8 years old and giving up...again (VENTING!!)

okay,my first question. Did this tutoring program have you sign a contract with them? If so they must honor their part of this agreement.

the next question you didn’t say whether they school ever did the evaluation? If so what reccomendations were there?

Have you thought about requesting an OT eval? Occupational therapy was a BIG help to my two dysgraphic boys. Also assistive technology,getting him a keyboard is nice to level the playing field in class. Sounds like there needs to be a new IEP meeting,and even possibly a New evaluation.

Good Luck,I know how you feel. I have been there.Feel free to e-mail me.
I also have a website with tons of info on your rights,and your son’s educational rights. Check it out,it might give you some help.

http://specialedmom.homestead.com/index.html

Socks,

The clinic did not have me sign a contract. I asked several times for one. I told my husband I wouldn’t pay them untill I had it in writing. Well, they never did, time passed, and I havn’t paid them. I still have the $2000 sitting in the bank, waiting for the contract. If they do indeed stop tutoring him, I don’t know if I should pay them part of the money (seems like the right thing to do), or just keep the money, since they seem to have forgotten our deal!

The school did an evaluation. At the end of the eval report, it said he didn’t qualify for Special Ed, that he needed small group assistance, his teacher needed to modify and structure writing assignments, and that he needed specific instruction onpuncutation, spacing of words and formation of letters. (Funny that they would fight me over this very thing when they themselves recomended it!) It also said he should learn to word process on a computer. If the scores would be helpful, let me know and I will post them.

I asked that he have an OT eval, and they said they didn’t think he needed one, even though his poor motor skills are mentioned time and again in thier own report. I insisted. They agreed only to have the OT come and observe him in class to see if a full eval was needed. The OT, after observing him, said she didn’t recommend a full evaluation because, in part, he could flip his pencil around and use the eraser without much trouble. I insisted on a full OT Evaluation. He should be happening any time now.

What do ya think?
–Lisa

Most homeschoolers spend about 1-1/2 hours per day on academic subjects, even for LD kids. When you work one-on-one and choose the curriculum materials to suit the child’s needs, academics go much faster than in the classroom. Usually 1-1/2 hours per day at least equals (often exceeds) what the child would have learned being in school for 8 hours.

That’s about what we spend on homeschooling academics (probably closer to 1 hour per day for us), but dd also does daily physical education (vigorous exercise of some sort), attends a two-hour art class once a week, takes piano lessons (and practices 20-30 minutes a day), and either reads or gets read to every day. When you add all of these things together, it probably works out to about 4 hours a day for all subjects — including art, phy. ed., music.

Last year, when we homeschooled 3rd grade, a lot of our “academic” time was really therapies — vision therapy and PACE. This really paid off, because we were addressing dd’s underlying problems that made academic progress so slow.

The rule of thumb for homeschooling is to allow one month to “de-compress” for every year spent in school. In other words, it would take your son three months just to de-stress enough to get full benefit from homeschooling. Families usually use this adjustment period to try out different approaches, to find out what works for them. Often the reduction in stress on the child contributes greatly to the ability to learn.

There are great homeschooling boards over at http://www.vegsource.com where you can get advice from other parents. Also, I would recommend joining one of your state’s homeschooling associations right now. Even if you end up staying in public school, being fully informed about your options can help a lot vis a vis your negotiations with the school.

Go to http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bgrossen/rr.htm to find out what independent researchers at the University of Oregon have to say about Reading Recovery. (hint: it’s not good)

Mary

Homeschooling can be anything you want it to be. In my state, homeschoolers need to meet with a homeschool examiner every two years but it’s a pleasant formality. Past that, you can spend as many or as few hours a day homeschooling as you feel appropriate for your child.

Your son is fairly young to be able such introspective questions as why he keeps feeling his head and stomach hurt. But any teacher or parent might know that complaints of head and stomach pain are classic signs of stress in a child. Clearly the academics in his classroom might be getting hard for him although that’s a hard thing for a young child to fully realize or say outloud.

Sadly true is that most schools and teachers don’t know what to do for dysgraphia. Many scientists who study dysgraphia don’t think there is much to be done about it especially in young children. Certainly forcing him to write over and over again does more harm than good and if this were my son, I’d have that taken out of his IEP as soon as possible.

I told my own son that school has rules that aren’t fair to each and every child. That every child is unique and different but that school really doesn’t teach that way. I told him that his problems in schools weren’t his fault but really the school’s fault for not understanding the right way to teach him.

It didn’t solve things but it seemed to help.

Good luck to you and your son.

Sara-

You said, “Certainly forcing him to write over and over again does more harm than good and if this were my son, I’d have that taken out of his IEP as soon as possible.”

Are you saying writing remediation should be taken out of the IEP, or just the writing over and over? Do you believe there is help for this LD in young children?

And thanks for the response and the ideas of what to say to my son. I know it’s the stress, the falling futher and further behind… Its heartbreaking. :(

–Lisaa

Writing over and over again is bad! This does not qualify as remedial. It’s more like torture for a dysgraphic child.

