Understanding and Helping the Struggling Learner - Part 3

Characteristics and Interventions

www.diannecraft.org

3. Auditory Processing Dysfunction - ADD kids fall into this category...not to say that all kids in this category have ADD. This is Caleb's glitch, but he does not have ADD.

1. misunderstands conversations often - only 50% of what you say gets through. Information is going in, but there's no 'velcro', so it just bounces around. These kids seem to not be able to process information in a way that they can put velcro on it. Some children later described it as listening to a radio in your car. You go through a tunnel, there's static, you miss part of your program and you get frustrated. Children with this dysfunction are also frustrated. These are the kids who, you ask them a question and they reply, 'Wellllll.....' and you could eat a sandwich waiting for their answer (this is classic Caleb). The back of the brain is receptive, the front of the brain is expressive. It's like there's all sorts of roadblocks as information goes from the back of their brain to the front, so verbal expression is very difficult for these kids. For this reason, these kids are typically quiet, more quiet than they want to or should be. We call them low-expressive, meaning they don't say the things they want to say. One boy described it as feeling trapped. He had good things to say, but he couldn't get his words to come out the way he wanted them to. (I see this in Caleb a lot.)

A hallmark of children with this dysfunction is that they tend to be angry. They are very frustrated about not being able to hear things. It seems that in this world we can get along better not being able to see things than not being able to hear things. They can hear tone and volume (it's not a problem with their ears), but they can't hear it, put it all together, store it and retrieve it easily. They lose whole chunks of the material (which explains why, when I read aloud to the kids, Caleb can tell me very little, if anything, of what I've read). An example would be giving your child 2 or 3 directions and asking them to tell it back to you. You're lucky if they remember one thing. This is very frustrating for your child (and for you). They know they should be able to tell it back, they know there is a problem. This dysfunction is pervasive and subtle...and it creates misery. This dysfunction affects everything they do (not just academics).

2. easily confused - these kids never quite know what's going on all the time. These are the kids who, after an instruction is given, they will look around to see what everyone else is doing because they can't trust their own hearing.

3. can't sound out words when reading - the middle of the word falls out (remember becomes 'reber'). Phonics is lost to them because they can't remember the sounds. When most of us read something, we hear our voice in our head. Children with this dysfunction don't. They may prefer to read out-loud to themselves so they understand it better.

4. difficulty with math facts

5. responds slowly with questions

6. poor memory

Children with Auditory Processing Dysfunction typically have tight, contracted muscles. If they bend over to touch their toes, they may only reach their knees. PE tells us that when their muscles are stretched, learning improves (fascinating!). It's been found that sports that require crossing the mid-line (swimming, gymnastics, wrestling) is of great benefit to these kids. It's been proven that the stretching and lengthening of the hamstring area, in particular, helps their ability to express themselves. They begin to hear their internal voice and speak their thoughts. This has something to do with the corpus callosum in the brain, but I had no idea what Ms. Craft was talking about!

An easy way to check the integrity of your child's auditory processing is to have them write the alphabet in lower case and watch for when they pause. What's happening when they pause and have to start over is that they can't store it and retrieve it efficiently. So they have to stop and start all the way over again. The severity of their dysfunction can be determined by how soon they have to pause.

So, how can we help these kids?? Dianne Craft mentioned a few things and also said she gets into more of it in the next DVD, so you'll have to stay tuned (again).

1. audiological examination - have their hearing checked

2. Brain Integration Therapy (manual available from www.diannecraft.org so you can do it at home with your child). I've already mentioned some of her techniques that I'll try to explain in a coming post. The Ear Eight exercise is recommended for this dysfunction. I'll share more on that soon!

3. Right Brain Phonics Program (also at www.diannecraft.org)

4. Teaching the Right Brain Child DVD (www.diannecraft.org), that teaches visual methods for math facts, spelling, vocabulary, etc. (Help them remember things by associating them with pictures.)

5. anti-histamines or decongestants - this was so interesting. She said that many children with this dysfunction have inflammation in the back of their brain. Dr. Harold Levinson (Smart But Feeling Dumb) recommends giving 1/4 dosage in the morning and evening to help relieve this inflammation. (She encouraged the audience to research that information.)

6. essential fatty acids and lecithin to improve auditory memory

She also talked about antioxidants and said she gets more into foods and nutritional helps in the second DVD.

Understanding and Helping the Struggling Learner - Part 2

Characteristics and Interventions

www.diannecraft.org

1.  Learning Disabilities - or learning glitches as Dianne Craft calls it:  these are the kids with average intelligence but low achievement.  They're probably good in math, but read below their grade level.

A.  Processing Problems

1.  Visual Processing Dysfunction Characteristics

1. labored oral reading - they can read okay but it's one. word. at. a. time.

