Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Testing insight--any idea what this might be?

DS6 was just tested in WISC and WJ-III. He did better than I expected, but the most interesting thing we realized has to do with the LD that--as many of you may remember--I've been sensing but have not really been able to make sense of. Up to now, his symptoms have been vague, easy to dismiss as normal for some kids, and hard even to explain to someone.

Well, thank goodness for testing!

We realized that if he is given a math problem on paper and he reads it silently, he gets it wrong most of the time. If he reads the same problem aloud and works it aloud, he gets it right, even with complex, long problems. (Note that *he* does the reading both times, once silently and once aloud. He's not read to, so I'm pretty sure it's not what I would think of as classic dyslexia, where he can't read the numbers or mixes them up.)

Given that he talks *constantly*, we're now thinking that he is not just a chatty extrovert, as we believed his constant talk indicated. It appears that he *MUST* process aloud. That's a real symptom we can sink our teeth into! (I hope...)

Our psych is consulting with a neuropsych and others in her field and will hopefully have more to tell me when I go in for the report later in the summer. In the meantime, I thought I'd ask if anyone here might have a theory about what this is. It sounds like a processing disorder of some sort to me, but that's as far as I can guess, and I freely admit that I could be wrong.

Thoughts? Ideas? Any help?

Thanks, friends!

How are his handwriting and spelling?
http://www.ldinfo.com/dyscalculia.htm
Under strategies:

Thanks, Inky!

He sounds things out well and writes better than most of the kids in his class. (More telling, I think, is that he seems to *enjoy* sounding things out and writing them down. He doesn't avoid them by any stretch.)

His math ability on the achievement test was DYS level, provided he could do the work aloud.

BTW, I tried the LD test on that site, Inky. It seemed promising and I was really hopeful when I took it, but I feel like it doesn't ask the right questions for what DS6 has. Or else his giftedness is making some things look average and is throwing off the results.

*sigh*

It said the only potential problem is an auditory processing disorder. I had considered this before the testing, but I came to no conclusions. Does CAPD/APD make sense? Could he somehow be unable to hear his own voice in his head and therefore have to say it aloud?

I was wondering the same thing. I would think that the voice inside your head for reading would be the same for math but maybe he's reading without using that inner voice.
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2006/03/can_you_read_without.html
Great news on the DYS scores and it seems like whatever is going on he's found a way to adapt. The self-talk thing could be problem in a typical school environment if the teacher doesn't understand:
http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2007/articles/1179.

Kriston, I think it's great that you have gotten such insight into how your DS's brain is working! The revelation, alone, that he does better when he hears information than when he more silently just thinks the information, can be very helpful, I would think. Do you find that your DS, in general, learns well through listening?

My DS11 has some of the same issues I've seen you discuss before. I have always ruled out APD, even though DS11 has a long history of ear infections and seems to hear everything around him at the same volume, because he learns so well when things are read or discussed with him. So, what Inky wrote about visual processing difficulties is interesting to me (he has done visual therapy in the past for tracking and teaming issues).

Interestingly, I have always tried to have DS learn things using as many senses as possible. For example, when practicing spelling words I would have him write the words as well as say the letters aloud while he was writing so that he would see them, feel them (as he writes), and hear them. It seems to work. With him, reading aloud allows him to "check" what he is reading because he is more apt to notice if he read something incorrectly. For him this means that reading aloud is less fluent.

Anyway, enough about me! Like I said, I think it's great that you've begun to figure out another piece of the puzzle! It seems like a real "aha" moment! What a fascinating, lovely kid you have there!

He actually seems to be a visual learner. His WISC scores indicate that he's stronger in Perceptual Reasoning, which tracks with his talents at chess, piano and math, so that makes sense to me. This is why we've been so completely flummoxed by what have appeared to be visual problems. For a while it seemed that we had a visual learner who couldn't see well. Now I'm not so sure...

If he *sees* fine, but he can't "hear what he sees," so to speak, it might make sense. A friend here on the forum had suggested APD might fit, and I'm leaning that way.

I wouldn't say that he learns better by listening, actually, no. Now that I think of it, when I give oral directions, I make him repeat them so that he *says them aloud*--!!!



Wow! Anyone else starting to sense a pattern?!