Many OT’s (and many homeschoolers) use Handwriting Without Tears for both print and cursive. This is a system that emphasizes slow, accurate work and not more than 5 or 10 minutes of practice per session. The OT who developed this approach says that speed comes later. The most important thing at the beginning is to teach correct letter formation. This is exactly *not* what your school is doing. Sounds like your school is in the stone age of writing instruction!!!

Website for HWT is http://www.hwtears.com I used the cursive program with my daughter this year. Her printing was absolutely terrible (she learned printing in school), and I was determined that her cursive should at least be legible. HWT worked very well for us. Dd has weak hands (OT eval measured this as two years behind age level), so 5 minutes of cursive was plenty for her. We have a therapy putty for her to play with, to develop hand strength, and she has become gradually able to write for longer periods of time (10 minutes) without excessive hand fatigue.

Dd is mildly dysgraphic. She can write, but it is often messy and disorganized. (She was the type of child whose printing mixed big letters and small at all angles, running off page or onto next line, lots of smudging because she’s a leftie, lots of reversals, etc.) Cursive has gone *much* better than printing because of HWT. I have heard of children who are so dysgraphic they can’t write at all. Sounds as if your son does not fall into that category — more like my dd.

Mary

Mary,
You said, “This is a system that emphasizes slow, accurate work and not more than 5 or 10 minutes of practice per session.”

This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking would happen when the IEP was written.

HA! I am learning. I’m leaning slowly, but I am learning.

–Lisaa

Well. The way I see this situation,is:

1.you could approach the tutoring program,say look I have the two thousand dollars,now if you will draw up our contract,allow him to come weekly,and I’ll give this money.

2. I totally agree with Sara. Writing remediation is fine,but this is done with an occupational therapist. Otherwise the child should be given another way besides writing over and over again. My youngest goes to occupational therapy,and will be given a laptop for class( he currently has an alphasmart). Any other writing he does is writing that is not graded,at all. He does a five minute practice with an OT program daily,for homework. Any other homework he turns in from doing it on the PC at home.

3. If your evaluation showed he didn’t need Special education,then I would request an Independent evaluation at the districts expense. Something is not right about that.

4. And frankly to have the reccomendations they did make( informally,which means it won’t happen,because there is no documentation)is all related to needing OT. Keep pushing that eval,and do not worry about it,because you can request an Independent Eval for that also.

Socks,

My son did get into Special Ed after I fought for it a while. It was just initially after the testing they said no. I said, “Are you crazy?” (Well, I didn’t say it just like that, but I was thinkin’ it!). They said, “Well, maybe we can work something out…” and boom, he had an IEP.

The OT said she would do the eval if I put it in writing. I sent the letter last week, so I expect to be hearing from her soon as to when she will evaluate my son. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long.

Thanks so much for the responses and maybe I will email you!

–Lisaa

NO problem:-)

Lisaa,

You and your son sure aren’t alone. We didn’t go outside like you did, but when our son was your son’s age, we went through almost an identical type of situation.

By the 4th grade, it got real bad (not to depress you, but to let you know it simply doesn’t “go away” like some may tell at the school).

One thing for sure you should push for immediately is counseling for your son. The district should be able to easily write this into his IEP and you need to make sure it is documented that the counseling is directly related to school and academic issues. The frustration level your son is already at has exceeded what should be “normal” for anyone, let alone an 8 year old!

If you have your own health insurance, you may want to speak with his pediatrician and explain what is going on and request he/she assist in any manner possible; which could include a note to the school (further documentation) regarding your child’s emotional status at this time, frustrations expressed regarding school matters…

The dysgraphia doesn’t go away, at least it hasn’t for me or our son. Writing and letter formation is still terrible, except when I type (same for son). If your child had a club foot, making him run extra laps around the track probably wouldn’t help his track and field times either (you can tell them that too!).

Various things you should do. Start documenting everything. Keep phone calls and covnersations in the halls to a minimum. Write letters corresponding and confirming all conversations and request communication be with you in writing as well from their end.

NEVER go into an IEP meeting alone. See if you can find an advocate to intervene between you and the district. Always tape record the IEP meetings, and ONLY give 24 hour notice prior to the meeting that you will be tape recording it.

NEVER SIGN AN IEP IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH IT. You say that you think the IEP is making things worse, this needs to be resolved, and your input is important.

Follow your gut instinct. If you know it is too much homework, then enough is enough. Take timed breaks where you do something fun, that he enjoys every 20+/- minutes. Use the oven clock and have him focus for the time until the buzzer goes off, then go ride a bike, play ball, chase the puppy… and take a 10 minute break, until the buzzer goes off, then back to work for 20… Really work at encouraging and rewarding the good behaviors and efforts.

Your child is smarter than all of them. He is well aware that he is not functioning at the level of his peers, he is at the age where he looks at their products and is feeling poorly that his doesn’t “keep up” with what the other kids are doing. With your love, some good counseling and learning that he is good at things he will survive this difficult time.

I’m sorry about the $ you feel you “wasted”, God knows we did similar stuff with the best of intentions. Oh well, hindsight and spilled milk I guess.

Gotta run to work now, haven’t even had time to read the other posts… Hang in there and don’t beat yourself up; you are on the right track.

