how do you get a diagnosis?

[Slinkstar]

dd 7 is in school action. she is in year 3 but is the youngest in the class. I recently spoke to the senco and dd's teacher and they don't seem to be that worried.
dd can't read hardly at all. she will write mirrored and will not notice. she only writes names and then its always spelled wrong even when we have worked on the spelling just minutes before. she speaks babyish and cannot understand concepts of "day b4 yesterday" type of thing. she does not know the days of the week in order. she sometimes forgets in the middle of a sentence. she has problems with doing buttons up.
where do i go for help? could this be dyslexia or worse? if so what can i do?
really appreciate some advice i don't understand this school action and statement malarky just yet.

[caroline3]

Hi Slinkstar. YOu need to get her assessed by an ed psych. You will have to formally ask the school to arrange this. Ideally put this in a form of a letter. The next step up from school action is school action plus which involves outside agencies. Then its a statement.

From what you have said your dd might well be dyspraxic given her motor problems. I think you also need to look into applying for a statement so she gets more one to one help. As a starting point you could look at the ipsea website. This is charity which provides advice on applying for statements. Also please start posting in the special needs section here. There are loads of people there who have experience in applying for statements and can give you more advice.

[Slinkstar]

Hi caroline
thanks for the advice, i plan to ask the school about an ed psych.
I have looked up dyspraxia and there are so many symptons that ring true but are also some of the major ones that don't ie clumsyness.
i really hope i can get her the help she needs, but from what ive read here just now it sounds like it can be a battle!

Slink

[isgrassgreener]

Hi slinkstar
it can be quite a long drawn out process to get a dx, often children with dyslexia have some traits of dyspraxia as well. My school Ed Psych noticed dyspraxic traits first and them as Ds1 got older started to talk about dyslexia.
We ended up getting our dx from a private E P as the education system takes a graduated approach and need to monitor over a long period of time (DS1 is 9) and to be honest I felt that the school E P was very anti giving a dx at all.
The main thing is to be really pushy with the Senco and see what extra help can be given at school.
I could go on but in a bit of a rush will try and check this thread later.

[caroline3]

Agree with isgrassgreener about slowness of EP. I am still waiting for a written ed psych report after formally requesting this at the beginning of the year.

You have to constantly pester the SENCO, be firm not aggressive but make it clear you are very concerned and won't be fobbed off. There should be systems in place to deal with kids with dyslexia, at the very least your dd needs to be on school action so she is having small group help. Don't assume the school are doing anything. If your dd is not causing trouble it will be easy to ignore her. I was told informally that a child has to be at least TWO years behind the nat. average before the school are obliged to take any action on their own initiative.