Disorganized Reading, Writing, Coordination, Listening

VISITOR: My child loses things constantly, skips letters and words and lines when reading, mixes up letters and numbers, and is very disorganized. Her writing is a jumbled mess, and the school just thinks she has ADHD. Clothes drive her crazy, she hates seams and tags. She fights me on everything! She has trouble following directions. She passed the hearing test, but it's like she doesn't get everything I say to her. Everything has to be repeated over and over! This frustrates everybody. She was premature and was in the NICU for 3 months. She's 11 now. Help!

DYSCALCULIA.ORG: Her symptoms indicate Sensory Integration Disorder (see a neuropsychologist or neurologist), dysgraphia and  dyslexia. I would first take her to see if custom lenses (prism or colored) can correct the visual processing instability that causes her reading difficulties. Read about this on the bottom of the Dyslexia page linked to above. Also get to an audiologist for to investigate Auditory Processing Disorder. An effective treatment program for APD is Fast ForWord. Organization and sequencing disabilities are comorbid with SID, dyslexia, and APD.  If you correct those, sequencing, organization and attention improve. The Orton-Gillingham method significantly improves penmanship, phonological awareness, reading decoding and comprehension, spelling, and reading and writing fluency. 

Take it in stride.  Learn all you can and be prepared to bounce among professionals who only specialize in one area.  A physical exercise program is crucial for continued brain development. Do karate or ballet, or something that regularly involves crossing the mid-line, balance, coordination, and sequential memory. Develop hand-eye coordination and tracking by playing outside: throwing, catching, hop-scotch, jump-rope, darts, yard games, etc.  Also use these apps to develop key skills: 

http://www.dyscalculia.org/math-tools/fix