Auditory Processing Disorder

Hi Kathryn,
APD and CAPD are the same thing.
When you get a referral to an audiologist, you need to check that the audiologist knows about APD and is able to assess it. As not all of them can.
Their are also various sub-types of APD. So what helps one person, might not help another.
Their are two basic issues that can also be relevant to APD, which are ‘Pitch Discrimination’ and ‘Sense of Rhythm’.
Where Pitch Discrimination is detecting the pitch variation in words.
Recognising the Rhythm of words is also important.
For a simple example, say aloud the words:Cap, Can, Car. Where you might notice the different Rhythms.
Though ‘singing songs’ with your daughter, is a good way to develop Pitch Discrimination and Rhythm.

Yet I am also researching something called: ‘Sub-Vocalisation’. As you are reading, you can probably ‘hear the words in your mind’, as you read?
Though I’m helping a growing number of Parents, who I got to ask their children;’can you hear the words in your mind as you read?’ [sub-vocalise]
Where the common reponse is; What, do you think I’m crazy, of course I cant!’
Given what you wrote, perhaps you could ask your daughter this question? Where I suspect that she may give you a puzzled look, when you ask this?
If so, you might like to join in a discussion with these other Parents, as we continue to develop some simple self help exercises.
So perhaps you could ask your daughter if she can ‘hear words in her mind’, as she reads or thinks?
Geoff.

My dd has APD and CAPD. She was receiving services for Expressive Language delays from Child Find at age 3. We had her APD diagnosed by an SLP at age 5 where the SLP gave her a complete battery of tests, examples are CELF and CTOPP. We then had her tested for CAPD with an audiologist at the local University where they had a CAPD research dept. Note: the school also can give some of these tests (our school audiologist gave a subset of the SCAN and the SLP gave a subset of the CELF). I recommend private, because giving a subset of the complete battery does not always give a complete picture.

In PreK she started LIPS program and we also were doing Earobics. She HATED Earobics. It was like pulling teeth to get her to do it. We then opted to do Tomatis (a sound therapy program). In less than 3mo. she BREEZED through Earobics (no tears) and felt really proud it was now easy. She had difficulty on one activity - Karloon’s Balloons (auditory memory) she still couldn’t do that. So we did Brainbuilder and again in less than a month, she then mastered Karloon’s Balloons and interesting, this is when she started reading (she could blend sounds into words).

We started Tomatis at the end of her preK year(it was a combined prek/K program), of which she ended the year at the bottom of the class and could not get through 1 sound box. 2-3mo later after doing Tomatis/Earobics/Brainbuilder, and a month into her K year, she completed ALL her soundboxes and started reading and was in the highest reading group. Her teacher was astounded.

Note: she is not cured. She still has issues such as spelling and word retrieval, but she is not handicapped anymore.

Did she have any speech problems too? My daughter seems to be impaired in her receptive and expressive language abilities. I have been reading about Specific Language Impairment and an article I just read http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/25b76.htm discusses this at length and it looks to point to Fast Forward as a therapy, which I have seen linked to treatments for APD along with Earobics and Tomatis.

Did you do these through a clinic? I have the earobics and Michelle also cannot do Karloons Balloons to save her life. She hates it. She loves Rap a Tap Tap however. Her biggest issue is memory I think. In fact tonight she blew me away with Katypillar at a very high level, which I was playing and she was “helping me” (telling me the answers).

We have our audiologist appt on Dec 7th. I know they will start with the hearing screening first.

I just want to help Michelle so badly and want to do it privately without the school being involved.

Anyway, thanks again for your story. It is so encouraging. I know all APD cases are not the same, but it’s still encouraging to hear a success story such as yours.

Kathryn

Yes, she did have language/speech issues. Expressive language in particular (5%tile). Auditory Memory was a huge culprit for her. (she had a digit span of a 3yr old at age 6). I believe her Expressive Language issues are mainly because of severe word retrieval. It’s like she gets the words mixed up in her head and just can’t remember the names.

