Re: long-term prognosis?

February 18, 2006

Hi ,

As I'm sure you're aware, 's son, Tanner, has been extremely successful

in his mainstream private school. He is often described as one of the " top "

students there. As my son gets older, I worry about the same things you are

quetionning. turning six (just recently) hit me hard because six, to

me, crosses the line between little guy and officially a big boy. He has made

tons of progress in the past year, but his fine motor skills remain severely

impaired. He cannot draw any letters besides T, H, O, and X. Anything that

involves coloring, copying, or writing is hugely difficult for him. I

remember reading about Tanner being unable to draw a circle and still talking

baby

talk at age 5 1/2. My son just learned how to draw a circle and now stops to

close it - he used to draw 5 circles, if that sort of makes sense. His speech

is much better, too, and he can now blow lots of bubbles, move his tongue in

most positions, and say most sounds reasonably well. But he still learns

words and then, at times, forgets how to say them. His private speech therapist

says he is classically apraxic. It's always been the fine motor stuff that

I've worried most about, though, because those delays have the greatest impact

on school. He has no trouble making himself understood by his teachers and

making friends.

My feeling is that won't survive in a mainstream classroom next year

without significant support. He can't draw letters, and everyone else will be.

He still has trouble circling the " right item " even though he can point at

it correctly in a heart beat. He can draw a beautiful picture of the

Matterhorn (rollercoaster at Disney) and point out where the entrance is, where

the

monster with flashing eyes is, where the waterfall is, where the man who cut in

line cut in line, and where the exit is - his imagination knows no bounds,

but if you look at the picture it resembles a bunch of scribbles. The other

kids in his mainstream pre-K are drawing elaborate pictures of castles,

flowers, princesses, and trucks.

We had him tested at a local dyslexia school last week, and were told that

he has the precursors of dyslexia. He could identify the letters of the

alphabet, but when it came time to matching letters in pairs - ie TR, etc., he

picked lots of reversals. The school uses the " slingerland " method. We are

leaning towards enrolling him at this school next year, although the mainstream

private school he know attends is willing to work with us on accomodations

(and we're meeting with them on Tuesday to discuss that). The dyslexia school

enrolls students who are of average or above average intelligence, but need to

be taught in a multi-sensory learning environment. There are no more than

ten kids in a class, but they will be at different levels/ages - think one room

school house. The one big disadvantage is that will probably be the

youngest kid in his class, and what he loves most about school are his peers.

It is hard letting go of the idea of him being in a regular K with regular

kids doing regular boy things. But when I think about how to best prepare him

for success in the future, this seems like the right route.

I know that Tanner has been hugely successful, and many other globally

apraxic kids will likely be just as successful. I know that for my son, though,

despite general intelligence not being the issue, the fine motor impairments are

making it impossible for him to keep up with everyone else. I had hoped that

simply holding him back a year would " cure " the differences, or make them

less obvious, but I actually think in some ways they are even more obvious

today despite all the progress. You can forgive a 5 yo for not being able to

color especially well or being unable to draw a picture of a person, but you

start pushing the envelope when you expect others to overlook the same in a six

yo. In order to hopefully super-speed his progress, I think we need a

multi-sensory approach. One day, hopefully, we can then get him back to the

school

we hoped he'd be at all along.

Best,

In a message dated 2/18/2006 6:51:06 AM Pacific Standard Time,

cmlegg@... writes:

I read a lot here on what all of you are doing for your kids, but I

don't hear much about how the kids fare in high school and university.

I know apraxia kids are supposed to have problems with reading/writing.

How do they learn how to do it, and what should we be doing differently

to help them? Can an apraxic child with associated literacy challenges

aspire to higher levels of education and perform competitively on

standardized tests like the SAT when that time comes? My son is only

two, but the world of worry is weighing on me lately. Does anyone have

any research or other real data on what these kids have in store for

them? Please don't sugar-coat it. I need to know what I am dealing with

here.

February 18, 2006

Thank you for your reply, . I think that, while fine motor is

important to learning to write, a delay in it is not a good reason

for holding a kid back in school. I know that is not exactly what

you have chosen for your son, so I am mostly commenting on one small

piece of text in your message. Schools have to make allowances for

physically " handicapped " kids. If they can't circle an answer, then

they might just put a scribble there, or even just indicate by

pointing to a teacher's aide.

I have a student who is now 11 years old. He has been my student

since he was 7 years old. When I first saw his handwriting, I

thought he might be cognitively delayed because that is a common

trait for kids of that age who are behind. He was also severely shy,

so he stuttered, and spoke with a very small voice (I teach English

as a foreign language, so speaking skills are important, too). Over

the years, he has made friends, found his non-stuttering voice,

shown himself to be advanced in his thought processes, and while his

handwriting is not so great, I can read it. I made it a point over

the years of only correcting his writing if I couldn't recognize

what he had written at all. This approach has worked well for him,

as it took the pressure off of him having to perform at unrealistic

levels.

Don't despair! Your son will find a niche socially, and he will

learn to gradually overcome his fine motor problems.

February 18, 2006

,

I wanted to ask you about the requirements for the dyslexia school.

