Hey, folks!  I just registered on the site, and wanted to introduce myself. 

My name is Monique, and I'm a homeschooling mom to three boys; our middle son, age 8, has CAPD.  At age 3 he was diagnosed with significant (+-1 year) receptive and expressive language delay.  We placed him in private speech therapy, and I started studying up on learning disabilities.  I eventually stumbled across CAPD in some of my reading, started observing him closely, and it became obvious to me that was his underlying challenge.  Our son had every single classic symptom of CAPD according to the article I found by Maxine L. Young.  I brought this to the attention of our son's speech therapist, but she was not very receptive to the information (or my observations), stating that he couldn't be tested until age 7-8.  Well, I wasn't happy with the progress or son was making in speech therapy, and I wasn't willing to wait another four or five years to address the CAPD issue.  So I embarked on a home-grown therapy program that has included several elements.  After 1.5 years of private speech therapy, I didn't feel it was benefitting our son any, so we pulled him out and focused on working with him at home.  I feel he has progressed very well, certainly better off now than he would have been if we had sat on our hands waiting for a formal diagnosis.  He's now at the age he can be formally tested, so I'm debating whether or not to do that. 

So, some approaches we've taken.  We started with intensive auditory bombardment.  We had him use headphones anytime he watched a movie, played a video game, or played on the computer.  I figured having the built-in filtering of the headphones would help him focus on the language sounds, and he had the visual cues to help him figure out context and vocabulary.  For the first year or so, he was using headphones about 3-4 hours per day (it's not as hard as it sounds if your child loves movies and computer games like ours does).  We started him on the Earobics Home Step One program (I think around age 4), with limited success.  Some tasks he could figure out, but some tasks were simply impossible for him.  Over the span of a couple of years, he eventually improved in all of the tasks, and we moved him on to Step 2.  We don't use the programs with compliance requirements but allow him to play as he wants to, and it's a good way for me to judge which areas of his processing have improved, and to what extent, over time.  I'm actually having him run through the programs again, just to be sure he's mastered all of the skills.  I'm pretty sure he uses visual pattern memorization on some of the tasks (he's great with patterns), but most of the skills I'm comfortable he's mastering based on auditory performance alone.

From the visual/headphone combination, we moved him on to simple read-along audiobooks.  He still was not able to follow simple stories with audio alone, so having the pictures and text to follow along allowed him to beef up his vocabulary and grammar.  He LOVED listening to and reading the same books over and over and over.  I burned copies of the CD's we'd borrowed from the library (and later downloaded them onto his iPod) so that after we returned the book, he could still listen to the audio portion.  (We always used the high-quality headphones we bought for TLP).  He got to the point where he would memorize the entire story and tell it back to us word-for-word with sound effects and everything.  Now we've moved him on to audiobooks of chapter books, again reading along with the audio. 

We tried The Listening Program around the same time we started Earobics, but it was really distressing for him, so we dropped it.  After he completes this round with Earobics, I may try him on TLP again to see if his auditory sensitivity has improved enough to tolerate it. 

And, from the beginning, we have read to him and his brothers A LOT.  Even when I knew he was not following the chapter books I was reading aloud to his older brother, I had him sit with us.  He could play with LEGOs or draw or whatever, but I wanted him hearing my voice reading those books, sensing that eventually he would start following the stories.  And, he did.  It was a huge breakthrough when he started actually asking questions about the story and asking what words meant.  Whew!  He's able to read independently (although he doesn't like to) using a combination of sight words and phonics, so I don't think he has any serious decoding issues.  He likes to read aloud to me and to younger children.  And he LOVES being read to.  He's begun asking how to spell words properly, and his basic writing skills (letter formation, spelling, etc.) are progressing.

He has an ear for music, and often picks out and plays back simple pieces of music on the keyboard or piano, especially those his older brother is working on.  He loves Shel Silverstein poems and has memorized several of his favorites.  He memorizes and re-entacts favorite scenes from movies and audiobooks.  I've found that as long as the pace is slowed down a bit from what most of us are accustomed to, he's able to follow language, memorize it, and repeat it.  As far as I can tell, he's got the context and meaning of what he's repeating.

So, that's us in a nutshell.  Kind of a big nutshell (sorry).  I'm glad to find there is more support "out there" for CAPD than there was when we started this five years ago.  And, I'm always glad to chat with others, answer questions, share stories, etc.

Blessings,

Mo