cubby or any teachers...question for you

KrisBriMcBunny

can you explain cognitive abilities?  I kinda know what it means.  Michelle's special ed teacher told me that Michelle needs alot of help with cognitive ability & thinking but I dont know exactly HOW to help her.

Michelle has a language processing learning disability.  The best way to describe it is like this:  Michelle knows what a cow is and knows the cow says moo but if you ask her  what goes moo she cant answer the question.  Changing the format of the question throws her off

What is really causing concern is that if you ask her what color crayon you are holding she will tell you 90% of the time but if you give her a few crayons and ask her to pick out the blue crayon (any color you ask) she cant pick out the blue crayon even though if you hold up the blue crayon she will tell you its blue.

rebs

Hi there,

Can I just say how wonderful it is that you are such a proactive mom?!

I can only help a bit.  I teach elementary school, but am not a special ed. teacher.  Cognitive ability is simply her ability to learn, problem solve, how to think.  I believe she is getting extra help at school?  I would ask her teachers/specialists for specific things you can work on with her at home. Most specialists I know have tons of stuff they can give parents to do at home.

 I don't have any firsthand experience with this type of learning disability so I can't really help you with ideas, sorry.

KrisBriMcBunny

ok now I understand it better.  I'm gonna have to get some ideas from her special ed teacher...this teacher goes to her preschool twice a week for an hour.

misses625

I don't have any advice, but I think it's great that you're trying so hard to understand and help your DD.  I'm a teacher, and I NEVER see parents who are so willing to help their children. 

Tiffany-bride

Hi Kris!

I am a special education teacher, and work with students who have disabilities in the area of language processing and expressive language.  I think it is great that you are getting Michelle the help she needs and being proactive to work with her at home!

Our speech and language teacher always uses a great analogy.  Think of Michelle's little mind as a filing cabinet.  If you ask her a to find something (aka, answer a question), she knows what drawer it is in, but can't find the right "file".  

When you are asking her questions, it is probably helpful to give her choices.  Like, "What say 'moo'?  Is it a dog or a cow?"  or give her a few choices when asking her pick out the blue crayon. 

Good luck!  Keep us posted on her progress.

CubbyMama

I don't have a special ed background, and the info you got above is really good, so I'm not sure what I can add that's helpful.  I've had lots of students with language processing disabilities, though, and I know it's really important that you "show" along with "say" things so that she can make the connection and process the information visually when the words she's hearing aren't registering as quickly. 

I don't know if this is generally true or just specific to the kindergarteners I've seen in the past two years with this type of disability, but attention ties in as well--if I use their name and get them to make eye contact with me before asking a question or giving an important direction, they're much more able to process and respond than if I'm just yammering away at the whole class and expecting them to be tuned in.  When you can't process what's being said as quickly as the words are coming, it's almost like trying to understand a foreign language: after a while, it's all going by too fast and you kind of tune out sometimes.

Here's a link that might help:

https://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Auditory_Processing/