http://ldparents.blogspot.com

Anne

I’m a single mom with two great kids, each with their own unique learning style.

Anne writes in a clean straightforward fashion sharing a ton of great information that she has learned from ten years of working with, exploring and understanding her sons’ learning differences.

Here is Anne’s first blog post. It can be found at http://ldparents.blogspot.com/2009/04/in-beginning.html

In the beginning

I don’t really know where to begin. The earliest years of my son’s life were normal, blissful, happy. He didn’t talk much but communicated in his way and we seemed to share some innate ability to understand each other.

Around his second birthday, his pediatrician finally convinced me to have him start speech therapy so she “could hear his beautiful voice.”

Speech therapy was successful but came with what seemed at the time like an ominous prediction from his speech therapist. “Watch out for language-based learning disabilities as your son gets older.”

Ten years later I’m thankful for the recommendation. That speech therapist was right on the money, the language deficits my son experienced as a baby and toddler were indicative of problems he would experience with reading and writing and language in general.

My hope for this blog is to share some experiences and to encourage other parents to share theirs. My son has had many successes in his educational career and I’ve done my best to stay on top of all the latest research, therapies and educational issues.

Most importantly, I love to tell stories. My kids’ stories are the best. When I lost my job last week and my son and I were discussing what was next, he suggested I write a book. (Actually, his first suggestion was that I get a costume and stand out on the street corner waving a sign for a local business, but I digress.)

I asked him what the book would be about and he said, “It’d be about us. We’ve lived lots of places and done lots of things. First you could talk, then I could tell my side, then J (little sister) could tell her side.”

Great idea. But, since his mother shares his short attention span, a blog will have to suffice for now.

This article can be found at
http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster4/part88.html

Thank you to CC of
http://ifonlyihadsuperpowers.blogspot.com
for pointing this one out. (CC’s original post can be found here http://ifonlyihadsuperpowers.blogspot.com/2009/06/therapy-thursday-listening-activities.html)

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Listening Activities

By Judith Maginnis Kuster

“There is only one rule to become a good talker– learn how to listen,” said an unknown author. Although speech-language pathologists and audiologists may suggest additional “rules,” both professions agree that listening is an important skill. Speech-language and hearing specialists often incorporate listening activities with individuals who have speech sound differences or disorders and those who have hearing impairment, including those with cochlear implants.

Listening activities are also used to help individuals recovering from aphasia to improve auditory memory, teach individuals with autism spectrum disorders, help clients with attention or central processing disorders, and serving many other clients. The following resources offer freely available activities featuring this important component of treatment.

Listening for Environmental Sounds

The FindSounds search engine (www.findsounds.com/types.html) locates online sounds made by birds, animals, natural events, household items, musical instruments, holiday events, people, tools, vehicles, and more.

Bananas in Pyjamas (www.abc.net.au/children/bananas/games/animal_sounds/default.htm) offers a timed animal-sound matching/concentration activity with easy, hard, or very hard examples.

Animal Sounds (www.perunakellari.fi/animalsounds/animal-e.html) invites the user to type the name of the animal heard from a word bank of 21 animals.
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In this video, I discuss kinetic or physical learning approaches that I use in my son’s homework routine in order to help him learn more effectively. We use a physical alphabet cheer for spelling words among other activities.

I mentioned before that kinetic learning is the best learning methodology for my son – so I wanted to share with you some of the ways we incorporate kinetic learning into my son’s homework routines.

Quickly I will mention that my son’s learning issues are language processing based. He has receptive languages issues (concepts going in) as well as expressive language issues (formulation of thoughts, retrieval of words).

He is in the first grade so this is the first year where we have had to incorporate encoding or spelling into our homework routine. The typical approach of repetition, writing the spelling words, etc. was not really working for my son. So we developed a physical chant alphabet where each letter of the alphabet is assigned a body position. We practice his spelling words every night with the physical chants. His teacher is very accommodating (he is at a school focused on language processing issues) in that she tests him both in a written format and in a format where he can do our “cheers”. When we are practicing his spelling words – we do the physical cheers or chants over and over again – and get pretty silly with it. Its physical – its fun and it really does help him to remember his spelling words. The difference in his spelling tests before we starting doing the physical cheers and after is amazing!!
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How I have worked with my son and his teachers’ in order to help him learn the abstract concept of coins and values.

