New Question About Cognitive Abilities

I'm still searching for answers.

I spoke with the slp at school yesterday and she said the thing that Michelle is having difficulty with, in terms of her auditory processing, is not so much in terms of hearing phonemes or discrimination between sounds, but more along the lines of processing information in her head. The example given was if she was to ask Michelle how a cat and a dog are the same, Michelle would say "they are not the same. a cat is a cat and a dog is a dog" (only in her own words, not so clear as that). She still sees things as very concrete. It takes a higher level to think in your head "a cat is an animal and a dog is an animal, so they are the same in that they are both animals"

I guess my concern is that she is having a difficult time working through problems or questions in her head. She is 8 and I would think she would be able to do this by now. She has such a language deficit that it makes it very hard. The private SLP that I originally contacted regarding the FFW program thought that at the higher levels of play, Michelle might not be ready for ffw yet. She does not strategize unless you give her a specific strategy to use, but she does not come up with her own strategies yet.

Does this sound like an intelligence issue or a cognitive abilities issue more so than a language disorder or moreso than an auditory processing disorder?

Demarti, is this something that your daughter struggled with? And is this something that you felt Tomitis was helpful with? I know you said you felt that it opened up new pathways or knocked down walls within your daughter's brain to at least give her the ability to start learning how to use logic and reasoning?

If anyone has any helpful information, please share. Thank you,
Kathryn

I had a long chat with the SLP (private) last week. She thinks that my dd is not visualizing. Which would explain a lot.

When you say "remediate" do you define that as "correct the problem"? Just curious. The pediatrician also said this can be remediated.

Today the school principal asked "What if we can get more time with the speech therapist here at school?" He asked this because I asked him what the policy is on missing school hours for private speech therapy that the school is unable to provide. My issue is that the school gives her group therapy and the SLP is only there twice/week and she is already seeing her on those days, so how could they increase it? I told him "Honestly, I did not think to ask about that, but should have, except that I did not know it was possible since they never offered it" Talk about "parents need to know what to ask!!" Anyway, I'm thinking maybe less resource room and more slp next year. More time with the school SLP AND also go full intensive on the private as well.

What I want to know is "How much can be fixed?" If I had a crystal ball I would look into the future to see where we will be with language abilities, but unfortunately I can't do that.

Thanks again,
Kathryn

That's interesting what your daughter said. Mine just asked me the other day why all the other kids know the answers and she doesn't. It broke my heart. I just want her to be able to feel normal. That's why dancing is so good for her because she feels like everyone else when she dances. Today she said to me "I can go by myself. You don't have to watch." She NEVER volunteers to do anything by herself. I mean she literally volunteered.

We will get the testing results from the SLP tomorrow morning. She didn't even feel the need to do the testing unless I wanted her to because I had given her such a full picture of my daughter, but I asked her to do it anyway. I know she did the TOLD first, but I'm not sure what else she did. She did tell me that she had a very short digit span, but when they were doing the numbers while tapping the desk with their hands she could do a lot more.

I have a meeting next week with the possible 3rd grade teacher for next year. I just want to sit down and talk to him now so that we are on the same page in the fall. I have been questioning the idea of using the resource room at all. The Kinder and 1st teacher (same teacher for both years) did not want her to go to resource room because they were using a different phonics program and thought it would confuse her. When I ask "what" they are doing with her either in resource room or in speech I get very vague information. Or usually generally what they are working on, and then they say that she is doing really well, but no specifics. I know I could go observe, but I cannot be there every day and I have my preschool son to think about too. I can't bring him along if he's not in preschool at the same time that she is in speech.

The 1:1 thing is interesting. I had thought group was a good idea because of the social language portion. Talking to other kids, etc... or just conversational speech. It would be easier for her to talk to other kids than to talk to the teacher. And she doesn't really like the girl she goes to speech with, although there are others and I'm not sure how she gets along with them. So, I will wait to see what the private SLP says tomorrow and will post an update.

Thanks again for sharing your story. It is amazing when you find someone else with similar issues, although I know they are not identical.

Oh, one more thing, I got my dds writing tests for this year and the difference is like night and day between Sept and now. Even Sept to Jan was a huge difference in handwriting. Jan to now is full sentences except that instead of putting a period at the end of the sentences, she put one at the end of each line. Oh well, it's closer at least, but it goes in order of events. It was a narrative about a field trip that she went on. My dh went too, so he was able to attest to the events she wrote about. Pretty cool.

