Kid with PTSD triggered by reading?

Post Reply New Topic

I would appreciate your input on a dilemma I'm having with my 10 year old daughter, please. She is quite bright, has a good vocabulary, but can't read past about first grade level. She can't write either. To some degree this has been passed off as behavioral since she refuses to read to the point of meltdown, at least until recently. She has some pragmatic language delay so it's been hard to figure out what's going on since kindergarten, but finally she told me that she's scared to read because she was forced to read in kindergarten. Her teacher in kindergarten was a bit of a bully and apparently DD was threatened on several fronts about "not trying". She's been in special ed with reading instruction that should work with dyslexia, but with no real progress. She's been evaluated, but not properly to date. Wasn't from lack of trying, just small towns. More evaluations are coming, but what I need to know isn't about dyslexia really.

Is it reasonable to think that she might have PTSD which is triggered by being asked to read? It would make sense to me. What can be done about it if so? The PTSD/fear that is. I just know there are neurology/psych buffs around here.

To be frank I think she's just being a brat, PTSD is a long shot.

To be frank I think she's just being a brat, PTSD is a long shot.

Judging from your posts in the past you have nothing particularly useful to say. On ignore.

What have I done in the past?

Ok, I really don't want to go find them but sometimes you come off very harsh. In my kid's case, you don't know the situation so it's really unnecessary and unkind to say what you did. It pissed me off and really isn't useful. She is likely a little aspie with a learning disability who can't handle the sensory overload of a classroom or bullies. How is that being a brat? Now, would you like to try again, or would you simply like to go elsewhere?

Why do you think she has PTSD? you don't have to go into details but PTSD is caused by tramatic experiances so if she has not had one she probably does not have PTSD...........But I have PTSD and it interfered with my reading. Basically this stuff went down at my highschool and I had loved reading up to this point then I became unable to focus on it and have had difficulties finishing reading books since then........so PTSD can definitly be triggered by reading if that's part of the experiance.

I was reading at my school when it was put on lockdown, so reading reminds me of the whole thing.

Sustained bullying can cause PTSD - in this case, look up "complex PTSD" as it may be applicable? It's probably worth checking out, at any rate.

As far as triggers go, if she does have PTSD, anything can be a trigger. Anything related to the event. Reading could be a trigger if she was bullied about reading.

When I was little, I didn't learn to write the number 8 for a long time after I had learned to write all the other numbers and do arithmetic. Whenever I thought of or saw the number 8, it was tilted at the 135-degree position on a protractor, and I always wrote it that way, which was the wrong way, and I was always corrected for writing it that way, and I don't think that I knew that I was writing it the wrong way at all, because that was how I thought of it and saw it. I developed a resistance towards writing the number 8 and a dislike of the number 8 in general. I would have meltdowns when I was forced to write it, which was often, because my parents often tried to correct my, to them, inexplicably strange writing of the number 8. The whole experience was very frustrating for everyone involved. I remember feeling very frustrated at the time. Eventually, I learned to write it the right way, but I don't know how eggsacly that happened, so I don't have any good advice for your daughter. The situation with your daughter seems to have been going on for longer than my months or year of difficulty writing the number 8.

Ok, more background then I'll explain why I think part of the reading problem might be ptsd. The year before kindergarten I divorced her dad, so she didn't have dad and her adopted uncle. That was stressful. Then she goes to preschool which is the first time she'd ever been around that many kids, and adults telling her to do things like take naps. She had a gazillion meltdowns. Hiding under tables, hissing and scratching at teachers. I have lots of experience with temper tantrums, her meltdowns weren't the usual tantrum. Her stepfather nearly died of a brain tumor and while he was in the hospital she stayed with her adult brother. She thought I'd sent her to live with him. I figured probably she was having a lot of stress with all that was going on.

Then she hit kindergarten. She was by far in the minority. She was in an English only classroom, but teachers had to speak Spanish quite a lot because many of the students barely spoke English. Her teacher was a gung ho early literacy believer. KB has a rather advanced vocabulary so apparently this teacher thought KB wasn't trying when she couldn't read. KB had a lot of difficulty working independently and for some reason refused to work on reading. She says now that stuff moves around on the page. She also has documented sensory integration issues, so she was in overload. Add to that the bullying was often physical. Teacher threatened her with retention, having to read more. Yeah, KB was traumatized. Her anxiety level just kept rising.

I know bullying causes complex ptsd. I have a case of that. I think KB might too. The reason it seems tied to reading is that she strongly reacts to working on reading. She loves being read to, so it's not lack of interest. It could be some visual thing that makes her feel weird too. I just want her to be able to learn without being crushed.

Okay, a lot of people don't know about complex PTSD so I didn't know if you would or not. I think most people blow off bullying as psychological trauma and so a lot of bullied children never get help in a timely fashion.

Stuff moving around on the page also sounds like one way people describe dyslexia.

I'm glad you brought it up, Verdandi. I've figured for a long time the bullying caused PTSD, but of course no one ever saw it that way. I really don't want it to affect her for the rest of her life. Glad people are realizing. Yeah, I'm figuring KB has dyslexia on top of other neurological issues. This week we see an audiologist to check for auditory processing disorders and an ophthalmologist to see if her eyes are doing what they're supposed to do. And so on this year.

Similar thing happened to me. I had congenital asigmatism (misshapen cornea) and although I could read before preschool, I could never read the blackboard and was consequently put in special ed for two years. She is not farsighted, is she? Can she read road signs, just won't touch books?

Maybe it's the book itself that's the trigger, not the reading words part. Is she more receptive to words on a computer screen than printed pages? Does she dislike words in general, freaks out at a cereal box? You might find some word-media that works better than books.


I agree that this sound like dyslexia.

-
Anyway, I have PTSD something fierce, for most of my triggers I've been able to lessen their effects with progressive exposure. Gradually exposing myself to the trigger bit by bit. For example, I can't play board games. I get this intense emotional feeling like I'm being attacked and have to defend my life when playing something innocent like chess. I've been trying to work on that, by playing "Go" once every couple weeks with a friend I know who is very gentle, fun, supportive (but clever, so she plays a good game!). I still get wound up, but only a little bit now. The idea is to gradually expose myself to more and more competition/confrontation until it doesn't make me flip my wig. It's a slow process, for me anyway, but it helps.

She's been reading signs and video games. She's been writing things she wants to search for on Google or Netflix. I don't give her anything for free. She at least has to try. She has a much smaller, more supportive classroom now so that helps. She loves audiobooks. If the dyslexia is documented and I'm sure it will be, I can get her set up with audiobooks in the classroom.

I'm checking the visual problem, eyes, muscles, the whole thing. Auditory too.

I really appreciate your help. I do my best to understand her but it helps to have more viewpoints.

So it probably is the paper books themselves that are at least playing a role in the block. Have you considered (can you afford) a kindle or iPad? She could also probably modify the font size on those if that's an issue.

I can try putting out a suggestion to her dad who has an uncanny ability to come up with electronics that their erstwhile owner thinks are broken. He can fix anything. Fitting since he's the likely source of the dyslexia.