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| Free e-mail Newsletter on Learning Disability News & Advocacy |
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| Free e-mail Newsletter on Learning Disability News & Advocacy |
Posted by Guy Boardman
My daughter has a learning disability, and what follows is a developmental
picture and background, which I would greatly appreciate comments on, as to
what could be the matter, and/or what can be done in order to alleviate, or
resolve the problem.
Both my wife and I are university graduates and there is no history of any
learning disability in our family.
My son is 14 and performs above average at school and is both physically and
mentally well adapted.
My daughter, who is now 12 however, has a learning disability, which seems
to revolve around the inability to concentrate. We have had her at numerous
specialists' since a young age, but we have been unable to reach any
positive identification of her disability, or attach a name to, the problem,
if such name exists. Neither have we been able to obtain any remedial or
therapeutic advice as to how she could possibly overcome this disability.
She had a normal birth, but her development was slow. As a baby she had a
problem to keep food down and regularly brought up partially digested foods.
This was up to about 10 months. She remained very thin and looked slightly
anaemic. Despite numerous visits to doctors this was naturally resolved and
eventually disappeared. She started crawling at 6 months but only started
walking at 15 months. She only started talking at 2 years, using very short
sentences. She started Pre-primary education at 3 years and we noted that
her drawings were very simplistic and often uncoordinated. At 5 she was
taken for an Occupational Therapy assessment, where the report stated that,
she was in most developmental stages, well below her age group. She attended
Occupational Therapy for one and a half years and was sent to 1st grade at
a normal school. It soon became apparent that she was unable to perform
normally and at the end of 1st grade we placed her at a long term remedial
school, which she attended for 5 years. Prior to going to the remedial
school, her IQ was tested and this tested within the average parameters.
During her period at remedial school she attended OT and speech therapy,
but it was apparent that she battled to memorise things. She seems to have a
fluctuating concentration which is turned on and off at the blink of an eye.
During the first year at remedial school she was placed on Ritilin, a dose
of one tablet a day and only during school hours. This continued for a year
and a half. She showed good progress during this time. We eventually took
her off Ritilin and there was no noticeable effect following the cessation
of the Ritilin dosage.
During the first couple of years her handwriting developed normally but it
seemed to show no progress and actually seemed to become worse toward the
2nd and 3rd year. (She is left-handed.)
During the 4th year she started attending visual therapy, after it was
discovered that her ability to focus was 20% of the normal ability. During
the initial phase there was rapid response, but after a year it was
discovered that it was purely conditioning of the eyes and as a result she
had spectacles prescribed. The spectacles are however not a huge correction
from the normal. Therapy was however ceased. This year she attended sensory
integration therapy.
During December 1997 she went for a psychological evaluation, and was given
a full battery of tests. The psychologist described her as follows:
Translated from Afrikaans
No problems were experienced with the understanding of instructions.
Instructions were immediately understood and her reaction time in some of
the tests was above average. At times she appeared over eager and hasty. As
soon as it would seem as if she was not going to be successful, then she
would immediately give resistance and state that she could not achieve
anything. There were small indications of lack of concentration and she
tended to fidget at times. There were however no indications of
hyperactivity or impulsiveness. She has the intellectual capacity, to at
least perform within the class average and her IQ should test higher if she
can concentrate better. There is a large diagnostic difference between her
verbal and nonverbal IQ (33 point) which is indicative of neurological
and/or concentration problems, There are no marked differences in her
ability to reason logically and her abstract reasoning, social evaluation,
verbal conceptualising and association forming ability are normal
Marked differences occurred in her vocabulary (language development)
numerative problems (productive concentration) and memorising of stories
(short term auditive memory and concentration) as well as block patterns
(concentration)
A TAT test was also conducted, where she answered as follows.
Boy at Violin: " He is looking at the violin... he is thinking about
tomorrows competition ... feels unhappy.... wont be able to play well .. he
is going to win the competition"
Child at the window: " The little girl is looking out of the window.... she
is watching the other children play..... she would like to go and play with
them but her mother has told her that she must first come and eat and then
she can go and play with them"
The practitioner mentions on numerous occasions that she has an inability to
concentrate.
The IQ count should test far higher if she can succeed in concentrating and
she has the ability to perform within the class average in a normal school.
Visual discrimination, visual memory, visual form consistency and sequential
visual memory require a lot of attention. Visual Motor integration is well
below average and levels of creativity are also well below average.
As a result of the psychometric evaluation, we decide to put her back in a
normal school, especially since we felt that there was a lack of stimulation
in the remedial school.
Over the past three years she has picked up a lot of weight and is
definitely overweight for her age. She battles with the crossing of the
midline and there are lateral problems.
She is continuously fidgeting but she is not hyperactive. Amongst her peer
group, she is well liked and is socially very well integrated. She does not
partake in any sports and in the past her coordination in terms of ball
catching was underdeveloped and late. She loves water and swimming. She
relates well with adults and is not shy or withdrawn. She always plays the
mother and at remedial school she was always assisting children that needed
help.
She is short, well below the norm for her age, but this could also be
hereditary, since her grandfather and grandmother from mother's side were
very short people.
Her ability to relate events is somewhat limited, mainly due to her
inability to formulate words and express herself. She has a lisp and speaks
very nasally.
The following incidents in her development could be pertinent.
* At 26 months, she had a terrible and continuous diarrhoea and was almost
hospitalised due to a high fever.
* At age 28 months, mother slipped whilst carrying her and both took a
terrible tumble, with daughter bumping her head badly.
* She had her normal share of bumps and bruises, at one stage having to
have stiches above her eye, when she took a tumble down stairs at a friends
house. Shortly after the stiches were removed, she fell around the pool and
the wound opened again.
Possibly the falls that she had was due to her relatively uncordinated
movement
*At age 6 she went for a neurological assessment. The initial diagnosis was
given as Turner's Syndrome, but the blood test indicated this as negative.
*At age 7 she climbed onto the basin in the bathroom and fell on her head,
after which she was rushed off to hospital. She had a brain scan but
everything ended up quite normal.
*At age 12 she was hospitalised for viral Meningitis and Encephalitis.
*She has had her fair share of childhood diseases, and has had mumps and
chicken pox. At a young age she has been predisposed to Krupp cough and has
always had a lot of Flem on her chest.
She exhibits a strange posture, and walks as if she is falling forward. She
is always swinging her arms and walks with her feet out, duck-like. This has
resulted in other children passing derisive remarks. It is almost impossible
for her to turn her feet inwards. In general however she is physically well
adjusted and runs and plays with friends with ease, and does not exhibit a
negative physical image about herself.
Words to songs as well as adverts on TV are memorised with ease, especially
the songs and she will sing along almost in karioke style.
If there is somebody out there on the web, who can offer us some advice, or
assistance or possibly even diagnose the problem and offer us some sort of
hope, we would be most grateful.
If there are any questions or aspects that need enlightenment, please do
not hesitate to forward them to me by E-Mail at boardman@mweb.co.za.
Kind regards.
Guy Boardman