Thanks!
His lowest score is visual spacial processing....he stops reading after a few pages saying his eyes hurt....teacher says he's average in literature. Somewhere between his litteral eyes and his mind there is some unsmoothness that is bottlenecking him. Possibly the same can be said of his ears.
Practice and time to mature may be all he needs but if you can't find any local folks to check him and help the process along I would try a few things on my own. Trick is to keep it fun for you and for him. Eventually you may be able to get an overseas expert to skype with you, and you'll want a notebook of observations to help that process along.
Has he met largeprint books? Do they make a difference? How long since the eye exam that got him the glasses? Sometimes vision can change abruptly. What did the developmental op say? If you spell a long word aloud can he decode it? My DH invented a game to pass the time where DS and I are challenged to find words that containes 2 particular letters. Then we each get a chance to pick letters. Once that gets too easy the picker chooses 3 letters, and then 4. DH can do 5, but I can't even keep track of what the 5 letters are! I've come to the conclusion that everyone live in the same world, but perceives it so uniquely that it may as well be individual worlds. DH and DS seem to have 'dry erase boards' in their minds where they can store visual images of random info, such as 7 digit phone numbers. They always beat me at the letter game 'ghost' - ug!!!
I don't have much more than 3 random slots, and it's work to them from a misty thought into a picture. When DS wanted to learn to read, or do a math problem, I'd reach for pencil and paper so instinctively. I can't do anything until I write it down. DS would get frustrated, because he could see it all 'up there.' I'm a nonspeller, and there are lots of ways to be a good speller, but having some ability to recognize and store visual patterns is a big help. Weirdly, I'm terrific with 'seat of the pants' navigation - and I have a sort of 'spidy sense' of being 'too far east' when traveling, based on visual landmarks (LOL, I'm not tracking sounds or familiar smells!) but it's never 'thinking in pictures' like the movie of Temple Grandon. It's very vague, like hunches, or mild gas pain. But like with numbers (I look for the most original associations to make the telephone number non-random) or the find a word with X letters game (I look for compound words) a lot of my navigation prowess is pattern recognition - 'is this the sort of human-concentration that I'm used to seeing on my way to Jenny's house?' and 'were there so many factories last time were went?'
I like the book 'Try to feel it my way: new help for touch dominant people and those who care about them' by
Suzette Haden Elgin
- not sure if this is your son's issue, but if he isn't smoothly responding to visual or audio - what else is left?
A local reading tutor who is just plain experienced and loving might be really good (screen first - look for someone open minded and not relying on other people's thinking) even if she knows nothing about dyslexia or giftedness. I've always kicked around the idea of swaping tutoring with other local moms as it's emotionally harder to keep things fun with ones own child.
I'd contact an occupational therapist who specialises in kids and 'sensory integration disorder.' I'd try a different Developmental Optomitrist. I'd bring the test results and a report card to show the difference.
I'd play 'Banagrams' or 'Scrabble' - kids can play open book (or open Internet) or any other game that has letters in it. I love those magnetic fridge letters and refridgerator poetry magnets - although my DS hated all that sort of stuff.
Some kids develop their reading through writing - so having a child make a video for grandma with telling stories with little dolls and then dubbing a narration over the video (scripted or unscripted) and providing 'close captioning' is a fun project for some families. I also love the idea of 'time capsules' of family life.
Anyway -- have fun, think of all the money you didn't spend on tutors and experts, and take really good notes. It might be just me, but I think figuring out how other people experience the world is the funnest thing ever. On the downside, DS complains that DH and I treat him like a science experiment, but he says it with love.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
