Hi everyone,
I'm trying to get my ducks in a row before taking the next step to help my daughter. I'm having a hard time figuring out what her specific problem is. She has such a hodge podge of characteristics/symptoms. At first I thought she had ADD due to her lack of focus/attention, but then there are other issues she has that makes me wonder if there is an underlying (perhaps neurological?) problem. Below are some glaring problems and strengths we see in her. Does anyone recognize this combination being indicative of something specific? The closest descriptions of LD I've read about that include her symptoms is "Executive functioning deficit." Also - should I take her to the pediatrician or to the local public school for an evaluation or testing? We will be doing a "hybrid" school this year - classes twice a week and at home 3 times a week (classified as homeschoolers). She responds well to one-on-one instruction.

Characteristics: 14 years, 8 months old girl – just finished 8th grade in a small Christian school.

Weaknesses

• Struggles in math (still doesn’t know some multiplication facts); doesn’t grasp the relationship b/w fractions, decimals, and percent, etc.
• Does NOT get/hear rhythm in music (i.e., can’t clap to the beat); however, according to a music teacher she learned to play clarinet “by ear.”
• Grades have gone down to mostly C’s in 8th grade from B’s in 7th grade
• Has to think about “left” vs. “right” (directionality)
• Has difficulty listening to and following oral directions (for example, I’ll ask her to put something away and she’ll walk around aimlessly, then ask me what she was supposed to do!)
• Shifty eyes / Poor eye contact
• Gets frustrated easily, therefore she gives up on (perceived) “difficult” tasks quickly
• Test scores: Stanford 10 – Low scores in math (7.9 grade equivalent); exceptionally low score in “Listening” (5.3 grade equivalent, 17th % ile rank). Other scores were 40th to 50th percentile.
• OLSAT scores: Nonverbal = 43rd % ile, Verbal = 20th % ile
• Low self-esteem

Strengths

• EXTREMELY creative and artistic (she’s always drawing!)
• Empathic and spiritual
• Very strong moral ethic – she’s a great kid who never gets into trouble at home or at school.
• Very good reader and speller
• Learns through “visuals”, especially videos

Thank you for reading all this. I welcome any ideas or suggestions!

God bless!

I would definitely get her tested through the school, first. You may not find that testing as thorough as you would like so later you may want to consider getting an IEE (Independent Educational Evaluation) by a neuropsychologist.

She may also be a Visual-Spatial learner. http://www.visualspatial.org/ has some really good information on people who have a strong visual-spatial learning style.

Welp, if it's any consolation, she's not alone in her math skills (or lack thereof)... I see people on a daily basis trying to get a college degree with the same issues. I'm tweaking a few things on my site for math (www.resourceroom.net ) so peek at them if you want to see if any of it would help as that stuff comes along.
Girls with LDs often are excellent with some aspects of language - so they "can't" be LD, in some folks' minds. WRONG.
A good evaluation can help you focus on her strengths. When there are some things you are really smart at (like reading) it's easy to feel like you are a human failure because you can't "apply that" to getting good grades. So, at least work on understanding that there's so much more to getting good grades than just being smart... and it's not a stamp of "not trying hard enough."
You might start with having her make a habit of clarifying directions all the time... as in, repeating 'em back to you. If that is too weird, find a way to ask a *question* about the directions (put the laundry away - what drawer did you say the socks went into?) so that she has to "write to disk" what she heard (or can get it repeated if it never got into the brain). There seems to be a real auditory pattern, though fortunately it hasn't carried over to reading.
An *excellent* book for help with this kind of stuff is Dr. Mel Levine's "Educational Care." It doesn't give specific labels - but does a great job with specific problems and how to address them. See if you can find it at a library (it is worth finding a University library and looking it over).

Have you done any research on auditory processing disorder? A good place to start is http://www.ncapd.org

Another possibility is non-verbal learning disorder (NLD or NVLD). Websites with information about that are http://www.nldline.com and http://www.nldontheweb.org

To me it sounds more like APD, especially since her verbal scores are so much higher than her non-verbal scores. A speech pathologist can do some screening tests for APD, but they are known to give false negatives. The only way to really determine if APD is present is by going to an audiologist with specialized training in this area. (Regular audiologists cannot assess APD.)

I doubt very much that you will get good diagnostic answers from either the school or physicians. A complete neuro-psychological evaluation would be the most likely to give you useable information. You might want to call your insurance company and see if they will cover that. Just be sure to state the difficulties in *physical* terms as much as possible rather than *educational* terms. For example, mention the inability to process verbal information but omit the difficulty with math.

Instead of spending a lot of time and money on diagnosis, it can be better to move directly into remediation therapies. If you can afford it, PACE (http://www.processingskills.com ) usually has a significant impact on the type of problems you describe. The home version of this program is BrainSkills (http://www.brainskills.com ). These programs work on a wide variety of cognitive skills important for academics, including directionality, attention skills, etc. and they are effective with a wide range of children. If at all feasible, I recommend PACE over BrainSkills because you are much more likely to see dramatic gains quickly.

Many children have difficulty memorizing math facts. What I usually recommend is QuarterMile Math software (http://www.thequartermile.com ) for 10 minutes a day, but with an adult doing the keyboarding for the child. This generally allows many more problems to be tackled in the 10-minute period, and having a warm body close by is emotionally helpful. Math drill is brain-deadening in large quantities, so I would never recommend it for more than 10 minutes at a time max.

Nancy

Nancy 3 said, "To me it sounds more like APD, especially since her verbal scores are so much higher than her non-verbal scores."

Is this what you meant to say? I thought APD typically had lower verbal scores. Typo? Just trying to clarify...

Sounds like this girl is very lucky to have such a pro-active Mom! I wondered how she managed in spelling? and reading comprehension? I liked Sue's comment on Mel Levine. I loved watching his video F.A.T. City - which puts the audience through some exercises that build empathy for Learning Disabilities. I also enjoyed his book One Mind at a Time and his book for students, All Kinds of Minds.
I am responding to this more from personal experience (a 50+ year old reflecting back on how tough learning was). Even though I was (am) random, probably ADD, I do appreciate organizational strategies to help get me through the repetitve, boring parts of the day so that I was free to think. Calendar's and agenda's that someone else had set up helped. Routines in icons or pics helped (set bc. picture set) has some useful schedule boards. Anything to help free up the brain so that new things could be received and processed. I wonder if her emotional intelligence is a strength (intuitive, creative and sensitive to others) - this could cause interference for learning the other things. Your plan to home school part time is interesting. I wonder how it will work especially if your daughter is a global learner who needs to have a sense of the whole picture in order to relax, feel safe and learn in her own way.

Always Wondering,

That was either a typo or mind-blip on my part. Her nonverbal score was 43rd percentile and her verbal score was 20th percentile. That's what tipped me in the direction of APD. She can reason okay, but she isn't processing language very well. I should have typed that her verbal score was *lower* than her nonverbal score.

(sigh)

Nancy