[jrle]

Hi
I am wondering if anyone has any experience with helping their child at home and school with other learning difficulties? My son, 9 years with a left hemi plegia has been struggling for a while with reading and writing. We have at last had a formal assessment by an Educational Psychologist who has diagnosed him as having dyslexia and dysgraphia and various other concentration-related issues. The dyslexia was expected, the dysgraphia was new to us although we see the struggles with writing of course. We have talked to the school and are waiting to see what they can offer, over and above doing literacy in a small group and working on spellings ; they were kind and sympathetic but fell short of agreeing to any sepcific additional help, reluctant even to move him fromm 'school action' to 'action plus'.
I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with either, guidance in terms of persuading schools to do more or just pointers for increasing my son's low self confidence and self esteem .
thanks

Judith

[julie]

Hi,

My daughter has learning difficulties as well, although we have never been given a specific name for them. All we ever get is that she has additional complex needs and that she has moderate learning difficulties. On reading your post I could understand what you are saying all I can say is what we did. You mention about the small classes as soon as our daughter moved into a class of only six we saw a difference in her confidence. She no longer felt under pressure to keep up with the rest of the class. Up until this point I was always asking how she was learning to write and spell,, as all her work was scribed for her. We were told that it was more important for the work to be written down due to time constraints within the class.

She was given a computer although again I was sceptical as she has a dense hemi on the left (no function at all in the arm) On the right side she has mild hemi{ problems with fine finger movement}. However she has taught herself to use a computer using only her thumb. At home I got some magnetic letters and we would spell words also we played scrabble. We only did anything in short burst as long as her concentration would last. Her writing is still sometimes illegible and I have to say I feel awful when she has written something and she asks me to read it and i don't have a clue as to what it says. I ask her to read it to me and then she will type it up on the computer. She is now 17 and at a specialist college for the physically disabled where she boards. She is doing a life skills course. Learning functional maths and english. A lot of time is spent using computers. One thing I did do was to go inrto the classroom weekly for a short time to see if I had any ideas to help her.,

Julie.

[And]

For handwriting practice as help for dysgraphia, it's possible to download a dot to dot font so that letters can be traced over. I've come across two that I've used, Zyia Learns Letters and Jardotty. I've written a short piece on helpful dyslexia strategies that will be in the next Hemi-Help magazine, all being well.
A key point with dyslexia and dyscalculia is that someone with these difficulties isn't a slow learner, but they may well be a quick forgetter. Something mastered one day may be difficult the next which can be incredibly frustrating for all.

[jrle]

Hi And and Julie
Thanks for your comments and sorry not to have acknowledged. Haven't even managed to log onto the site recently. For writing ideas I will look for the dot to dot ideas that you mention, look forward to reading your piece when the next magazine it out. I really value your point about quick forgetter and not slow learner - the quic forgetting is patchy though. If something is being worked on at home or school that grabs interest even the most minute detail is remembered. As for remembering spellings the day after the test, or functional things like lunch box, book bag, coat jumper etc -I could remind a dozen times!
Julie thanks for your comments too, sounds as though your daughter is finding a way forward at her college. School have mentioned a scribe for some things but nothing has come of this yet. We have by chance been receommended by the typing club teacher, a typing programme called the five fingered typist. This seems to be going down well and will work well for the future I hope as my son has more or less normal function of the unaffected side.
Thanks
Judith

[pgd]

And, on 21 October 2010 - 04:51 PM, said:

For handwriting practice as help for dysgraphia, it's possible to download a dot to dot font so that letters can be traced over. I've come across two that I've used, Zyia Learns Letters and Jardotty. I've written a short piece on helpful dyslexia strategies that will be in the next Hemi-Help magazine, all being well.
A key point with dyslexia and dyscalculia is that someone with these difficulties isn't a slow learner, but they may well be a quick forgetter. Something mastered one day may be difficult the next which can be incredibly frustrating for all.