A MULTISENSORY APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING COINS AND THEIR VALUES

INSIGHTS INTO LANGUAGE BASED LEARNING ISSUES

As you may know from visiting the Lipstick Wisdom site previously or from watching some of my other video blogs – my son has learning issues; specifically language based learning issues. This basically means he has problems with learning new concepts (information going in – receptive language issues) as well as problems with language concepts coming out (expressive language issues). You would not notice a thing on everyday interactions but when you ask him a question, the problems become apparent.

So I wanted to share with you some of the strategies that I have used at home to help my son understand abstract concepts. The abstract concept I am going to discuss today is coins and the values of coins. This one was a doozy – let me tell you!! He has made tremendous progress – he is not 100% consistent but definitely progress has been made. It probably took us about 8 weeks before significant traction was made on his learning his coins and the values.

First of all, I must share with you that my son’s best learning occurs when the learning is coordinated with physical movement (kinetic learning). I guess before the concepts of time and coins were introduced, I used kinetic learning approachs but not 100% of the time. Now I try to use kinetic approaches as much as possible.

We (his teachers and I) started out with the standard multisensory approach of worksheets, enlarged paper coins in the classroom, play coins in the classroom and even some real coins. We practiced and practiced through this approach for several weeks to no avail. He could not identify the coins and he did not understand the difference between the physical count of coins and their values.

Then we started mixing things up trying to come up with an approach that would help make the concepts stick in his mind. The strategies we used included: (I show physical examples of these in the video)
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If you have been to Lipstick Wisdom (www.lipstickwisdom.com), you probably realize that I have a son with language based learning issues. Specifically he has expressive language issues as well as receptive language issues. That basically means that he has trouble with language concepts going in (learning) as well as expressing his thoughts coming out. I can tell you that navigating this requires constant vigilance and patience. He is such a joy and he is working so hard. We are lucky in that we are able to send him to a school that specializes in language based learning issues. Even so, I am in a constant dialogue with my son’s teachers and we are always brainstorming together on the best ways for him to achieve the next learning milestone.

So I know from firsthand experience how difficult it is to gather the information that is needed to understand if you or someone you love has learning issues. If you are seeking information on language based learning issues for yourself or someone you know, I have posted a series of interesting videos, articles and websites which explore and discuss language based learning issues at Lipstick Wisdom (http://www.lipstickwisdom.com/category/language-processing-learning-issues/).

Although I have read several books and many articles, I am still learning about this area every day. For instance, I recently learned that the definition of dyslexia has been expanded. I, like many others, understood dyslexia to be a condition where letters get reversed while reading making reading extremely difficult. It turns out that dyslexia includes all difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, and is characterized by poor spelling and decoding abilities. I went on several websites trying to better understand dyslexia. After doing some research, I was very confused as to the relationship between dyslexia and language based learning issues. Is it the same thing – is it different? Turns out that dyslexia is a subcategory of language based learning issues. Dyslexia is a learning issue primarily based on phonetics and is really focused on the written word. I have two graduate degrees and I could not figure that out from the websites I visited. I had to call my son’s school and ask one of the women there what it really meant!!

I share this because, in my opinion, too much of the information available online is too clinically based and does not offer enough practical information.

Although at Lipstick Wisdom, we are gathering the best information we can find to help you face a new life challenge, we want to develop a repository of practical knowledge or wisdom from those that have actually faced the life event being discussed. If you or anyone you know has any helpful advice that they can share on either language based learning issue diagnosis or treatment, please let me know. Or better yet, share the information on Lipstick Wisdom by writing your own blog post!

We are building a virtual directory of bloggers who share their experiences and wisdoms gained from living with learning disabilities. In addition, I have my video blog (“Karen’s Blog”) which shares my stories and practical advice based on my experiences with my son.

Thanks for coming to visit LipstickWisdom.com.

Warmly,
Karen

From http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/LBLD.htm

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association www.asha.org
 

Language-Based Learning Disabilities

What is a language-based learning disability?