Kathryn

Kathryn, that's great news for you on getting the testing done. Now you have more of a starting point and direction.

You may want to post your results in a new thread and on the teaching LD section. There may be better 'experts' to help you interpret the scores and provide additional guidance on what kind of programs and accomodations you could look at. I use to be pretty good at the test scores, but I've been away from it too long and just don't know what to advise you on each subtest.

I'm not sure what your SLP means by 'temporal auditory processing'?

Overall it sounds like your dd's biggest issue is auditory memory. And this tremendously impacts her ability to process, store, retrieve any kind of auditory information. Auditory memory was a huge issue with my dd as well.

Did the SLP indicate what therapy she was going to use to help improve this?

Hi Kathryn,
You wrote:
"Yes, auditory memory as well as recall or retrieval of information and some auditory processing issues such as discrimination, processing speed (temporal) and verbal mediation (self talk) are all issues."
Where I would just pick up on 'verbal mediation (self talk)'. In regard to our earlier discussions on sub-vocalising.
If you consider visual memory and recall and retrieval, you can see how this relies on the ability to visualise.
Where auditory memory recall and retrieval, requires a parallel auditory skill to visualising.
In our earlier chats, you raised the difficulty with explaining sub-vocalising to your daughter.
But the term 'self talk', could be a simple way to put it to your daughter?
It provides a way of explaining it, that she could understand.
Forgive my nagging about this, but I just want to confirm that it is not something that Michelle hasn't learnt how to do?
Geoff,

Hi there,

Yes, I remember our conversations. At the time I was thinking in terms of hearing a voice in her head when she reads, which I believe she can do, but in terms of hearing a voice in order to reason through something, I don't believe she has this ability, although I could be wrong. It seems from the testing that she does not do this. You are right about that. In terms of visualizing, she definitely can be taught and I'm sure the self talk will be taught as well. It's still not something I can talk to her about, because I'm not sure she will get it. Even if she answers me if she does not fully understand what I am asking then I wont know if she is accurate. Either way, this will be addressed in therapy.

This was interesting the other day. We were driving home and it was dinner time and I know we were all hungry. I was at a red light and looked in my rear view mirror. She was mouthing something as if she was talking to herself, but there was no voice, so I thought maybe she was talking to herself. I called her name and she immediately said "Mommy, I'm hungry". I am betting that's what she was saying to herself. So, her mouth was moving, but no sound. She had to have been hearing the voice in her head. But to say something like that in your head is not the same as reasoning through something or working out a problem in your head. Maybe it is, but in the very simplest form, like for a much younger child.

Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,
Self talk is not actually taught by speech and language therapists, as I've found through discussions with therapists and their organizations throughout the world.
Where their scientific position is that self-talk is what they term: 'implicit'. Meaning that it is something that everyone can do, that we don't need to learn it.
Your statement: "But to say something like that in your head, is not the same as reasoning through something or working out a problem in your head".
Is not really understood by therapists currently.
What they confuse with self-talk, is the use of 'Cues' to retrieve words for self-talk.
Usually Visual Cues, such as a picture, a written word or a gesture.
Yet self-talk for reasoning/ thinking, relies on using many words that don't have a visual cue associated with them.
So if a person is limited to self-talk thinking with words that have visual cues. It considerably restricts thinking.
For example, visual cues could be used to retrieve the words: I go to the shop.
But, when you are reasoning/ thinking about going to the shop. Words like: might go, could go, should go, can go, want to go, maybe go, etc.
Though these words dont have a visual cue to retrieve them for self-talk. Unless they are read.

Yet this equally applies to most sentences, where most words don't have a visual cue. But even if they did have visual cues, perhaps you could consider how you would mental reasoning, not with self-talk, but a series of visual cues?
Though I understand your difficulty with explaining it to Michelle and asking her if she can use self-talk? Which is the question that the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America raised with me, in relation to young children?

But I was very interested in your rear view mirror experience. Which perhaps relates to published research by NASA, where they found that self-talk in fact triggers the head and throat muscles associated with producing the same words out loud.
Where I would suggest that Michelle has learnt to do this in reverse?
Where making the mouth movements of words, works as a cue to retrieve them for self-talk?
Perhaps you could use this as a way to explain self-talk to her?
Where you could ask her if when she does that 'mouthing', and not saying the words out loud. If she imagines the sound of the words in her mind?
It could be an easy way to explain self-talk to her?

