ideas on what could be wrong with my son?

Nonverbal learniong disability is certainly a possibility, and you can keep looking into it.

Something that happens often, LD or not, is just getting off on the wrong foot and carrying along problems from year to year. He started out slowly and didn’t undertand everything; then the next year he got some of the work but missed a lot; and the same the next year and the next.
Math is cumulative so if you miss the basics the later steps collapse.

Sometimes, depending on a lot of other circumstnaces, tutoring can really help a student like this. The tutor has to really know how math works, not just tell him to follow rote recipes, and has to start back at the beginning and build up the understanding step by step. It takes time — after all he took six years to get into this position, so it is reasonable to take a year or two to get out of it. It unfortunately takes a fair amount of money, unless you want to train yourself as the tutor (some parents can work as a teacher with their kids and some can’t). The tutor can’t just help with homework because as you have proved to yourself that is just a vicious circle of frustration. Marks dont come up immediately by magic, but gradually with work.

Homeschooling is a big decision and you should look at all sides of the issue. Talk to people on homeschooling boards and see what would be involved.

Mary, I highly recommend that you locate a university or clinic in your state that does thorough psychoeducational evaluations and see if they can identify your son’s problems. You would need to do that even if you decide to homeschool.

One more thing. Is the doctor closely monitoring his medication? Has it been increased since 3rd grade? It sounds like something may need to be altered with the medication.

Janis

I (as usual) agree with Victoria. I work with adults in math — my job description includes all subjects, but the significant majority of my students need the most help in Math. For many of them it’s basically the only subject that leaves them in the dust; how they do in other subjects goes from “no problem, in Honors English” to struggling with those symbols some, too.
Most of them do *not* have what I’d call a “Disability” — though in a grade school situation, sometimes simple inconsistent achievement can get you the label, and if that’s what it takes to get help, that’s what I’d do. Some of them do; dyslexia & other LD’s often wreak havoc in Math in subtle ways because a student will find ways to get answers in early years that don’t build the knowldege foundation that other kids’ are getting. Teachers don’t know enough about teaching math to figure out when this is happening.

HOmeschooling’s a rather big leap, and if he’s got anger issues he’s probably got aavoidance issues too — ways of getting around tackling what is hard and what has caused emotionally painful experiences. At his age, Mom is often (but not always!) *not* the best person to tackle these issues. He’s going to have many teachers; he’s only got one Mom. Do you work well together on academics, even when they’re challenging, or does he resist help with the homework or simply want to get the assignment done? (I’m thinking if I were the Mom, it would be *really* hard for *me* to keep bringing up the topics that needed work if I met with resistance… but a tutor can do that and not have to turn around and be Mom.) However, there are *lots* of ways to organize homeschooling, including wiht a battery of tutors or trading off teaching duties with other moms. It’s just that diving into it as an escape can actually send the message to the kiddo — utterly unintended — that “well, you were so bad that you couldn’t even do school at all.”

There is info including links on my website about homeschooling though… this is a time when pulling out for a year or two to get skills up — ****IF*** you focus hard on doing that — can make a huge difference.

Sue
You hit the nail on the head. He is very resistant to help from me or his dad. And, if we try to “talk” to him about him not being stupid or about school being important, he thinks we are lecturing even when we are not. We have an appointment to see a therapist. He is always angry and complaining. He is just not pleasant to be around at all. He blames everything on someone or something else. We try to be understanding, but it gets hard. He is even angry about me trying to get him some help from the school and therapy. It seems nothing is ever good enough. His dr says he has oppositional defiant disorder, but I so do not want to attach another label to him right now.
I know that depression or anxiety can sometimes cause school problems but the school problems have always been around. He has always been a difficult child, you know, resisting direction and complaining. But the anger is new. And combined with the fact that it seems worse when school is in session and he has started calling himself “dumb” and “worthless” I’m certain it is school related.