2.  reverses words or letters - straight reversals

for example, 'b' could look like 'd', 'p', or 'q'

'm' looks like 'w' (so your child may read 'wan' for 'man')

'n' looks like 'u', 'h' looks like 'y', 'f' looks like 't

This prodlem is not too harb for any doby to beal with. (labored reading)

But your child may also rotate their letters.

Tyaf cau qe a liffle yarger fo tignre onf.

Ask your child if this happens to them.  Preface by saying, 'sometimes this happens to smart children.'  I asked all my kids today and they all said this has never happened to them.

3.  mis-reads familiar words - sometimes the letters scramble so the word 'the' looks like 'eth' or 'hte.'  Your child won't tell you their letters scramble - to them it's normal.  You need to ask them if it ever happens to them.

4.  poor eye tracking - the right brain is automatic.  The left brain is where we think about things.  When we learn how to drive, for example, we start by using our left brain.  As it becomes more familiar, we move it over to the right brain and it becomes automatic.  We can then relax a little and listen to music at the same time.  We need to get the basic skills of eye tracking over to the right brain.  She shared a vision training technique here that I'll try to share in another post.  I'll probably have my kids do it and record it...it's much easier to see than explain.

5. becomes fatigued easily - here Ms. Craft talked about using colored transparencies to help with eye fatigue.  College students use these to help them study longer without getting eye fatigue.  She bought a package of vivid colors - blue, red, green, yellow and gray - and let her students each choose a color to lay over the books they read.  One child laid the transparency on their page and said, 'oh, it's a magnifying glass.'  Another said, 'my words are still with this.'  Another said, ' look at the spaces in between the words.'  And another said, 'oh, the green dot stopped moving.'  She had always seen a green dot move along with her as she read, but when she put the green transparency over her book, the dot disappeared.  Gray and yellow are the most common for adults to use and blue is the most common for children.  I haven't been able to find colored transparencies (or plain ones for that matter...who uses them these days?), but I do plan to try this with the kids (and myself).  As the visual processing dysfunction improves, they'll use the transparencies less.  

If we don't find a way to relieve the stress in their learning system or give them some answers, they'll think that they're really dumb.  They need to know it's just a glitch and it can be fixed.  

2.  Writing Dysfunction Characteristics

1.  frequent letter or number reversals - some people say it's okay for 1st graders to do this, but if that's true, why don't they all do it?  It could be a warning sign.

2.  difficulty writing above or below line - like there's a forcefield blocking them from crossing the line.  Caleb does this.  If he writes the word 'they' it looks like 'theY' because he can't drop the tail of the 'y' below the line.  'Therapy' would be written 'TheraPY.'  Same with g's, j's, and q's.

3. no spaces between words - thedogwenttothestorewiththegirl

4.  poor placement of math problems - lining up numbers in problems is hard

5.  resists cursive - some parents are just satisfied that their child can print and don't force learning cursive.  But our kids need to know how to read cursive (Caleb can't wait to learn cursive so he can read his birthday cards), which means they need to learn how to write it.

6.  low production of written work - good orally but written work is poor.  Kids who never finish anything.  They write very little when asked to.

7.  Leaves out letters in Spelling Test even though they know how to spell the word

8.  no established hand-dominance - young children who haven't established hand-dominance yet are frustrated, short fused and probably have behavioral issues.

9.  mixed eye/hand dominance -  An easy way to check their eye dominance is to tear a small hole in a piece of paper and have the child hold it at arms length while peering through the hole at an object on the wall.  Tell the child not to move his arms while you go behind him.  Cover one eye and ask if he can still see the object without moving the paper.  Do the same with the other eye.  We sight with our dominant eye so when you cover that eye, the object on the wall will seem to disappear.  If their left eye is dominant and they are right handed, this is mixed dominance (and vice versa).  You'll recognize these kids as hunching over when they write because they're trying to see what they're writing.  Many children who experience difficulty in written expression, particularly in the area of reversals, are found to be mixed dominant.  In order for the brain to function and process most efficiently, single side dominance (right eye and right hand or left eye and left hand) is best.  Mixed dominance children are forced to cross the midline of the brain/body every time the eye and hand have to work together.

Here Ms. Craft recommends the Writing 8 exercise.  The point is not to change the child's dominace pattern.  With repatterning and integration exercises, we can facilitate efficient brain processing for the dominance pattern that the child has.  This will greatly reduce the stress on the child's system and relieve the fatigue associated with mixed dominance.  Some children who are mixed dominant are 'hard wired' to be left handed, but are using their right hand to write.  Watch them draw a circle.  A child who is hard wired by the brain to be right hand dominant will make his circles counterclockwise.  A child who is hard wired to be left hand dominant will most often make his circles clockwise.  (Isn't that interesting?  I am left-handed and I do make my o's clockwise.  And my left eye is dominant which makes me uniform-dominant.)  For this child it is very important to do the Writing 8 exercise.  This will greatly relieve the stress in the child's writing system.  Anyone will benefit from doing the Writing 8 exercise daily, whether he is mixed dominant or uniform dominant.

