were in the wrong. I can only refer to my experience in my state. However, I woud still be very careful.

[Flatbutt1]

John
My daughter specializes in "special education". She is university trained and works in the public elementary school system. Many of the public schools have teachers like her that can help evaluate, and treat, a child's learning difficulty. You're already paying for this service thru your taxes. Use it.

You can always go to an outside medical person if you wish. In fact IF,IF,IF it is beyond their abilities they will recommend an outside medical opinion. Don't ignore it and it is certainly not terribly uncommon.

[Joe Bob]

Not taken as a poke....as in any area of the country one can always go private if the public schools do not offer the service. It just isn't always available to everyone....

[928ram]

John,

It doesn't hurt to have your son tested to see he he's got hearing or eyesight problems as well as dyslexia and such, these things caught as early as possible will make a childs entire school experience much more pleasant and productive.

That being said, make sure Dad's expectations aren't unreasonable high also; it's been a few year since you had to learn to read and write, and you may just be forgetting how much of a task it was.

My daughter is 7 and an only child (had nothing to compare too) and in the last part of 1st grade. I too found the reading/writing seemingly very hard for her early this school year and scheduled a confrence with the teacher. We got pretty much a brush-off on our concerns and came to find that not only was she perfectly fine in her development but in fact at the top of the class. Now with 1st grade nearing it's end, she's immeasurable better and reads and write very well. Seems I expected to much to soon.

[Joe Bob]

Oh yeah....I almost flunked 1st grade. Then they tested my eyes....couldn't see crap.

With my last name startting with a Z my butt was also in the back of the class....not a good combo for excellence...

[Don Plumley]

This topic hits close to home. Bob - I've sent you an email.

John - I can only agree with what other's have said in regards to testing. Once our son was diagnosed, we had a great experience with Irvine public schools providing resources, accomodation, counseling, etc. Our experience in NorCal has been dismal and we pulled him out of school.

My thoughts are with you - please email me if you have any specific questions.

Don

[jyl]

I'm in a rush this AM so I only have a little time to thank all of you for your responses. Thanks, all.

We're definitely going to have him evaluated. He's in private school, a bilingual school, so we may have to go outside the school for the eval but we'll do whatever is needed.

I'm aware that the problem might be my expectations. Like I said, I don't know what's "normal" and what's not. I only know how I learned and how my daughter (the older by 3 years) learned, and my son is so different.

The main thing that bothers me is the reading. Suppose I'm reading him a sentence that has the word "house", and suppose he doesn't already know the word. I read the word, explain what it means, he reads it, we repeat it over and over, maybe he even writes it out several times. Then suppose 30 seconds later I have him read the sentence on his own. He won't remember the word "house" or how to pronounce it. Instead he tries to phonetically sound it out (he knows the sounds of the letters) as if he's never seen the word before. We can repeat the whole process with the same result. I've literally spent an hour with him on one word, with no progress. It is like he doesn't retain the written stuff in memory.

On the other hand, if we're just talking and I show him a house and explain it is called "house", he'll remember that, at least as often as I'd expect a 6 year old to. (This is just an example, he knows what "house" means). His oral skils are fine. He can draw great houses, build complicated ones from Lego, etc. If a house was a Bionicle or a Pokemon or a dinosaur, (i.e. something he's interested in) he could talk to you for an hour about all the different kids of houses and their fighting skills and so on. It's just the written stuff that gives him such trouble.

It's not like he has zero comprehension of written words. He can and does read some Dick and Jane type beginning reading books with his mom, so it seems that there is some mechanism by which he eventually learns and remembers written words.

It's just that I can't figure out what his learning mechanism is. I can't find a way for him to learn other than by osmosis. That was fine before, but now that he's in 1st grade and getting homework, my inability to actively teach him words is really frustrating.

He's in a bilingual school (English/French) and, while he's lagging in the English side as I've described, he's really been left behind on the French side, even worse. His English teacher says he'll alternate between not seeming to pay any attention to suddenly doing the work just fine. His French teacher says he is not getting much of the material at all, and I agree with that from what I've seen.

