AIBU To query dyslexia?

[sunshine99789]

My 7 year old son has always had issues confusing b & d, p & q etc when writing.
He has recently told me the words when he is reading sometimes 'wobble'. His reading is fantastic, his writing is a bit messy but readable. His main issues seem to be with writing, he can read fine.

Should I be concerned?

I wouldn't be. I had the exact same difficulties as a child. I think it's very common to confuse those letters.

The words wobbling would make me query it.

We knew from primary my DS has dyslexia.
What everyone missed was my DDs. They seemed to read books for fine without problems but it was when under pressure like exams or trying to get their thoughts down on paper thar it fell apart.
It dented their confidence and lead to frustration.
One described it as the words moving. I've seen that myself during mgraines.
They didnt get proper assessment and help until college/ university.

I wouldn't dismiss it entirely but there are other things I would pursue first. Has he had an eye test?

There's more to Dyslexia than backward letters!

Get his eyes checked first

Hi, thankyou for your replies. Yes, he had an eye test a couple of months back and all was fine.

Its the 'wobbling'that worries me. Even as we were doing his homework and I was telling him the words to write he was getting them wrong but im at the point now where I think 'do I point it out and correct him'which does upset him...or just let it go and say nothing?

GreenTulips:
Obviously I am aware of this but given as I have mentioned it is more than just backwards letters .....

My daughter is not dyslexic but the letters wobble when she reads too. We had an coloured overlay test at Specsavers which really helped her. The wobbling is a condition in its own right, I can’t remember it’s name. It isn’t picked up on normal eye tests 😊

Definitely sounds like dyslexia, same letters my husband mixes up and words wobble and lines merge together. He had an overlay he uses to help. Didn’t get diagnosed until uni as he was doing well enough in school. (Pretty much he wasn’t a student they had to work on getting a c grade for league tables)

Irlen Syndrome

www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/test-for-dyslexia-37-signs/

The wobbling could be Irlen Syndrome. There is a video of sample distortions on the Irlen institute website you could show you DS to see if he identifies with the one of the patterns shown. My DD has this, only came to light when she failed the 11+ and she said the boxes on the answer grid were "jumping around like fireworks". Would have been helpful for her to have mentioned this before (!) but she honestly thought it was normal to have to chase words around the page to read them. I would recommend you go to an Irlen-approved assessor, as opposed to just optician since you've recently had your DS's eyes checked there. Opticians seem quite hit and miss in their understanding of Irlen still. Irlen is a visual processing disorder of the brain, rather than something to do with eye health. Happily my DD has since been accepted to grammar school on appeal as the Irlen lens glasses improved her CAT test scores up to 93% :-) irlen.com/

irlen.com/what-is-irlen-syndrome/

Have a look at this website.
My daughter struggled with writing, everything wobbled, but she wasn't dyslexic. A fabulous year 1 teacher picked it up as a potential problem and so we saw an optometrist, the results using the correct colour overlay improved her reading by 20% instantly. We then had further tests and had some tinted glasses prescribed which is brilliant for writing as a overly would be impractical.

Unfortunately it cost us a fair whack...the nhs doesn't seem to pay for it anymore. Can recommend someone in Taunton if that's anywhere near you.
If you do go for it make sure you get an optometrist who can prescribe tinted lenses otherwise you need to pay out for an assessment again. Happy to answer any questions.