I think my dd needs a specialist assessment or I am being ‘that’ mum?

[Zofloramummy]

My dd is 9 years old. She is a lovely, kind, artistic, musical child. She loves maths and science and finding out how things work. She has a close knit bunch of friends and an active imagination.

I’ve been worried about her reading and writing for a while and have discussed this with her teachers and they’ve always said she is within the parameters of ‘normal’.

However she has a reading age of 7, can’t tell the time on a clock face, can’t spell high frequency words, she writes letters and numbers backwards, is disorganised and a dreamer. She struggles to get to sleep at night. She still wets the bed regularly. She can’t tie shoelaces. She has a very restricted diet and won’t try new foods. However she can become quite involved in intricate activities (art and crafts) and can problem solve really well.

She doesn’t like routine changes and likes to plan everything and have a schedule! As soon as she gets home she takes off all her clothes.

I suspect she may have dyslexia and possibly adhd. I’ve asked the school for an assessment. Am I being the over anxious single parent or am I right to be concerned that she is struggling without the correct support?

She has been selected for the last 3 years to go into small groups for additional teaching support with basic skills, but the school don’t seem at all concerned that there maybe an underlying issue.

Anyone in a similar position?

Haha what is she like! Sounds so much like my dd. When is yours 10? Dd will be 10 in February.

My older one went to dd’s school ( as did I! ) and I put a lot of trust in the SENCO and I feel like he was failed somewhat. He is now doing his A levels and is going to receive extra time in his exams as when he did his GCSE’s last year he didn’t finish one paper, he still managed to get outstanding grades in most subjects but clearly needed more time. This all stemmed from the SENCO saying no way did he need an EHCP. I trusted her judgement but looking back he should have had one. She has now left and I will be self referring for one if necessary.

I need to have the conversation with her school again but her year 5 teacher is relatively new to the school and I don’t know her well at all unlike other years when they knew me from ds. She is not a “classic” case by any means which makes it so much harder to diagnose. I had the same issues when ds was eventually diagnosed at almost 9.

Sorry. That was longer than I expected.

yadnbu op

I had concerns about my dd at primary, wasnt taken seriously. At big secondary with v experienced Matron, was encouraged to seek ASD assessment - now have diagnosis which has been sooooo helpful.

Sadly schools are overstretched as are SEN and Ed Psych. As others have said if you can afford it, get private assessment.

Best wishes. Your instincts are good and will make a big positive difference to your dd.

If you do get an assessment privately, make sure that they give strategies to help with the difficulties your daughter faces. You can work on things at home, as well as giving the strategies to the school. An assessment on its own, whilst giving you information about what sort of difficulties there are, will not improve things, unless there are recommendations about how to best support her.

I agree with a PP who mentioned an Ed psych who does other work then private. Schools and LAs will not necessarily take a report into account if it’s not been generated by them. But if there are ideas that will help your child, it will benefit her and give you something tangible to work with.

School wont assess for dyslexia. They dont bother anymore as there's no funding.
It does sound like she could have ADD or Autism so its worth a call to the gp for a paediatrician referal. Or pay for a private OT assessment. They could help with the sensory and some writing issues and tell you if she has dyspraxia.

Blank times

However that's actually illegal and parents can ask and trigger assements... You can trigger echp assements the wording is open..

Parents are getting more clued up.

Go to GP you can get asd assessment through nhs

Depends on the waitlist in your area, pre-Covid it was 18 months to 2 years in most counties in England.

@Zoflorabore she is 10 in March. Such a transitional age for girls anyway without all of this too. In many ways she is still very much a young child, other girls in her year act more mature.

Not that I think that’s a bad thing, they grow up too quickly these days.

And.. It's not just a funding issues, it's ignorance too.

I've only been learning about all this since October 2019 and now I know quite a bit, I certainly feel if for instance I was a ta in a primary school I'd be quite effective at spotting various sen and being able to support and suggest things to dc who are struggling... But that's me

Why watch people struggle when there are usually keys to free them?
Being proactive, some research??

It's a culture parents are up agaisnt, not just budgets. And it's not a tory /Labour issue.

People were plenty failed in very left wing schools under left wing governments.
My dd head is very left and she doesn't believe in dyslexia.

AutumnleavesturntoGold

That's fabulous news. My DD is adult, mid-twenties and we were fobbed off throughout her childhood, her primary school and our GP dismissed every concern I had until she was 10 and even then, everything was minimised.

There's so much info so widely available nowadays, thank goodness for the internet so it can be shared and support can be easily found.

Op there are fb groups, unfortunately I don't know the names but many groups and charities are there, something ipseo?

They may be able to recommend private Ed psychologist. At her age I wouldn't wait any longer.

I feel so much more reassured that I’m not seeing thins that aren’t there. I haven’t mentioned the complete inability to get up, dressed and eat breakfast without frequent prompts and physical assistance. She is just zoned out half the time in the morning! Then I get impatient and she cries because I’m shouting 🥺. I’m not, I rarely raise my voice, if I appear disapproving or my tone changes that’s enough to trigger tears.

I must have to go and find the missing remote, pencil, toy etc etc multiple times a day and often it’s in front of her, she just can’t see it!! I’m tired and feel like between work and daily routine we aren’t having much fun.