I'm not sure we have IDd the correct cause, but I think we have at least managed to isolate what exactly he is (and *I* am) doing to compensate for whatever he's got going on. That's a really big step forward, I suspect.

Anyone else have other thoughts? Talking about this here and answering questions about what I'm seeing feels really helpful to me!

Thanks!

Kriston,

My DS5 has Apraxia which is a disconnect between his brain and his vocal chords. His brain tells him what to say, then his mouth fails to respond. It is considered an auditory processing disorder. I wonder if this is something similar? The brain doesn't process without the vocal chords engaged?

Interesting, Shari. It does seem similar in concept, doesn't it?

Thanks for posting.

More pushes toward APD...

Anyone care to come up with reasons why it might not be auditory in origin? I spoke with a friend who just by chance happens to be an audiologist, and she wasn't buying my suggestion. I don't think she got that this is not the *traditional* CAPD/APD LD. Whatever he's got going on is not "normal," even for an LD. She kept suggesting that it's a visual problem, but I think that makes less sense.

Anyone think she's right? (Or wrong, for that matter...)



K-

Hi Kriston, Great to hear that you finally got the testing done!

I was just telling my husband, an engineer, about your most recent comments. He just commented that he, and most of the engineers he knows, have to actually 'say' what they are working through to make the connection with their brains. He says that it has nothing to do with hearing it; they could mumble it. But he said that it has to go through his brain in this way to process it (in just another way). Something I just learned that I had in common with my husband.:) And it is very hard for both of us to focus on something with background noises as well. We are both extremely visual.

From what you've told me already, it is not apraxia. My DS's speech therapist said that these kids have difficulty verbalizing any sounds, that it isn't a connection to the brain thing in the way you may think. See this quote from ASHA http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/ChildhoodApraxia.htm
"Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words."

Here are my thoughts of why he probably does not have CAPD either; but you know your child best. I hope that you don't mind all of my two cents+++.:) This list is from
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/auditory.asp And I have commented next to each [in brackets] why it doesn't seem to fit either.

"What are the symptoms of possible auditory processing difficulty?
Children with auditory processing difficulty typically have normal hearing and intelligence. However, they have also been observed to

-Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally [Visual kids need a combination of learning tools to "understand," not memorize - as memorizing doesn't make sense to them if the understanding is not there. Understanding is what they need. They are trying to make connections to other information; so it is not a matter of paying attention, but actually making worldly connections to what they are learning.]
-Have problems carrying out multistep directions [didn't you tell me that 'easy was hard and hard was easy' for him? - also like mine...this was an issue before, but with practice is now a non-issue.]
-Have poor listening skills [Do you have to get his attention first, and then he listens fine? - Again, he is making connections to the world. How does everything relate?]
-Need more time to process information [I don't remember you saying that this is an issue, except that he may be just thinking through things, and then the next day, he gets it?? - again like mine.]
-Have low academic performance [a non-issue]
-Have behavior problems [also, a non-issue, especially in our hs environments:)]
-Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language) [non-issue as well, right?. He has the vocab, but he doesn't use it, right? Expressive Language Disorder symptom - although it may not be this.:)]
-Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary [non-issues as well, right? If there is a spelling issue, it may because he is not into sounding out words, like most VSLs, just having lots of sight words -- sound familiar? - this just needs practice, as you already know.;)]

I do think that you should have an SLP evaluate him if you are still looking for answers. I wouldn't mind anyone else's insight and comments on my thoughts as well. We are a year out in testing my DS; and Kriston's and my son sound very similar.

I appreciate the 2-cents! Please! I'm asking for it!

I don't think Shari thought it was apraxia, just that it sounds like it might be a related APD because of the brain-speech connection. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, Shari.)

Certainly, I didn't think it was apraxia, but I thought Shari's point was supportive of it being some APD.


Wow. That's a lot of yes answers...

I still think that you also must make comparisons to VSLs as well and work this into your assessment, which just may need a different way of learning, and tying in the way tests are presented while he's learning. 4+5=9 on a test is the same as OOOO+OOOOO=OOOOOOOOO beads

I don't know how to do the quotes yet; so I am rebutting/commenting on your answers below in brackets again:

"-Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally

*His WM is a 135, which is much higher than I would have guessed it to be based on how quickly he forgets directions given orally. I make him repeat directions so that he remembers them. This is a pretty strong yes.