Her expressive language is now more in the 50-60% (which in my opionion is still weak, but it’s not considered handicapped and she is a functioning person now).

Fastforword was all the buzz when we had her first diagnosed and Tomatis was (and still is) considered unproven. But as she was only 5.5 and I could barely get her to sit through 20min daily of Earobics, I just couldn’t image the pain and suffering of 2hrs of Fastforword!!

Tomatis has been a life saver for our daughter. We still go(and yes we go to a clinic and it does cost $$) but the more I go the more I’m convinced. The problem we have is that it doesn’t ‘stick’. It’s like 3 steps forword and 2 steps back, but at least she is always improved. And recently, her word retrievel issues at times are that of a normal person!

The ‘experts’ also told me that memory can’t be improved. Totally wrong. It took alot of work (9mo. of Brainbuilder - not fun) and then we did Audiblox, followed by PACE (again not fun). But we saw improvement. Memory is a complicated ability and there are many aspects of memory (seguential memory vs. working memory etc. etc.) and I think she still has some kind of memory issue that is compounded by her CAPD. I never had her CAPD retested, and contrary to the school SCAN, I still think she has problems with background noise (which was her main CAPD issue). That’s my hunch as to why the Tomatis (we actually do Dynamic Listening System now, which is a digitized offshoot of Tomatis) does not totally stick with her and why we have to continue with boosters.

Wow, your daughter sounds like Michelle. I think the memory thing is an issue for her.

If the experts said that the memory could not be helped, then why did you go through with the various programs? Did the audiologist recommend that you give it a try anyway or did they say not to bother? That’s the impression I got in terms of testing Michelle for APD when meeting with the school psychologist. She said all that stuff about the memory and retreival (although she was talking in terms of retrieving letter combinations such as “op” in the word “hop”). All she said after all that was “Michelle wouldn’t do well on a test like that”. I’m not sure she was trying to say “Don’t bother testing her because I already know what her problem is” or “Don’t bother with this because you can’t help her.”

Michelle is able to read sight words with no problems and is very musical and has rythem, which tells me that her problems are in the left hemisphere. Although, when she makes an effort she is able to spell words out phonetically and can read all cvc words and is really good at consonant blends. However, most of the time she wants to just know the words like she does with sight words so she guesses even though she has the ability to sound them out.

But again, it’s back to the memory thing for her. That would account for her severe speech delay. I don’t even know where she is with her speech in terms of development. It’s tough. We understand her most of the time, but her grammar is usually wrong and it makes her sound a lot younger. When talking about something she did in the past she usually says something like “I go to the park”.

By the way, we tried to start Karloons Balloons over again at a beginning level and she refused to even touch the mouse. I coaxed her into it because she knew the first sound, which was a train and she could see the train, but after getting the first few right it jumped to 2 sounds she gave up and wouldn’t even stay sitting down. I told her we didn’t have to play today, but someday we could try again.

So, how long did the Tomitis take? Is that the one you keep going back to? How much is all of this costing if you don’t mind my asking. I will pay whatever we have to in order to help Michelle, but I’m just curious. Thanks again for any information you can share about your experience.
Kathryn

I was very desperate when my dd was in K. I didn’t want to believe the experts and being kind of a maverick I was willing to invest my time and money. I believed the brain had plasticity and pinpointed stimulation could improved function.

Brainbuilder is very inexpensive ($60?), Audiblox cost us around $200, Tomatis/Dynamic Listening ($2500-$3000+) and then every 1.5years we do a booster(8 sessions) that is around $900. The listening was very easy. The initial program was like 3months (I think it’s even shorter now with the digitized equipment). She would go in 3 times a week for 1.5hrs and listen to music over headphones. Here’s the link to the center we go too - http://centerforinnerchange.com and we see Dr. Minson. (they are awesome) You may want to even do a google on Tomatis and sound therapy programs in general to get some additional information.

We’ve spent alot of money on Listening for sure. But it has been well worth it. I could go on and on about results we have seen etc. You do need to keep it all in perspective. I was looking for a cure, this is not a cure. What it does is exercise your vestibular system to create new neuropathways - it makes learning easier. You still need to have tutoring or such - it just makes it easier. (Ex. When we did Brainbuilder, she would get stuck on a particular level. We did sound therapy and then she would be able to master that level and move on. )

Did you ever do look into the home system for the listening program? I don’t mind the cost of going to a clinic, but I have a 9 yr old and a 4.5 yr old in addition to my almost 8 yr old daughter. So, if we did that I’d have to drag the other 2 along. The other one is one that you do at home and you listen via a CD player and headphones. Of course I would do the clinic one if it is the only option, if they even recommend it or if I can find a clinic around here. I think there is actually one in our area. We live in Silicon Valley, near Stanford, which has an amazing Children’s Hospital, but I don’t know what set up they have for this type of thing. I will look into all of that when I take her in.

Like you, I am despearate, but also keeping it in perspective. I know there is no cure, but at this point, all I want is to make her life a little easier. I think the reading is not nearly so bad as the speech problem and if she did not have the speech problem then the reading would not be an issue.

I see it the most when she is trying to go back to those short vowel sounds after working on long vowels. She REALLY wants to say the long vowel sound when it does not belong there.

It’s like everything is affected because of the lack of language and the memory thing totally makes sense. If she cannot store what sounds like a proper sentence in her head then how can she speak clearly. She has the muscle tone to speak clearly because she can copy anything I say, but she tries to talk so fast that it sounds very slurred and incomplete.

Does this sound at all like your daughter? Just curious. You said her speech was at the 5th %ile at one point. I have no idea where Michelle is verbally. They never give me that information, but she is still very difficult to understand by others. Our family can understand what she says, and most of the time I’m sure that others can too, but not sure how much. Maybe 70% of the time others can understand her? I don’t know. Sometimes you can just guess what she is saying or you get the point, but it is gramatically incorrect and sounds very babyish.

I tried to have her repeat digits back to me like they said on one of those digit span tests. I gave her 1 number, then she said it back, then I gave her 2 and then she said them back, then 3, then 4 then 5. She failed on 5. And I tried to space them 1 second apart. She could only do 4. My 4 yr old could only do 2, but his speech is excellent, so I’m not sure what to think. Of course, I’m not a digit span test!! So who knows. I’ll to see what the Audiologist thinks.

Did anyone ask you if your daughter was autistic? Someone asked me that once and said that her son is high functioning autism or is on the autism spectrum and I told her that our ped ruled that out a long time ago by watching her interact during our appointment. She said “Well, my son is affectinate too, etc….” I hate it when people plant these seeds in my head.

The other thing I read about is dyslexia and is it possible that APD mimics that? Does that make sense with the speech issue? She does mix her b’s and d’s, both in reading and in writing, but knows which one when she hears it. That’s the only thing she ever reverses though. Never reads words backwards.

Thanks again for the information. I’d love to hear if you looked into the home Tomitis system. I think it’s called The Listening Program. http://www.rmlearning.com/auditoryprocessing.htm#1

Thanks again,
Kathryn (& Michelle)

Yes, we have TLP (the Listening Program) at home. Dr. Minson (who we see at The Center for Innerchange) was a co-developer of the program and they were just introducing it when we finished her initial Tomatis program. My dd was one of the first clients to use the program.

You won’t see the full results with TLP as you would with going to a clinic and doing the real Tomatis(or Dynamic Listening). Two reasons. 1) TLP is ‘generic’ such that it is meant to work across many individuals and doesn’t ‘deep dive’ or can be customized to an individual 2) it doesn’t do bone conduction which requires special headphones.

We have done boosters with TLP, but I never could see any visible differences. It’s like it just doesn’t hit the areas that my dd needs. The one thing I did notice with it, as I mentioned above, we continued for 9mo. using BrainBuilder. She would plateau at a certain level and we happened to be doing TLP concurrently and when she would end her program of TLP - she immediately jumped to the next level. This happened twice.

