Just Discouraged

I just took a class on Auditory Processing Disorders and how to treat them with therapy sessions.  I have the book she wrote – it is all sessions she does with her clients – and they are totally doable at home.  Her book didn’t include all the cool info about APD so I posted about it on my blog.

http://mysouldothdelight.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/auditory-processing-disorder-another-tender-mercy-moment/

Here is her book:

http://www.amazon.com/Train-Brain-Hear-Techniques-Processing/dp/1612330320

She is also on facebook at TreatingAPD (I don’t do facebook, so can’t link you directly.)

I am really excited about the possibilities of what I can continue to help my daughter do and accomplish.  One thing that Mrs. Holland said was that the reading is extremely difficult for these kids, and I agree.  I have my dd use a postcard to underline the sentence she is on while reading both silently and verbally.  Also, reading aloud seems to keep her focused on her individual readings better.  She also can listen to audiobooks while following along (especially using noise-blocking headphones).  That helps a lot.  

I also discovered that if she is allowed to draw her narrations and then tell me about it, her narrations are amazingly more detailed.  I think that giving her the time to draw gives her time to process, organize and then tell back coherently.  

I read all the assignments aloud with her.  She actually gets them and learns them better that way, and we are not bogged down trying to read a passage that is too much.  She does practice her reading comprehension in her personal readings with me.  She is still required to do all other parts of participation: drawn, oral, written narration, etc. but we go at her pace.  

Repetition, repetition, repetition!  That is re-training the brain to make the proper connections – you know, like the rails in the habit training.  Same idea.

Just my thoughts.  You can PM me if you have any more questions.

I think the hardest part is when you don’t have anyone to talk to for support and mostly enouragement. If I turn to my DH, he ALWAYS says “Just put them back in school.” He is not a bad person or trying to be a discouragement, but he doesn’t feel a calliing to homeschooling. Thankfully, though, he believes I have and he does support it by allowing it, which is actually huge considering how far apart we were even a few years ago on the subject. I have said it before but for people on here and I know there are many whose husbands are fully sold out to homeschooling, count it extra blessing b/c mine is not and I know others on here are in the same situation.

Then with my family and DH’s family, all of whom are supportive overall of our family and love our children and all are believers so we have a lot of common ground, but none of them homeschool and neither of our parents homeschooled us. So I can’t really talk to any of them either.

I think the loneliness I feel at times when the hard days come, and they seem to come more often than not lately, is that I really don’t have any type of human support here. It is just me and the Lord, and He is enough. I just have to keep trusting that and clinging to Him.

What is that saying? God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called. Yes, He does, sometimes moment by moment.

@ Suzukimom – I was going to mention that our dd was tested by an audiologist at our state’s School for the Deaf.  It was free and they sent back test results and some recommendations.  We were not refered by the pediatrition either. I just called told them that I had been reading on the subject and thought my daughter had APD.  They scheduled me right in, although we waited for several weeks to actually go.  Perhaps you could look around your province and see if there could be any resources like that?