Take care,

Andy

I sympathize with what you and your child are going through. Our son (now 11) went through much the same. He has dysgraphia and dyslexia. In third grade, the disparity between a struggling child and his successful peers becomes more apparent because of the level of reading and writing they introduce. Our son became aware at this point that he was different from everyone else and he thought he was stupid. And the other kids were cruel (normal kid stuff, but tough for a sensitive child to take) and they were telling him he was stupid.

Look into all possible accommodations. The most helpful to us was scribing— he dictates to me and I write. Once our son was freed from the burden of the physical writing process, he could generate some pretty nice work. (A warning though - he got pretty dependent on this, and in 6th grade I am still working on weaning him away from this technique.) We have an electronic keyboard supplied by the school, but our son still can’t type very well, but maybe your child might pick up typing faster. Make sure you get “extended time” accommodations and “reduced work” because the amount of homework they give a normal child will take a dysgraphic child twice as long.

Best of luck. Look into the couseling mentioned by another poster—the self-esteem issues this causes can be more devasting than gap in skills.

You also might consider (though it sounds like you might be making progress in the school area) short-term homeschooling to bring the skills up. It would be a breather for the kid and he could jump back into the pond without those weights wrapped around him, & swim with the other fishies. It would give you time to figure out just what accommodations to insist on as far as the writing goes (I also recommend Handwriting Without TEars — designed by an OT and very good)… you’ll have a much better idea how he learns because you’ve worked with him, and more importantly *he’ll* have learned that he can learn, and how he does it. You can get lots of support and ideas as you go from places like this board (there’s also a yahoo group of moms that trade ideas for teaching language skills, give weekly reports and lots of encouragement — email me and I’ll give you the address for it).

You probably realize this already, but as hard as it is for you… a day is forever to an 8 year old.

My youngest daughter is in the 5th grade this year. She was identified LD at the end of her 2nd grade year. She couldn’t read, but as I discovered through the years, she has a languaged based LD along with sequencing problems. I would recommend that you teach your son to read using Reading Reflex. It worked great
for my daughter and she was reading on grade level within 6 months. I thought that was it - WRONG. Third grade was okay, but in fourth grade I could see she was falling behind, not really comprehending well and having a really bad time in school.
This year is completely different. I have had the principal of her school come up to me and comment on how well she is doing and she is doing well. Very Well. Her handwriting has improved ALOT! She is better at math and she is reading grade level again. Her comprehension is still her weak point, but that has even improved tremendously. So what have I been doing this year that made it different? I have been using Audiblox. It’s the only thing that we are doing differently this year and although it took a long time to see results, I am seeing them now and she is too. I can only get in 4 days a week because of all of the homework she has but it is working. They also have a wonderful program for children with receptive/expressive language problems like my daughter. She’s a completely different girl this year - especially 2nd semester. I will keep using Audiblox for at least another year. It’s not fun for either of us, but I’m the parent and I have decided this is working and this is what we are doing. I would definetly check out Audiblox, it’s Fantastic! Go to their website at www.audiblox2000.com

Tell your son that he is not alone. If you could work with him with Audiblox over the summer he might be better prepared for next year. I don’t know why the program improves handwriting, but they said it did and I have the proof of my daughter’s handwriting. She was reading something last night she wrote in 4th grade and she told me she could hardly read it.

Don’t give up. There is nothing wrong with your son but please don’t depend on the schools to help him. If you want him to succeed you will need to do it yourself. GOOD LUCK!!!

Pat,
How long have you been doing Audiblox for? We have been doing an hour a day, 4 times per week for 13 weeks now. I have been seeing good results which started at about the 3rd week. My 8yr old’s math is starting to come along and his reading and memory is picking up too.

We still have such a long way to go and the 3rd grade has been very hard on him this year. It is so heartbreaking to see kids this young go through so much stress. So far Audiblox is giving me some hope…
Wendy

We all need to vent. My 8 yr. old in 3rd grade ni class also gets frustrated when too much homework is given. He also tends to take 2 steps forward and 1 step back or get at a stand still at school at times.

Try doing some work let him pick what he wants to do first. Then give him a fun break I set my timer for 10 mins and then tell him next paper. Sometimes the break helps.

Ask why his head hurts etc. and let him know sometimes when people are having trouble their heads hurt. We went through a stomac ache thing for awhile and I listed all the reasons I ever heard of for getting stomac aches and asked my son to help figure out why.

Good luck. I am getting ready for a teacher conference next week and always cry when they are over due to frustration on my part.

A true dysgraphia, to my understanding, is not thought to remediate well. Some say to let it alone and allow the child to grow and develop. Some say to try occupational therapy. Some say to do thorough testing and find out exactly what is causing the dysgraphia. Many say to have the child practice keyboarding and so bypass the difficulty as a remediation.

No one says anymore to have the child practice their handwriting in the fashion you describe. More commonly it is thought now that we all have our unique handwriting and it is an expression of many underlying things. It isn’t thought that every one of us, adult or child, can produce neat cursive writing.

