My seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder over a year ago and had great difficulty with reading and writing. We took her to a Speech Therapist and Tutoring to learn Phonics. She has shown tremendous improvement and is reading and writing pretty well and almost at grade level.

I have noticed that she still has difficulty during reading and writing with mixing up b & d as well as m & n. She also continually starts writing sentences in the middle of the page, writes really big at the beginning of a sentence and toward the end of the page the letters get smaller and smaller. Two months ago when re-tested, her Auditory Processing skills were improved to a normal level.

What do you make of the writing problem, it is constant and her teachers and I have to work with her one on one to ensure she starts each row on the left side. Could this be a form of dyslexia. What kind of specialist tests for something like this? Please help. Thank you very much.

Our fourth grade daughter is dyslexic. She was diagnosed in second grade. She attends a private, independent school where she has attended since Kindergarten. She is happy and loves her school, which has a reputation for academic excellence. We pay for additional tutoring every day by an aid. She is progressing, but she is definitely not in many academic areas on the same level as her class mates.

She will attend there next year in the fifth grade. We have been told that as a consequence of her poor writing skills (due to her dyslexia) that this school will not want her in the sixth grade, even though they go through to the eighth grade. Our question is, do children do better mainstreamed in the arena where they are happy and have their social structure and their friends, or in another school. We would like our daughter to remain at this school. Thanks for your consideration.

Elizabeth

I have an LD student who is oppositionally defiant. Academically, he is quite capable of doing his grade level curriculum other than reading. The problem is motivating him. I have created a separate Behavior Intervention Plan for his behavior, but this particular student just does not care what he does or what rewards or consequences are attached to his plan. He ends up spending way too much time in "time out" not learning anything other than his General Ed teacher gives him strikes to place him in "time out" and out of her classroom.

In the student interview, he told me nothing motivates him, he hates school, doesn't need school, won't do his work no matter what, and wants me, his special education teacher, to leave him alone. Any suggestions before he ends up suspended from school as a third grade student? Anything you can suggest will be helpful. Thank you in advance.

Regina

Greetings Dr. Silver,

While our three-year-old seems age appropriately advanced in all other areas, she cannot identify letters/numbers. For example, we have been reviewing the five letters for days now and she cannot accurately identify more than two consistently. We have used flash cards, hand writing them, utilized her favorite books, etc. to no avail. Should we be doing anything at this stage? We are concerned about dyslexia or some other LD we are not familiar with. Many thanks!

I was seeing a psychologist, and he recommended that I have an Adult ADHD assessment with a psychiatrist. I met with a psychiatrist, and after an hour-long session of explaining my "symptoms," he thought I should continue with testing. He also asked to speak with my mom regarding my childhood behavior. While this is understandable, given the relationship with my mom, I said that I was not comfortable with that. He said that instead I could give him a few of my report cards, which I did. I was then given two tests, one that was for attention testing and one was more of a personality/behavioral profile.

At the end, the psychiatrist (who was very rude and condescending) told me that the report cards did not have enough comments written on them, so he could not make a diagnosis without talking to my mom. He never gave me the results of the tests, except to say "one test did show some attention problems." He did not discuss any options for help with me (behavior modification, counseling, etc.)

I am so frustrated! When the psychologist first mentioned ADD and I read up on it, I felt like something clicked, and I felt like there was an explanation for the rapid-fire of thoughts that goes through my brain sometimes! I thought I was going to get help, but now I just have a big bill, and I don't know where to turn.

I'm 28 years old - can a general physician or someone else help me, without consulting my mom? I understand the need to establish ADHD behaviors in childhood, but the relationship I have with my parents just does not make this an option. Do you have any recommendations of how I could still get help?

A friend has a four-year-old who is very behind in his learning. She recently had him tested and was told he was globally delayed. Speech was at nine months, large motor skills at 18 months. Where can I find out more information on what is meant by globally delayed. Her support base of friends would like to better understand so that we can help any way we can.

I have a six-year-old ADHD son with a learning disability. At school he does not complete the work as he knows how to do, thus making it look like he does not understand the work or is further behind. If he is given the right reward, he will do it. Otherwise, he does not. The IEP team wants to move him to a special education class because they feel he can't do what is expected of him. He can do it when he chooses to do it. Can you offer any help or advice?

My gifted nine-year-old, who is an advanced reader, writes and illustrates stories, finds patterns and relationships in math problems, and likes to have theological discussions, has suddenly started having extreme difficulty focusing in school. For example, his teacher often saw him staring off into space for long periods of time during standardized testing and his gifted teacher said that on a recent assignment he wrote only 12 words in one hour without one complete sentence!

