Visual processing issues & perfectionism in my 8yo ds

[ELaurie]

My 8 yo ds has visual processing issues, which cause a lot of frustration for him as he practices penmanship. With intensive therapy to address these issues, he has come a long way. He can now do short sections of copy work without frustration. However, letter reversals are still fairly common for him when he is writing his spelling words.

He writes them on a white board, so he can print in large letters and doesn't have to stay within the lines. We also use magnetic times and other spelling manipulative's so he can focus on the mechanics of spelling rather than labor over how to form the letters. However, I do want him to learn to combine these skills.

When he makes reversals, and I gently correct him, he becomes frustrated, and wants to quit the activity. How can I help him learn to tolerate his frustration better as he is learning?

Bribes definitely help :) - a chocolate chip for each correctly spelled word and other forms of "encouragement" to stick with a difficult task. He's frustrated partly because his abilities don't match his unrealistic expectation that he will never make a mistake as he is learning.

(He has begun learning cursive, with the thought that letter reversals are less common in cursive writing, but I'm taking it very slowly with him this year.)

I'm also having him practice some of the letters he most commonly reverses - b and d, g, and j, etc. as part of his handwritign exercises.

I would love to hear your suggestions!

[Excelsior! Academy]

Have you considered Phonics Pathways? He may know phonics and how to read, but it has visual tracking exercises. It greatly helped my 5th grade dd that had "education induced dyslexia." I diagnosed it after researching and not having the greatest public school experience. I figured she would be embarrassed, but after explaining we were training eye muscles that had been trained incorrectly she was fine. She could actually see improvement herself!

[kRenee]

We are just starting down the 'vision therapy' path so to hear your experience is very disheartening. Have you ever looked at the web site: diannecraft.org ? There is an exercise (called writing 8's) that she has kids do that strengthens the visual memory of the alphabet and works on crossing the midline of the brain. I have a friend who had an appointment with Dianne Craft but has just started on the program and can't yet comment on it's effectiveness.

Many of Dianne Crafts principles are based on the book, Brainskills. There might be some ideas in there.

Cursive will help - it's impossible to reverse letters in cursive. But the underlying problem will still be there. Hope you find something to help.

[ELaurie]

Thank you for your reply kREnee. I'm familiar with Diane Craft's approach and appreciate what she has to offer. Our ds has underlying issues with his vestibular system which are foundational for visual processing. As we've addressed these issues over the past 10 months, he has made great progress in his ability to read, and his handwriting, cutting and coloring skills have improved. He's more coordinated at sports, and generally less frustrated with his ability to do things. For us, the investment of time and energy (which has been considerable) has been worth it.

Here is a link to the program we have been using, recommended to us by Claire on the Special Needs Board (Thank you Claire!) HANDLE (http://www.handle.org/)

[Chels~]

These Visual Perception books are really good too:
http://www.criticalthinking.com/series/047/index_p.html

[Claire]

How far along is he with his Handle therapy? If he is getting towards the end of that program, I would take him in for a developmental vision evaluation. Handle addresses the foundational aspects of visual processing, but he may need help with the next step of visual development -- visual efficiency skills. A good developmental optometrist will be able to assess his development in this area to a finer level than a Handle therapist can. Letter reversals past age 7 can indicate visual efficiency problems. Once any visual efficiency problems have been remediated, cognitive skills training is very effective at developing directionality skills (which is what is involved with reversals).

My dd had letter reversals until she finished cognitive skills training at age 10. Working on reversals before then would have been very time consuming and frustrating, I think, so we did not work on them at all. After cognitive skills training, the problem disappeared on its own.

[ELaurie]

You have been helpful to so many on the SN board! At times, the prospect of further therapy is hard to think about, but I've been wondering about the same thing. Fortunately, we have a wonderful HANDLE provider Matthew McNatt (http://www.mcnattlearningcenter.com/), and I know he will direct us to additional resources if they are needed.

It also occurs to me that our ds has been sick, and as a result, I've been inconsistent with his HANDLE activities for several weeks. The holidays thew us off schedule, and since then he has been recovering from pneumonia. I'm curious whether what appears to be a recent regression could be related to either or both of the above. FWIW, today he reversed only one letter while writing down three short sentences from dictation, and there were no reversals in his copy work.

He was supposed to have a HANDLE evaluation last week, and we had to cancel due to illness; I hope we will be able to rescedule soon, and I will ask Matthew about your suggestions when we see him.

Thank you again.

Laurie

[Kathy in MD]

perfectionist. It shocked me, but it also shocked her when she was first given this advice. But it works.

Don't point out the mistakes.

Let me repeat that,

Don't point out the mistakes.


Instead find something to praise in the completed work. If only one b is done correctly, find that one b and praise it. Describe how it was done correctly. Ignore the 20 incorrect b's. Later you can develop a lesson to work on the problem some more, but point out only the good things.

When you're correcting a struggling child, he's getting the wrong messages. One is that "I failed again ..... and again ..... and again". He doesn't hear that he did something correctly 5 times or what ever. He just hears "You messed up here" and he interprets that as "Only perfect counts".

If instead, you focus on what he did right and tell him how he did it right, he has a model on what to do again. He's tasted success and wants to repeat it. The mother who gave me that advice told me the first time she tried it, her dc gave her a page of absolutely horrible handwriting. She finally found one letter that wasn't as bad as the rest and commented on how it was good - it was rounded nicely. Her dc went around bragging how he could make O's even though the rest of his handwriting was poor. And then he sat down and worked on making his O's even better.

This advice is hard. I've ignored this advice more than I like to admit. I can ruin a whole school morning if I start out by criticizing. Now that ds is older and has had more successes, I can criticize, but I still need to point out what he does right. He still needs to know what actions he needs to repeat.

I've also noticed that with my ds's better instructors, they always point out what was right first. And when they're first getting to know him, they hardly correct at all. Some of the textbooks that my ds has had good success with also stress what is correct instead of what is wrong. It's subtle, but for a child who tastes more failures more than successes, it makes a world of difference.

[ELaurie]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is exactly the kind of advice I needed to hear. I will begin doing this first thing tomorrow morning. I think you're right - and I really think this will work with him.

Poor little guy - he really has experienced a lot of failure.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate you passing this along.

Warmly,

Laurie