If it were my son, I’d have the school have their OT look at him and possibly work with him. I wouldn’t let any classroom teacher, including myself, try to remediate a true dysgraphia.

Wendy,

We started on Audiblox the last week of August 2000. I tried to do it 30 minutes a day 5 days a week, but my daughter has SO MUCH homework this year, I cut it back to 4 days a week for 30 minutes. She is also doing the language part of the program and she does that 5-6 days a week for 45 minutes a day. We just don’t have the time to do what they recommend and the staff at Audiblox have been very supportive of what we can do.

I recently took two weeks off because I had surgery, but I think we are now almost up to our 130th day of doing Audiblox. I believe it is really working and will continue using it for at least 6-8 months.

Good Luck!

What is the audioblox language program? What kinds of problems is it intended for? What changes have you seen?

I have been reading messages from several people who have been doing Audioblox, IM, PACE, etc. All of these programs sound like they could be beneficial for the right child. But I have a question. How do you get your child to buy into spending that much time on a remedial program like that?

Just getting my son through homework last year was torture for both of us, often taking 3 hours a night. (3rd grade) Now with a dx of NLD and on an appropriate IEP with a good teacher, we’ve got the homework to a manageable level, and he’s working pretty independently. Still, after the experience of last year, I’m very reluctant to add to his (or my!) stress level, by insisting on a serious block of time working with me on a remedial or therapeutic program on top of home work and long-term book report projects.

He’s already got a social skills group after school one afternoon a week, and although he’s not doing it this session, he usually has swimming another afternoon each week. Both of these are important for his NLD issues. He has cub scouts every other week, which is also a good opportunity for social skill building, and his teacher now wants him to stay late for math help one afternoon per week.

He has some serious issues with problem solving and inferential comprehension which I think might be improved with a program that strengthens cognative skills, which is what I’ve heard PACE is good for. But it’s a big expense. (and of course I don’t know just HOW expensive… they don’t tell you that up front on their web site, which makes me think it’s probably VERY expensive ;-) When I hear of the time commitment to complete these programs, I don’t see how we could do something like this on top of school and homework when I think of the stress my son and the whole family were under last year. I get knots in my stomach even thinking of the fights it would cause.

How do those of you who have done these programs do it? Do you just have more compliant kids than I have? Do you find that it doesn’t stress them out not to have some down time? I think that a MAJOR part of my son’s improved outlook on school this year is that we have tried to remove as much pressure as possible. I worry that a program like this, as attractive as the benefits sound, would just be piling more pressure on him.

Karen

Good questions.

We homeschooled the year we did vision therapy and PACE. I would *not* recommend trying to add PACE or FastForWord onto a regular school day and homework. Both of these programs require serious and large commitments of time and energy. Many families schedule one or the other program for summer vacation. Those who do one of these programs during a school year arrange in advance with the school for (1) time off during the day to do the therapy, and/or (2) no homework while the child is doing the therapy. For example, my neighbor arranged to bring her child 1-1/2 hours late to school for the three months they did PACE. Three of those mornings every week were spent with the PACE tutor, and the other two mornings were spent doing PACE homework at home.

I am totally against homework in the lower grades. Research has shown that anything more than very minimal homework prior to 5th grade is counter-productive. A child who is spending 40 hours a week in school should not be doing additional work at home — if he is having his learning needs met! Two hours a day of one-on-one work with my moderately LD daughter on academics is enough to keep her at grade level. That’s why we have continued to homeschool, although my daughter is back in school part-time for 4th grade (for the sense of community, and for some free daycare for me).

My daughter is one of the least compliant people I know. We could never have done all the therapies we have (vision therapy, PACE, Phono-Graphix, FastForWord, and looking forward to IM) on top of a full day at school, even without homework. This year dd is in school part-time, but I still homeschool the important academic subjects because she learns much faster one-on-one with materials chosen specifically for her needs. This frees up a lot of time for therapy — not to mention her weekly art class, piano lessons, and regular playdates with friends. It also keeps her stress levels low, and our family on an even keel.

Mary

Beth,

In order to get more information about the language component of Audiblox I would go to audiblox2000.com and there’s a place there where you can submit questions and the staff are great with their support and answers. They have just published a book called (I think) The Right to Read. It’s not published in the US so you need to order it from Audiblox. This book will really answer all of your questions and it has all of the exercises in the book. I think the book is about 25 U.S. Dollars.

As for what the language component does (and it’s so easy!) is really amazing. It took awhile for me to really see results with my daughter because we do not have the time that is recommended. However, she is more outgoing at school, she participates in conversations more, she is more aware of language and how to use it when she is writing. I am really pleased to see her talk more at family get togethers. Before she was always afraid she would say the wrong thing or she didn’t know what to say. She still has a long way to go, but everyone has noticed the difference. We started at the end of August and everything started clicking in January. Audiblox isn’t fast, but you can work it into your schedule and it does work.