[Am I wrong that 135 WM is pretty good? Is this before or after you have his full attention? Bright VSLs can also be ultra-focused!!!]

-Have problems carrying out multistep directions

*Again, he does have trouble with multi-step directions, certainly more trouble than he should have with a 135 WMI. I think he has been relying on his memory quite heavily to cope and it is masking a lot of problems. He will forget the first direction I gave him or the last. If I give him more than 2 things to do, he'll leave at least one out.

[This really just needs practice, and is an expressive language disorder thing too. My DS is great with this now since his SLP worked on this a lot. It is a sequencing thing. I can rattle directions off to him now, which was unheard of a year ago.]


-Have poor listening skills

*I'm less sure about this one. He tends to interrupt conversations inappropriately in ways that his brother never did. He often asks a question and then talks over me while I answer it. It's not utterly age-inappropriate though, so I'm not sure.

[Does it seem like he needs to get it out before he forgets what he wants/needs to say? This is an expressive language disorder thing too, and age-appropriate.:) It needs practice and focus. I personally would like ideas on how to help my own brain with this one.:)]

-Need more time to process information

*Maybe. His processing speed was significantly lower than his VCI and his PRI. It was on the high end of average, though, so it wasn't slow. He's not a kid I'd call fast, certainly.

[still holding to former comment here;)]


-Have low academic performance

*The high level of giftedness makes this hard to answer fairly, I think. I do think he's not been performing as well as he could. It's hard to persuade anyone of that because his is advanced. But that he misses math problems when they're on paper leads me to answer a mild yes to this.

[I believe that with Math, if your DS learned the info on an abacus, with cards, with anything PLUS seeing it on a sheet of paper, it may help him more when he is tested on just a sheet of paper, if he is really visual. It seems to work with mine. I force tying in the written part though, since that is commonplace. I use RightStart Math, which my DS loves, and asks for first before any other school work.]

-Have behavior problems

*No.


-Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)

*Yes, I have seen vocab issues. He has been asking meanings of words I would expect him to know. He started talking in sentences pretty early, but his vocabulary has felt...stuck?...to me for a while. He does not seem at all ahead in this area, despite the fact that he is crazy-talkative. This is a strong yes.

[Look deeper into the SPD definition on this one. I believe that it may be different than what ou are saying. This is an Expressive Language Disorder issue - he still needs to create files in his head first from which to pull the info and vocab words that are in there. ]

-Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary

*This is a BIG issue! He is not reading fluently, even with work on sight words, though everyone on both sides of the family was reading fluently before turning 4, and several before turning 3. That he is now 6 and still not reading has been a big concern for me, frankly. (I know that not all gifted kids read early, but this just felt wrong for a kid who is so into books and is so talkative.)

However, he is pretty good at sounding out words, and more importantly, he enjoys doing it. That would seem to work against an APD.

[Is he a perfectionist? Or does he have a problem with the rules of the words? Do you think that seeing the words written in the book AND elsewhere would help him? Since DS started using time4learning.com for reading (just the LangArts portion] he has gotten a lot more fluent, but mostly mroe confident. If you read him a book (an I Can Read book), and ask him questions about it after, can he answer them? I think that the fact that he is asking what words means works against the APD as well. Is he is just really literal?...then again Expressive Language Disorder. My DS is gabby as all get out...will not be quiet.:) But he seems vocab-stagnant at times as well. The combination of my gently, but diligently, correcting my DS's speech and his SLP's re-iterating it is helping so much. He won't use the vocab he knows (and can point out and understand its use) in his speech, but this may be a filing problem again. He may still be figuring out where it is filed or where to file it....ELD]

I want you to get the right answers for you as well. You know that! I think your answers are all mostly, "yes, but" though.

Hugs to you! Please, please keep me informed with what you discover. -m

I appreciate your help. I agree that VSL stuff might be a factor. But I don't think that explains everything. And he may have developed his visual strengths *because* of an auditory problem. It may be another coping issue.

The "filing" stuff you suggested in several of your comments doesn't ring true to me for DS6. It doesn't seem like he's trying to access something that's there. It seems like it never got there in the first place. It isn't like he's trying to figure out where or how to file info when he has listening problems, it seems like he doesn't understand what is being said to him. Until I have him repeat it aloud, he literally doesn't know what I said. The porch light is on but no one is home.