At this point, he's going to be repeating 1st grade. Which doesn't bother me at all, but I'm worried how he'll do in his second attempt at 1st grade.

What concerns me most of all is that school has become an unhappy place for him, since he doesn't understand much of what's going on during the day and he realizes that he's not with the program. I hate to see him unhappy and feeling badly about himself.

He has called himself "stupid" and has asked us why God didn't give him a memory.

Again, I realize some of the problem may be me. I was a very quick learner as a kid, and was also taught in the old-school way - sit motionless at the table, memorize and do drills, no "learning is fun" games, a lot of disciplining. I'm trying hard not to be like my dad was, but my childhood experience still influences how I teach my son, and that way is totally not working with him. The teaching at the school is also not working, from either the English or the French side. I'm willing to change his school, in fact we will be doing so as part of the move, but I don't think what I'm observing is the school's "fault".

[K.B.]

My wife is an LD teacher. Some schools have the expertice to help with the problem, and others don't. Ask for help and see what they say. Take advantage of what they can offer but don't stop there. Get a 2nd opinion. Also ask around for some good independent professionals. Don't just go to the yellow pages, the good ones are booked solid and there are others that don't seem to know too much. Sometimes a problem can be diagnosed properly early on, to make a world of difference for your child's education.

KB

[svandamme]

Originally posted by jyl

He is six, articulate with oral English, creative and skilled at drawing and building things, but has a lot of difficulty learning written words. Our friends describe him as a very smart boy and don't observe any problem. However, I find teaching him to read an extremely difficult/frustrating task.

Please send me a PM if you have some background in this. Thanks.

at six i had 100% on everything

at 10 i probably had 80% average on testst and exams

12 was 70%

14 was like 40%

it went downhilll from there on...



btw . got kicked out off 13 schools between 12 and 18
the day i turned 18 went to school , just to tell em they could kiss my ass and not to expect me te next day...


i make above average money now.



the point...


don't worry about what a 6 year old does
worry about what a 10 year old does


i sure as hell got lucky, i don't think 6 year olds in 2006 can expect the same luck as a 6 year old in 82 obviously had.
and from the looks of it , i haven't seen anyone in my line of work in my area of expertise, in the company i work (which is a major software vendor , that does linux) at the level i'm at..
without a university degree... which makes me the only one

[Brian Cameron]

Have a peek at a these websites, I'm sure there's many more like this out there:

http://www.ldonline.org/
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/learning_disabilities.shtml

I would second the independent 3rd party assessment idea. Our (then 6, now 8) year old was diagnosed with dysgraphia or "disorder of written expression", he is 5 years ahead of grade in reading skills, top 1/10 of the top 1% in general knowledge, but can't write down his thoughts or a simple story to save his life.

We're working with the school and psychologist to work out accommodations for the issue and some things are helping but the difficulties are very demotivating for him... they tell me that if you plot abilities on a bell curve, if your kid is more than 2 standard deviations apart in any "dimensions" of learning eg written, verbal, reading, math etc, that they are "learning disabled" - William has a range of 4 standard deviations.

The key is to find out what your kid's challenges are, as precisely as possible, and work out what approaches you can try , then try them, to get the best results you can. It won't be perfect, but it will probably be a lot better than "status quo" teaching. BTW, the bilingual stuff may itself be too much to throw at a kid that's struggling in one language already. Et le francais c'est une langue tres dificil pour nous autres.

One thing that the psychologist did with our guy was to get him to put different colored acetate sheets over the books as he read, often one color filter somehow "retrains" the brain in 2-3 weeks so they can read much more normally. Don't know what this is called, but it sure seemed to work.

Having said all that, he is only six. Different people's brains - even parts of their brains - develop at different rates. He may blow your sox off in a year with what he can do, that he can't do now. It won't hurt to get some assessments... but avoid "permanent labels", it's altogether likely that he'll change tremendously in the next 1-2 years.

In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to try some strategies, but ditto sebring77, no matter what, always be there for your son. In the long run, whatever his abilities, this is what he'll remember.

Best of luck to you and your boy.