APD

[incywincyspideragain]

I have posted about this before but I'm still not sure - I think my son (6yrs, yr1) may have APD, I googled GOSH and testing, it states he needs a referal to be tested, but from whom?
He is being seen at School by Ed Psych next week, I could do with advice on what to ask for, I've just requested all his audiology reports and audiograms from hospital.

Hi, we had our 11 year old son tested for APD at GOSH in December, it took us along time to get there but alot of persistence we managed to get a referal from our local paediatrician. We were told my son has poor working memory and processing problems from our private SALT assessment. We were initailly told by our paed that it was impossible to get an out of county referal as we do not live in London, due to funding etc etc. However I phoned everyday made a complete nuisance of myself until he finally backed down and made the referal, we got an appointment within 4-5 months of the referall, took us just under 10 months from start to referal. Before the referal your child has to pass a hearing test which was set up by the same paediatrican. What I found by doing all of this is all the professionals we dealt with ie SALT, Paeds, SEN HT, EP knew nothing about APD and the whole process was driven by us. In January this year we were told my son does not have APD only traits, so not sure if the whole stressful 10 months was successful, but you have to fight for what you think is right as no one else will. The expert on APD is DOLFROG, so may want to post this in the SPECIAL NEEDS section.

Hope this helps
Nick

thanks nick - that really does help. I think my ds would fall into the traits category. He had glue ear for a long time but coped so well it took us ages (and lots of pushing) to get him grommets so he spent nursery and reception with impaired hearing (at best 30db in middle Hz and no support) He's only had full hearing now for a year so I know he has some catching up to do, I do think that if I had a label he would get understanding and specific strategies, School are changing their strategies every couple of weeks as they can't find something that works, I don't know what to suggest for a child with processing problems (his teacher describes him as bright, not working at his full potential, slow processing information, panicky if he doesn't 'get it', listening but not hearing) how to help him gain these skills? - the default is to talk to him like he's deaf but thats not the issue.
Is the Ed Psych the best person to advise the School of strategies for processing?
If not I guess I need to follow up SALT assessment?? There is a drop in clinic in our area once a month which is how I got ds3 SALT support, I'm wondering if I should take ds1 but what kind of 'test' would they do?

Hi, my son suffered with alot of ear infections between 18months and 28months, he was at the stage of gromets but ENT decided not to go ahead with them, not sure if worsened his condition I guess we will never know now. Your school sounds cooperative as my son's school has done nothing to assist with the recommendations from GOSH, he moves to secondary school in Sept so will take it up with them as can't be bothered fighting his primary for the last 2 months of his schooling there. Its very frustrating as we have to repeat everything over and over until he understands, he struggles massively holding a conversation as he can not find the right words to use. I wish someone can advise us on the best strategies which are effective, even therapy but everything is so expensive and we simply can not afford it. Like I said our SALT and EP know nothing of APD so are unable to help, our son's main outside provision is SALT as he has a speech and language disorder so all the stategies are set by the SALT who reviews our son termly, this has been going on since 2003, yes there is progress but not as much as I would have hoped. The EP has also set strategies for the dyslexia and his learning difficulties, so both have their role in your son's provision / strategies.
With regards the SALT we had the CELF4 assessment carried out by our private SLT and the ACE was carried out by the LEA SLT (not sure of the differences), mainly the CELF4 showed my sons difficulties especially with word finding and processing & sentence recall, we were then advised strategies to help in these areas. However our school has not implemented many of them.
Just so you know their is no cure for APD it will be down to the individual in time to devise their own coping strategies with the help from the educational services.
Good luck
Nick

I seem to be getting through to class teacher - ds came home today and announced he has a new seating position, at the front in the centre of the room about bloody time!

Thank you for sharing about your ds and sorry to hear you aren't getting the support he needs.
It sounds like its a good thing the Ed psych is involved, its a new one from the one we saw last year so I'm hoping that he's good.

What is ACE and CELF4? we've only seen SALT for ds3 (almost 3) and he clearly has speech difficulty. ds1 had slightly delayed speech but nothing that we or anyone picked up on as being bad ds3 is the worse out of all 3 (all 3 have glue ear, all had grommets last year, ds2 just had 2nd set in less than year, all 3 are due to go to same school so I kind of need tio get this right for ds1)

Like I said your school seems really supportive which is vital, fingers cross with regards the EP.

ACE is Assessment of Comprehension and Expressions, which is an assessment carried out to determine the childs level in all of these areas, so it guages where the main problems lie. For example my son son scores on the 5th percentile for comprehension, which means if 100 children are assessed using this method then 95 of them is expected to score higher than my son, so this is low. CELF4 is a more comprehensive test of assessments similar to ACE but covers a wider scope both are used by SALT, there are others. I guess the assessment criteria is governed by the childs specific learning difficulty.

Good Luck