Karen,

It’s not fun, but we have to do it. I looked into PACE and it sounds good and I’m sure it works, but the expense was one thing and yes it is expensive. The main reason I didn’t like PACE was that they want you to work one hour a day six days a week with your child for 4 months. That would be torture for both me and my daughter. Audiblox is working fine. We don’t have time for it a lot during the school year, but during breaks we go as much as we can (and no she doesn’t like it, but I can see it working so we’ll keep it up). We have been working on it since August 2000. We started out 5 days a week for 30 minutes but that got to be too much with all of her homework, so we just did it 4 days a week for 30-40 minutes. This summer we will do it 5 days a week and next week when she’s in 6th grade, we’ll probably do it only 3 days a week. She works hard enough in school as it is. I hate to keep pushing her, but she has been getting her homework done A LOT faster than she was at the beginning of the school year and she has been getting really good grades on her tests. (No she’s not an A student but after 4th grade we’re really pleased with how well she’s doing)

If you have any other questions go to their website audiblox2000.com

Just a quick question. Why is it do you suppose, that our kids seem to have their meltdowns at around age 8? I notice a trend and my own boys seem to have been the most sensitive about school around this age.
My oldest used to cry over the homework and tell me he was just so dumb and stupid, he even said he should just kill himself(I panicked, we went to counseling, he’s fine).He only said it once, but I never want him to say anything like that ever again.
He’s now in 6th just got report cards 3As 2Bs and 2Cs. He has been fine since 4th and finally got help. But even my other son who is fine academically had a hard time in 3rd and would cry over school occasionally.
Do you suppose it could be that schools expect too much from 8 yr olds these days? Looks like my question wasn’t so quick after all.Thanks for your listening.

I think the trend is more about the system these kids are in,then the kid themselves. True both of mine had the “meltdown” around this age,it’s seems to me this is the general age when the school can no longer call it “immaturity” “developmentally delayed”this is when the subjects become harder,more is expected of them and they have spent the last 4 long years of their life being prodded to keep up with their classmates,and perform like they do. The message at school? If you can’t learn off the chalkboard? Ultimately something is wrong with you,not us.

8 years old corresponds to third grade. According to books by Dr. Larry Silver (“The Misunderstood Child” for one), the third grade curriculum moves to a new level of reading and writing skills and children with LDs often start to have trouble keeping up with peers at that stage.

Greetings Karen,

Like Mary MN, we began homeschooling so we could incorporate the therapies into the school day. We are using PACE and Master the Code as our reading/spelling/vocabulary program. Even before HSing, we took our daughter out of school 2hrs each day in order to do FFW. She missed the non-core subjects like PE and music but was not required to make them up. PACE and a regular school day CAN be done but not as easily. My friend who also posts here is doing this with her 11yo son. She works with him 5hrs each week (protocol is 6hrs). These hours can be broken up over the course of the week. Maybe do 1hr or 1.5hrs each weekend day and split the remaining time up throughout the week. Some children work even less hrs per week - it’ll just take longer. One of the best things for my friend’s son is that he can readily see the improvements he is making with his school/homework as a direct result of PACE and MTC. That helps motivate him along with special games/treats his mom rewards him upon completion of each day’s therapy. PACE costs somewhere around $2k if you become a parent provider (though I can’t remember if that included the training for MTC or not).

With summer break rapidly approaching (assuming you’re not in year round school), you could begin a program like PACE or Audiblox without the homework problem. When we first began PACE, we actually worked 10hrs per wk (2hrs broken up through the day - no weekends). As a parent provider you can set your own schedule. We are now doing 5hrs each week which fits our schedule better.

Blessings, momo

I really agree that schools want all kids to fit into a neat little package that answers questions in only one way and will not accept anything different.

A perfect example was a couple years ago when my son was six and they were doing the deal with the picture and kids say the name. He called the picture a bunny and it was wrong because it had to be a rabbit.

The school also freaked because he couldn’t identify an iron. This was no his fault I never iron and he didn’t know what the weird looking thing was.

He is in a special ed class and even there they insist that kids things only be identified in one way. I can understand not having options in math but some other things should have room for differences.

I too have found 8 almost 9 to be a pretty trying time with homework and general growing pains.

Karen,

We have done therapies all ways—bringing our son to school late (Fast Forward last summer but beginning in May), while in school full time with homework (last fall), and now he is being partially homeschooled. What you are doing is torture—we did it last fall with the hours of homework. We were all burning out and the stress was incredible. And he wasn’t making that much progress!!!

I would suggest you start by doing something about his homework. My son was spending two hours on homework last fall and it was too much. I tried talking to the sp. ed teacher and regular teacher but it was only somewhat successful. What worked was bringing it up at his IEP meeting. There everyone basically told the sp. ed teacher she had to do it different because that amount of homework wasn’t appropriate. She was mad at us—but she already was so it was no great loss. She hasn’t given him homework since. Now that wasn’t my intent but it has worked out well. His regular teacher then backed down on her assignments too and so we have had a spring with no homework.

It is wonderful. We also partially pulled our son out of school because we could reach no agreement on a reading program (Our other alternative was to go to due process.) He goes at 10 every day and I do other therapies as well (neuronet) as well as reading with him. My husband, who went to the phonographix intensive last fall with him, has continued to work with him in the evenings.

