<p>My daughter has some learning disabilities and began her schooling in self-contained classrooms, but is now functioning pretty well in a mainstream setting for all subjects. She is managing OK with her elementary school Spanish class, but it does not meet every day, has no homework, and is largely vocab-based. So memorization of words is the primary skill she's needed so far to succeed. My concern, given her difficulties learning to speak English (auditory processing issues), is that the oral portion of foreign language learning will cause her trouble once she gets to the upper grades and the course is more intense. This week she has to choose a language to study for the next 3 years in middle school. </p>
<p>So here's the question: should I sign her up for Spanish, a language I know rather well and can help her with but which will require lots of oral work? Or should I chose Latin, which I don't know, but which seems to involve more history and culture, and memorizing words and grammar more than speaking?</p>
<p>I think it would be good if you could speak with the person who did your D’s neuro-psycho testing and helped to fashion her accommodations before making a decision, but this is my take on it:</p>
<p>Your D may very well be capable of learning, reading, and speaking Spanish, but to me, the big question is whether she will be able to do well and feel competent in terms of learning and assessment in a spoken, modern language class as taught in your school district. </p>
<p>The spoken part of the class probably does not just include being called on and chatting with the teacher, but listening to audiotapes and having to respond quickly verbally and in writing. For many LD kids with processing issues, dealing with these audio tapes (which can be found in mandatory language labs, are often part of exams, and figure significantly in the SAT II with listening and the AP exams) is a real problem. And the thing is, even if the school is scrupulous about accommodating your child, it is a very big deal and very time/manpower intensive for them to accommodate with these tapes. They would actually have to have someone sitting there administering who timed how long it was between aural cues and then add the appropriate amount of time for each item. Or have someone re-record. </p>
<p>My LD kid was able to have conversations and even watch some TV and movies in his foreign language, but these audiotapes were extremely anxiety producing and were a skill he never really mastered. From where I sit, this doesn’t mean that he can’t gain competency in the language, but he couldn’t gain competency for the listening part of the SAT II (which we never had him take) or class assignments involving listening and responding quickly to a disembodied voice.</p>
<p>Latin might be a good alternative if your D is interested. Another possibility, if it is endorsed by the neuropsychologist and strongly stated as a necessary accommodation for the school, would be to consider focusing on English language skills and skipping a foreign language at this stage of your D’s development, perhaps in favor of ASL if the school insists there must be a reasonable facsimile. We know another very gifted LD child who simply didn’t take a foreign language until high school as an accommodation.</p>
<p>Yes, my D is still working with a speech pathologist for pragmatics, eye contact, and speaking slowly. There are times when she will mispronounce a word in English and I will have to correct her many, many times before she gets it right. Even then, sometimes she’ll temporarily revert back to her original mangling of it. Granted, these are often words that don’t sound the way you may think when you look at them. This week’s tough word is “intrigued.”</p>
<p>As for her disabilities, she has matured and progressed so dramatically in the last two years that it seems her most recent work-up is almost meaningless now. Looking at her IQ and other metrics, one would not envision the possibility of her performing as well as she has done lately. There are things I never thought she’d learn to do that now she is doing very well, and then there are simple things she still struggles with that you’d think she’d have mastered years ago. My sense is that she can learn facts and information very well indeed, hence all the perfect test scores in 5th grade vocab, spelling, social studies, and science. But complex analysis and inferential thinking will always be tough.</p>
<p>Given what you’re sharing about your daughter’s areas of struggle and about her dramatic maturation and development, maybe holding off on the foreign language – which could certainly turn into a time eater and be very difficult in terms of mastering pronunciation and syntax – until there’s further progress would make sense, not to mention freeing up a period when she might do something else she could enjoy more and would offer more benefit.</p>