svengandhi
Well-Known Member
Babyboy's triennial was held today. H attended and I took part from the hospital where I was waiting to have my surgery. BB just turned 13 and is in grade 7 in regular classes, been classified since pre-k.
H is dyslexic as is pc15.
BB's issues started with speech. He sounded fine to us compared to difficult child, who had 4 sets of tubes by age 4. We didn't think bb had a problem so it wasn't until he was 4 and a half and in prek that he began with speech therapy because nobody else could understand him, he was the only of our kids who did not start day care before age one since h decided to keep him at his office as we knew he was our last. The guilt was awful.
His reading was slow but we attributed it to the speech. By grade 3, he was acting out, refusing to read and write. In 4th grade, we finally realized that he had vision issues. Although he'd been wearing glasses since k, it wasn't until we took him to a vision therapist that we found out that he actually needed bifocals and that his glasses, prescribed by a highly recommended pediatric optho in our county, merely averaged his extreme nearsightedness and his extreme farsightedness to give him glasses that he totally could not see through. Bifocals and a course of VT greatly improved his reading and another layer of guilt entered my life.
This year, he failed english the first quarter because he refused to dictate to his scribe. We took away the scribe and substituted class notes and permission to have me type his work at home. We also took him out of resource room daily. His english teacher on his own changed bb's grade to a B plus when he realized that bb's refusal was linked to his desire to do things on his own. BB is spelling exempt and has access to word processor but he doesn't use it because his keyboard skills are very weak and budget cuts took out computer classes. We don't have a computer for him at home yet. Mine is supplied by work and I can't let a child type on it, H's is a work computer as well. I have supplied computers for daughter in college, difficult child who is finally doing his own typing and pc15, who as noted is severely dyslexic. I can't afford one for bb yet.
We had his triennial today and the results were quite interesting. BB is running c's in math. on the other hand, he is doing B plus and better in his other classes, including Latin and English. His academic skills were scattered and found to be in the average range overall. His highest scores were 95%ile up in verbal skills subtests and went down to 6%ile in spelling and 18 in processing speed. His overall IQ of 107 is considered to be a very low and therefore inaccurate estimate of his true intelligence. His psychiatric evaluation reflected increasing maturity, he does not meltdown anymore and is even better at enforcing his personal space with adults. Earlier in the year, he told his teachers not to touch his papers or him and yelled at kids who tried to call him a nickname, e.g. his name is Robert and he freaked at being called Rob. Robert isn't his real name but you get the point. They were not insulting him or calling him bad names. The school psychiatric works with him on a regular basis and has worked with him on these issues. His teachers now know to ask him if they can turn the pages on his hw, etc. and if they forget, he says please ask me and i'll show you and he has improved and even come to cherish a nickname which is a play on our last name and which was h's nickname in school as well.
Anyway, when i commented on the spread in his subscores, the school psychiatric said that we were probably looking at the profile of a dyslexic before i could even get it out. He went on to say that he could not be formally given the diagnosis, which I knew from pc15, but that we could treat him as such. Immediately, the atmosphere changed. BB went from being the somewhat oppositional little brother of one of the most oppositional students ever to attend this school to a boy with a quantifiable issue. The sd is looking into using ipads for Learning Disability (LD) kids and they will put bb on the list. He is going back into resource room next year but only every other day and to work on writing because even his poor math scores are way higher than the other rr kids. For this year, difficult child, who is math gifted, has agreed to work with bb and they had their first session last night. it went very well. His math teacher has agreed to speak with the tutor we use, who is a highly successful dyslexic, and give him a list of the areas bb is weakest in. After his first tutoring session, the tutor said the issue was mechanics, not concepts, and it appears he was spot on. In addition, he will be assigned to extra help with the best academic intervention teacher ever. She was difficult child's math teacher in grade 7 for advanced accelerated math. After that year, she switched to remedial because she got tired of parents berating her over their kids' grades. She told me that after one parent yelled at her that the b plus she was getting in the class would keep her out of harvard she decided to switch. Anyway, difficult child, who does not praise anyone, said she is the best teacher he has ever had.
Best news - bb is stoked to have a legitimate reason why he is not getting the grades he is bright enough to earn. I am thrilled to have an answer to a question I had considered but disregarded. Just as bb's speech didn't seem as bad as difficult child's, his Learning Disability (LD) didn't seem as bad as pc15's so I just assumed he was not as bright as his siblings, not that he was dyslexic. When he told PC15, my older son yelled at him, in jest, to get his own disorder and not horn in on his! BB asked if he could read a book he found in my room about educating dyslexic kids as soon as he finishes the last of the hunger games trilogy.
Sorry this is so long. I am so happy because i was getting so upset. i was yelling at bb every night about math, implying he was lazy, etc i feel awful because i missed his Learning Disability (LD). i did keep begging h to work on his hw with him because i thought maybe he could relate better. when pc15 was in 8th grade, i had a total meltdown over algebra with him and forced h to show me how he did it. it turned out that h added two steps that i just did by mental math in my brain and that easy child was unable to follow my thinking. when h showed him the way, so to speak, it registered on him and he could do it. that's part of the reason why i am so happy bb's tutor is dyslexic.
Anyway, the takeaway is that subscores do matter and you should fully analyze them. there is a place on wright's website that helps you do this. This is not the same as the standard deviations argument, this is subscores within the same test. We were lucky that our psychiatric cares and that he has developed enough of a rapport with bb to really want to help him. Of course, it doesn't hurt that we are known as the parents who faced down the sd lawyer over difficult child
Strange as it sounds, I am so happy for my dyslexic bb.