No, he's not a literal kid. He's very imaginative.

He is a perfectionist, but that doesn't seem to explain his reading issues. When he tries to do it, it is clearly hard for him. He cannot read, and it seems almost painful for him to try. He doesn't throw a tantrum the way he does when he is frustrated because he can't perform perfectly enough. He seems more...pained?..I guess...than angry or frustrated. Not the same.

135 was a surprisingly high working memory, according to my tester. WMI can go up if one works on it. *I* have not been working with him on his memory at all, and I had no idea that he had such a good memory, saw little evidence of it (aside from his doing 2-digit multiplication in his head, which took me completely by surprise when he started doing it). So I strongly suspect that he's been relying upon his working memory to cope with whatever is wrong.

No, he doesn't seem like he has something to say and has to get it out in a rush. He never does that, actually. He's slow and steady. He does occasionally forget what he was going to tell me if I make him wait while I talk to someone else, but *I* do that, too. That doesn't seem abnormal to me.

The not remembering info is *after* I have his attention. It's not a focus problem. He just can't always make sense of things that I say unless I have him repeat what I said.

I'm sure many of these things can improve with practice. We're not there yet though. We're still just trying to figure out what is wrong. And these *are* things that seem to fit yes answers to the questions.

As many parents of 2E kids do, I suspect I'm having some trouble answering those LD questionnaires with definite answers because gifted kids are so good at compensating. But I did have an awful lot of yes answers...

I hope you find your answers. My DS is very imaginative as well. The 'literalness' is with two different meanings of words sometimes. I don't know what else to think. It is all confusing with GT and VLS in the mix. Please keep in touch! I need to check out the LD questionnaire as well. -m

Thanks, Mom0405! Your questions and insights are really helpful for figuring out what to tell the pros. Some of these things are not things I would have made note of.

Much to chew on...

I hoped to be helpful. Always willing to go back and forth with you.:)

I would say that I am very much like what you are describing, and so is my DS7.

I think it's a matter of needing to hear the words the way you see them, if that makes sense. I don't have to read aloud, but to concentrate on something a lot of times it's necessary to read each word in my head like I was saying it aloud--otherwise, the other noises in my head and around me will drown it out and I find that I have read the same paragraph three times and have no idea what it said. This is for things I need to learn, not really for normal reading, which I do voraciously. If I'm trying to figure something out, I need to say the words in my head in order to "hear" them over the other things that I'm thinking about at the same time. It's the same reason that I need to see things in writing rather than hear them, because they go in one ear and out the other and get lost in all the thoughts in between. A child may need to actually read things aloud in order to make sense of them, before he learns to do the same thing inside his head--I think my DS7 does most of it in his head, but sometimes he really should do it aloud because he misses things.

It sounds like you're getting a real handle on all of this, and that should help tremendously!

Thanks, Nautigal. I think that voice in our heads is the norm. I suspect he's not able to hear that voice in his head for some reason. I try to imagine working to learn something or to solve a problem without that voice in my head.

It does *feel* like I'm getting a handle on it. At least maybe I'm starting to understand better what may be symptoms and what aren't.

It's hard for me to see symptoms/possible problems due to h/s-ing, because I don't see other kids his age to compare frequently enough. He plays at the playground etc with other kids; but I don't follow them around listening to them.:) I thought that my DS's grammar was a huge problem; but listening to other kdis his age mess up past tense verbage (the other day), for example, made me feel better. I am always looking for things to help my DS with (in my head); but I am realizing that some things just have to be learned. I think "that needs to be fixed," while other parents of kids that speak incorrectly are thinking "that's so cute" when their child says something incorrectly. I need to lighten up some.:)

Since DS6 was in pre-K for 2 years and K for a year, and I volunteered in his classes when I could, I think I have some perspective. Though I do feel like I have to be careful not to compare him against his brother who is 3 years older. That's not a good yardstick for "normal."

Before testing, I also felt like I had to beware of comparing him to kids who are gifted or HG or PG, when I wasn't sure that he was gifted, let alone HG or PG. But now that I have some testing info, it does support my instincts that there are some things here that aren't quite right and that he's been using his smarts and his gifted-level memory to compensate, which is probably why it's been hard to name the problems I was sensing and to be sure that they're *really* problems. Twice-exceptionality is a whole different ballgame!

