Testing Learning disabilities (Chicago, Wilmette: 2013, home, school district)

[Noelroleb]

My 4 years old son cannot learn the numbers. He knows 30 brands of the cars, he can distinguish Honda from BMW from 100 yards, but he cannot distinguish digits. I am afraid he has some kind of learning disabilities.
What should I do? Whom should I visit? Who can perform a test to determine if there is any kind of learning disability?
Thanks to all who respond.

[chet everett]

Illinois has some of the best early intervention programs around. Contact your local school district first. If that does not get you the referals you need there are avenues of escalation through regional superintendent's office.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by Noelroleb

My 4 years old son cannot learn the numbers. He knows 30 brands of the cars, he can distinguish Honda from BMW from 100 yards, but he cannot distinguish digits. I am afraid he has some kind of learning disabilities.
What should I do? Whom should I visit? Who can perform a test to determine if there is any kind of learning disability?
Thanks to all who respond.

I agree that you need to start with your local school district (if he was under 3, you start with the early intervention programs, but for 3 and up, the school district takes over testing, etc.)

You can get a free ebook at this site on learning disabilities.

What Is Dyscalculia? | Mathematics Disability - NCLD

This site is more specific to math learning disabilities.
Dyscalculia.org

Good luck. Reading disabilities get more attention than math ones do as people tend to think that it is just that the child is lazy. How does he do on letters? If he has problems with those as well, he might have some kind of vision problem specific to near vision or to his eyes not working together properly.

[Vasily]

Here is a list of therapists providing testing and evaluation services in the Chicago area:

http://therapists.psychologytoday.co...ec=303&lmore=1

In the state of Illinois, this will almost always be someone with a PhD or PsyD or equivalent rather than a master's level practitioner. When you talk to the agencies/practitioners, ask them about their experience with children; is testing kids a major part of their testing practice, and how many have they evaluated?

My suggestion: don't try diagnosing your child yourself via the internet, or by listening to advice in internet forums. It's not necessarily a learning disorder; it could be a number of different things, so go into the evaluation process with an open mind. Go to a professional ... and that doesn't include your family doctor, who (unless he/she is a psychiatrist) does not have the background a psychologist or psychiatrist would have in psychological testing and evaluation. Most psychiatrists are likely to send you to a psychologist to do the actual testing, anyway. The school is certainly a place to ask for referrals, too, but my background isn't in school mental health services so I'm not sure how the process works there.

[chet everett]

My background does include time as a classroom teacher. As nana053 and I stated for children that are already 4 years old the place to start is with the local school district. In all decent districts their professional staff at the district level that has the training and experience to make appropriate recommendations so that this child can receive appropriate intervention if they are not on track to be prepared for kindergarten. In Illinois children who turn 5 on before September 1 of 2013 will be able to enroll in kindergarten. A fair number of parents opt to hold back their children especially if they have concerns from pre-school teachers or others experienced in early childhood education (there are also some parents that hold back their children for reason such as sports performance...).

If your local district is not responsive escalate through the regional school authority -- ISBE Comprehensive System of Learning Supports Home Page

It is not wise to spend any efforts doing things outside the school framework for children that are not yet in school. It adds costs, complexity and has the potential to label such parents / children as unwilling to work within the frameworks that have proven successful. Better districts do an excellent job of publicizing their efforts to make sure all students are ready to learn -- basically every good district does this: Preschool screenings - Wilmette Life

[nana053]

Originally Posted by chet everett

It is not wise to spend any efforts doing things outside the school framework for children that are not yet in school. It adds costs, complexity and has the potential to label such parents / children as unwilling to work within the frameworks that have proven successful. Better districts do an excellent job of publicizing their efforts to make sure all students are ready to learn -- basically every good district does this: Preschool screenings - Wilmette Life

I have to disagree that it is not wise to spend efforts doing things outside the school framework for children who are not yet in school. Often that is just where you can get recommendations about what therapies your child will need. While school personnel are often great at evaluating educational needs, not all needs are academic and schools concentrate on these.

For autistic children, in particular, schools often do NOT recognize the needs for sensory OT (they do great at OT for fine motor skills). They also are often not good at figuring out how to get the child's social needs met - kids with autism often need more help at lunch and recess than they do in the classroom which is more structured.

Now, that doesn't mean that the school should not be followed in terms of academic help, but that kids need more than what most schools offer especially in these days of financial cutbacks.

[Vasily]

I'll give an example illustrating the reasons behind my concern about school/family doctor "diagnoses".

I'm a licensed mental health professional in the state of Illinois, though I currently don't have a practice ... when I was doing my Master's degree in clinical psych, there was a discussion in one of my classes of the overdiagnosis and overmedication of ADHD in children, and the difficulty of doing a real evaluation which needs to span multiple environments and requires a team to observe and work together toward a diagnosis (ADHD typically manifests differently in different environments). Anyone who thinks they can tell you your child has ADHD after observing him for a few hours in a single environment doesn't know what he/she is talking about. At least that was the case when I did my Master's.

At that time (around 2000) a lot of diagnoses and writing of scrips for Ritalin or Adderall were being done by family doctors who would then prescribe meds for kids referred by schools or parents who had "diagnosed" the child. Then, a few years later, we started seeing a wave of children coming into our agency with other diagnoses, like conduct disorder and bipolar disorder and autistic spectrum disorders. A diagnosis of bipolar sometimes meant prescriptions for antipsychotics. Now, it may be that the educational system in the state has cleaned up this tendency toward pathologizing kids, but I'd suggest parents think long and hard before accepting diagnoses placed on their kids by the educational system or the family doctor. Always get a second opinion by someone outside the school system, particularly if they're talking meds for your child.

Regarding the "danger" of being labeled uncooperative by the school system: your child is your child, it doesn't belong to the educational system no matter what some in positions of power may claim. My two cents' worth ... take it for what it's worth.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by Vasily

I'll give an example illustrating the reasons behind my concern about school/family doctor "diagnoses".

I would certainly agree about dxes by schools or family doctors or pediatricians.

Note: A developmental pediatrician though has expertise and can dx many different conditions. For ADHD, I believe a psychiatrist who has experience with the dx is best. One problem with ADHD is that it is often co-morbid with other conditions. Developmental pediatricians have experience of this and can tease out what is SPD, what is adhd and what is autism or dyslexia or other kinds of problems.

OTOH, school dxes are not intended to be dxes of disorders, but dxes of what a child needs for learning. This is not the same thing and an educational dx is not going to get you services outside the school system where one by a medical professional will.

[chet everett]

The OP has a child that appears to have some difficulty with numbers. No physician is going to prescribe any pill if that is the only observed problem.

The reason I suggest sticking with the school framework for problems like those that the the OP has described where a child has a specific diffculty with a narrow semi-academic issue is simple -- the local district has far more experince with such things than anyone else. The good districts have a continuity so the same staff participation happens year after year. If the district kindergarten teachers know that children like the OP's can best be helped by a specific intervention OR simply adjusting expectations it makes things much less stressful than jumping around with the whole range of options that may be offered by earnest professionals that likely see some kids with all kinds of specific issues but do not have knowledge of how a specific district deals with kids across the entire stretch of abilities...

Honestly back when my own son was eligible for district screening many years ago my wife and I had some concerns becuase of what could have been a potential serious physical issue. The district professionals were to able assess my son and he had a very successful experince in school. Had we instead involved outside professional the fear is that for many kinds of issues the interventions are not as effective as those that are part of the normal classroom experince.