I really do not think homeschooling would work, but I feel so helpless to help him. I feel like the school is fighting me, my son is fighting me and (I’m gonna feel a little sorry for myself here) the whole world is fighting me. But if school is causing the anger then sometimes I think if I remove the source I can get him through this and then concentrate on reteaching him math.

I appreciate all of you.
It helps just to talk.
Mary

This sounds like a classic case of a school not meeting the needs of a student. The anger comes from never having his educational needs met. Your description of him saying “what?” a lot combined with being uncoordinated and clumsy is a red flag for an auditory processing disorder. Severe APD interferes with vestibular development — thus, the clumsiness.

Has your son ever been evaluated by an occupational therapist? I would start with that. Find a good OT and call the clinic to ask how a referral for evaluation should be phrased, then ask your GP for a referral. If worded correctly, medical insurance should pay for the evaluation. You can do the same for a complete speech/language evaluation by a speech pathologist. A speech pathologist would probably include a screen for auditory processing disorder, so you might get some indication of APD that way.

Homeschooling is a good option for this kind of child. However, as a rule of thumb, you need to start with about one month of “deschooling” for every year spent in public school in order to get the child past the accummulation of negative experiences acquired in school. Once he is past that stage, you need to choose curriculum materials that suit his learning style. If you can afford it, there are therapies that are highly likely to help. Interactive Metronome, for example, would be highly likely to help the clumsiness and improve his ability to sustain attention.

What you are describing happens to a lot of LD children in school — the gradual loss of academic standing, increasing frustration and anger at not being able to keep up, etc. Stress alone interferes with the ability to learn, and it sounds as if your son has been stressed at school (and at home) — probably from being required to work with materials not at all suited to what he needs in order to learn. Not all families can homeschool successfully, though.

Are there any alternative or charter schools in your area? Sometimes these are a better placement.

Nancy

Yes, it is possible to have trouble only in Math. I am an adult student who has previously failed pre algebra 7 times in my life, never getting beyond the first 3 weeks of class without throwing pencils, papers, or swearing and crying. I graduated with Basic Math. With grown children, I am now in college and maintain a 3.75 GPA, without algebra, ( 3 of the times I have failed have been during these college years…that I have had to quit as I was failing) but as you can see I was doing extremely well in every other subject.

This last semester, I have a teacher who I had over the summer, who’s class I had previously quit…but she made me promise, no matter what, I would stick it out…come to tutoring twice a week, right after class, which was 2 hours a day, twice a week, tutoring was an hour and a half each day as well. I also study at LEAST 25 hours per week on top of that and did EVERY single bit of homework and asked questions, asked questions, asked questions. When she said something I didn’t understand, I asked her to say it ‘another way’ or give me another ‘analogy’, which she did, to help me understand in another way…in a way I could relate too. It has not been easy. I will never say it was.

It takes me 5 hours to take a test that takes others 1-2 hours but that is ok…she says…I am just slow at it. I have a B in her class. From failing 7 times to a B is pretty good. Your son can do it too. Don’t ever give up on him. She believed in me even when I didn’t. I am 50 and this math class is the last class I need to complete my Associates Degree to be able to go on to my Bachelor’s in a dual degree in Elementary / Special Education.

I never dreamed I’d get my degree before as I always got ‘stopped’ as I could not pass the math course but here I am today still holding my 3.75 GPA AND with a B in the Math class too! He can do it with a commitment and a teacher, a friend, a mom, or someone who understands and cares…has the patience and believes in him…that is not an easy job either…but keep trying and keep believing!

I realize he is much younger but if someone like the teacher I have now had found me when I was his age, I might not have gone through all the failures and lost time ( of working in the field of my dreams) for so long…

Liz :-)

Hi Liz,
I wonder if you have heard of Dyscalculia.
Which is defined as a problem with Maths acquisition.
You might like to have a look at the site:
dyscalculiaforum.org

Geoff.

I so recommend you order the F.A.T. City video available on this website. You will so understand your son if you do.