Honestly, I think most of the time he looks and sounds like a very normal, maybe bright-but-not-gifted 6yo. That he is certainly HG+, possibly a DYS candidate, and yet is not reading or enjoying certain learning activities that--knowing his personality and interests--I would think would be perfect for him is troubling to me. I truly believe that whatever is wrong is really getting in his way right now.

I wonder now if some of his emotional hypersensitivity is because he is always fighting with his LD. If everything is a struggle, you're bound to get worn out and feel touchy. He's a very defensive kid a lot of the time. I thought that was just his personality, but I wonder now if it's a reaction to his LD.

I guess I think I've been laidback and in "wait and see" mode for several years now, so I'm sort of coming at it from the other perspective, that the time has come to lighten up *less*, if that makes any sense. I have been hoping that these are things he'd outgrow. Now I think we have evidence that he has a problem that he won't outgrow and that we need to help him with. Maybe the help will be as simple as changing the way we think about him. It may not need any special therapy. I don't know because I don't think we know what's wrong yet. (We're getting there!) But I do think something (or things) will need to change so we can help him.

I see defensiveness and LD as hand in glove for just that reason. Plus, at school kids are being compared to each other all the time, and he may 'sense' that he is smarter than what he can accomplish. ((Opps - is he at school?))

Here's an alternate take on the saying aloud question.

At least 50 times in my life, I've written down direction, or a shopping list,but (red face) found out that I've left the paper with the list at home. Although my memory isn't great, I'm always delighted to see that the act of writing things down itself is enough, and I can remember most of the list or directions without the paper. I think that the act of writing helps me focus my mind better, facilitating moving the information from short to longer term memory.

((BTW - Does anyone roll their eyes when they read about short and long term memory as if there are only 2 places to park information? I feel like I've got 'super short' 'short' 'medium short' 'medium long' 'long term but often used' and 'deep storage' compartments that the information is being shuttled back and forth between frequesntly!))

Another perspective is the old 'Executive Function Disorder' (which some feel to be the same as ADD) where the act of saying the information aloud, slows down the process and strengthens the ability to aim the attention apparatus enough to use it.

My son, age 13, feel that the more gifted a kid is, the more likely they are to have ADD. I'm getting the visual image of the brain as a really fancy clockwork device, and imagining that the 'bigger' the brain the harder it is to 'aim.' Sort of like that series of books about cities that wandered around consuming each other. Perhaps the PG kids who have no trouble focusing are the ones who happen to also have PG Executive Function, and the normal experience of elementary school aged unusually gifted boys is to be 'sort of a mess?'

I hope that doesn't offend anyone, because I know lots of PG boys who are polite, calm, obedient, athletic, focused, popular, coordinated and are handling their asynchronous development really well. But I also know lots of PG boys who aren't. Maybe some are just a bit more or less asynchronous than others?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks for posting, Grinity. I appreciate your take on things.

The psych and I don't really see evidence of ADD. She said that with sloppy mistakes, that's usually one of the top things on her list. But not with him. He's appropriately focused, no behavior problems in K, and other than normal 6yo squirreliness, he's got no problem with sitting still and working on something that interests him.

(BTW, you're right that he was in public school K this year, Grinity. We will homeschool/"school-for-homeschool" him next year, however.)

I have wondered a bit about some executive function issue. I'll have to go back and look at the usual symptoms again, now that I have the new info from the testing. 6 months ago, it didn't seem quite right. But I'll revisit.

I think the fact that he misses the problems if he *doesn't* say them out loud is more important than the fact that he gets them right if he does. What is it that's *not* happening for him if he tries to do it silently and on paper? That's why an auditory processing issue--or something to do with the voice in one's head, whatever might be responsible for that--seems most sensible to me.

Ah, this whole thread is so helpful to me! Thank you!

Saw this test for inner speech in an article on dyslexia and thought of this thread. Throwing it out there for you to consider.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1263307/Do-hear-voice-head-read-If--dyslexic.html
P.S. Here's a longer test on the web site:
http://dyslexiavisualldeafauditoryblind.com/yslexiavisualldea.aspx

But how does he compare to other 6 year olds when it comes to working on something that doesn't interest him? And of course, he will be in that situation a lot more than agemates...