I just went for the parent training for PACE and we plan to start once we resolve his timing issues. I would not recommend doing PACE in addition to school and homework. You could start it in May or early June and negotiate with the school to bring him in late. You could finish the program before school started in fall that way. This is what I intend to do. Of course, you could do any other program (other than PACE)that way too.

BTW, my son is not cooperative either. He knows he is learning from me and he wasn’t at school which helps. He whines about how hard I make him work. We bribed him when he did Fast Forward but also made it clear there was no choice. I’m really pushing him right now and he isn’t happy about it. I have told him his alternative is summer school if he doesn’t cooperate—he does not want that. I also learned some behavioral management tricks from PACE which has helped. So I wouldn’t say it is easy but possible, especially when there are no good alternatives.

Beth

Thanks. I did e-mail them. I could find no mention of it on their website. My child has CAPD and I thought maybe it would help.

Greetings Marion,

Your bunny/rabbit example reminded me of the time my non-LD son missed a phonics question in first grade. The target word was *been* and he had to choose if it was pronounced *bin* or *ben*. I was taught to pronounce it *ben* so after discussing this, that’s the answer he selected…which came back marked wrong! I double-checked my comprehensive dictionary and it indicated that either pronounciation was correct. When I apprised the teacher of this she indicated that her (smaller) dictionary only listed *bin* as the correct pronounciation so my son’s answer was still wrong! That taught us that it didn’t matter if an answer was correct or not, it only mattered what the teacher thought!! It’s examples like this that makes it hard to respect the traditional educational system.

Blessings, momo

Wow. This has been a great discussion for me too. I just started homeschooling my eight year old third grader because he was so stressed out at school that he started to have anxiety attacks about the wind, earthquakes, volanoes, the sun exploding, …you get the picture… plus the usual tummy aches, headaches, ..(.He had been getting LA help but then he was removed because he was ‘improving’. The thing was that he was improving- but not relative to what he is capable of doing and he was frustrated as all get out.) We took him to a psych and that did nothing for him. Now we are home- schooling and he is a different kid. Some of his self-confidence is already starting to return and he is really excited about choosing his own topics to study. (So excited, in fact, that when he was naughty today and I told him a privelege was going to be taken away he said,”Please don’t make me stop studying Roman history!” -I just about fell over!) I don’t have any magic solution, but I think for us homeschooling is the only option. I just wanted to add to your feeling that you are not alone, you have done nothing wrong, and I’m sure you’ll find a solution.

Just thought I’d comment that this is probably the longest thread I’ve seen on this bb for quite some time! :)

Andy

I’ll add my two bits about how to fit these therapies into the day. My 11 year old son and I are doing PACE and MTC. We started in mid-December. It was great to start when we had a two week vacation in which to adjust. Since then, we’ve been doing the program every morning before school and for one hour after church on Sunday. (We’re blessed with a 9:10 school start time.)The schedule has worked really well and even though my son thought he liked to snooze in the mornings, he’s found he likes morning as a work time. He has very little homework this year, but he plans to use the morning hour as homework or trumpet practice time next year. Also, I’m providing the program for another student at his school, and the teacher has released the student for 1 hour per day so we can do PACE. We’ve done lots of therapies, and there has been far less resistance about PACE than anything we’ve done. I think that’s because the program is kind of fun and because the benefits and gains are evident every day.

I certainly agree with everyone who has said that homework is WAY overdone in elementary school. There is so much time for that later on. My son has a really good and experienced teacher who says, “I plan every minute of the 6 1/2 hours I’m with your child. It’s up to you to decide how he should spend the other hours of the day.” Right on!

That’s kind of what I was afraid of. Unfortunately, My son is NLD, and the Neuropsychologist feels that it is in his best interest to keep him in a school situation if at all possible because of the social aspects.

He’s doing quite well on his current IEP, but I see cognative problems that worry me in terms of how he’ll do as time goes on. But at the same time, I know that in general, stress is one of the biggest enemies of NLD kids, and my son has already proven that he learns much better and produces more and better work if we can back off and reduce the stress level.

Karen

I went to the Audioblox web site, and it starts by talking about dyslexia. My son is NLD, and for the most part, from what I’ve read dyslexic problems are almost the antithesis of NLD problems. My son actually read several years above grade level and tests in the 98 percentile in spelling in standardized testing.

It is cognative skills, like problem solving and using what he knows in new situations that are his downfall. (plus trouble with visual/spatial tasks)

Also, the web site points to needing an hour 3 times per week or half an hour 5 times a week to succeed with the program. Since NLD kids often do markedly worse under pressure (mine sure does) I can’t see how it could possibly be a benefit to force a program like this down his throat.

I liked the idea that someone else posted about getting the school to reduce the school day to allow the time for a program like that. I wonder how easy it is to get the school to buy into a plan like that.

Karen

Oh believe me, we resolved the homework thing at the very beginning of school this year. Fortunately, the teacher the year has been fabulous, and very willing to work with us and learn about NLD along with us. We agreed that homework would not take more than 30-40 minutes per night, and she wanted it done independently. If he’s doing OK with it, and he wants to continue, we’ll let him go to 40 minutes, then it gets packed away. If he’s struggling, he knows that at the 30 minute mark, he doesn’t need to work on it any more. I write a note explaining what he had difficulty with, and send it back to school. Either the teacher or his SPED teacher will then go over it with him.

