My DS8 has Expressive and Receptive language processing disorder in addition to ADHD combined type. He tests in the 0.5th percentile for receptive language and the 12th percentile for expressive.
This is where it gets interesting. He's in French Immersion at school (against the advice of the school team... this is my decision). What's interesting is that he's actually learning the second language, but the specific issues he is having occur in both languages.
His grade one teacher (brilliant lady, I miss her) made a comment - this was before his diagnoses - "he might just have a problem with language in general." BINGO.
For example, he still confuses gender specific pronouns, again in both languages. He refers to his male friends as "she" sometimes, and to his sister and her friends as "he." Not always, but by eight all of that should be gone.
He also can't remember the order of the days of the week and the months of the year, in either language. He's eight! He understands the concept of "before" and "after" but he can't remember the sequence the days and months are in. Not true with numbers or letters individually (he gets quite insulted when you ask about those).
He still struggles with word pronunciation (both languages again, although somewhat less so in French because a) they do phonics drills and b) the vocab is not as advanced). For example the other day he was trying to say the word "management" and he kept saying "ma-je-ment." His sister (9) was trying to correct him and they were both getting so frustrated. I finally spelled it for him and had him read it and then he said it fine, but the minute I took the paper away and he lost his visual reference, he reverted to saying "ma-je-ment." I have a list of words he can't pronounce that is much longer than it should be for someone his age. Btw, CAPD has been ruled out.
He has a lot of trouble articulating what's on his mind. This I think is made worse by the fact that he's clever and his imagination is so vivid, and the gap between what he's thinking and seeing in his head Vs. what he can articulate verbally is so wide that he just gives up: "Oh, never mind! It's too hard to explain."
Anyway, I'm just wondering if there is anyone else whose child has similar issues and what you've done that's been successful. Originally I thought that removing him from French could be my last resort, "at least we can do that" type of strategy, but now I'm seeing that specific processing issues are persisting and I don't think an English only environment will make a difference. Fyi he's also had speech therapy through the school.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help