WHOA! Thank you SO MUCH, inky!

I just gave DS6 the first test with the counting. He counted aloud to 26 with no hint of trouble, of course. Easy-peasy.

10 seconds into the silent-counting part, he broke into tears and said it was too hard! I calmed him down and asked for his help even though it was hard, and after I spotted him 1 and 4, he said "1, 4, 6, no it's 8, 12, 13..." before he started to cry again. At that point, I ended the test.

It's VERY clear to me that he's not hearing an inner voice. Wow!

I didn't try the other tests on the website. I thought the pschologist might want to try them with him, so I passed these links on to her with a note about how he performed on the counting test.

Wow! Thank you for this! It's the first time I haven't felt like he's got this weird problem that no one has ever even considered. It's being studied! Wahoo!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting that, inky! You rock!!!

He's normal. Probably better than average from what I observed in his class. The K teacher said of DS6, "I wish I had a whole class like him!" He never received any sort of disciplinary measures in 3 years of pre-K and K--nothing! He is quite content to sit quietly, raise his hand and wait to be called on at circle time. He didn't run around the room when they were supposed to be working, as some of the kids did.

In fact, he tends to look very unfavorably and impatiently at kids who don't behave in class. I had to talk with him more than once about not being nasty about kids who act out.

Really, this is not a problem. He's extremely well-behaved.

Just wanted to say that I am really thankful for your questions, Kriston. I so want to know what is going on in my DS's brain; so Inky and Grinity's answers were helpful to me as well. I am going to try the test on mine too (in the morning, when he is fresh). The whole 2E thing really makes it difficult to figure things out. I feel like all I do is research/read. Thank you, ladies!!!

Good, I'm really glad to hear it. I know I'm getting so much out of this thread. I'm glad you (and hopefully others?) are, too.

I appreciated the information very much! So happy I found this board!

You're very welcome!

I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but I ran this question past my DH, and to him, it was 'obviously a strength in the auditory learning system.' He suggested teaching your son to whisper to himself so that he could get abstract symbols from the visual into the auditory system.

If this is the case, I would recommend some family listening to audio books to see if your son enjoys fiction more in that mode.

It also reminded me of the suggestion to build a series of PVC tubes into a device that you hold in your hand, and place next to your mouth and ear so that you can read aloud very quietly and check your written work for musicality. That might be a sanity saver for you if you are homeschooling next year.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Hmmm, the thing is that he is *not* good at getting info from listening. Unless he repeats what he is told, it goes in one ear and out the other. It's not just that he learns better by saying things out loud--I think that's true of everyone--it's that he can't learn *at all* unless he says things out loud.

Case in point: he was asking me questions about syllables today. To help him understand why words break where they do, I mentioned vowels. I listed them for him several times and "lectured" about it using several real-world examples. It was a classic aural learner presentation. Then--with this post in mind--I asked him if A was a vowel. He had no idea, and that was seconds after the lecture.

So I had him repeat the vowels back to me and then let it drop. We did nothing with the info--no application at all. I let it sit for an hour while we both did other things. After an hour of not using the info, I asked him the vowels, and he remembered most of them.

He cannot digest information that he hears unless he is able to repeat back what he has heard. But that's not how most aural learning is structured. One cannot repeat everything a lecturer has said.

Audio books--even TV shows--have never been a hit with him. Too much listening. That he dislikes TV is something I never understood. But I think all the talking overwhelms him. Even when we read a book aloud to him, he is easily distracted, interrupts a lot. He likes the books, but he doesn't listen well when read to.

I think the PVC idea is GENIUS! Thanks! I will rig one up and send it to his school for homeschoolers next year. I was wondering how to advocate for him to get to say things aloud. That might help.

In the example above, did you specifically go over identification of vowels in the course of the explaination? Did you check if he knew which ones are vowels before you started your explaination? I'm having difficulty following the example, but I do think you are on to something. Some people are willing to try and follow a big explaination when they lack one of the building block pieces, and hope to fill it in later, others throw a fit if they can't follow everything logically from their current knowledge base. I'm one of the former, more of a bird's eye viewer of things, while my DH is totally the latter.