--- And - Agree with you. With dyscalculia, part of the difficulty can do with an imperfect memory and the length of an attention span (sometimes quite short)/inattention. In some cases it can be or be like petit mal/absence/whatever or something a little different like ADHD Inattentive. It can be a lot easier to recognize it vs to remedy it. That's my understanding. - pgd

[love2]

Hi Judith

I am just reading your article. My son is age 10 and also has left hemi plegia. I have been able to find some dvd's that has helped him a great deal, he really enjoys it so much because its a fun way of learning to read, do maths, tell the time. Not sure if am allowed to give out the dvd details on the forum, being new to this site, only just joined yesterday. You may contact me for more details if you wish. I also arrange for a tutor to come in my home and teach my son a few days a week and that has help him a lot, he is making great progress with his reading and his writing is now nice a clear for me to understand. The DVD has really made a difference because it got his attention and he will enjoys learning from it.

It will help a great deal with your son's low self confience & self esteen. What kind of school does your son attened? Does he have a Teaching Assistant, by right your son should have already been a small group setting from the day he started at school. Has your son got a statement to entitle him to more help and support at school?

jrle, on 14 October 2010 - 08:46 PM, said:

Hi
I am wondering if anyone has any experience with helping their child at home and school with other learning difficulties? My son, 9 years with a left hemi plegia has been struggling for a while with reading and writing. We have at last had a formal assessment by an Educational Psychologist who has diagnosed him as having dyslexia and dysgraphia and various other concentration-related issues. The dyslexia was expected, the dysgraphia was new to us although we see the struggles with writing of course. We have talked to the school and are waiting to see what they can offer, over and above doing literacy in a small group and working on spellings ; they were kind and sympathetic but fell short of agreeing to any sepcific additional help, reluctant even to move him fromm 'school action' to 'action plus'.
I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with either, guidance in terms of persuading schools to do more or just pointers for increasing my son's low self confidence and self esteem .
thanks

Judith

[rachel3]

It's really interesting to read these posts. My daughter has right side hemi. She is nearly 6 and is already struggling to keep up with her classmates in reading, writing and maths. She is given an extra hour a day one-to-one at school, so I can't really complain about what they are offering her. The problem I have is more about my own understanding and patience. I have been confused by her inability to remember the simplest things, like reading 'the' and 'in', which she has done hundreds of times. I find it frustrating to sit and read with her, when we go over the same old ground day after day with no apparent progress. It makes sense that it's a lack of memory, and I have heard that suggested before. Her attention span is a bit short too. She's a very bright girl in many ways, and she is finding falling behind in class quite stressful. I wish she didn't have this pressure at such a young age.
Rachel

[Big Bird]

Hi,

My son will be six next month (July), he has right hemi. We delayed him starting school for a year and is now about to finish his first year at school (reception). He is way, way behind his classmates. He hasn't grasped hardly any of the basic literacy, he knows some letters, but can't seem to hear them and process them into anything written. Like some of the earlier posts, I have been reduced to tears. I just find it so hard that it has been weeks and weeks trying to get him to sound out C A T and it is impossible!!! Is this dyslexia?, what will happen to him?? Apart from a slight physical "limp" on the right side, we are lucky with the physical issues. He has speech issues too, he is hard to understand. Dispite being promised therapy nothing has happened even though I have chased. Any thoughts welcome!! Thank you!!!!

Charlotte

[arabella]

Big Bird, on 11 June 2011 - 07:20 PM, said:

Hi,

My son will be six next month (July), he has right hemi. We delayed him starting school for a year and is now about to finish his first year at school (reception). He is way, way behind his classmates. He hasn't grasped hardly any of the basic literacy, he knows some letters, but can't seem to hear them and process them into anything written. Like some of the earlier posts, I have been reduced to tears. I just find it so hard that it has been weeks and weeks trying to get him to sound out C A T and it is impossible!!! Is this dyslexia?, what will happen to him?? Apart from a slight physical "limp" on the right side, we are lucky with the physical issues. He has speech issues too, he is hard to understand. Dispite being promised therapy nothing has happened even though I have chased. Any thoughts welcome!! Thank you!!!!

