Anyone Have Thoughts/Experience re 2E Kids?

[hellokitty]

I have a friend (not in my area) whose son is 2e. He has dyslexia and visual tracking issues. She lives in CO and has fought and fought the school on it. They basically did not want to do anything about it. She ended up having to get a private consult and is getting her son private therapy. I have another friend locally, whose dd has both of the same issues (althugh I'm not sure if she is gifted or not) and she somehow got the school to not only let her dd have therapy 1x a wk, but it is over an hr away and they pay her mileage too. I think that with some school districts you have to be a loud, squeeky wheel to advocate for your child.

[LBW]

nice job getting tested. DS1 is this. His profile:
Verbal Comprehension Index VCI 99%
Perceptual Reasoning Index PRI 87%
Working Memory Index WMI 47% (!!)
Processing Speed Index 66%

So interesting! Here are DS2's numbers. The low processing speed causes so much of his frustration. He does not have dyslexia, but he does struggle with writing. I think the physical act of writing is so slow for him compared to how fast his brain is working, so he just doesn't want to do it. We're working on typing skills to help w/that.

Verbal Comprehension Index VCI 98%
Perceptual Reasoning Index PRI 99%
Working Memory Index WMI 99%
Processing Speed Index 50%

[hillview]

The low processing speed causes so much of his frustration. He does not have dyslexia, but he does struggle with writing. I think the physical act of writing is so slow for him compared to how fast his brain is working, so he just doesn't want to do it. We're working on typing skills to help w/that.

YES this is very like DS1. He also has some language based learning challenges. But what you wrote is a HUGE part of his challenge in life.

[egoldber]

Yes, older DD also has terrible and slow handwriting. Now that she can touch type (and fast) that is much less of a frustration for her.

[inmypjs]

For those whose kids have a dyslexia diagnosis, you may find this interesting. Brock and Fernette Eide are medical doctors who have a dyslexia clinic in WA state. Here are the typical result patterns they see for IQ and other cognitive testing. Sample size is 80. Isn't it interesting that regardless of the level of intelligence the general pattern is the same?

http://voicethread.com/myvoice/#thre...45879/31951071

[sste]

Thanks so much everyone. I didn't ask for alot of detail on the IQ just the gestalt but what she told me was that he was gifted on the verbal parts but showed actual deficit on visual processing -- I was watching and he could not manage anything with an angled line. This didn't surprise me somehow though I hadn't consciously noticed it. DS is extremely good at replicating patterns when I use cubes - - I use dif. colors, dif heights, alternating colors within same stack so it is patterns within patterns and he can do more of them than DH. But I don't use angled lines. That is why the neuropsych thinks our next stop needs to be the optometrist. I guess I always thought visual training was discredited?? Maybe it is as a general antidote to reading problems but she thinks in his case his eyes may not be properly converging or processing convergence if I am understanding this correctly. And yes the handwriting is a big problem and his other fine motor skills are OK I think, it is really concentrated in the areas of writing and low tone.

I am praying the school will agree to a partial homeschool, I think we would be the first in our district. They should because the reality is they can't provide and would rather not pay for all of the services we need - - you can't costcut AND inflexibly lock kids in the school all day every day. They have no gifted programming in the district. They have no reading specialists or programs for dyslexia in the school. They are paying a reading specialist at a nearby elementary school to give DS 25 minutes per day of OG tutoring after school, we drive him to that school. So his day is already longer. We will be really screwed if they do not let us take him out of school for the additional services he needs which she clocked at 3 additional hours of tutoring on top of school tutoring, 1 additional hour private OT, 1 additional hour speech, and likely vision therapy/retraining.

[brittone2]

I am praying the school will agree to a partial homeschool, I think we would be the first in our district. They should because the reality is they can't provide and would rather not pay for all of the services we need - - you can't costcut AND inflexibly lock kids in the school all day every day. They have no gifted programming in the district. They have no reading specialists or programs for dyslexia in the school. They are paying a reading specialist at a nearby elementary school to give DS 25 minutes per day of OG tutoring after school, we drive him to that school. So his day is already longer. We will be really screwed if they do not let us take him out of school for the additional services he needs which she clocked at 3 additional hours of tutoring on top of school tutoring, 1 additional hour private OT, 1 additional hour speech, and likely vision therapy/retraining.

I hope they are responsive and willing to work with you. Please keep us posted.

[StantonHyde]

One thing to keep in mind--do you really have to tackle ALL of this at once? Can you prioritize? We actually didn't do the full OT for DS's handwriting because we knew he could eventually keyboard. (he is low tone but can pass the OT testing so we haven't done anything with that) We concentrated first on the reading--Wilson tutor in the summer and we put him in a private school with a Wilson tutor who works with his teachers. Then, the anxiety became a bigger issue, so we medicated for that in addition to the CBT we had been doing. Reading improved markedly so then we moved on to math. Then the ADD became a big issue so we medicated for that too. Now, in 5th grade, we are medicating for ADD and anxiety, he is doing math tutoring with the Wilson tutor/learning specialist 2x a week during the school day. He is excused from handwriting and uses that time to work on homework or other assignments. Our next challenge is going to be keeping up the math tutoring and learning how to keyboard proficiently.

DS is a bright kid. He didn't test as gifted but he is uber curious, has amazing verbal skills, outstanding retention skills, etc. We didn't pick up on the dyslexia until he was at the end of kindergarten. We paid for our own neuropsych testing in first grade which showed dyslexia, ADD, anxiety, slow processing. And our heads were absolutely spinning after getting those results. We found it much more helpful to work with DS's psychologist to prioritize interventions and figure out what to do next. She focused on keeping DS happy and a kid vs. a subject that needed all this intervention at once. She wasn't necessarily vested in any one intervention so she helped us balance everything.

[egoldber]

3 additional hours of tutoring on top of school tutoring, 1 additional hour private OT, 1 additional hour speech, and likely vision therapy/retraining

SSTE, what you described is a lot of intervention all at once. I would prioritize. I would work on the reading and the dyslexia first. Personally, I would give the OG school tutoring a chance to work before I added additional tutoring on top of it. I would not do OT at this point. I would think heavily about the vision therapy because I do think there is very little research in this area. Is he getting the speech at school?

And if he really does need all that, then I would seriously consider a special needs school so this is integrated into his day. But really, this a long process. I would not try to do everything all at once, especially with a kid who tends to be anxious.

[hillview]

So 25 mins of OG tutoring a day is really good!! It can make a HUGE difference. We saw great great progress with DS1 in 3 hrs a week (1x a day 3 days a week) over the summer just getting the rules down. He is smart so having the rules explained to him was a big help and OG will do this.

DS1 benefited from 6 months of OT (1 hr a week once a week) for his handwriting. He then tested out of OT. His handwriting still isn't awesome but it is a lot better and very good when he wants it to be. I would consider at least a couple of weeks between adding something new for him just to get him adjusted etc. Also to trouble shoot more easily (hard to know what caused an issue when you do 2 things at once). I agree with Beth that vision therapy is not well proven. DS2 has a non verbal (eg visual) learning issue and we have him in OT, SLP and tutoring but after some consults vision therapy wasn't an option we'd consider.

Good luck! As my DH says it is a marathon not a sprint