Once your child is diagnosed with MERLD, forget the TV as a sitter. Experience is the best teacher.  I made that mistake.  I had my children one right after the other, three in little over three years.  Oobi and other Noggin shows were my best friends.  Or so I thought.  Don't get me wrong, I love Noggin, or now as it'd called, Nick, Jr.  It's one of the best channels on the tube.  But plopping your child in his play pen in front of a little guy made out of an actor's hand is two dimensional socialization and not good for kids with MERLD.  Limit TV.

MERLD children need to build connections three dimensionally.  At least mine did.  Human connection is the best teacher for anyone--but even more so for the MERLD child.  

One of the difficulties we've had is the "what you see is what you get" mindset.  All children repeat what they see or hear.  With my kids, it was "garbage in, no garbage out."  So I began to limit TV drastically and read and interact more with the kids.  I fought my husband to homeschool.  It was less out of religious preference than out of fear that the kids would be made fun of, fall behind. I was terribly wrong.  

My children are in the mainstream of a parochial school with speech, reading and math help.  There's no special education classes.  In one year that my son enrolled, the difference in his speech and receptive skills is night and day.  He is not up to grade level yet, but with intensive work on part of himself, his teachers and us, he will be, I am certain.  Same with my daughter.  My middle son has no trouble learning...just minding sometimes!  It's a struggle with homework many nights, sometimes taking many times longer than it should, but when that light turns on, it has been staying on.  And I thank the Good Lord for that!

If you are in the midst of diagnosis, know that you are not alone and that there is light at the end of the long tunnel.  I welcome specific questions regarding the process and comments of how you fared through it.  In upcoming posts, we will discuss specifics of everyday life living with MERLD as a family.  I would love to include comments from families living with mixed expressive/receptive learning disorder and will try to get a new blog post up and running each week.

In the meantime, find the blessings in your MERLD World!