Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Lindamood Bell for Dysgraphia?

DS7's pediatrician called me the other day to tell me that a LMB center had opened in our town. She even offered to give me her voucher for a free assessment. If he's already had the WISC, WJ, Beery, etc. would this be helpful? I appreciate her help immensely, but I don't want to take her up on the offer if their tests are the same/similar. I don't know much of anything about LMB. What has been your experience with them for dysgraphia?

Our DD7 had the WISC-IV and it was suggested that she *may have dysgraphia. She was struggling with reading. We took her to Lindamood-Bell and their way to teach deciphering symbols worked wonders for our DD7. In fact, we are arguing with the school district right now, that our privately paid tutoring through Lindamood-Bell is the reason DD7 does not need remedial reading! The district still thinks "time spent with books" is the reason DD7 improved a full grade level and learned 600 spelling words in 4 weeks.

DD7 does have ADHD. Here is Lindamood-Bell's research on their reading intervention for ADHD, in case it helps.

Bottom line, accept that free analysis - every little bit of information helps, even if you don't act on it. Also, public school districts pay for Lindamood-Bell services under IEPs. :-)

http://www.lindamoodbell.com/learning-centers/adhd/

Lindamood Bell's testing was interesting and helpful. I don't know that it provided a ton of new information, but it confirmed what we saw elsewhere. My son has a stealth dyslexia, and I would say that overall I was very, very happy with LMB. They don't usually see kids like him. Most of the kids they see are pretty impaired. But they were able to meet him where he was at, and move really quickly. In the beginning, he definitely didn't mind going. By the end, he was sick of it and found it depressing. But he wasn't there for that long. And it did make a big difference. I'm not sure what they do for dysgraphia. And I think that some dysgraphia is related to the motor issues, and some has to do with producing language. I'm not sure if their program works better for one versus the other. I just don't know, but you might want to explore that first.

My son has the "dys" trifecta of dyslexia, dyspraxia and dysgraphia. He did Lindamood Bell during the summer and his writing did improve. My only theory about why it improved is that the work on developing mental images of the words cleared some "mental desk space" allowing a better chance of making it from his brain to his hand and on to the paper.

So before he went he could read a word like "with" but if he needed to write "with" there was no mental picture of the word to draw upon. He'd have to guess. So in addition to dealing with any hand/wrist pain, trunk instability, remembering proper letter formation, letter placement on the lines, space between letters and space between words, he'd have to wonder if it is "weth", "with", or "wth".

Thanks everyone.

I was able to speak with the LMB director yesterday. The evaluation does sound like it could be helpful. We're still trying to determine the root of the dysgraphia, so maybe this will give us some insight.

Didn't you have a neuropscyh eval? Did that include fine motor vs visual motor integration etc testing? Fingertapping test?

My dd who has reading challenges really benefitted from an LB program, but I'm not sure what LB offers that would help understand the root of a child's dysgraphia, or how it would help with dysgraphia.

polarbear

We had an educational psychologist do the testing. She did the Beery (along with WISC and WJ). No fingertapping test. I did get an eval by a developmental optometrist and that didn't turn up any major issues. I'm working on the OT eval now.

You and aeh both mentioned to me before to get a speech-language eval. Would the LMB assessment give us any insight into this area at all?

I guess I'm trying to deal with the school as little as possible. We are trying to get the 504 accommodations and they've been so difficult to work with that I don't want to screw up the 504 by asking for assessments from them. (Also, they still don't see a disability so I don't know that they would agree to test him anyway.)

So, with my limited knowledge, I was hoping I could use the free assessment from LMB to look into language issues that may be contributing to the dysgraphia. How off base am I??

From my understanding of LMB assessments, you should get decent coverage of phonological awareness and reading-related skills, with some oral language, but more from the achievement standpoint, not so much the language processing angle. It will probably contribute to your understanding, but it certainly wouldn't be expected to replace the info you would gain from a true speech/language eval.

aeh, if DS is currently receiving services from the speech therapist, can I request the eval from her directly? Do evals always have to go through the formal process? I'm sure this varies by district, but I'm curious if it might be possible.

Evals do have to go through the formal process, but if your speech therapist requests the eval (you still have to sign consent), it is probably more likely to go smoothly. I would discuss your concerns with her, and see whether she thinks she already has enough information from working with him on an ongoing basis to speak intelligently to his language processing skills, or if she agrees that sitting him for formal evaluation would help clarify his intervention and accommodation plans.