What were the early signs of dyslexia

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If your child was diagnosed with dyslexia at a later age, can I ask what were the early signs?

My DD is turning 5 this week and there is a very strong genetic link to dyslexia on her father's side. I'm getting a bit concerned about certain things but they might just be developmental (I.e. struggling to find the right word in a conversation, confusing some letters, confusing brother with sister- using them interchangeably which is weird). She is great with phonics though, if I ask her how to do spell a certain word (I.e. left, she'll work it out very quickly).

I’m an Ed psych and I diagnosis children with dyslexia. I won’t complete an assessment before the age of 7 as before that difficulties with reading and spelling which can be linked to dyslexia, such as reversing letters for example or having difficulties with phonics, can be part of the normal developmental process of learning to read. There’s no magic dyslexia test which tells you that this particular child is struggling because of dyslexia, it’s essentially a process of elimination where you rule out other possible causes such as language difficulties, poor teaching, lots of absences etc. A robust diagnosis of dyslexia should also consider how the child responds to intervention and extra help and you need some time for that to be done.

Lots of great advice here on initial signs. What I would say is that dyslexia at its core is a difficulty with phonological processing which affects reading and writing. This means the child’s ability to use phonics to sound out words is poor, and also their ability to hear the sounds within words meaning they mix up similar words or mispronounce things from an early age.

You mention she’s good at phonics - has she started to blend sounds together to read a word? Some children with dyslexia are fine with tbe initial letter sounds and can blend simple words like cat but it all falls apart when there are more complex words to sound out, like wait for example. How does she get on with those?

If she’s good at phonics, it doesn’t completely rule out dyslexia but I’d be looking at other possible difficulties, with the symptoms you’re talking about. It sounds like she might have some speech and language difficulties - word finding difficulties are a sign of that and mixing up names/pronouns. You could seek assessment from SALT. It’s also possible she had some memory difficulties - working memory difficulties are often (not but always!) linked with dyslexia and it is possible your husband passed down these difficulties but not dyslexia.

This is a useful summary of early signs and early support if you haven't seen it already OP cdn.bdadyslexia.org.uk/uploads/documents/Advice/early-help-better-future.pdf

My DS was diagnosed aged 7 (earliest we could have him assessed) - also has a strong family history on DH's side. His school weren't concerned as he had done their screener in year R which showed low risk and he was reading at expected level so couldn't be dyslexic. Full assessment found he is dyslexic, with working memory and phonological awareness difficulties, and compensating through his strengths (underlying cognitive ability in the top percentile).

The alarm bells we saw were late speech and persistent mispronunciations (melon for lemon, aminal for animal etc); didn't click with nursery rhymes; persistent truggles to remember sequences like days of the week, alphabet, despite an otherwise great memory for places, people and things; reluctance to write; surprising gap between his verbal fluency and vocab and normal speed of picking things up, and his reading/writing. Also teachers were saying he just needed to apply himself/work harder, "active boy more interested in playing" etc etc, but we could see he was really trying and wanted to read and write and that he was increasingly getting frustrated and angry and discouraged.

We took the precautionary approach through infant school years, while he was too young for assessment, of supporting with reading at home in ways that would help him if dyslexic but would also help/do no harm if not. I found anyway that the things he clicked best with were often the ones designed for dyslexic or struggling readers - so Nessy apps, Project X Code readers.

Just to add about the reading - you said you'd been doing phonics with your DD before she started school. That may be relevant? We didn't do phonics as such with DS pre-school but we did do a lot of work on phonological and phonemic awareness through games and play (which may be what you meant) and we supported with multi-sensory phonics at home from year R. DS "kept up" but the assessor commented how she could see the impact of the input he'd had. And it always felt like DS was making progress with lots of effort and lots of repetition.

He has always been at or above age related expectations at school for reading and is now reading a couple of years ahead of chronological age but...what we saw in the early years was tripping up on small words like the, inconsistent errors from page to page, guessing from context (he was good at this so tricky to spot), relying on whole word visual memory (again, not always immediately obvious), and tiring very quickly. He still tires quickly and he doesn't retain what he reads - dyslexic DH is the same!

With two dyslexic kids I would say having difficulty with sequencing tasks is more of an indication than the more obvious literacy based difficulties. My son is currently doing a Masters of Teaching at University as his literacy issues were dealt with by the age of 9 but he still can’t read an analogue clock and has choSen not to drive as he struggles with directions.

@HowVeryBizarre that is very true!

DS was reading out a multi-choice quiz the other day from a webpage. The answers weren't numbered or labelled on the screen, but he started putting a, b, c, d in front when reading them to us, for the family's convenience in calling out the answers. So 5 questions in, he'd said the first 4 letters of the alphabet in the right order once. On the 6th question he abandoned the alphabet and switched to saying 1, 2, 3, 4. But he read the questions themselves just fine.

Analogue clocks don't click for him or DH either. His teacher is baffled that he apparently "gets" hours/minutes/seconds conceptually, but struggles to read the time off a clock face!

DD is 18. Still struggles with analogue clocks and left and right. Very poor at estimating time, swaps words over, can't recall words, punctuation is non existent bar occasional full stops.

We do 'animal alphabets' as a calming technique (aardvark, beetle, coypu etc). We have been doing this for 2.5 years since the start of the pandemic. She still needs me to prompt her with the letter after about E.

Ask her verbally, and give her time to formulate her words, and she can tell you loads about animals.

dd was diagnosed at school at 5 followed up by a formal diagnosis at 7. But even in nursery I noted issues - forgot the words to Twinkle Twinkle, would confuse black with white and up with down, mispronounce various words, not remember sequences (days of the week, count reliably to 20). She's 20 now on a competitive uni course but still can't tell the time or reliably remember left from right.

Thank you so much for your answers, I only managed to read them now as mumsnet was down?!

Lots of great advice x

Thank you, that's very informative.

We started introducing DD to phonics when she turned 3. She picked it up very quickly and by that I mean she leaned the sounds and the graphemes associated with them(English is not my first language so forgive me if I have not explained well). She was recognising them really well, didn't seem to confuse them so we stopped at that and let her enjoy her time until she started school. Had no worries at that point.

She learned to write her name a year ago, but it's an easy 4 letter name and now she ca write her full name, the surname with some help.

She can sound out different words for instance I asked her the other day for the first time how do you spell 'left' she sounded it perfectly. Also I asked her randomly how do you spell Fiona , she sounded it perfectly too.

She can read most 3 letter words and recognises some digraphs like ck...and oo, she knows how to sound them in a word.

HOWEVER..she is really confused with b and d...I've tried different ways of helping her, it doesn't get through. Also v with z, which is odd ...and i with j and l...if we practice enough with i let's say, she'll recognise it immediately in any word, however if j or l comes into the mix she is confused. Then there are good days when she gets everything right, then next day she really struggles. Very frustrating.

My biggest worry is her language difficulties. She was a very early talker with amazing vocabulary at the age of 2 and her pronunciation was always great. Very clear speech. But it's been deteriorating over the last 8-9 months or so with her very often struggling to find her words..I.e. 'I've seen a...a...what do you call it...a butterfly...with with ..what do you call it...red wings'...something like that. This happens very very often. Calling her friends different names, then corrects herself...calling her dad...'Mum, I mean dad' ..then 3 mins later again Mum? I mean dad!

I'm really not sure whether this is normal or not or how can I help her. She has quite a few friends and I've not seen this with any of them.

School thinks she is doing great and someone like DD won't be their priority.

I’m watching with interest as I see a lot of similarities with my 6 year old son