It sounds like the same admission policy that the one in Baton

ROuge, LA has. Average to above average IQ with a language

impairment or dyslexia. We have to get a private evaluation by a

psychologist then bring that evaluation in and then they do their

own testing and an interview. Did you guys have to go through this

process? I am really stressing out because I know how inconsistant

my son is on these test. Granted he has never had an IQ test but I

am so worried that they will give him a verbal IQ test and he will

bomb it. We know he has it in him because he has a great visual

memory and is keeping up in his regular Kindergarten class (except

for language tasks - rhyming, phonetics,) Did you request certain

tests prior to the testing? Did your child need to be interviewed?

My son will talk in sentences but not on command.....and he is in

the stuttering phase of apraxia at the moment and it is very

frustrating for the listener. Any advice or input would be

appreciated. We are pretty much putting all of our eggs in one

basket for this school....small classes, multi-sensory reading

program, I just want him to feel some success. I am sorry I am

rambling.....

Mia

February 19, 2006

Hi Mia,

I can complete relate to how you're feeling. It's been an unusually bad week

for me. One thing I can reassure you of is that Thoms was at his absolute

worst during the testing. In spite of that, his strengths came through. He was

given a test for soon to be first graders, and he's still in pre-K (we held

him back a year). Also, the test was not technically supposed to be given

until after February of kindergarten, so the examiner questionned its accuracy

there too. Bottom line is, he hadn't been exposed to much of what he was

tested on, and repetition and exposure are key to success forhim. He was able

to

accurately describe back many of the stories that were read to him, and he

was also able to identify most of the lower case letters shown (and it wasn't

just identifiying, which he can pretty much do flawlessly except for lower

case b, d, and a, h issues) it was picking out the correct letter with lots of

" similars " provided. He was brain fogged up last week - we suspect the combo

of tons and tons of candy (which we rarely give him) from Valentine's Day

parties and a lot of cake from his b-day party celebration on Saturday. He

couldn't sit still at circle time last week, and actually yelled at his teacher

" NO, I WON'T!! " when she asked him to sit down - completely out of character. So

not a good week - he even appeared to lose his counting skills (ie picking

out the number of fingers, number of red birds, etc.), and yet he still did

well enough on the testing. I expected him to not be able to draw any of the

shapes they wanted him to draw, or the letters, or his name, so that was no

surprise. I launched into an explanation of dyspraxia before they got started.

They seemed to have a general understanding already anyway - maybe bring some

literature with you for you son's test. It was about an hour of testing,

and they said he would need several breaks, but he managed to get through all

of it without a break.

We didn't have to get independent testing done by a psychologist. We gave

them all the reports we have from OTs, STs, conductive ed, and the developmental

ped. They all say dyspraxia, apraxia, and " probable minor ADD " - as the dev

ped said re: ADD, she's not sure. They describe him as imaginative, very

social, impulsive, able to attend to preferred tasks, and incapable of attending

to unpreferred tasks without frequent breaks. I think there are still

questions about whether IQ can be reasonably determined at age 6. If an IQ

test was

based on motor skills, though, I can pretty much guarantee that he would be

deemed mentally retarded or " bomb it " as you put it re: verbal testing.

What's been hardest for me this week, as I wrote in my last email, is the

dealing

with the reality of how very poor his writing skills remain after just

turning six - OK, non-existant - I can't find examples of other kids at the

same

level as T on those skills when I Google now - ie 6 yo without handwriting

skills, and there wasn't exactly an outpouring of reassuring comments from this

group re: him still being unable to write either. Again, the being six and

being unable to write vs. being 5 and unable to write has kind of hit me over

the head with fear and dread.

He took the test Monday and Tuesday I returned for results. He had to sit in

the waiting room playing his leapster for an hour while I met with the

teacher and principal. When I came out to get him, he was still sitting there

faithfully playing (of course, there were others adults nearby watching him). He

had a meltdown when I said it was time to leave. He was in the middle of a

game and insisted that he couldn't continue in the car because he couldn't see

or play at the park on a bench (which I thought he'd be thrilled by - the

park, not the bench) because, again, he couldn't see. We've had more of these

meltdowns recently, after rarely ever seeing them (except prior to starting

Pro-EFA 1.5 years ago when he had a period of getting time outs). It was really

awful because the principal was right there watching. Luckily, she seemed to

take it in stride - but, in other words, I doubt that anything you encounter

would be much worse than what we went through. He was definitely having a BAD

week and they saw him at his worst. Does your son have any books that he

loves, or any games that he plays with (like Leapster?) - If yes, I'd bring

those

along and get him talking about them, just to demonstrate his strengths and

also to reassure and comfort him. I wish I'd brought a bunch of Curious

books, for example. He would have sat there and " read " them for an hour,

and then been less difficult to transition.

One of the areas I was surprised he didn't do well on that you may want to

practice with your son (we've been ever since) was an area that compared three

words - Pat, Pat, Cat and then asked whether the words were the same or

different. He's fine with Pat, Pat = Same or Pat, Cat = different but Pat, Pat,

Cat is sometimes right, sometimes wrong. also has problems with rhyming

- that, I think, is fairly typical of kids with dyslexia. Does he have

dyslexia? I have no idea. I do feel that he needs a multi-sensory learning

approach to succeed, and that's why this school seems like it may be a good

alternative for him.

It sounds like your son has lots of strengths! It might make sense to try to

get a letter from his K teacher describing how well he's doing in certain

areas, and describing the areas that he struggles in. That way, you have

independent feedback about his strengths that will likely be helpful to the

dyslexia school. I hope all of this helps. Please feel free to ask any

additional

questions!!

Take care,

In a message dated 2/19/2006 6:48:45 AM Pacific Standard Time, mia@...

writes: