no idea what this means

[lisacap]

Yes he is in first grade in a private catholic school, his teacher this year is fantastic, she picked up immediatly, that he was struggling, she requested the CORE and also came to the meeting with me. The physcologist from the Boston Public Schools recommeded that he stay at St. Marys the rest of this year and be brought over to the public schools for the extra help during the course of the week. She said Justin would benifit greatly by the teacher he has...he has made great strides considering not only is he dealing with a learning disablity now, he also has Cerebal Palsy...I will await your answers Lillian, enjoy the night with your family...and thanks again

[lillian]

Cerebral Palsy? Ahhhh. The WISC-IV scores are interesting, then. Children with Cerebral Palsy are known for having great difficulties with visual tracking and eye convergence, and the OT found he was having problems with these. You say he's unable to zip his zipper, snap his buttons, and tie his shoes, but pencil grip is one of his physical strengths and on the pen and paper speed tasks on the WISC-IV, he scored very well. This makes me think it's not so much a visual or motor problem, as a spatial problem. Hmm. He scored low on the block design of the WISC-IV, and he scored low on similar tests given by the OT, when he had to fit together designs. Again, this sounds spatial, not visual, to me. But the eye tracking and convergence are visual? I'm going to do some research on the internet. I'll get back with you about this. How effected is he by the Cerebral Palsy? Is he wheelchair bound? If not, is he able to walk well? If he is able to walk, how is his balance? And does he have a lazy eye, by any chance?

[lillian]

Another question...Has he had chronic ear infections or any type of inner ear problem?

[lisacap]

He wears bilateral AFO's on both legs, he has lower extremity Cerebal Palsy. It affected him below both knees and his left arm...they believe he had a stroke at the age of 3, but which makes his left eye look smaller than the other, but he has always passed his vision test. His left arm is weaker than his right arm, and because of this he wears an arm splint type brace to try and straighten out his hand. He claws his hand when doing something and his fingers are crooked. He is not a ear kid, he probably has had 4-5 his whole life, he is more of a strep throat kid. As far as zippering and buttoning and tying his shoes, with the way my house hold runs most mornings, trying to get all three of them out the door and to school on time, it is pure laziness on my part...I do it for him. It is less frustrating and gets him dressed and ready to go. Don't get me wrong, he has and does try, but I just don't have time to wait. I also have a 12 yr old with severe ADHD , so my mornings are hell and and to avoid fights because the little ones aren't ready, I make it easy....

[lisacap]

Considering he started walking at age 3, he has great balance, can even ride a 2 wheeler bike, a scooter, and is doing pretty well on a skateboard, on the rug of course...so yes his balance is well, he does drag his left side when tired...he plays on 2 basketball teams, with regular kids and is in little league...

[lillian]

He has muscle weakness on the left side of his body--his left eye and his left arm. The arm explains why he had such difficulty with block design, tieing his shoes, snapping his buttons, and zipping his clothes--all those things take two hands. The eye muscle weakness may explain why he had difficulties with tracking and convergence. Both deal with muscular movement of the eyes. When the OT said that weakness with convergence and tracking can lead to difficulties reading and writing, I thought, ahem, a vision therapy person, and smiled to myself, but, now, I know what she means, and, yes, I would definitely let her work on this.

Strokes can greatly effect one's ability to receive, process, and express language. Many years ago, when I was studying for my linguistics degree, I spent a lot of time observing speech/language paths at a rehab hospital, who were doing language intervention with stroke survivors. Fascinating work! Again, I urge you to find a speech/language path to work with your son. A really good speech/language path will be able to give you a much better idea about what is going on with your son's language difficulties.