If you can afford to do the full program, I highly recommend it,otherwise TLP is better than nothing and plan on doing it more than once. At least check it out with a local provider (there is a list of DLS providers in the Center for Innerchange website).

My dd does sound somewhat similar from a speech perspective to your dd. She also tends to talk very fast. It’s like her brain is thinking faster than she can talk and the words get mixed up in her head. She has a hard time with articulation of R’s and her grammar is not real hot either. I also feel she talks very young. She is now MUCH better, but she is not up to same level as her peers.

Couple other things I have discovered with my dd is that she is left eye dominant (and auditory issues can lead to occular development issues). When your dd reads, is she really ‘blending’ the words correctly from left to right or is she seeing the word as a whole and sight reading? Blending has not been a natural ability, it’s like she wants to start from the middle and blend out(leads with the left eye) - the last sounds sometimes get dropped. Again, she is much better now. PACE/MTC got her to the next level on reading as when you get to those tougher longer words, she was having problems.

As it’s only about $60, you may want to consider getting a copy of Brainbuilder and using it for a month. See if she can get through karloon’s Balloons after that month.

If I were you, I would request the school (in writing- there are sample letters on the SchwabLearning site) to do a full SLP, auditory processing evaluation(both expressive and receptive) and the school psych to do a cognitive IQ eval. Depending on those results (i.e. they show no problems) consider getting a private eval done from an SLP etc. This will save you some money if the school does it and then use the left over money for remediation. I had a hard time paying alot for evals (some places want several thousand $$). I already knew there was a problem. I needed my money for the remediation.

One last key area is visualization. Can your dd ‘see’ a picture in her head when you verbally describe something to her? When she reads, can she see the movie in her head? Can she see in her head the letters of the alphabet? My dd could not (much to my amazement and it took me several years to realize this). We worked really hard at that as well and I believe after the 3rd solid listening booster she did was when this ability started kicking in more naturally.

I’ll check for a DLS around here to know what our options are. Just curious, what did your daughter do while listening? Do they have to just sit there and listen? How can such a young child sit for so long? Did you do this during time off from school, like summers, or did you go after school or take her out of school? I’m not so concerned with the money, but the time is more of an issue. Maybe there is one near us, but I’ll have to check it out.

I’m not sure about what she sees in her head. The communication is still so poor that I don’t know how to even ask or what she will understand.

She definitely prefers those sight words to the longer words. And consonant blends are simple for her. Even when she is sounding out a word like “flap” she’ll say this fl-a-p. Same with digraphs sh, ch, th, etc.. sh-o-p, but her inclination is to say shope. She did great with the cvc words c-a-t then cat, but she wants to just know them by sight. If she does not know she just throws in some word that may or may not even be close.

I don’t want to ask the school for further testing because when I brought it up at the IEP they really talked it down. And we’re already on the path with our clinic and the audiologist we will see does all that testing anyway, so we’ll do that and leave the school out of it. I know they wont do any treatments for it, so we’ll just let them do what they do best, which is remediation and speech therapy. That’s all they are equiped to do.

She will have all of her big testing done next year and I’m not sure what testing will be done. I’ll find out during the year this year. I think we will have an IEP meeting in the spring to talk about which teacher she will have next year. We are at a very small public school with only 2 3rd grade classes, so there are only 2 options anyway.

How old is your dd now, by the way. Was she at all understandable by others before you started all of this? I’m glad she is doing so much better. Thanks again for the information.
Kathryn

During listening sessions, my daugther would play games, draw, paint, puzzles etc. She would have a ball. They have all kinds of games, balls, blocks, puzzels, paint etc etc in the room to entertain the kids. (and parents can go into the room and play with their kids too.) Sometimes we would bring our own games in and other kids in the room would play with us. By far the easiest remediation program we have done.