Maybe he is someone who learns by talking - which would explain why he interrupts when being read to. Over the years I've heard some people talking about Briggs Myers Type Indicator Extraverts say:

An Extravert isn't thinking unless their mouth is moving.

I find this to be true of me (if you include typing as well, that is)
I find it a little strange to 'have a discussion' with my Intravert husband, because by the time he starts talking, he will have a fully formed opinion, while I just won't until I've 'tried on' a few positions and spoken from a few varying perspectives. I sort of make up my mind 'as I talk.'

I've also heard Howard Gardner's information -
from Wiki:

I've heard this group described as 'needing frequest breaks to talk to someone about what they are learning in order to process their thoughts.'

Glad you like the PVC idea - it's from Ruth Culham


6 + 1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide: Grades 3 & Up: Everything You Need to Teach and Assess Student Writing with This Powerful Model

I really enjoyed that book.

I'm wondering if you have to plan for your son to be able to have more 'give and take' in his casual learning. My son certianly seemed like an extravert as a child, and I'm that way, so when I used to teach him stuff casually, it always sounded like a 'call and response' church service.

DS: Mom why is X?
Me: Why do you think?
DS: Because Y and Z and also M.
Me: Why do you think X is realated to Y (and so on, to a degree that will probably make the intraverts squirm...)

It might be worth a try, just to see, if next time your son asks a question, you start with asking him lots of questions about what he already knows, and then when you get to having to provide new information, starting with leading questions that provide an analogy to what you are about to introduce.

HTH,
Grinity

He did not know vowels beforehand.

Step 1) I specifically named the list of vowels at least 3 times in the course of my short (2 minute) explanation and offered examples in words for each vowel. He didn't get any of it. he used random guessing to try to ID the vowels.

Step 2) I had him repeat the vowels back to me once. Just once. I dd not check to see if he got it beyond his repeating the vowels back to me in a list. We did no further practice or work with vowels for a full hour.

Step 3) An hour later, I asked him to name the vowels, and he named A, E, O and sometimes Y as vowels. He also knew that he was missing a couple. When I randomly named a bunch of letters, asking "is I a vowel? Is T a vowel?" he was able to say correctly "yes, that's a vowel" or "no, that wasn't on the list."

Listening alone is a weakness. He has to repeat things.

I am a big fan of questioning as a teaching tool. I'm practically Socratic in the way I work with kids most of the time (unless I get on a subject that I like to drone on about. I do that sometimes. DS8 eats it up; DS6 walks away.). For some reason, questioning doesn't usually work for DS6. He replies "I don't know" and that's the end of it as far as he's concerned. I prod, I say "give it a guess at least!" but he'll have none of it. Either he knows the answer or he doesn't. I have always chalked this up to his perfectionism. But answering questions is certainly not his learning method of choice, sadly. I'm not sure if that's related to his other issues or not.

We had been thinking that he might be a visual learner with a visual processing disorder, but that seems odd. If you had a visual processing disorder, wouldn't you favor auditory or kinesthetic learning? Why would you favor your weak area?

But if he's a visual learner whose *auditory* processing problem is *interfering* with his visual learning, well, that explains a lot. And auditory problems can interfere with reading, which I would have expected to be a favorite source of info for him.

I do think he is a visual/kinesthetic learner--note his strengths in math, chess and piano, not to mention his 4-leaf-clover spotting and his PRI strength on the WISC--but because he has this weird auditory processing problem, he has trouble "hearing what he sees" when it comes to taking in verbal information.

It fits.

It seems to be giving him trouble with reading, silent or on-paper problem-solving, and anything said aloud to him and not repeated by him. He must say it out loud--not just hear it said by someone else--to understand. Unfortunately, that makes relatively ineffective nearly every standard way of conveying information to a child!

I'm not sure yet what we need to do to help him. I'm not sure we're even at that stage yet. I suspect we need some tests specific to auditory processing problems to try to be a bit more sure about what we're seeing. As much sense as all this makes to me, I'm no expert. Maybe I'm just clutching at straws and it's something else entirely. I think we need a pro to take a look.

I get the testing report at the end of the week, and the psychologist and I will put our heads together then to try to figure out what's next. I suspect I'll be making an appointment with either the neuropsychologist or someone else specializing in auditory learning issues.