Hi, My fourth grade son has always had difficulty in school. In first grade, I had trouble getting him in the building! He is a nice outgoing boy with a great sense of humor and has good friends. However, I am contantly battling with him about school. He is unorganized and forgetful. His teachers say he just doesn’t care. I think that motivation may be part of the reason. He is also not confidant. He recently started Karate at my insistance and told his teacher he wasn’t ready for the yellow belt. He is constantly having trouble organizing himself. I did request a case study last year and his IQ was 112 with a processing speed of 82. He fell out in Math but they felt that he did the math right just neglected the minus or plus sign. He is grounded from electronics when he gets a missing assignment. I know he wants to do better sometimes I think he doesn’t have the skills and is defeated, sometimes I want to kick him in the but! I have tried point systems galore. ANY ADVICE? Oh, I have also read Dr. Sylvia Rimm and she mentioned the dependant underachiever. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Re: What's wrong? How to help? Motivation or Inability?
Hi Jea,
I run a forum for the maths disorder; Dyscalculia, where organizational thinking is a major difficulty.
Though underlying this is a difficulty with either or both Visual Working Memory and Spatial Working Memory.
Martial Arts are a good way to develop this, where I note that you enrolled your son in Karate. Which he is not happy with? Though is it a ‘non-contact’ form that is used in the lessons? As for those with Visual-Spatial difficulties, it is important to use a non-contact form.
Geoff,
www.dyscalculiaforum.com/
Re: Re: What's wrong? How to help? Motivation or Inability?
Geoff,
Does this look like a profile of Math Dyscacula?
WISCIV
Verbal Comprehension 99
Perceptual Reasoning112
Working Memory 97
Processing Speed 87
WoodCock Johnson III
Basic Reading Skills 107
Reading Comprehension 122
Math Calc 87
Math Reasoning104
Basic Writing 99
Written Expression 107
Cognitive Processing
Woodcock Johnson III
Comp-Knowledge 107
Long term retrieval116
Visual Spacial Thinking112
Auditory Processing 112
Fluid Reasoning 122
Processing Speed 82
Short Term Memeory 101
I really don’t know what this all means.
TIA
[Modified by: jea on December 10, 2006 07:57 AM]
Re: What's wrong? How to help? Motivation or Inability?
It looks like processing problems to me, possibly also with some executive dysfunction. Schools are not at all equipped to deal with this.
In terms of your description of his reaction to school, it is very typical of a child whose needs are not being met. Children who fail repeatedly stop trying, and children whose needs remain consistently unmet become anxious in the environment.
I don’t know if it’s still on this website, but there was a research article that showed that when a child has the types of problems your son is exhibiting, teachers and schools (and sometimes parents also) start by blaming the child. It’s nonsense. All children want to learn. Those with problems almost always have hidden disabilities that have not been addressed.
If homeschooling is an option, I would recommend researching it. Many children with the types of problems you describe respond very well to homeschooling.
Executive function disorder is a huge topic about which little is known. I would not start there.
What I would highly recommend, however, is having your son do a cognitive skills training program. LearningRx (http://www.learningrx.com) or PACE (http://www.processingskills.com) are the best but quite expensive. The home version of this program is called BrainSkills (http://www.brainskills.com). It costs about $500 and requires a *dedicated* adult to do the program one-on-one with the child for an hour a day, 5 days a week, for 12 weeks. (Summer is an obviously ideal time to schedule this.)
Cognitive skills training works on developing a wide variety of skills that contribute to ease of academic learning — including attention to visual detail (plus and minus signs), visual and auditory sequencing, visual and auditory short-term memory, working memory, logic and reasoning, etc. They do not work directly on organizational skills, but can have a positive impact on that also.
Schools can be toxic environments for bright children who have processing problems and other commonly overlooked areas of deficit. Removing the child from that environment can be beneficial in many ways, which is why I recommend looking into homeschooling — at least for awhile. Homeschooling can be a temporary measure, giving you breathing room for remediation. There are tremendous homeschooling resources available on the internet.
Meanwhile, look at improving his processing skills. From what you posted, it does not appear that he has dyscalculia or any other major learning disability.
Nancy
Confusion or neglecting the symbols in math can be a symptom of Dyscaculia. Disorganization and lack of motivation could come from a number of sources such as ADD or Executive Function difficulties. More thorough testing may give you a clearer picture of what is going on and how to get him to re-engage in the learning process.