My dd is now 13. From what you describe, I’m suspecting that my dd did not have as severe speech problems as your dd, but I think her word retrieval issues (and remembering names of things) was probably worse than your dd. You mentioned APD and dyslexia. For sure they are related. My dd is dyslexic, she has the auditory version of it vs. the visual.

You also mentioned earlier about Autisim. Dr. Minson treats ALOT of autistic kids in the center and they never even hinted that she might be autistic. I do however think she had some kind of mild aphasia. I would also suggest that you could call the center we go too (they are the ones who developed the DLS system.) They can send you a bunch of literature and also ask them for references of other clients. They can also refer you to someone they would recommend close to your area.

Thank you so much for all of the information. There appears to be a few places near me. I will also talk to the audiologist about what she recommends. If she says (like you heard) that there is no hope for the memory issue, then I will pursue it on my own. My pediatrician already told me that he knows an audiologist who treats APD, but is outside of our regular clinic, so he said to come back if we hit a dead end.

Thanks again for the information. I appreciate your help.

Kathryn

I can’t even get through reading all the post as I am so emotional that I have FINALLY found people parents who are in the CAPD world with us! My daughter was recently diagnosed and she is in the 5th grade, reading at 2.5 level. She attends Catholic School, and we fought (continue to fight) to get the services from the school district to come to her. I am a Medicaid Service Coordinator and know some of the law - but admittedly I hadn’t had a young person on my case load until 2 years ago. Boy am I paying attention to those CSE and IEP inservices now! My daughter was fine in Kindergarten, started to tank end of first semester first grade with those spelling test and really learning how to read. We are lucky in that our school has a reading specialist with a Master’s degree and 30+ years experience. She is the one that first noticed that she had trouble retrieving information. By second grade things really got bad and we started Vison Therapy, driving an hour every week to the Behavioral Optometrist. He diagnosed her as having eye teaming and eye convergence issues. Third grade I asked for the school district to evaluate her. I had our principle write the letter in October then in December they send out an intern to evaluate who totally agreed with the eye dr. Next we asked for O.T. Requested in June and took almost a year for the school district to respond. Somewhere in that year they sent out a specialist who works with blind students!!! That was a fiasco in itself. Turns out my daughter REALLY needed O.T. Her writing is a nightmare, which they are working on, but also teaching her to type as they would like her to do all her work on a lap top. O.K., 4th grade they brought in thier special ed reading teacher, so now my DD is going to school every day and hour early. Finally I requested an independent reading evaluator, who told me that to call my daughter dyslexic was too narrow an evaluation, that she is multiply handicapped. I was crushed. Did I miss something here? She seems perfectly fine to me, just can’t read, spell, and has trouble flipping numbers and letters. If a road sign says 35 mph, DD will say, “look Mom, it’s 53 mph”. Also instead of saying, “how old is he?” she will say, “how years he?”. Anyway, I finally got lucky and somehow got my daughter into a PhD Audiologist who teaches at the university and does research on CAPD. She was much kinder when she explained that my daughter has significant Auditory Processing problems. Also told me to beware of things that don’t have science to back them (I think she was referring to the Vision Therapy). She recommended Earobics, which I immediatly ordered, and my daughter immediatley hated. She has also done brain trainer which she also hates. Not sure about that other one you mentioned (t- something). In December my daughter will be having indepth testing (over three different visits) with a neuro psycholoist to “find where her power is”. My daughter’s best subject is geometry and art class. She can find her was direction wise anywhere. She is excellent with spacial things, if you know what I mean. She has recenlty started private lesson horseback riding with a friend of mine who runs one of the best therapeutic horseback riding programs in our area and is an O.T. (and is only charging me $15 a session, praise God!). She had a Speech eval from the school district, but apparently didn’t do the test the Audiolgist requested so we are in for another battle. I am so sorry for this rammble, but it’s the first time I could “talk” without interuption for quite some time :) I have to go back and finish reading your posts. Thanks for listening