Yy blank times.

Times are definitely changing. There was an excellent panorama on about this... Councils acting illegally... The problem is culture and funding hasn't caught up with the law.

OP other girls in her year act more mature

Kids with AN often have an emotional age around two thirds of their chronological age. That's why relationships with peers can become quite difficult as they are seen as babyish.

It also brings conflict with adults who always assume the child should be able to do certain things, you'll hear them say 'Well at your age, you should ...' which of course is most unhelpful for the child.

I would agree with the other posters, you need to push for assessment.

Schools can be a totally mixed bag in how they deal with this. For a while my school was ignoring all of the signs until something big happened that they couldn’t ignore any more.

Now they are really on the ball and working with us to get an assessment but the waiting list is huge so the sooner you get on the list the better.

But even with the school onboard it is still a fight against a system that you don’t understand and may naively think that once you are on the list everything will fall into place.

OP I must have to go and find the missing remote, pencil, toy etc etc multiple times a day and often it’s in front of her, she just can’t see it!!
There's a name and explanation for that, it was in one of my DD's Paed Sensory OT reports.

AutumnleavesturntoGold we're in the midst of unprecedented changes to all our lives right now, here's hoping that better things can be on all our horizons. I'm sure there are now enough Mums who are able to fight for all our childrens' needs to be met in schools where neurodiversity can be celebrated rather than segregated.
Different should not be interpreted as 'wrong'.

My son loses the remote control practically every time he needs to change the channel. It really has an impact on his self esteem, I’m hoping when he starts ADHD medication it will help but he needs a dyspraxia assessment too.

It sounds like she may have multiple different needs and the best way to decide which way to go may be an educational psycologist assessment. If you have the means a private one will serve you well, further assessments if needed can be refered for.

There's alot to be said for a mother's instincts, trust them.

My childrens' school that my children were "fine". They have Autism, Hypermobility, OCD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia between them. But school would deny all of this. Sadly, some schools think of their budget rather than put a child's needs first.

You've just described my kids. My daughter sounds just like yours and has been diagnosed with autism. She is very social but masks when she is with other people. Look up autism in girls. It's very different to the stereotypical autism in boys. Unable to tie shoelaces? My son is in year 9 and still can't and probably never will. He was diagnosed with dyspraxia. Writing numbers backwards? Yep, my son is dyslexic too.

Please ask the school SENCO but trust your gut and learn to push hard for your daughter. The SENCO told me my son wasn't autistic. A year later he was diagnosed and moved to a special school for autistic children with 1:1 support. The SENCO doesn't always get it right!

Hi op. My two daughters have dyslexia. As does my ex husband, his mother and a lot of his first cousins. One of his cousins was only diagnosed at University! My daughters are now 21 and 16. We do online shopping as I have a lot of underlying health problems and we don't have a car. They will still ask me how to spell penne or cucumber when they are adding to my list of stuff we need to order. They were both diagnosed at the age of 10. But only because I was concerned and paid €500 and €400 to get them privately assessed. My youngest was 'only very mildly dyslexic' according to her school principal. But she was getting extra help in reading and spelling with other children who had been diagnosed as having dyslexia. My eldest is now in her final year of an honours degree. Computers and spell check have made a huge difference to her. Plus she had to study 7 different subjects including two languages for her Leaving Cert which she hated. She loves the course she's doing now. She was also unwell with Graves disease (autoimmune over active thyroid) which certainly didn't help. Her younger sister is being reassessed in school this term to see if she can be exempt from languages. She loves maths, applied maths, chemistry and biology and hopes to study something science based when she leaves school. The last parent teacher meeting I had, she was described as quirky! Trust your instincts and have your daughter assessed privately if you can.

Sorry for the essay.

YANBU I had some of the same problems with my ds with writing and reading, tying shoe laces, time, etc. It took me 3 years of pushing the school to get dyslexia looked into. Turns out he is dyslexic. Thought having a diagnosis would help for him going to high school but looks like I'm going to have to push at them to give him any support now too.

One thing that may help you OP is to change your mindset (you probably have already, but anyway):

I found that once we (whole family including DD) accepted and named what she struggled with, but then out in reasonable adjustments, it took a lot of stress away.

e.g. She was hopeless at organising & messages. So ALL messages without fail HAD to be written in her planner. She could do this. So no excuses for 'forgetting' because we knew she would so we had a workaround.
e.g. She would lose things at home, so we gave all her things a place and she wasn't to put them down elsewhere Keys lived in her rucksack, so as soon as used they went straight back, no dealing with them later.
e.g. Checklists for contents of pencil case at start of term

One thing that might help morning routine is making a list with times and in order of what she needs to do each morning- even at 15 my DC forgot to do what I'd reminded him to do every day. We put them all round the house so he could look and see what needed to do, it did take a couple of years to not need those lists but he is now an adult who doesn't need reminded of every day tasks. It stopped the stress every single morning and helped his independence and esteem.

Her reading age combined with the lack of ability to tell the time despite the fact she's generally bright would be a concern for me. It's often disparities rather than defiiciencies which indicate SEN.