To consider if my 13 year old dd might be dyslexic

[Violettaparma]

I'm wondering if anyone might have experience of forms of dyslexia which are subtle/ may go unnoticed.
My daughter is in year 9. She is relatively bright, mid to high ability, in upper sets for all subjects, but not the very top. She is also very good at art, and creative - interested in interior design and with an eye for making things look good. She has never been a reader (we are a family of readers, so I have tried!) despite always enjoying being read to when younger (she has not wanted to be read to for a few years, though I do still read with my 11 year old, who enjoys it - recently I have suggested we should restart reading together, and she was horrified).
In around year 3, her primary school briefly flagged dyslexia as a possibility (said at time her spelling was not in line with her general ability) - they did some sort of test, and then said they didn't think she was, which I didn't query at the time, but I imagine it was not particularly in depth, and involved testing gross motor skills etc, which are all fine.
My concerns currently, as she approaches GCSEs are that I might be missing something which might cause her not to achieve her potential. I've recently had access to her 'flight path' which predicts a level 7 at GCSE English based on her SATS (which is reassuring) although it also stated her reading age for year 8 (assuming towards end) to be 12.0 (she would have been 13.6 then). Her spelling is not terrible, but again not great, and seems to be something she has a bit of a block with (asked me yesterday how to spell 'being'). She has always scored better at writing than reading, and again this was commented on by her English teacher at parents' evening last year. She has said she finds it hard to work out what is going on and follow a text (eg a novel), and recently she commented that if she has to read aloud in class or follow as someone else reads she uses a ruler to follow the lines otherwise she loses the place.
I'm wondering if, although she has no problem reading individual words, and her handwriting is good, she may have some issues with reading and processing when it comes to larger pieces of text, and whether this is worth getting assessed? Any advice welcome.

Hi - when did you have her tested and passed the report to the school?
We had our daughter also tested during the Christmas holidays. Just like yours she is also dyslexic. I sent the report to the Schöll but haven't heard anything yet. I know they have it cause her fome tutor has spoken to my daughter but nothing in place yet.....

@Violettaparma

There is nothing wrong with any parents looking for reasons as to why their DC isn't achieving.

There is usually a reason and schools are usually not able to give us that reason.

Why on earth should any parents even begin to feel like the pushy Middle class parents Wondering why their DC isn't fh top?? .that idea makes me feel utter rage and despair.

@Violettaparma thanks for the update, that sounds very positive. I hope that your dd gets the support she needs now.

@amarante report was sent to school early December and I asked to meet with the SENCO to discuss it - which has now happened, after Christmas. The assessor also completed a form 8 and sent to school - this is needed for exam access arrangements but she needs to be assessed again by the school again in May/ June (but that will take the previous assessment into account).
@BreakfastClub80 thanks

@Violettaparma - I was just thinking yesterday about updating what's been happening with us, so your timing is excellent! I'm so pleased you've been able to get a diagnosis for your DD and that things are being put in place to help.

We managed to get school to test back in October, but according to DD, they only spent 15 minutes and completed less than a third of the test. She said it was really basic, words like "cat" and "dog". When the 'results' came back, school said she had scored averagely for everything, except spelling which was slightly below average. DD is in top or 2nd set for every subject, so surely should have been scoring higher? Anyway, we bowed down to their greater knowledge, but asked them to look into whether the testing was completed properly. We also asked them to let her teachers know that she may need some extra time when reading blocks of text, and to let her use her ruler to follow the lines.

The first week back after Christmas, DD came home upset after an English test, which they did on computer screens. She said the words were moving all over the place, kept getting coloured 'halos' around them and changing size - she found it incredibly hard to complete the comprehension tasks and ended up taking 10 minutes longer than the next last person to finish, so the rest of the class had to sit in silence until she was done. DD was mortified. It became clear that the message hadn't been passed on, and we'd still not heard back about the testing, so I sent an email (very much against DD's wishes, but we do what we have to do for our DC, don't we?)