What other organizations have information about a language-based learning disability?
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From http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/instructionalmaterials/qt/adaptmaterials.htm
 

Language Processing Problems – Tips and Strategies to Adapt and Modify Materials and Instruction to Improve Language Comprehension

Accommodating the needs of students with language processing problems, receptive language disabilities, dyslexia and listening comprehension weaknesses involves:
 

* Presenting written material in brief and direct terms;
* Omitting non-essential details and double negatives; [li}Avoiding multiple choice items that require complex analysis of language should be limited. Focus instead on essential details and facts required to master the subject matter;
* Allowing extra time for students to listen to, think about, and form their own thoughts about written and spoken materials used in class;
* Allowing students to discuss assignments with each other and with teachers to get clarification; and
* Using visual models and hands-on projects when possible to allow students to gain understanding of material using their visual learning skills.

 

Accommodating Language Processing Deficits – Ways Teachers and Parents can Implement Accommodations:

* Tape lectures and lessons for playback at home during study and homework sessions;
* Have a teacher, aide, peer tutor, or other appropriate person paraphrase instructions in writing or on tape;
* Simplify words in text. Paraphrase by eliminating non-essential words and phrases, and double negatives;
* Help the child summarize what he has read and write it down in brief, easy-to-understand terms;
* Provide examples of good work, and point out features of the work that contribute to its quality. Check to ensure the student understands what characteristics distinguish good work from poor work;
* Break large reading assignments into smaller sections;
* Note the most important parts of text and instructions. Use a highlighter, and write these down in simple, concise terms;
* Create a study guide that includes key vocabulary with definitions, guiding questions, and a clear statement of learning goals for the reading or task;
* Make liberal use of visual models, pictures, videos, computer generated models, or any other means available to allow students to use their visual reasoning skills to understand materials and to express their own understanding; and
* Allow students to use visual models and projects as alternatives to written assignments or spoken presentations when possible.
* Allow students to use multisensory materials and strategies.

From http://www.addiss.co.uk/languagedisorders.htm

Philippa Greathead
Speech Language Pathologist
Speech-Language-Learning Centre
Westmead, NSW, Australia

The child or adolescent with ADHD and learning problems will often present to the Speech Language Pathologist with a range of clinical problems in language that are contributing to the learning disorder.

The types of language problems experienced by children with ADHD are varied and can cover all the modalities of language. Typically problems are seen in:

Syntax:
Disorders of syntax (oral and written grammar) are difficulties using and/or comprehending the structural components of sentences.

Semantics:
Semantic difficulties in language involve problems with word meanings and organization. School problems include difficulties comprehending written and spoken language, poor vocabulary, word-finding difficulties and difficulties using context to help with the comprehension of reading.

Pragmatics:
Pragmatics is the term used for the social use of language – i.e. the ability to use language as a means to interact with others socially or for a specific purpose (e.g. requesting information, expressing feelings, holding a conversation with people of different age levels).
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GreatSchools has discussion forums where parents can connect and share information, questions and concerns. The following link is for a forum discussion thread where parents are discussing their childrens’ language processing issues:

http://schwablearningforumarchive.greatschools.net/thread/2416.html

GreatSchools is an independent, nonprofit organization that improves education by inspiring parents to get involved. It empowers parents with information and tools so they can choose the best school for their children, support their children’s education and improve schools in their communities. Parents choose GreatSchools to connect with each other – to find the right schools, to share stories and advice, and to get their parenting questions answered. In the past year alone, more than 35 million people visited GreatSchools (www.greatschools.org). With hundreds of thousands of ratings and parent reviews about schools across the country, GreatSchools is the paramount parent-to-parent education community. A Webby award-winning site, GreatSchools is supported by foundations and corporations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. GreatSchools – Involved parents. Successful kids.

GreatSchools has a section of their website dedicated to learning issues:

http://www.greatschools.net/content/specialNeeds.page

GreatSchools.net – The Parent’s Guide to K-12 Success
SchwabLearning.org Parent to Parent Message Board Archive

Ron Davis discusses his childhood autism, his adult dyslexia, and how he first realized that he could correct his own dyslexia.
 

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