Blob,
The good news is that in an academic environment, there are usually multiple pathways to take in information, and bright kids can often compensate for weaknesses in one area by using areas of relative strength instead, so overall academic achievement may stay at levels that are average or even well above. The bad news is that this takes a great deal of mental energy that could otherwise be used for things like emotional regulation or higher academic mastery.
Just because you don't see academic deficits at this point doesn't mean that these issues are not making your child's life a lot harder in the classroom than it would be if processing was not impaired. I would guess that if he ever gets into a situation where a great deal of the information he is required to master is coming solely from lecture or discussion without a text to refer to, the impact of the APD will become more evident. My own thought on the question of whether to work on deficits that are not causing evident problems has always been to do everything we can to give my son as solid a "neurological toolkit" for the future as we can, even if he is coping adequately at the moment. You, of course, need to take your own family's circumstances and personal needs into account when doing cost (including time cost and energy cost)/benefit calculations. My husband and I are both self-employed,and we homeschool our son, so we have more time and flexibility than many other families.
Edit: I just want to clarify that "doing everything we can" includes recognizing that sometimes there is nothing that we can do. We recognized, for example, that no amount of OT was ever going make my son fluent in handwriting, so after we had gotten what gains we could within reason, we focused on improving his keyboarding skills, which is far less demanding for him.
Last edited by aculady; 01/22/11 12:57 PM.