The HO English called me on Thursday, and has agreed it doesn't look like the testing was completed, so has agreed to redo this (properly this time!), along with another test for 'Processing Speed' and a 'Reading and Language' test. They also recommended a Visual Stress Test.

Now DD has opened up to me a bit more about how she experiences these difficulties, it seems fairly clear to me that it's going to turn out to be Irlens Syndrome (@Tiaandchewy79 called it first!), so we're on a waiting list for the only optician in Devon who seem to do it, but it won't be until at last March.

I think that the school are aware there's something going on with how DD processes the written word, but because she's bright and works hard, they don't think she's "affected enough" to warrant spending the money and time on helping her, cos she's likely to get 7's and 8's as it is. I can see their point, I know school budgets are squeezed beyond belief, but this is an issue that will affect our DD for the rest of her life, and we just need to find out what we need to do to help her.

My experience is that the level of support is very much dependent on the individual school. And without a parent pushing for answers, the school will likely overlook a child’s needs unless the presentation is significant.

We moved schools eventually, I didn’t have it in me to continue fighting for support from the last school. Dd 11 was privately assessed a little over a year ago and Dd 8 is due hers this March. Dd is incredibly bright and creative but still struggles with working memory amongst other things.

I’m all for identifying the need in order to ensure correct support, anyone who says otherwise is completely uninformed on the impact dyslexia has on a child.

@BetsyBigNose that sounds frustrating but good you are eventually getting somewhere. The testing done by school sounds like what I suspect they might have done with my dd when she was 7 (which she passed) - ie too
easy to be sensitive in picking up issues in an otherwise bright child. And also, from the school's point of view as long as children are achieving 'ok' they are not going to look for any problems.... this is what I encountered when I realised my dd was not doing as well
at school as I would have predicted (and not just assuming my child would be getting top marks in an entitled, middle class way - a genuine concern that her predicted grades didn't reflect what I knew of her and what might have been expected through earlier school
career) - despite my concerns school maintained she was doing 'really well' when I could see she didn't appear to be reaching her potential. This was completely validated in the dyslexia assessment which stated a child with her underlying ability would not be expected to encounter any issues with literacy.
Hopefully you will get some answers soon!

@SpaceRaiders I have heard mixed things about our school's SEN provision (to be honest, like everywhere I expect they are really overstretched so with the best will in the world unlikely to be perfect). I've made notes on everything they have offered and everything that we should expect to happen, so that if it doesn't I can follow up! Very true this is not just about exams as these issues are likely to be relevant in lots of ways in the future, thinking about employment etc so definitely worth identifying!

@BetsyBigNose fifteen minutes does sound completely inadequate - the assessment we had was over 4 hours!

Hi @Violettaparma and all! We've finally had some actual action from school today, so I thought I'd do a quick update if anyone is interested...

The SENCO called me today with the results of the recent testing DD did, and was very apologetic - she said that she had initially been told to "only test for dyslexia", so that's why the processing and speech and language tests weren't done originally. Despite being in top or 2nd set for every subject, DD was in the 3rd centile for processing and 5th centile for language/context/social conversations, which makes a lot of sense to us, considering all the things DD has told us. School have said DD will be getting additional time in all school tests from now on, all teachers will be made aware and at the end of year 9, she will sit an official test which will determine how much (if any) additional time and any adjustments she should be given in her GCSE exams.

School said they have referred DD to the NHS Speech & Language team, but that there is a 2 year wait at the moment, so I think I will have a chat with our (excellent) GP when I see her and ask if there is anything else she recommends. DD will be taken out of lessons for some "interventions", but I am not sure yet exactly what this will involve.

We have got DD's name down at the only Opticians in our area who do the visual stress test she needs, but have been told it'll be at least March before we get an appointment.

All in all, we feel really positive about todays results and DD is relieved that there's a "diagnosis" of sorts, as she was really beating herself up after the last test said they didn't find anything, as she kept saying she must "just be stupid then", which is obviously not the case.

