Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Dyslexia or ADD

John Hayes appears to own that website. It's spam.

Yeah, quick easy solutions always bring out the skeptic in me. When they are being suggested by a first time poster, I would tend toward even greater skepticism.

The difficult thing when dealing with stuff like this is that a lot of the treatments that people suggest, vision therapy included, are not well thought of by the greater traditional medical community and, as much as I'd love a "fix," I'm not sure that there is one especially in these types of things that have little or no scientific data to support them.

Mostly, I'd like techniques that we could use to help her learn to make her own accommodations for the areas where she struggles. In re to the ADD, we've been somewhat able to do that. She underlines words in directions that are asking her to do something so she remembers that there are three things to do, for instance, rather than just two b/c she underlined three words. I just don't know what the work arounds for her other issues might be.

I am going to pick up the books suggested earlier, though, in the hopes that they might have some ideas.

Hi Cricket,

I don't have any great advice to add. As you know, we are in the exact same boat with DD9.5. She has great accomodations, for the most part, but we are often left wondering if we are doing the best we can. I have pretty much given up trying to tease the ADD issues from the dyslexia/dysgraphia issues. Everything is emeshed deeply in the fiber of 'her'. I'm not sure what each individual accomodation addresses, but I do know that on a whole they are helping... thank goodness because it took us three years of trying to achieve moderate success!

Before DD's dyslexia diagnosis was 'removed' (she has stealth dyslexia), we had her on a waiting list for Orton-Gillingham tutoring. They organization that ran the program checked in regularly and advocated strongly for us to continue to foster a love of the written word. If your daughter does not already have an IEP or accomodations about reading, this may be a place to start. She absolutely should have access to audio books. We were advised to give unlimited access and to offer to read to her each night.

RE: her dislike of reading, my husband is undiagnosed ADD (would stake my coffeemaker on it) and he has not read an entire book in the 14 years I have known him. He wants to do it, and often starts books, but his inability to pay attention prevents him from a)getting anything out of the book, b)enjoying what he is reading (he engages in verbal battle with himself to keep reading rather than paying attention to what the words mean, and he has to reread passages multiple times), c)finishing the story. In his case, the reading difficulties are completely ADD-related. It is very likely that your daughter is battling both the ADD and dyslexia with her reading difficulties making it a more complex picture and harder to get the accomodations just right.

As I have said before, I wish you were someone I knew IRL. Your daughter and your family struggle with the same dilemmas we face daily. Best of luck sorting it all out.... and if you ever do, can you tell me what works???

These folks claim to have scientific data - although there are levels of quality of scientific data - if you start reading, do let me know what you think.

www.cogmed.com/
www.heartmath.org/research/research.../research-center-home.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130896102

I haven't used any of the above methods - my DS15 thinks it's 'hippie stuff.' I'm currently trying to moderate my levels of alertness and energy (similar to Neurofeedback) using Meditation breathing, and yup - I aim for about 5 minutes daily while most people do 15 to 20 minutes.

Thanks, Grinity. I'm kind of a research junkie and a bit weird in that I'm a bit of hippie at heart myself but I want data to support the alternative things that appeal to me. Although I must admit that I'm more willing to try dietary changes and supplements without data than other things possibly b/c they are cheap and, if they don't work, I'm not out a lot of money -- lol!

We have a busy next two weeks, but I'll try to get to reading some of this and getting the earlier mentioned books once our exchange student heads home.

When we were looking into vision therapy last year for DD, we let it go because it was so expensive and we really couldn't get any good data to conclude it would work. And the guy's contract really emphasized about how if we didn't do abc for xyz amount of time per week, he was not to be held responsible for lack of effectiveness.

Always be wary of someone who is telling you what the problem is AND telling you that you need to give them money to fix it for you!

For the vision, playing darts and doing alot more throwing and catching and a target-shooting multiplication game seems to help. And just being allowed to hold her books/worksheets at least 8 inches away from her face.

I tend to be skeptical about non-traditional ideas and also of people who make a profit off of those ideas, but fwiw, vision therapy actually has a good reputation and a long history of success for people who's vision difficulties are related to muscle weakness. Vision therapy for our dd was first suggested by a neuropsychologist (board-certified, highly respected neuropsych). My dh and I were still beyond skeptical because it sounded like hocus-pocus to us, so I did the very most next logical thing - asked our family eye dr, whom I happen to also respect She *totally* surprised me by saying, yes, the claims are true - traditional eye dr exams do not test for the types of vision issues that behavioral optometrists test for, and that as long as the reason for the vision challenge is related to muscle weakness, vision therapy can be very successful. It's also respected enough that our eye insurance covers it. Soooo... with both of those things in mind, we moved forward and in our dd's case, had amazing results. The caveat from both our eye dr and our neurospcyhologist were that vision therapy is sometimes sold as the cure-all for educational challenges that are really neurological challenges, and it *doesn't* work for those challenges - so that's where it can get a bad rep. But not all kids who are struggling in school have neurological issues - our dd looked ADHD and struggled like crazy to learn to read, with signs in her oral reading that looked like dyslexia to teachers and to us as parents - but her neuropsych testing showed that she didn't have other symptoms of either ADHD or dyslexia, and a vision therapy intake evaluation revealed severe challenges that were related to weak eye muscles. She did have to go to vision therapy for over a full year and she did have to work on vision therapy exercises at home daily to see improvements, but it was by far the best investment we ever made in any therapy for her

I'm also reminded of something that also happened with our same dd - she developed a chronic medical challenge starting at around 2 years old. At first it fit a typical pathway of progression but eventually morphed beyond what her drs were used to dealing with. Thanks to the internet we had the opportunity to network with other families who were going through similar challenges, and I remember when one potential testing/treatment route was being discussed online I mentioned it as something we were interested in to our dd's dr and I was lectured (in a not-so-friendly manner lol!) that it was *NOT* proven medical science and had *NOT* been through the route of tried and true clinical testing approved by the AMA etc.. and that even if the testing started "today" it would take 20 years to get through the full evaluation before anyone would be able to for sure guarantee that it was a viable protocol. There was NO WAY this dr would condone one of her patients trying it and would never ever consider it for her own family. Everything our very well-respected dr said made good sense, but one thing nagged at me - in 20 years my dd would be grown up - and have gone through a very difficult childhood! What was the point in not trying something that wasn't going to harm her if it offered up the possibility of help? I only mention it because within 5 years, so many of the patients her drs were seeing for the same condition were suddenly also having the same challenges she did, and all of a sudden... the very same drs group who lectured me on how inappropriate it would be to try it.... were in fact... advising their patients to do parts of the very same protocol. DD's pediatrician and specialist ultimately collaborated on research into one aspect of it, they started recommending it to patients, and guess what - it really *did* help my dd. Yikes, I am getting way off on a tangent here, and I apologize... but the gist of what I'm trying to say is, we can't knock everything that hasn't been thoroughly researched *yet* or that isn't widely accepted by the medical/educational/whatever community *yet* simply because it isn't widely accepted yet. We have to be careful not to be taken in by people trying to take advantage, but we can also sometimes benefit from having an open mind

Best wishes,

polarbear