And to explain what a receptive language disorder is...A receptive language disorder is a disorder that interferes with someone's ability to understand speech. Central Auditory Processing Disorder, which I mentioned earlier, is a receptive language disorder. Here is a link that describes receptive language disorders well:

www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Receptive_language_disorder?Open

A processing disorder is thought to be based in the brain, for children with processing disorders have difficulties using the information that is entering their brains. The information is going in there through the senses--their hearing and eye sight are fine, for example--but the information is being distributed differently, than it would be for a neurotypical child. My son, for example, has a language processing disorder, and his rapid naming is in the 1st percentile. When he's given a list of words to repeat, he hears them fine, he reads them fine, but he can't repeat them to save his life! When the evaluator gave him a list of ten words, he was unable to repeat the list in order, even when given seven opportunities to do so. With Central Auditory Processing Disorder, the child's hearing is fine, in the sense that the child is not hard of hearing, but the child has great difficulties processing the sounds entering the auditory channels, distinguishing between different sounds, and/or quickly analyzing what is being said.

[lisacap]

Wow what a lot of information to try and process...so Basicaly what does this all mean. Will he be able to learn to read and write. Should I leave him in the private school he is in and take him out for the services for now to the public? Do you think he would be better off repeating 1st grade? And starting him with all of this in September, letting him stay where he is now, go to thte public school for services, then in september enroll him full time there... Wow I have to figure all this it. It is a lot of stuff...I just can't figure out how they can come up with all this stuff after working with him for just short periods of time...but they are the experts....Lillian thanks...for everything...

[lillian]

I think your current plan is an excellent one--he stays with his private school teacher, who sounds wonderful, and goes to the public school for services. I would not put off remediation until next year. Early intervention is the key.

In many ways, you are very blessed. You've won what is often the greatest battle--identification at an early age. You have both a private and a public school willing to identify your child early and provide services for him. You have a classroom teacher, who is willing to work with him. And, you have the financial resources to get him private remediation. With all of this support--private school, public school, private specialists--your son has a much more likely chance to "respond to intervention," than many, many children his age with language disorders do.

As far as leaving him in private school, I don't know your son's school or the area in which you live. Some private schools are willing to work with children, who have LD's, and some are not. I've just recently heard of a private Catholic school in my area that has started a special program for high school students with language-based learning disabilities. Woohoo! I tell ya, to be living in a city the size of the city in which I live (Houston), it's amazing how few private schools we have that are willing to work with kids with LD's. But each city is different. Dallas, for example, is smaller than Houston but has a much wider selection of private schools for children with learning differences.

Should you retain him? I'm not a fan of retention for children with learning differences, but there are people on this board who disagree with me. I am not totally opposed to retention, and I considered retaining a foster child of mine because she was the youngest she could be and be in her grade (the cutoff was her birthday), and she was extremely immature for her age. On the playground at school, she played with the younger children, who were in the grade below her, instead of playing with her classmates, and the few friends she was able to make, at both school and in the neighborhood, were with kids who were younger. If she had continued to live with us, I most likely would have retained her, but she did not have learning differences that were causing her social problems.

Will your son be able to read and write? Well, he's only six. He's been identified early, and all the support he's going to need is being put into place. Most importantly, however, he has gumption. He wears leg braces and an arm brace and plays basketball? What a COOL kid! I have a very dear friend, who has a child with severe CP, and her son is graduating from high school this year. He's in all honors classes! She laughs and says that his IEP is the thickness of the Webster's Dictionary, but it's worked. He cannot read and write, at all, for his eyesight and his muscle control have been severely effected. He's wheelchair bound, and he has an aide, who is his scribe and his reader, who attends all of his classes with him. Like your son, this boy has gumption, and he always has. He's so loved and respected by his peers, that he was voted Most Popular in ninth grade.

What our children will be able to do and won't be able to do, who's to say? My attitude is to not let anyone predict the future for our children. Only God has any idea what our children's futures will be.

[lisacap]

Thank you so much, I printed out everything you wrote me so I can sit and read it and try to make sense of it all. I will start tomorrow looking into some of the things you suggested. He does have an appointment already with the opthamologist on Feb. 1, I am going to see if I can get that appointment quicker. I will talk to his teacher, the peditrician to look into other speech services, and see what they suggest I go. but again
thanks, it was an awful lot of stuff for you to do, but I do appreciate it.
Lisa