Dyslexia assessment for 7 year old

[Plant2628]

Not sure if to do this now or hang fire a bit longer. School have done a screening and he passed but I'm not sure it's that reliable to be honest, from what I've heard. It wasn't carried out by a specialist.
Has anyone been through the process, the signs are there and he is behind expectations in everything but I don't know, part of me wonders if I should hold off a bit longer to be sure but then again that's not going to change the result I would have thought? He's no other issues and well behaved in class.
Experiences welcome. Conscious I'll be paying private. Any screening tools anyone has used themselves?
Thank you

I paid privately at 7, it was becoming more and more apparent she was falling behind. And her school work did not match her intelligence.
I made sure the school would accept the report first and got them to approve the company first. So they wouldn't be able to give me trouble after.

I went with a local screening company that I knew another parent had used and the school had accepted the results.

to be honest, schools will be reluctant to suggest dyslexia because a) they need to pay for the referral and b) they have to pay for the interventions. I get it. It’s the shit state they are in.

but the sooner you can get a diagnosis the quicker the interventions. My child was 7y6months when we had her assessed and honestly the difference in the last three months since has been remarkable. She’s like a different kid cos it’s putting a round peg into a round hole

I paid for my girls to be assessed privately. The screening the school's do is pretty basic and nothing like the assessment you get privately. Make sure you get a properly qualified assessor by going through The BDA. If you like anywhere near Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire way i can recommend someone if you like.

Where are you in the country? I can provide assessments?

I had one done but it didn't diagnose dyslexia. However it did say short term memory issues, particularly visual memory and phonological memory for sound patterns- other phonics scores were good, lots of interventions. However, very behind in reading, spelling and writing and scores confirmed that. School think I'll need to go back in 2 years. I'm told the phonics support has a yes and no impact on the outcome. Basically I'm concerned I went 'too young'.

However it did say short term memory issues, particularly visual memory and phonological memory for sound patterns

If she can’t remember the sound pattern of a word - how could she spell it, because she doesn’t have a reliable representation in her brain of what it sounds like?

Reading is mapping each sound c-a-t onto the written letters c-a-t, then blending them to give cat. One type of dyslexia is a failure to be able to map each sound onto the written letter. If she’s reading, but she looks at the word cat and segments it to c-a-t, but she can’t remember sound patterns, then how can she blend it to give cat? The other way of reading, adults tend to use, after years of practice is advance shape recognition and context, which is how some people with dyslexia cope with reading. However, with poor short term visual memory, she probably struggles with advanced shape recognition? It’s no wonder she’s struggling with reading.

How is she speaking language? I don’t mean the mechanical production of speech; but does she have problems with word finding or does she mispronounce words, you’d expect her to know by her age? I don’t know if you can self refer to the NHS speech and language therapy service? Tell them about her problems with reading, spelling and her poor phonological memory - you wonder if there are any other phonological or auditory processing problems?