So, what is the Writing 8 exericise?  I will share that soon.  It's another one where a visual will be very helpful.  The kids and I have been doing it together each day and it's quite relaxing.

Next time I will share my notes about Auditory Processing Dysfunction, which is Caleb's glitch.

Understanding and Helping the Struggling Learner - Part 1

It seems like I mentioned the DVD I bought called Understanding and Helping the Struggling Learner in another post. Dianne Craft presents this seminar on two 90 minute DVD's...I'm only half way through the first one and have so much to share already! If you have a bright child who has to work hard to learn, I encourage you to read on!

Ms. Craft talks quite a bit about ADD & ADHD in the beginning of this lecture. If you have children who are in these categories, I can't recommend this DVD enough! She also discusses Dyslexia and Dysgraphia and has tips and techniques on how to help children with all of these disorders. Also in the beginning, she asks why more boys have learning struggles than girls do. She said that boys have 3 times more Essential Fatty Acids deficiency than girls do. Some symptoms of this deficiency are: dry hair (you're always taking a wet comb to their head to get their hair to lay down), dry skin (a white trail is left on the skin after scratching), eczema, rashes, always thirsty, licks butter out of the tub. She also said that most, if not all, of hyperactive children have been helped by using oils in their diet. The white matter of the brain, where transmitters signal from the left to the right brain hemispheres, is 90% fat! Fats (good fats) are essential to kids! When I went to the Brain Balance lecture at the GHEA conference, Dr. Scire also said we MUST be giving our children fish oil supplements (and lots of antioxidants so their bodies can break down the oils), if we want them to have healthy brain development and function.

Sidenote here...since I mentioned the Brain Balance lecture, I thought I'd share a few tidbits.
1 in 4 kids has ADHD (up 2,000% in the last 20 years)
1 in 100 kids has Autism (15 years ago it was 1 in 10,000)
He mentioned the rise in diabetes and obesity in kids (I had no idea doctors are prescribing Lipitor to children for high cholesterol) and blames most of it on how sedentary kids are these days. The average child today spends 8 hours a day in front of a screen be it TV, movies, computer, video games, and texting.

Dr. Scire said (I have not confirmed this) that because we know so much more about the brain and how it functions, and what it needs for optimum learning and development, that the American Pediatric Association is now recommending NO television for children under 5. All other kids should receive no more than 30 minutes of screen time per day. Wow...I had to let that sink in. My kids only get 30 minutes per day, if any, on the computer. But we usually watch something as a family in the evenings. These days it's been 2 episodes of Little House on the Prairie, so 90 minutes. I guess I'm not really worried about them, because they do play outside and jump on the trampoline for hours a day (weather permitting). We got rid of our PS2 over a year ago, so video games aren't an issue anymore. If they're not outside, the boys are probably building Legos or playing a game and Abbi is probably reading or knitting as she listens to a book on CD.

Dr. Scire said two of the most important things kids need (for a healthy brain) are exercise and freeplay. And of course a healthy diet. Less carbs and gluten-based food. More protein (amino acids), essential fatty oils, antioxidants, fruits and vegetables. And NO SOY! Soy is full of estrogen and is proving to be detrimental to boys especially.

ANYWAY - I bought this DVD so I can learn more about Caleb, my youngest son (age 9), and how his brain works. For the past year or so, I've known that something wasn't quite right with him. Maybe you're in the same boat. Your friends tell you, 'he'll grow out of it,' but you just know something is wrong. Caleb is very bright, but there were little clues that he just wasn't 'getting' things. He still, to this day, writes his name caLeB. We've practiced and practiced his handwriting and we've gone over and over when we capitalize nouns, but he still doesn't get it when it comes to his name. My problem was that Caleb didn't really fit into the ADD or ADHD or Dylexia categories. I really didn't have much to go on, because I couldn't pinpoint exactly what the problem was. I just knew something wasn't right. And then I received an email from HSLDA last summer with an article called Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner. I read it with tears knowing I was beginning to get answers. If you think you may have a struggling learner, please look at the characteristics of the 4 learning gates. That's where I learned about Dianne Craft. She is all about brain integration and says if you can get the right and left brain hemispheres to work better as one unit, things become easier for the child. Interestingly, Dr. Scire from Brain Balance, said that teaching only to your child's learning style will worsen your child's brain imbalance. What?! One of the great things about homeschooling is that we can teach to our child's learning style, right? We can teach the way they learn...isn't that the best way? Dr. Scire says, 'no.' He said when you teach only to your child's learning style, the other part of the brain suffers. His advice is to teach as multi-sensory as you can. Involve both sides of the brain as much as possible for proper development.

Well, this ended up being much longer than I anticipated, so I'll close for now. I'm barely into my notes from the DVD...good stuff though, isn't it? What I've learned about Visual and Auditory processing is fascinating. I hope you'll stay tuned.