To all you mothers on this topic, what a joy to finally have some people to understand what it is to have a child with APD. I have a 9 yr. old son, third grader. We have been on this roller coaster ride since pre-k. Sometimes I really want to take a break from the “ride.” Can you relate? We are just now contemplating listening therapy because Fast Forward is way too much for us right now. Too much time to sit and too much $$$. My son also HATES earobics and has since kindergarten. I feelreally bad that your girls struggle with these same issues, but I am so relieved to finally find some other Moms to talk to about this. I’ve considered starting a local support group, but am having trouble finding out who else has APD. We have also been contemplating Interactive Metronome. Does anyone have an opinion about that program? I spoke to a lady who used to be an instructor, she said that it changed her whole family. They all, 3 children and her husband, benefitted from the IM. I can’t wait to read on. Thanks again for just being out there ladies!!!
steph

We are currently awaiting our Dec 7th visit with the audiologist to do the initial hearing test (which I’m sure she will pass) and get information from her on APD.

The good news is that on Tuesday night, Michelle sat down and read the entire Cat in the Hat to me. It took 45 minutes, but she got through it. She’s in 2nd grade and is currently at mid 1st grade level in reading, so obviously reading has been a struggle for us. But my greatest joy in her reading that book to me is that she actually sat and read to me for 45 minutes straight without stopping! She did stop a few times to peek at how much she had left to read, but otherwise just kept right on going.

Thanks for posting ladies! I love to hear from other moms who are in the same boat. It’s just hard to find other people with the same speech issues that we have. I think I have narrowed it down to the auditory memory or memory sequencing. Not sure if I am saying that right. So, depending on all the testing and what the audiologist says, we are hoping to find some sort of therapy that is reasonable in price and time that will help her with her auditory memory. I’m not looking for a cure, but just something to make things better. Otherwise we feel pretty lucky that she is not further behind.

Kathryn

Kathryn,
I know you are [b]soooo [/b]excited to get through an entire book! I am really excited for your little girl. I was really happy just tonight that my son, CAPD-9yrs old, read a poem. It was about 3 good paragraghs, but I only had to help with one word!!! We truly rejoice in these small blessings. We discovered that he had a visual processing deficiency too. His eyes did not work together. We under went therapy for that. We are now seeing some improvement. Hallelujah!!!
Keep your smile for that sweet child of yours.
Steph

Thanks! We’re going to keep plugging away at this stuff. It’s funny because she seems to have bits and pieces all along the way from beginning to higher levels of reading, so it’s mostly a matter of filling in those gaps. She mostly struggles with the smaller words like “hop” and yet she reads much bigger words like “people”. Yesterday she sounded out parakeet. I think she had read the story once before, so it was probably a matter of sounding it out and recalling it at the same time.

Thanks for cheering with us.

Kathryn

For now this is going to be my support group. Even though I work with Social Workers who deal with people who are disabled - I can tell by the look on thier faces they don’t understand what I am going through. This past week I had the first visit with the neuropsychologist. The plan is she meets with parents first to get background, three times in the middle to test my daughter, and then the last time is just the parents again to review the findings and to make a plan. I need a plan. I feel like I am treading water sometimes and am loosing my stregnth. Like I could just go under. Do you know what I mean? How did this happen? This Neuropsychologist is very well known in this area, and the school district is paying for all of this. Anyway, the first meeting went really well, but it was all I could do to keep it together and not start crying like an idiot. I am just tired. My husband is a great guy, but this is pretty much all on me. He thinks our daughter is fine, no problems, it’s society pushing these kids, blah, blah, blah…The other night my daughter came home with two other girls essays in her backpack (I could go on for an hour about the not bringing the right books home for homework, but won’t bore you with that). Anyway, I put these two girls essays and my daughters in my husbands face and I think for once he is getting it. WOW. It was so noticable when you compare to others in her grade. Anyway, the psychologist explained that it is very common for children to have both visual and auditory processing problems. Now that I think of it the Eye doctor who is doing the Vision Therapy told me the same thing. Well, now I am hearing ADHD (inattentive type) and dyslexia - but we don’t have those diagnosis yet. That is what this psychologist is suppose to decide. The psychologist was great to me. She said the first evaluation will be a redo of the IQ test. Second part is for this faded memory or whatever the memory thing is. Then the last is an actual emotion evaluation to see where she is at because so many of these children wind up with baggage from having all these problems and from being different. At my daughter’s age there is a HUGE issue about not wanted to be different. Last night she cried herself to sleep over not wanting to be pulled out of her class so much for her special classes. The psychologist also explained to me the importance of getting this emotional/social issue taken care of because the middle school years are the make it or break it years. Okey, enough rambling. Thank you and God Bless you for being out there.

