Any advice on my son's writing delays would be great

Michelle,

My first instinct is to say that you might explore two things…You’vealready mentioned that you “have realized however, that his problems go deeper than speech and are more about his ability to process what he hears.” I would look into language processing issues as well as occular motor issues. If you need to ‘chat’ more, feel free to pm me.

Melissa

Hi, Michelle:

My son, age 9, (who is still in public school – praying, praying, praying for homeschooling) was diagnosed last week with an Auditory Processing Disorder.  There are three primary subtypes (Auditory Decoding Deficit, Prosodic Deficit, and Intergration Deficit) and two secondary subtypes (Associative Deficit and Output Organization Deficit)  and each requires a different “focus” to treat, though there are some similarities in each.  Auditory Decoding Deficit, according to my son’s audiologist, is the most common type of APD

For my son, he has integration problems, meaning both hemispheres don’t communicate so well. If there are competing sounds (which could be a door closing down the hall or a student erasing something, the hum of the AC, etc.), my son’s brain gives equal weight to each sound – meaning his teacher lecturing is given the same weight as the AC Unit!  This causes gaps in learning in classes with a lot of auditorily presented material.  This also causes my son to “tune out” if there are too many sounds competing, because it is almost painful for him to try to attend to what he knows he should.  My son also is borderline on some aspects of Auditory Decoding, which means he has difficulty picking up on word blend sounds, for example, my brother’s name is Brad, my son does not hear the “r”, or if given the word brake, my son hears bake, flake he would hear fake, etc.   This is from a poor left hemisphere performance.

The book I am working through right now is “When the Brain Can’t Hear” by Teri James Bellis.  While most of this is diagnostic in nature, there is some insight in how to help.  Most therapy is administered by a Speech-Language Pathologist so if you already had someone working with your son on speech delay – that would probably expedite the process.

There are A LOT of strategies in helping at home but again it depends on the “deficit” area.  We are working on getting Earobics (http://www.cogcon.com).  This, purportedly, helps all children, disordered or not in auditory skills.  From “When the Brain Can’t Hear”,  “…This computer-based program tains many different auditory and related skills, including speech-sound processing, auditory memory and sequencin, rhythm and related temporal patterns, following directions of increasing linguistic complexity, sound-letter associations, and phonological awareness.”  It is available in three levels and to my understanding, was used in Chicago public schools on non-disordered children in a case study, those children who used the program (in early grades) had significant increases in reading and spelling abilities.   This is the only program I know of that can be used at home.  According to my son’s audiologist, it is better to have any type of therapy completed in an office environment so that the therapist can control the mHz being administered.  However, therapy for us is cost prohibitive, so it has been suggested that we follow a strict schedule in administering the Earobics program, 45 minutes per day, five days per week, for six weeks, and then have my son re-tested before continuing.

I have a educational support meeting to discuss treatment on Thursday.  I can post anything I glean from this.  I am not fond of labels, but I think knowing exactly what I need to treat is important.  IMO, getting the diagnosis, even without telling the child, is very important.  I have to make sure that I am supporting my son in the right ways (which some times takes a lot of trial and error), and not expecting things from him that he is not yet capable of.  My son has been formally diagnosed with ADHD – Inattentive with co-morbid Auditory Processing Disorder.  It appears, that like ADHD, APD is diagnosed in boys MUCH more than in girls.

I would do an internet search of the different subtypes to see if you notice similarities in the problems your son is experiencing.  I know that diagnosis is expensive, with or without insurance, and therapy even more so.  We are trying to treat at home as much as possible.  As with all other areas of learning problems, there is so much overlap in each “disability” that it is difficult to tell what is wrong without testing. 

I hope this helps some.  I am still learning so I will be interested to see other responses.  If you have any questions about my son’s specific areas of weakness, let me know.  For me having concrete examples is so much better than a list of “possible symptoms”.  =)  Also, sorry for the length. 

Stephanie

I haven’t used it at all – but maybe Spelling Wisdom, from here, would help?

Hi, Michelle. A question comes to mind: Is there a need to make sure he is “grade level” in his writing/spelling skills right now? Here’s my thinking. If his speech was delayed but has progressed so nicely, just later than expected, can we reasonably hope that his writing/spelling will do the same? If so, you could continue with oral narrations to keep the mental composition skills developing. You could write or type his narration as he speaks it, then having him re-copy it for his copywork. 

As suzukimom mentioned, you could also add prepared dictation at this point. Are you familiar with that method? You would want to use short selections, of course; maybe one or two sentences to start with. There is a video explanation of prepared dictation on the Spelling Wisdom page. Keep in mind that you can use any of his living books to find the selections for this method; you don’t have to use the Spelling Wisdom collection. That’s just one option.

Does he know how to type?  He could learn to type and then type his material into a word processor which would alert him to spelling errors, which could then be corrected.  This would not teach him to spell, but it would allow him to progress in composition while you were working on the spelling.  (OK I am going to say something controversial now – don’t everybody bite my head off! – It may become evident that he can use this tool to correct his spelling deficit and you and he won’t need to worry about it so much.)

If he has issues that will cause him lifelong spelling challenges, it seems like providing him with a tool to communicate in a way he can be proud of is a good thing.

Dance Mat Typing is free online, and is what my 10 yo used to teach herself to type this year.

Good luck – I have a terrible speller too, and just these past few months – at age 10 lol – has she begun to recognize that she is misspelling in her own writing and have the desire to correct it.  

Michelle,

When I wirte her narrations, I am not always correcting grammar on paper.  It depends on how big of a mistake it is – if it is really obvious I will repeat it back and ask her if that sounds right.  She usually hears it on re-hearing it.  My main focus is for her to see her ideas on paper with the correct spelling, puncuation and capitols.   We will add the stress of grammar later. =)  However, I usually try to make it be “correct” – all the verbs and tenses match etc,

I can tell you that she liked the Earobics, but there are 2 different level discs.  I have the Step 1 ages 4-7.  We are not actually using it now, but if you were to get one I’d get the Level 2 which is geared more to his age.   The one I have is probably too simple.  It has several leveled games of hearing and matching sounds and blends.  It allowed her to track her progress through the levels and she liked that; her favorite game was collecting the eggs from the hens.  =)  Really, though, it wasn’t as much help as I thought beacause she had already made her coping skills in real life (we struggled thru 3 yrs PS).  Now, I remind her of the issues when she is “feeling” them and try to help her find new coping strategies.  I have to say that she is thriving with the CM methods.  I’d swear that they were designed with her in mind.

She struggles to keep her place from paper to chalkboard, remembering lengthy instructions, etc so we deal with those as well.   Typing games can frustrate her because of the difficulty in locating her place from board to paper (the games go to fast), so we are going gently with that.  =)  wonder if we sould do some form of copywork for the computer keyboard, so she can practise before we really go into the typing?   Hmmmmmm…  It is an important skill – just think of all the time I could save if I were able to type correctly =)  LOL

Sheila