Once he learned that he wouldn’t be over-faced, he’s had a really good attitude about homework this year. That’s one reason that I’m afraid to put added pressure on him again. In terms of the threat of that or summer school is concerned, he actually is holding his own grade-wise so there’s no problem with that right now.

It’s just that I see these cognative gaps that he has, and they worry me in terms of the higher demands of middle school, which is not that far away at this point. I’ve heard from all too many parents of NLD kids that things only get worse. I’d like to do as much as I can to head trouble off at the pass, rather than trying to play catch-up.

Karen

PACE works a lot on higher order thinking and reasoning skills. That would probably be the most helpful.

Some of the Audiblox exercises are good for developing pattern recognition and reasoning skills. You can discard exercises that aren’t needed (in your case, the word recognition exercises). For example, the exercises involving sequences of colored cubes (similar to mathematical sequences) work on reasoning. The child has to figure out which blocks to add to finish the sequence.

Two low-stress games that can be helpful are SET and Rush Hour. SET does a lot to develop higher order thinking skills and pattern recognition. Rush Hour helps visual-spatial reasoning. With SET, it’s a good idea to start out with just one color to simplify the game at first.

Mary

Thanks!

Karen

Mary, I’m sorry but I am going to have to disagree with you. I do agree that PACE is a good program, but I believe Audiblox is a lot better in addressing the needs of the child. Yes it takes longer, but our children did not become LD overnight. And please don’t advise someone to just do the exercises in Audiblox that they think they need. I thought that would be true too, but you need to understand the basic underlying premise of Audiblox ….everything we know (except for our automatic reflexes i.e. breathing, etc.) we have been taught. Therefore we can teach these children what the schools aren’t teaching because the schools are stuck in programs that are not working or blaming the child.

Haven’t you mentioned in previous posts the your daughter has done one session with PACE but you plan on doing another? If PACE is so great, why do you need to do another session? PACE tends to promise parents and educators a quick fix for their children and in some cases it works, but let’s face it, our children are usually lacking in several areas and a quick fix (as much as I would like one) just isn’t going to work.

I have always enjoyed reading your posts Mary and I have always agreed with them and I have been impressed with your knowledge and how much research you have done for your daughter. I hope she appreciates it some day!! However, I have to disagree with you here. PACE is good for some children, but Audiblox does the same thing albeit at a slower pace and it’s a lot more affordable. I know my daughter would have hated PACE and probably would not have gotten very much out of it. As it is, I have a hard time getting her to do Audiblox and that’s pretty user friendly.

So let’s agree to disagree. You like PACE and I like Audiblox and we both want the best for our children.

We all become passionate about what works for our children. The problem is that what works for one child doesn’t necessarily work for another child — because children bring different problems to the same therapy.

I would be more interested in this discussion if you were personally familiar with PACE. It’s clear from your post you know a lot about Audiblox, but that you have never seen PACE firsthand.

Just because a child has a problem for a long time does not mean that a program that takes longer to remediate it has got to be better. I do not understand your logic on this point!

Both Audiblox and PACE are cognitive training programs. This means that new skill levels can be reached when the underlying developmental foundation for them (i.e., physical and neurological maturation) are broadened. Anyone can experience a great deal of improvement from a 3-month or 6-month intensive course in aerobic conditioning, or piano playing. That doesn’t mean there is no benefit from repeating the program a year later! Audiblox and PACE train cognitive ***skills***. Skills can always be refined and honed.

My opinions are my own, and I do not expect everyone to agree with them. My suggestions for the other poster were, I thought, tailored to her child’s particular needs. I do not believe that every child needs every single exercise in Audiblox in order to benefit.

Mary

The initial gains with Audiblox might be slower, but what matters is the end-result. Audiblox not only improved my son’s weak areas - reading, spelling, handwriting, math. He is no longer having learning difficulties and is performing at a level that everybody said would be impossible!! Yes, it was hard work to get this far; Audiblox is not a magic wand. He often reached a plateau and then I thought he’d reached the ceiling. But then he’d suddenly take another leap forward… and another…

I also think it’s a bad idea to do only some of the exercises and discard the others. If you want results, strictly follow the instructions. It’s like taking medicine. If you take only half of your prescription you cannot blame your doctor if you don’t get better.

How would a child with NLD, whose reading and verbal skills are very highly developed, benefit from speed-reading sight word cards?

Mary

Hi Mary,

Speed reading sight words is only part of the program of Audiblox. My daughter who knows all of the words has a hard time getting through all of the words we do each day correctly. Why?
Concentration and focusing - two important criteria for a good reader. If you aren’t concentrating and focusing on what you are reading how can you comprehend well?