Also, has your son ever been checked for vision tracking from a develpmental optomitrist? I have one kid who mimicked ADHD and we just now found out it is vision. He is now getting therapy and is a different kid. Rule out the vision. This kid passed with 20/20 vision in the nurse’s office. (perfect vision) Not sure if you use that terminolgy down under.

I totally agree with Liz on this issue, but here is the thing…

I totally agree with Liz and have a great deal of empathy in my heart for Liz because we are both (ironically) older students going through almost the same thing with a math l.d. of sorts while at University…

However, I think that the OP has the power to try and nip this situation in the bud now! That is a very beautiful and powerful thing, there. Try and help the youngster while they are still a youngster, because this is the day and age where that is just the way to go. I think that it would be safe to assume that in the day and age of Liz’s time and my time…there was not a lot of research out there for math ld and whatnot. We are five years into the Y2K’s, so you have very modern thought on your side with your youngster.

[i]ebeth[/i] I do not know about homeschooling, but I really think that your child’s school has lost him somehow. In this day and age of standardised testing and all of that, I just really feel your child’s school did miss something that could have helped. The first thing you need to do is get your child a most proper evaluation by a neurophyschologist (sp), for what you are describing is neuropsychologist worthy right there. That is all I know for sure except for the fact that you can methodically go over math during the summer, eh? But, first you should ask Victoria or Sue if they know of a math skills test or something so you can see where your child is at and then you can informally help them during the summer. There are University Students who would love to do that for a copule of $$ a week, actually.

I would NOT recommend a university student tutoring your son. What they will mostly be able to do is go over what he is doing in school, but maybe do it more slowly. If he is not learning it, going over it more slowly isn’t going to help. He needs to learn it differently.

I suspect many math disabilities are caused by not goign thru things at a concrete level long enough. Or at least that some kids need more concrete teaching longer, but don’t get it. I really feel that about myself.

There are some good concrete based math programs out there, and many are friendly for homeschooling purposes. Math U See; Lindamood Bell’s Cloud Nine (though not so much a program, imo, as a philosophy); Singapore Math; Landmark Math come to mind, though there are others.

—des

I was just thinking that after the o/p’s child had a skills check, that maybe someone could tutor them. I am sorry.

But math l.d. is something that pertains to the parietal lobes and whatnot, it is not something one can develop through poor teaching.

No prob. merlinj. As per parietal lobes and math disability, well, maybe in
some cases, I don’t know that we can establish causality in most cases. And as I said much of it is perhaps poor or at least inapprop. teaching.
What we know won’t work is more of the same, but more slowly, regardless of causation.

—des

The parietal lobes are where visual and spatial processing takes place.
In turn, mental imaging is essential to maths.

I am seriously not trying to be rude. It is just that there is much more at play with math l.d. than having bad luck with teachers as a youngster. I like this site and am not trying to start WWIII here or anything. It is just frustrating that math l.d. is not as common to research as dyslexia or ADD, I am sorry for my frustration at that being something that might be considered rude. I truly mean no harm.

I hope that the OP has found some help for their child because that is really important to do when the child is young:)

Theories about parietal lobes etc are just vague theories; there is no proof and no particular effective treatment based on such theories.

merlin, I think there is a feedback system going on in most cases:
The student starts out with a weakness in a certain area. Especially with children, the brain and personality are undeveloped, and both brain connections and thinking and working habits can grow in various ways. Good teaching can help both strengthen and work around the weak areas; bad teaching can train ineffective habits and leave brain areas undeveloped. This is the whole general idea behind early intervention in physical and mental and language disabilities — children who get help in the preschool years may show little or no sign of problems as adults, while those who are not helped until the teen years have life-long serious disabilities. And bad teaching in the early years which strengthens exactly the wrong things can make a small issue into a serious problem. This is not to deny the existence of such problems or to put anyone down (and I know you have a particular reason for your own issues); but if you can start early intervention and avoid the problems getting so bad in the first place, obviously that’s the way to go.