He still has all A's in classes except for Science, in which he has a low D. Lately, the Science assignments have been done on your own during center time while the teacher helps small reading groups. The gifted teacher has mentioned the possibility of ADD since this seems to go beyond occasional daydreaming and reminding him to focus really isn't cutting it.

Do I ask the school to test him? Do I take him to our pediatrician or ask that his office's psychologist test our son in some way? Should I go first to an eye doctor since he recently mentioned seeing double at times? Where do we start? I would like to look into this before he goes into fourth grade next year (known to be harder and faster paced).

I am 14 years old and I have ADHD. I have had it all my life but it only started to become a real problem in 8th grade. I started to slack off and my grades dropped. I knew it was because I was not paying enough attention in class, but I can't help it. So my parents just made my suffering worse by making threats. I was not going to go back to my school if my grades didn't improve, or I was going to go to military school and never see my friends again. It just all made me feel worse.

My parents just emphasize all the bad things that I do and just make me feel like I want to die or something. They have no idea that I feel this way. The only person that does know is a trusted teacher. I am not sure how to cope with all the built up sadness and anger towards myself for not being the perfect child that my parents seem to want me to be.

I have a younger brother with mental disabilities and all their attention seems to be on him and less on me. I feel like they don't even notice the little good I do. They only seem to see the bad that I do.

Nikki

Is it possible for a learning disability to go unrecognized until a student first enters college? I struggled intensely my freshman year of college to keep up with the readings and writing papers. It is difficult for me because the vocabulary I tried to develop over the course of high school seems like it has left me. I used to memorize vocabulary words and use the thesaurus a lot in high school to help me but it seems like new and complex vocabulary words don't stick.

I am also a very slow reader and the ideas and concepts I'm trying to understand are difficult to remember after reading. It seems as though I can't quickly process the information. I end up highlighting passages like crazy and going back to re-read them again and again. It makes it difficult to remember what was read and summarize it.

It is also difficult for me to do mental math which limits my computational skills. All of these struggles actually led me to become so frustrated that I attempted suicide. I am now in recovery for depression and anxiety but still wonder if all of my academic problems are directly related to depression only.

Most people are telling me that since I was never diagnosed with any disability earlier in life, it would be impossible for me to have one. But I definitely remember struggling in high school to keep up with my peers. School was pretty much my life. Are there any tests which could be done to investigate this further?

This is my first year as a special education teacher. I am finding the paper work overwhelming and frustrating. I am so busy with the paperwork I have little time to work with my students, my classroom aide does most of the one-on-one. There is so much more to special education than even I knew as a five year classroom aide.

How do I understand the results of diagnostic testing? And after I understand the test, what does that tell me about what to actually do with the child? I did not have any training in how to give or even understand the results of any testing.

At the moment, I am trying to understand the WISC III and Woodcock Johnson Test of Achievement results for a student who appears borderline. How can I understand it so if I can show that he needs special education services with my documentation ? Is there a book or something you could suggest that will help me in the future?

I have a 4-and-a-half-year-old son. I have recently been through two assessments with a pediatrician. One says says he has learning difficulties and the other says he comes somewhere under the Austism Spectrum Disorder. I think there is a possibility of dyslexia. Could you advise me what the minimum age of a child is to assess for dyslexia?

Marisa

My 7-year-old son has ADHD and an IEP in class at his school. He is very good in math, but when it comes too letter sounds, he cannot retain them so he can't read or write. How do I, as his mom, help him too remember from one day to the next? And why is it he can retain all the things to do with math and not reading? I am confused?

Vickie

My four-year-old son is considered twice exceptional. Academically, he is above age appropriate (reading at a third grade level) and shows a great interest in math (addition and subtraction). Socially, he has no trouble making friends but not great at keeping them. He is impulsive in his actions, which makes most children shy away from him.

He has a medical history of open heart surgery and was hospitalized for ten weeks at birth. He was recently diagnosed with ADHD, but his pediatrician and cardiologist disagree with this diagnosis. We struggle to find the right academic setting for him (his two previous schools say they are not for him and that he needs more structure and academic). It has also been suggested that we check him for Sensory Integration Dysfunction, which we are in the process of researching. Resources are available for LD and for gifted, but we struggle to find someone that can help us with both issues. Any suggestions?

Andrea

My daughter is in third grade now and still struggles to read at an early first grade level. Her cognitive skills are fine. If I read the work to her from school, she can answer the questions. Reading for her is a new struggle every day. It seems like she will recognize a word one minute and the next, have no idea what it is.

She struggles with school at all reading-based subjects. She is getting learning assistance, but her progress is extremely slow. Her self esteem is starting to suffer and she is beginning to refer to herself as stupid. I am so worried about her state of mind as she sits in class with children who can do the work and she simply can't read the words.