Hi All,

Thanks for the great sharing of info. I just logged on today and saw this post. Just what I needed for my son who has huge auditory issues too.

Can anyone compare Samonas verses Tomatis? I am can find an on-line provider of Samonas for about $1500 and do the program in my home.
I have tried the EASE cd’s program but did not get any results.

Here is my two cents. We tried Earobics and my son could only do certain activities and not at all the balloon ones etc. It was too hard. We then tried Fast Forword Basics and then Fast Forword Language. They were easier than Earobics! Fast Forword goes deeper, more primative auditory functions. So I recommend Fast Forword before Earobics.

I second that Brainbuilder is very boring. Question for those who have used it. When your child has taken a break from Brainbuilder for a prolonged period of time, does your child’s level decrease or stay the same? In other words, does the sequencial memory “stick” or do you loose the gains?

Thanks,
Joan

Maryellen, Thank you for your response. I totally hear you about comparing to other kids. What I have learned is to avoid that at all costs. I heard a speaker one time. She was not talking specifically about the APD or learning disabilities or anything, but she always taught her kids “Compare=Despair”. My theory is that I can never find JOY in comparing my kids to other kids. I might be extra proud of my kids if I compare them to someone who is more spoiled or not so well behaved, but never joy. The other thing is that I find myself comparing our situation to others who have it so much worse. I almost started crying about how my daughter was half a grade behind in reading, but then this other mom started telling me about her 16 yr old son who is developmentally 5 and in a wheel chair because of a brain abnormality. The doctors told them it was not hereditary so they went ahead and had another child 3 years ago. That child has the same brain abnormality. I felt so bad about my sadness over my daughters situation but then later I heard someone else (talk radio host) say “You cannot live your life in comparison to someone else’s life, but it can help you keep things in perspective.”

Anyway, not judging anyone of course. I think we are all in the same boat. I find myself crying over my daughter’s situation, but then find myself so grateful that she is making progress. I just try to stay focused on her gains and not on her deficits. She improved 6 levels in reading in the last 3 months and I know it’s because of how hard we have been working at home. I also try to avoid those situations where I hear other kids her age talking or see what they are reading or writing. My older daughter has been identified as “Gifted” and has always been the complete opposite end of the spectrum and yet I still feel distraught at times when I should be feeling grateful.

Anyway, sorry to ramble as well, but it’s nice to find a place with other parents who are struggling and really get it.

Oh, and by the way, my husband tries to make me feel better by saying “She’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about it.” I notice his eyes glaze over when I start talking about the fine details of tackling those irregularly spelled words or adding with regrouping as opposed to without. I have been so fortunate to have found a friend in Michelle’s K & 1st grade teacher (same teacher for both grades) who, in my opinion, is sent from Heaven. She triumphs over each little accomplishment. So much that I have requested that we add her to Michelle’s IEP team.