So it's as we suspected and DD has a Processing Disorder, and lots of things are starting to make sense now we can slot them into the bigger picture. I just thought I would update to thank those who gave me advice, it gave me the confidence to push back with school when they originally said nothing was going on.

Hi, @OliveWah (think you may have name changed) that sounds great that you have finally got some answers, and positive input from school - presume things are pointing to Irlen syndrome then. Hope you can get the other tests and input soon. It's great that this thread has been helpful to others as well as to me!
My dd has now had reading pen and laptop for 2 weeks to use in school, and it seems to be making a big difference to her confidence already. I think especially the reading pen will be really helpful. Hopefully the test at end year 9 will allow the extra time in exams to be confirmed.
It does make me wonder how many relatively bright children who can compensate to an extent are going along with these issues unrecognised, as they are achieving 'ok' (but not what they could potentially achieve).

@Violettaparma - I know this thread is a few years old now, but I am still struggling to get proper help for DD, who is now 17 and about to sit her AS exams. (It was also me posting under @OliveWah on this thread, back in the days where you could mix and match usernames on the same thread!)

I've just posted over in Education Under @FrustratedByExamArrangements but here's the gist of it, cos I wondered if some of the other Mum's on this thread, who were going through the same thing as us a few years ago are still coming up with this sort of issue?

DD17 was diagnosed with Irlens, a processing disorder, at the beginning of Yr 11. We took the evidence to school, and they said they would sort out exam arrangements for her. These are that exams should be printed on blue paper, she can take a blue tinted overlay into exams, and she should get 25% extra time to complete the exams. Despite me chasing this up regularly, the arrangements weren't in place in time for the GCSE exams.

DD is now at a Sixth Form College, where they take AS exams at the end of Yr 12, and they begin on the 13th May. DD has talked to college about sorting her exam arrangements many times, including on her enrollment interview, when she first met with her Tutor, and at each of her monthly 1-2-1 tutor sessions. She has been told it had been sorted. We had a virtual parents' evening in March, and I personally asked her tutor whether the exam arrangements (blue paper, overlay and extra time) were in place, does anyone need to do anything else, and was told it was definitely sorted, nothing else to be done, will all happen on the day.

Exam timetables came out over Easter, and no exam arrangements are showing for DD. She spoke to her tutor, who again confirmed it was all in place and would show up on the timetable within the next week or two. 10 days ago, still no sign, so DD emails tutor to chase things up. Her tutor has finally replied on Friday afternoon, to say she is terribly sorry, but there appears to have been an oversight, and whatever needed to happen to secure the extra time hasn't been done, so DD won't be able to have it for her AS exams. She says that as the exams are moderated by an external body, there is nothing the college can do.

It's just over a week to go, and DD is stressed beyond belief. She has been revising like mad anyway, but doing practice papers with the 25% extra time. Her processing disorder means it takes her around 4 times as long as someone NT to read, process and understand what a question is asking her for.

To add to all of this, DD is absolutely adamant that we (her parents) are NOT to approach college about this, as she wants to deal with it herself. I am reluctant to override her wishes, as I did it once before and she was really upset. However, if anyone can tell me that there is a way of securing the extra time for these upcoming AS exams, that she should be allowed, then obviously it would be worth it to secure this.

DD is particularly worried about her AS grades affecting her uni offers.
Should she do badly in these exams, we're fairly sure that her teachers will be confident enough to predict her higher grades than her AS grades, as she's been performing at a consistently high level all year, and these teachers all know she should be getting extra time but now won't be. But I think if they do AS exams, then these grades go to the uni to make offers as well as the predicted grades, does anyone know if that's correct?

TL:DR

1. Is it too late for college to put exam access arrangements in place for DD's 1st AS Level exam which is on May 13th?
2. Do universities get both predicted grades and AS grades?

I'd be really grateful for any help or advice, particularly if you have had the same battles. Thanks all, I hope your DC are all thriving!