She is very gifted in drawing and is very perceptive in understanding emotions, she is simply unable to read. I have told the school I believe her to be dyslexic, but there is little information available as to practical solutions to help her learn and be diagnosed. Where can I get affordable help for her? What techniques can I use to help her? How can I get a diagnosis?

My son was diagnosed at the end of first grade with short term memory problems and some phonics problems after falling behind in reading. His school is working hard with him, but it is a struggle at home to get him to read.

As soon as we say its time to read for a few minutes he is annoyed (he is now in the third grade) and gets quickly frustrated even with our help. He also seems to start to yawn soon after starting to read, even though he goes to bed at 8:00 p.m. and gets up at 7:00 a.m.) We let him pick what he wants to read and take breaks, but it is still a struggle. Are there issues we and the school could have missed and are there any suggestions on how to make reading less of a struggle?

My daughter is in a Gifted and Talented program in our school corporation and is in the fourth grade. Since starting the program last year, we (along with her teachers) have noted a difficulty in spelling. She excels in everything, except reading aloud, retaining what she reads and spelling. Her state tests came back and confirmed she belongs in the gifted program. All her scores were well above average, especially Math. Her spelling score was in the 39th percentile, still in the average range but on the low end. It has also been noted, whenever she works on her own in class, she is not able to sit still (she rocks or shifts back and forth) and has even been seen to flex her hands so bad she is not able to type on a computer, hold a pencil or even write.

Whenever we look over our daughter's work, we have to ask her for clarification on several of her words because her words are not spelled anywhere close phonetically. Her teacher suggested that an evaluation be done to determine what kind of learning disability our daughter has. This teacher has been working with the gifted program for over ten years so we feel very confident in her opinion of the situation. We were told testing would not be granted because she does not have the scores or classroom grades to support her difficulties.

How is it that our daughter can read through her entire state tests, score well above average, do well in all her subjects and not be able to spell or restate what she just read? Is this a simple case of needing to learn phonics or could there be a disability that needs diagnosed? Your help and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Meredith

Throughout school, I have always tried to be a good student and would constantly put in a tremendous amount of effort to keep up with the material of my classes. I'm 20 years old and recently had to withdraw from my classes at University of Wisconsin-Madison due to my frustration with school. I've been put on medication for depression and General Anxiety Disorder although I'm not certain it is helping.

Ever since this has happened, I've been re-examining my past as a student from grade school all the way to high school. I would get good grades but I would have to put in many extra hours to keep up. It seems like I would memorize the information required of me through constant repetition, take the test on the information from the class, and then forget all the material after. I could never remember details from books and would constantly have to highlight almost every sentence and then return to it through repetition until what was read was ready to be spit back out on an exam.

My social life suffered because I always seemed to be studying and never found very much time to discover what actually interested me in life because my nose was hidden in a book.

Here are some of the problems I'm discovering about myself: inability to do mental math; difficulty understanding percentages, decimals, fractions, measuring, and financing; difficulty remembering numbers; difficulty retaining information that I've read; difficulty concentrating in a noisy environment; inability to understand abstract concepts; poor vocabulary; difficulty with writing and expression; difficulty reading maps and poor sense of direction; difficulty trying to navigate and remember directions/street signs while driving; and the list goes on. Is it possible that I may have an undiagnosed learning disability?

Emily Whitlock

My son and daughter both have IEPs for speech and reading and have received special services since age three. Neither spoke until age three-and-a-half. Both are behind in reading and are just learning to sound out words. Both have solid average to slightly above average intelligence, according to standardized tests. Both do fine with math.

Our son has been labeled LD for reading, though our daughter is not much better at reading. This summer they will work with a reading teacher who uses the Reading Reflex program. In addition, both seem to us developmentally immature. Repeating won't solve problems, but it might buy us some time for them to mature and become better readers. What are your thoughts?

Howard

I have a 9-year-old boy who gets good grades, is intelligent, great sense of humor, and well-mannered. For the past three years, I have been hearing that he is distracted easily in class, as in if he hears a tapping pencil, fire siren, or noise outside of his class, he gets distracted too easily, and doesn't focus on his work sometimes because he starts to talk in class at times.

I have been very patient, and tried explaining the importance of cooperating with his teacher and the school rules, but I'm getting very worried. Especially, now that his teacher thought it would be a good idea for me to sign a 504 form so he can concentrate or focus better because she believes he can get a top score. Only now after signing, the principal is saying he should see and talk to a school professional, and now I am very concerned and don't know what to do. I am up to my wit's with this situation. Please help. He understands his work in school. I am lost.