Sunday, November 2, 2008

First and foremost in my "to do list" is to write the conclusion to Ethan's Story. Ethan has been diagnosed with a learning disability- dyslexia. The condition worried the whole family and everything humanly possible were explored to alleviate Ethan's condition.

It must be noted that dyslexia is not a mental retardation. It is a reading disorder. A child with dyslexia cannot process the written words the normal way. He might see squiggly lines, inverted letters or mirror letters. The spacing between letters might not be consistent, thus the tendency to write without spacing or too much spacing. We decided to enroll Ethan at EdLink for a an hour-twice-weekly therapy. The therapist uses the Slingerland multisensory approach geared to teaching language arts to dyslexic children. It was hard convincing Ethan to do his sessions. It was no fun for him and I guess he was overwhelmed by the seriousness of each therapy session. He used to say "EdLink again? Please mom, no more." Much as his pleadings broke my heart - and knowing that a session is unlike physical torture - I stood fast.

There are different modules for each child. Ethan's first module of 20 sessions were about the words: the, with, in and the consonants c,m,t,g,h,p and the vowel a. After 20 or so sessions, a module is done; the child rated and then would proceed to the next module. Ethan started his therapy in late February this year. He has been through 3 modules and ongoing in his fourth. He has learned to sound letters phonetically, read cvc words and some sight words. This weekend, he did his first book report and I felt like bursting with pride when he read his very simple book. He tended to look at the pictures if he can't read the word, but hey! we all did that at some point of our preschool lives. Ethan has a long way to go but the important thing is something is being done to help him cope with his learning disability. We no longer feel bad or sad about Ethan's dyslexia and most importantly, Ethan does not feel "disabled". One set back though is the cost of the therapy. It is pretty expensive. We are still quite financially disabled but with God's grace I know that we will prevail.

Albert Einstein was a dyslexic. He learned to read at age 9. Tom Cruise, Patrick Dempsey, Kyra Knightly, Whoopi Goldberg... dyslexics. Ethan's learning disability will not be a hindrance. Ethan can be whatever he wants to be.
Posted by desperateblogger On 11/02/2008 09:30:00 PM 3 comments

3 comments:

  1. Amen to your last line.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Ethan's learning disability will not be a hindrance. Ethan can be whatever he wants to be."

    Exactly! Without halong sipsip here...with you by his side, he can conquer anything!

    Huling

    ReplyDelete
  3. renz: hey! still awake?! thanks for the amen. you've helped claim the prayer for ethan.

    huling: the sad part is I'm really pressured into getting a job.your former student is doing her residency now and has no moolah for the therapy. i just can't leave ethan to the care of a yaya that's why i'm having second thoughts re the job. how i wish i could just put up a side bar that says "donate for ethan's therapy".

    ReplyDelete

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