Where in fact she might already be to able use self-talk, but just in a limited way?
In my research, in a majority of cases, it has turned out to be simply that a child didn't know that most people hear the sound of words in their mind when they are thinking.
Afterall, no one ever told them about this?
With one exception, where many children have seen movies with a character with a mental illness, that causes them to 'hear voices'?
So that they have an idea that self-talk is a mental illness!
Fortunately Visualisation hasn't developed an association with people that suffer from hallucinations. But visualising is more commonly talked about, where everyone is familiar with being asked to 'Picture something in their mind'.
Yet we don't have an equivalent for 'Hearing something in their mind'?
It's a well kept secret?
Geoff,

When our SLP talked about self talk, I assumed that she meant talking things out in your head as you try to figure something out. I do the same thing in having conversations or thinking about things that I plan to say to someone, especially if I'm really mad at them (HAHA), but seriously, I think she meant (at least for Michelle) in terms of organizing her thoughts. Maybe like putting together a conversation or or in a task where you have to reason things out using logic? For example, when you are home and get hungry you start thinking "I'm hungry. I had lunch at 1pm and it's now 5pm. It's been 4 hours since I have eaten. What should I eat now? I should probably just make dinner because it's getting close to dinner anyway. I wonder if the meat is thawed out?" etc.... I think that would be helpful to be able to think through things like that. I'm not sure if Michelle does that, except that sometimes she gets mad at my older daughter for whatever reason. I see her walk out of the room and go write her a note. Something like this "Kaitlyn, you're not my sister anymore. Why did you yell at me?" etc.... The spelling might not be that good, but you get the idea. It's short, but she does not say anything out loud, yet she goes and writes her a note, so she must have to put some thoughts together before doing that.

Anyway, it's all very interesting. I am interested to see how the therapist will deal with this issue. I'll be sure to let you know.

Kathryn

You wrote:
'But an important thing that I have found over the past 15 months that I've been researching this. Is that the common reason why they can't use self-talk. Is simply that they didn't know that most people use self-talk.'

What I find interesting is that until several months ago, I never realized that there are people who don't 'daydream' the same way I do? Where you have conversations with yourself!

I never even really thought to try to encourage my dd to try to put the 'sound-track' on with the movie or even trying to see if she can just listen to a conversation in her head w/o the picture going? I was more focused on understanding how she thinks.

So in reverse, I'm wondering if I can improve my creativity if I try to get the movie/picture going in my head. It's really hard to do. I just keep talking to myself instead. LOL How do you get the voices to stop!

Demarti,
There is an interesting term that has come into usage recently: 'Invisible Difficulties', that refers to how we all think in 'different ways', but we never know how other people go about the task of thinking and processing information. We just assume that everyone thinks the same way ourself?
You asked about how do you get the movie going and stop the voices in your head?
Where the answer is to be so busy looking at the movie, that you dont have time to talk?
I have an exercise on my Dyscalculia Forum, to develop Visual-Spatial thinking that you could try?
Where you go shopping! In your mind?
You probably have a local super-market, that you are very familiar with? Where you know where to find everything that you usually buy.
So for the exercise, we are going to take a tour of all of aisles in shop.
So close your eyes and then picture what you see as you enter your super-market, then start looking to the left and right of you, as you move up the first aisle. Looking to see what is usually on the shelves or in the freezers.
Then turn into the next aisle and continue on throughout the shop. You might like to pause and have a closer look at things that you usually buy.
Where it is important to 'look around' as you go up the aisles.
Demarti, you might have found that you were so busy looking around the shop, that the 'voices stopped'?
Where you just watching the movie.
Well, it seems that you just went to the super-market, watched a movie, and never spent a cent?
Geoff,

Geoff - I was able to go shopping today and not spend a cent. Yes, I can 'picture' that. When I 'nightdream', I have the whole movie with sound going. It's really only when I daydream that it's mainly just me thinking about conversations with people.

I like the suggestion on the Rhyme and Song. I'm anxious to ask my dd if she can hear the words to a song in her head. She has commented before that a particular song is 'stuck in her head', but I'm now wondering if it includes the words to the song or just the melody? She is not a real music lover. Her brother got her an iPod and she never uses it. Doesn't listen to music much. I'm wondering if this is part of why? The words maybe don't connect with her?

I can see that practicing singing songs in your head may be good therapy.