Also, if you contact the people at Audiblox and describe your daughter and her strengths and weaknesses, they devise a program to suit your own daughter’s needs. Zelda replied to my previous post, and I’m sure we are not doing the same program at the same time. It all depends on your child’s strengths and weaknesses. What really sold me on Audiblox was their language component. My daughter has expressive/receptive language issues, comprehension issues-everything. If I dropped all of the exercises I’m doing with her now (which I won’t) and just focused on the language issue, that alone would solve A LOT of her problems. You can’t believe how far she has come in about 8 months. It was slow, but we can both see results now. Does she like to do the exercises - no! Especially after a hard day at school - but I know it’s the only thing that has helped her get up to grade level this year and stay there. You really need to order their book The Right to Read or contact someone at Audiblox with your questions. Feel free to email me directly if you have any questions. I think our daughter’s are the same age.

Even though some days it’s a fight to get her to work on Audiblox with me, my daughter often thanks me for not giving up on her and helping her get better in school. So hopefully we can all look back on these last few years and laugh??? I doubt it, but we both are learning.

Many of you have seen my posts regarding my 8 yr old grade 3 boy. We were at the end of our rope last December. He used to cry each morning, refusing to get out of bed for school. Sore tummy, sore throat. The school nurse would call me at least every 4 weeks to say he was in the sick room and to come and pick him up. Once he was in the car he was perfectly fine. He would cry if I asked him why he pretended he was sick. He would say he’s not pretending, he is really sick - at school. He is behind in everything at school - math, spelling, reading, comprehension, writing, the list goes on - the psychologist who tested him said he was borderline MR. At home he was a wonderful boy, fast learner with everything EXCEPT academics. I knew he was not a slow learner, yet I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t learn his academics. He is a gifted athlete as well.

Well, 14 weeks into Audiblox and he has gone from working on a modified weekly spelling list of 10 words to getting 15/15 on the class list AND doing the *extra* words on the list. He is now doing timed multiplication facts and keeping up to the class, often moving on to the next level sheet before many others in the class. His handwriting is improving. He tells me about his school day now - he never could remember what happened during his day before. (Absolutely tuned out - missing everything that was going on because he just didn’t understand). His reading speed is picking up too. He happily gets out of bed for school now. He likes his teacher now. I haven’t had to pick him up *sick* from school since we started the blocks.

He sometimes complains about having to do Audiblox, but after we’re finished the session he often gives me a big hug and thanks me for doing them with him. He feels such success with the *blocks* that he usually enjoys doing them now. He says maybe he’s not dumb after all. He always use to tell me he was the stupidest kid in his class before. It was so heart breaking to see my child in such pain.

We have a long way to go with the blocks, but I have put him through FFW, and a year and a half of specialized (very expensive) tutoring, but the success he is having with Audiblox is amazing. I truly believe this program is going to get him to grade level within a year (still tutoring him to make up for the information he has missed). Even his tutor has asked me what the difference is about him, as he is learning so much faster and easier than before. I haven’t told her about Audiblox, I wanted to see what, if any, differences she noticed in him. She asks if he got more sleep the night before ;)

Every child is different and what works for each child is different too, but Audiblox is a very inexpensive alternative and the support from the staff is incredible. My son was labeled *severe ld* - the bottom 1% of kids with ld. The new school we moved to this year considered him borderline MR, (because that is as high as he could test given the severity of his ld’s), so the teacher had him colouring in the corner during his school day while the others worked on their academics. (no wonder he would cry and say he was sick). Now, with Audiblox I see a light at the end of the tunnel and I have my smiling happy boy back and he doesn’t think he’s stupid anymore!
Wendy

Karen,

If I was in your shoes, I’d do either PACE or Brain skills (This is PACE’s homeprogram—I have a post a few pages down about the differences) as a parent during the summer. I wouldn’t even try to do anything during the school year, given what you say about your son and stress. If your son can’t handle the six day a week one hour a day schedule—modify it. It will take longer and you may not see the big gains this summer but you can pick it up next summer.

PACE was developed originally by a developmental optometrist and the auditory portion was added in only the last couple years. It is very strongly oriented towards the sorts of problems NVLD kids have. There are very consistent results in increasing performance IQ quite dramatically in kids who are at least two years behind.

Beth

Wendy, I thought we were doing well but I am humbled by your story. Please keep us informed about your son’s progress. The reason why Audiblox works for your child - as it works for Pat’s child and worked for mine - is because it is based on universal learning principles. It is not based on individualities. Compare it to people that eat. When people eat they all have their individual ways - some eat with a knife and fork, some eat with chopsticks, and some eat with their hands. Some cut their food into small chunks and some put large chunks into their mouths, et cetera. However, there is at least one universal act in the eating process - we all have to swallow our food. In the same way, there are individualities in the learning process, which can be compared to the instruments one uses to eat. Audiblox, however, teaches universal learning principles, which is as important as the act of swallowing one’s food.

Mary, I think we are perhaps not comparing apples with apples. Pat’s program and our program were customized as part of the package. We, for example, were given about five extra Math exercises. Some were on cards - similar to the word cards - that were mailed to us. I see that one can now order the program without the customized option. Perhaps that is what you were referring too. But then, perhaps we do not have the knowledge to say what exercises should be omitted and what not for a specific problem. For example, the reading exercise, if done correctly, not only teaches reading, but is also a high impact concentration exercise and widens the eye-span (a non-verbal skill).