My 5 yr old son has been in speech therapy and OT since he was 2 yrs old. Last year a SLP at our Childrens Hospital told me that she strongly suspects he has CAPD due to his problems with word retrieval, following directions, memorizing songs and rhymes and his ‘zoning out’ at times during instructions.We have not had him formally tested at the hospital due because he had to be 5 and he just turned 5. The school did some tests that showed his IQ is normal, his speech is much improved but he has trouble in a few areas involving auditory memory skills.We have decided to go ahead and start him in Kindergarten in the Fall. He has recently come off an IEP he had in preschool due to improving his speech skills. Now we need to design a 504 plan this wk for next year’s K teacher to follow. What things should I include in it that the next teacher could do to help him? Thanks for any advice you can give me! Nancy mom to Nick
Re: Designing 504 Plan for my son with CAPD
In addition to the great suggestions from Socks, all of which are included to some extent in my son’s 504, things that have helped my son are: (1) teachers who make an effort to make eye contact with him whenever they are delivering a key point, and (2) a lack of facial hair. For a younger child facial hair may not be a problem but, since my son is so much stronger receiving visual cues than auditory ones, he gets a great deal of information from lip reading. Beards and moustaches make it more difficult for my child to understand what is being said to his class in middle school.
Re: Designing 504 Plan for my son with CAPD
So Karen, you are saying you may dictate a teacher’s physical appearance?
Re: Designing 504 Plan for my son with CAPD
What Karyn is more then likely saying to not place her child in the classroom of someone with facial har. My son reacts to scented products. In his IEP it states that he can not be classrooms with teachers that use perfume and aftershave. It is better to be proactive.\
Helen
Re: Designing 504 Plan for my son with CAPD
Of course I can’t dictate a teacher’s appearance. However, the no facial hair recommendation came from my district’s audiologist, and the school does try to follow those recommendations pretty closely. I think that if I had tried to suggest it on my own they would have treated me like a nut!
Re: Designing 504 Plan for my son with CAPD
Speaking of being pro-active :-)… go ahead and purchase “Reading Reflex” by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness (about $12 at Amazon) to use with your son at home. It is very possible that the school phonics program will not be enough for him to master advanced decoding skills. May as well be teaching him along the way so that he isn’t struggling in late first grade.
Janis
Preferential seating. If he has trouble in the sense that background noise causes him to “zone” ou seating close to the teacher and away from any noises such as air vents( my son could hear the clock ticking!) would be very benefitial. Word retrevial can be problem. Having the class assignments a day in advance really helped my son,because he was familiar with what would be asked and he could contribute because he had more time to come up with the answers. Lots of visual cues are helpful also,like having visual aids when classroom instruction is auditorily presented. Just a few off the top of my head.