Charlotte

Hi Charlotte and everyone else

I really understand how you all feel. We have found that the complex learning difficulties that our 10 year old son has are far more challenging and actually disabling than the physical side. Matthew also had very poor understanding of sounds, was very behind by the end of year 1 (he could barely write his name), and we were despairing that he just couldn't seem to learn. His speech was also slower to develop. We had him repeat year 1. In the end he was diagnosed as badly dyslexic and in particular his working memory is extremely poor (on the 0.4th percentile!). Not being a particularly patient person I have also had tearful homework sessions (sadly, these can still be intensely challenging). I wish I could say there was an easy solution to this. In the end we managed to get Matthew into a specialist dyslexia school where he has been for 2 years. He has made progress but it has been slow, and I still worry a lot about the future. He can read now (although not independently to himslef) but his spelling and writting are still very behind. However, his concentration is better and I'm certain that if he was in mainstream it would be catastrophic. Usually they wont test for dyslexia before 6, but I would advise getting a private assessment as soon as possible. The Dyslexia Insitute should be able to offer advice of where you can go (if you are in London, I would recommend the Bloomfield Learning Centre). If your son is dyslexic I would recommend visiting some specialist schools to get an idea of what they can offer and to be able to feed the techniques/ approaches back to his school. In my esxpericence schools are a bit hopeless when it comes to dyslexia. They all say the right things but don't really get it and don't ahve the capacity/ expertise to actually put something really good in place (sorry! But your school may be better?) Otherwise, if you can get some extra support out of school by a qualified person I would recommend it, and see if they can offer ideas directly to his teachers. Finally, if you still find you are not making progress, you can consider requessting a statement, although the problem again is that you child has to be really behind before this goes anywhere.
Good luck!
arabella

[jrle]

Hello Arabella, Charlotte and everyone else,
I wrote the original post when my son was 9 and had had a poor year at school and was very recently diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia, on top of the L hemi. Now , 10 years old and coming to the end of this school year, he has had a good year and has made steady progress.
With a truly marvellous class teacher, his concentration has improved significantly which I am sure has had a great impact in all subject areas - he is happier and much more settled at school and is actually enjoying learning! He has been having 1 hour a week of extra reading support before school and whilst he doesn't really like doing this, his reading has been coming on very well. It is still a struggle for him and many days he struggles to read words and make sense of things that at another time he ahs read without problem. He has though just in the last few weeks started reading to himself at bed-time. this is something we never thought to see - him reading to himself in bed. Tintin comic books right now, but anything to keep him interested.
He still struggles with some phonics and can struggle again and again reading new words, seeminly unable to make logical attempts at reading the word.
Mainly now homework sessions are a bit better, but we too have very tearful ones that are immensley draining for all of us.

We have just started working with a dyslexia trained tutor who works with the dyslexia centre that assessed my son - Helen Arkell Centre, Farnham, Surrey. Early days, but she is very enthusiastic and confident that she can help with things like weak phonic skills, poor working memory, and even writing problems. My son is keen too -we have really tried to sell the fact that she is going to help him work on those things that are very tricky for him.
Charlotte, our tutor pointed out to us this week that using phonics is only one way to teach reading and spelling - she said to remember that deaf children can learn to read and spell and do so without phonics, so it maybe that this is just a method that your son doesn't get right now.

We now face year 6 and a new teacher and hope of course that the momentum he gained this year will continue. We are looking at senior schools around us with some anxiety really - wondering how he will deal with the transition, how he will be supported, will he make new friends etc, how will he deal with and be supported with the hemiplegia + associated challenges and the dyslexia, dysgraphia.

Judith