I’m sure there are many kids who do not have merely poor instruction, but I want to make it clear what I mean. I do NOT mean bad teachers or incompetent instruction. What I am talkign about is math taught at a conceptual level that the child is not ready for. For example, teaching math without spending sufficient time at a concrete level. I really believe this is the source of many problems in math. I don’t know how you sort this out from actual dyscalculia, as I don’t know that anyone has really tried. Sure some children learn math with very little time on the concrete level. Not sure what percentage that is either.

We know that phonetic reading instruction will actually reduce the no. of children with reading disabilities, so I don’t know how analogous it is to that situation. I would guess it is quite analagous, and that there are some children that do not learn math using typical concrete approaches.
OTOH, I think good math instruction would likely use systematic discrete multisensory instruction anyway. I think Victoria could answer that better than I could.

I agree with Victoria re the brain issue. I don’t think there is a true math center of the brain. I would imagine that even verbal areas are used particularly in the solving of certain types of problems. I imagine it is quite complex.

—des

[quote=”merlinjones”]I am seriously not trying to be rude. It is just that there is much more at play with math l.d. than having bad luck with teachers as a youngster. I like this site and am not trying to start WWIII here or anything. It is just frustrating that math l.d. is not as common to research as dyslexia or ADD, I am sorry for my frustration at that being something that might be considered rude. I truly mean no harm.

I hope that the OP has found some help for their child because that is really important to do when the child is young:)[/quote]

Victoria,
You are obviously unaware of the extensive body of research that has been carried out into the role of the Parietal lobes and visualisation in the mental activity of mathematical processing.
You might take the time to have a look at a case study reported in the Journal of Integrative Psychology, carried out at the Southeastern Louisiana University
http://www.integrativepsychology.org/articles/vol4_article2.htm

This is not some vague theory.
Geoff.

Geoff:

There is research and there is anecdote. Your reference is very interesting and in fact I strongly support the kinds of activities described in it.
But it is NOT research.
And it doesn’t investigate brain functioning at all, nothing whatsoever to do with the parietal lobes, merely anecdotally describes a tutoring program. It sounds like an excellent tutoring program and the activities could be useful for many people, fine, but it is not proof of anything.

I am NOT “obviously unaware”, quite the contrary I am very aware of how much verbiage is produced. But I know the difference between opinion, anecdote, and proof; real proof is a rare thing, and all the verbiage in the world doesn’t make up for it.

Victoria,
If you actually read the article, you would have noted that it is a fully referenced research paper.
It also has no mention of any tutoring program whatsoever.

Interesting article, but it’s only a sample of one and someone with reasonably decent skills at that.

“The participant, “Belle,”…”

John

Geoff, just because somebody lists a whole bunch of references does NOT make it research.

Scientific research involves measurement, numbers, and statistical verification, among other things. There needs to be a hypothesis which can be proved or falsified, a change in the parameters, a test to check if the change made any difference in the outcome, some sort of known rationale for the test, and a verification of whether the hypothesis was demonstrated or falsified. Your paper has none of the above, merely a bunch of opinions.

It happens that the opinions on learning math given there agree closely with my personal opinions — and that doesn’t prove one tiny little thing.
If you actually care about facts, you are especially careful reading papers that you like, because after all you are biased and may miss evidence.

Just quoting a bunch of other people is a great way to carry on superstitions and misconceptions forever. Read up a little on the scientific stagnation of the Middle Ages and why the Renaissance was so important, replacing belief in authority with demonstration by experiment.

Having a single individual come in and do learning exercises can best be described as a tutoring program — what else would you call it?
It certainly doesn’t fit any of the criteria for an experiment.

Let us all now relax. I am sorry for starting anything up on this thread that took away from the OP. However, go to google scholar and you will see scads of information about dyscalculia and whatnot, legit scholarly articles you will see. Also, go to a university library and there will be nice access to really deep articles about L.D’s and whatnot. Ask a neuropsychologist or someone like that about math l.d.

I personally hope that we can all mellow out and I am once again sorry if I am in any way at fault for like accidently starting WWIII on this thread. I hope we did not scare off the OP and that her son is doing alright because that is more important than most anything.

peace…