Kathryn

Joan and Kathryn, thank you for your posts. We are in the middle of 5 neuropsychologist visits and am not doing real well - not feeling to strong - these days. My daughter went the past two days in a row. The appointments were for 11:00 a.m. and it was at least an hour away. So….BAD MOTHER OF THE YEAR….I didn’t take her back to school both days. We live out in rural area and never go anywhere (really) so I decided to treat us to the big Galleria Mall excursion. She had a couple gift cards to spend from her Birthday in September (told you we never go out!). My daughter is at the age where one minute she wants these hoochy koochy looking shoes (no way, Dad would divorce me) and the next minute we are at Build a Bear instead. Then yesterday we went to see Happy Feet. It was really cute and the one of the points to this story was the different penguin saves their world. Hey, I just thought it was a cute movie, didn’t know it would be this self esteem builder too! So, good things happening even though we are headed for being labeled, “multi-handicapped”.

Thanks for the update on the movie. We’ll have to go see that.

Hey, I am all for taking a break from school now and then. We took our kids out of school to go to the snow last year. I think education involves much more than what they learn in the classroom. Besides, if she was tired from the appointments then she might get more out of a movie than school.

We had our appointment with the audiologist today. They started with a hearing test. I told her she had one at school, but we could do it again since it’s important to rule that out and I thought the one at school might just be a screening anyway. She said “They are not audiologists”. WOW!! Made me feel like I was in the right place. I’ve been saying that all along. How can the school diagnose my child when I keep reading that APD testing must be done by an audiologist? Anyway, she immediately recommended the APD testing, which we will do on Jan 4th. Another 4 weeks to wait…. But that’s ok. I’m sure it will be a long road and a long process.

They will do the Scan-C tests. After that they will make recommendations. One of the recommendations will be to test for other learning disabilities like ADD and a language disorder. The school has already diagnosed her with Speech and Language Impairment. So, it’s not just the language, but also the articulation in her speech.

Well, don’t be so hard on yourself. You are so not a bad mother. You are doing a lot for your daughter and you seem to have a lot of forces working against you in terms of support. Keep up the good work. I think a mothers instinct goes a long way. I told my husband about the appt today, but first I had to make sure he was listening. His eyes tend to glaze over when I talk about this stuff or anything that he is not knowledgable about. It’s just his way.

Kathryn

You made me laugh!!! Husband with glazed look in his eyes. Man, do I know what that is about. It is “my thing” to do this testing and school stuff. His job is making sure she gets to school on time. Hmmm….fair?

HAHAHA!! Well, it’s my job to make sure she learns to read, spell, add and subtract. It’s his job to make sure she learns how to swing a golf club, ride a bike, catch a ball, etc…. Fair?? School stuff vs. outdoor fun stuff. hmmmmmmmmmm LOL!!

Kathryn

My 7-yr-old son was just diagnosed with APD on Friday. I made a long post with all the details in one of the other forums asking for advice on what to request from the school.

At any rate, it’s nice to chat with others that are in the same boat we are. I can use all the support and advice I can get!

What is rare for me is finding someone else with a child with APD and a speech/language impairment.

Does your son have a speech delay? We are struggling with that and I’m getting to the point where I want to get private speech therapy to supplement what they are doing at school. She is still difficult to understand.

Kathryn

Yes, a pretty severe speech delay. He didn’t even speak until he was almost 3 and when they tested him at 3yo, he was somewhere around 50% intelligibility. I don’t know what his % is right now, but he’s made drastic improvements in the 3 1/2 years since he started speech therapy. However, even at that, it’s still difficult to understand him, especially to those outside the family. I think now that we know more of why he’s having speech and reading issues, it will be easier to help him. I expect him to be in speech therapy throughout elementary school and perhaps into middle school as well.

My daughter wasn’t diagnosed with a speech delay until she was 6 1/2, so she’s been receiving therapy since 1st grade. The first few years went slowly, but I’m quite proud to say that last week, she was released from speech therapy at nearly 100% intelligibilty. She’s in the 5th grade and they expected her to at least need therapy through the end of the school year. She does not appear to have any type of APD though.

And just for the record .. I have a 3rd child who will be turning 5 in a few days. He’s been in speech therapy since he was 3 as well. Some days I wonder if I did something wrong ….

And you might want to take a look at this post I made. Some of the results that I shared sound a lot like what you are going through with your daughter

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