Pamt I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for me. My son is 6 and has had speech since he was 15 months. He is doing a lot better and I usually understand him know. The problem to me seems to be the way that he hears things. I thought I was the only one that saw this. But my friend who is a teacher tutors him. She said that it appears he hears fine. Which he has been tested but it doesn't seem like he hears the sounds correctly. Does that make since? He can sing on tune and all that. But when it comes to reading he appears to not be able to sound out the words correctly. When you do it for him he seems to not hear what you are saying correctly. Like if you tell him the sound for w and then give him a list of words and one or two start with w he can not pick them out. I plan to take this up with his speech teacher today but just wanted some outside input. It seems like the school just thinks he doesn't try. Which honestly I thought was part of the problem also. But my friend pointed out to me that she thinks its hard for him and he gets frustrated. He of course doesn't want to try because its such a struggle. I am not ready to say that he can't do it. Any thoughts?

By Kaye on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 12:06 pm:

Not pam, but I used to be a sp ed teacher. What you are refering to is phonemic awareness. Some kids are slower to pick up on this than others. I don't recall the age break downs, so it is certainly worth looking into. Kids who get speech services can fall into a couple of different areas, they can just get speech and work on sounds, they usually get the help they need and then move on. But some kids who get speech also have other special needs. So that is worth some thought and research on your part. One thing I would look into is dyslexia info. Not that your child is dyslexic (could be, but I have no Idea), but part of what they deal with is children not making those connections. One of the questions I recall is showing them a bat, a hat, a cat and a cup and asking which doesn't belong. Anyway, part of trying to help the wiring with dylexic children is using a mulitsensory approach. So it seems to make sense to me if your son is stuggling to try to get him to use more senses. Like have him write letters in shaving cream on a table. Have him stand at the fridge and use magnetic letters, find some phonics songs, have a letter of the day, Like P, and make pizzas or pretzles in the shape of a p. Anyway, the point of what I am saying is, most children are capable of reading and understanding what is being said. You may just have to work a little harder and quite a bit different. It can't hurt looking into other options. Also your son is 6, in kindergarden or 6 in 1st grade, this makes a big difference. This is such a huge year for reading development.

By Beth on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 09:23 am:

Thank you for the info! My son is in the first grade which he really should only be in kindergarten. However, he had been through two years of preschool and the way his birthday falls several days before the cut off he could not do a third year. Or if he had it would have been a different private school and we still would of had to go to the public school for all of this therapies which at that time included physical also. I see what you are saying about the dyslexia we could use some of those ideas. I definately don't think he is dyslexic though. He has very neat penmanship and can recognize letter. Just not the sounds to be able to sound them out. I talked to his speech teacher about the phonemic awareness yesterday. He was tested for hearing but not some special test that will test more for his abilities to hear the sounds. They are going to do that. I mentioned this at the beginning of the year so it is frustrating to me that they are just now figuring it out that he didn't have it and needs it. We shall see how the test goes. Thanks again.

By Pamt on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 03:15 pm:

Beth, this is definitely something that the speech therapist can work on and I'd also recommend an evaluation for learning disabilities. These type of errors are often indicative of dyslexia. Many people erroneously think of dyslexia as letter reversal, but dyslexia literally means "difficulty with reading." Sound-letter correspondence is a crucial component of being able to read and spell. Can your son identify rhyming words? If you say h-a-t (making the sounds of those letters, not saying the letters themselves) can he figure out that you were saying "hat"? Give him about 5 blocks of any color and say a work like "dog". Have him put a blocks in a row to represent each sound that he hears in the word. He should put 3 blocks to represent the 3 sounds (not letters) of d-o-g. Now try words like "shoe" (2 blocks; "shhh" and "oo") and "bike" (3 blocks; b-"eye"-k). Those are some initial activities to see where the breakdown may be occurring. I would recommend a reading test and a phonemic awareness test. I am assuming that he has already had a comprehensive language evaluation since he's in speech tx. Finally, I would hold off on deciding to hold him back now. If you get him the services he needs now and really work with him this summer, he may be ready to move on. I'd suggest a "wait and see" approach for now, but if he needs it, then holding him back will be fore the best, esp. since he is younger than most of his classmates. HTH!

P.S. It also may be auditory discrimination problems in detecting sounds differences. A comprehensive audiological work-up (not a "hearing test" like they do at school which is really a screening) would determine if this is the problem.

By Pamt on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 07:40 pm:

*bumping fo Beth*

By Pamt on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 07:41 pm:

ummmm....FOR