Auditory....crap!!

Ok I've been spoilt. Caitlin has always done pretty well with everything, and other than the problems with concentration and finishing her work that popped up this year, I would never have thought anything was wrong. So the whole story of her diagnosis and evaluations were very stressful for me. Of course me being me, my first thought is always, "What did I do Wrong?"

So yes her evaluation said her auditory memory was functioning at half her age, and I heard bla bla bla because in all the other areas she was functioning above her age. So it didn't really sink in, because it didn't seem to be a problem. We read stories every night, and she loves it. She loves her books. 

BUT.... she still insists on only picture books. and the more pictures the better. I just thought, of course, she's only 7. Then I heard from the yet another friend, they have started reading Harry Potter to their 6 year old, and how they love it. 

I decide, this is it, we have to start with a chapter book too. The first one I picked was Frank Baum's "The Life and Adventures of Santa Clause" It turns out to be written in a bit higher English than I bargained on, being it was a bit older. So I had to stop and explain every word, and then read and stop and explain every word, and then read, and stop and explain. It took us 30 minutes to get through one page, and I still don't know if she understood anything. English is not our first language, but she has always been VERY bilingual. Her best friends are English, and she speaks it like a native. So it came as such a huge surprise when she would understand Nothing of what I read. But then I thought, No, it must be the book. It's too difficult. So lets just skip to Harry Potter, which is written in much more simple language. 

So I read, adn I have to stop and explain ever word, and then I read and I have to stop and explain that word, and I read and I have to stop and explain that word. understanding... Nothing. 

And then even though I had explained a whole paragraph, she would start to panic, and ask me to start from the beginning and explain it again, and she would ask the exact same questions. 

It took us 30 minutes to read one page again. I'm a bit devastated. I don't know why I didn't realise how bad it was. 

So how do I fix this? Which specialist do we see for this? And While we try to find someone to help, I'm going to try and find Afrikaans books with less pictures that I can read to her, and see if it helps her a bit