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H is dyslexic as is pc15.
BB's issues started with speech. He sounded fine to us compared to difficult child, who had 4 sets of tubes by age 4. We didn't think bb had a problem so it wasn't until he was 4 and a half and in prek that he began with speech therapy because nobody else could understand him, he was the only of our kids who did not start day care before age one since h decided to keep him at his office as we knew he was our last. The guilt was awful.
His reading was slow but we attributed it to the speech. By grade 3, he was acting out, refusing to read and write. In 4th grade, we finally realized that he had vision issues. Although he'd been wearing glasses since k, it wasn't until we took him to a vision therapist that we found out that he actually needed bifocals and that his glasses, prescribed by a highly recommended pediatric optho in our county, merely averaged his extreme nearsightedness and his extreme farsightedness to give him glasses that he totally could not see through. Bifocals and a course of VT greatly improved his reading and another layer of guilt entered my life.
This year, he failed english the first quarter because he refused to dictate to his scribe. We took away the scribe and substituted class notes and permission to have me type his work at home. We also took him out of resource room daily. His english teacher on his own changed bb's grade to a B plus when he realized that bb's refusal was linked to his desire to do things on his own. BB is spelling exempt and has access to word processor but he doesn't use it because his keyboard skills are very weak and budget cuts took out computer classes. We don't have a computer for him at home yet. Mine is supplied by work and I can't let a child type on it, H's is a work computer as well. I have supplied computers for daughter in college, difficult child who is finally doing his own typing and pc15, who as noted is severely dyslexic. I can't afford one for bb yet.
We had his triennial today and the results were quite interesting. BB is running c's in math. on the other hand, he is doing B plus and better in his other classes, including Latin and English. His academic skills were scattered and found to be in the average range overall. His highest scores were 95%ile up in verbal skills subtests and went down to 6%ile in spelling and 18 in processing speed. His overall IQ of 107 is considered to be a very low and therefore inaccurate estimate of his true intelligence. His psychiatric evaluation reflected increasing maturity, he does not meltdown anymore and is even better at enforcing his personal space with adults. Earlier in the year, he told his teachers not to touch his papers or him and yelled at kids who tried to call him a nickname, e.g. his name is Robert and he freaked at being called Rob. Robert isn't his real name but you get the point. They were not insulting him or calling him bad names. The school psychiatric works with him on a regular basis and has worked with him on these issues. His teachers now know to ask him if they can turn the pages on his hw, etc. and if they forget, he says please ask me and i'll show you and he has improved and even come to cherish a nickname which is a play on our last name and which was h's nickname in school as well.
Anyway, when i commented on the spread in his subscores, the school psychiatric said that we were probably looking at the profile of a dyslexic before i could even get it out. He went on to say that he could not be formally given the diagnosis, which I knew from pc15, but that we could treat him as such. Immediately, the atmosphere changed. BB went from being the somewhat oppositional little brother of one of the most oppositional students ever to attend this school to a boy with a quantifiable issue. The sd is looking into using ipads for Learning Disability (LD) kids and they will put bb on the list. He is going back into resource room next year but only every other day and to work on writing because even his poor math scores are way higher than the other rr kids. For this year, difficult child, who is math gifted, has agreed to work with bb and they had their first session last night. it went very well. His math teacher has agreed to speak with the tutor we use, who is a highly successful dyslexic, and give him a list of the areas bb is weakest in. After his first tutoring session, the tutor said the issue was mechanics, not concepts, and it appears he was spot on. In addition, he will be assigned to extra help with the best academic intervention teacher ever. She was difficult child's math teacher in grade 7 for advanced accelerated math. After that year, she switched to remedial because she got tired of parents berating her over their kids' grades. She told me that after one parent yelled at her that the b plus she was getting in the class would keep her out of harvard she decided to switch. Anyway, difficult child, who does not praise anyone, said she is the best teacher he has ever had.
Best news - bb is stoked to have a legitimate reason why he is not getting the grades he is bright enough to earn. I am thrilled to have an answer to a question I had considered but disregarded. Just as bb's speech didn't seem as bad as difficult child's, his Learning Disability (LD) didn't seem as bad as pc15's so I just assumed he was not as bright as his siblings, not that he was dyslexic. When he told PC15, my older son yelled at him, in jest, to get his own disorder and not horn in on his! BB asked if he could read a book he found in my room about educating dyslexic kids as soon as he finishes the last of the hunger games trilogy.
Sorry this is so long. I am so happy because i was getting so upset. i was yelling at bb every night about math, implying he was lazy, etc i feel awful because i missed his Learning Disability (LD). i did keep begging h to work on his hw with him because i thought maybe he could relate better. when pc15 was in 8th grade, i had a total meltdown over algebra with him and forced h to show me how he did it. it turned out that h added two steps that i just did by mental math in my brain and that easy child was unable to follow my thinking. when h showed him the way, so to speak, it registered on him and he could do it. that's part of the reason why i am so happy bb's tutor is dyslexic.
Anyway, the takeaway is that subscores do matter and you should fully analyze them. there is a place on wright's website that helps you do this. This is not the same as the standard deviations argument, this is subscores within the same test. We were lucky that our psychiatric cares and that he has developed enough of a rapport with bb to really want to help him. Of course, it doesn't hurt that we are known as the parents who faced down the sd lawyer over difficult child
Strange as it sounds, I am so happy for my dyslexic bb.
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