What are NVR Tests used for?

[onceinawhile]

I would be very interested to understand what is the theory behind someone scoring very highly say 95% on these without being tutored (so say first time).

I ask because we are struggling to disentangle what the issues are with one of my children and their learning journey and were advised to get some of these by some friends. They scored really high on these so wanted to understand if we have put our finger on something or they are just a gimmick and should look elsewhere for answers? What are they supposed to test?

I have tried to google it but I didn't get much information back. Also it is a 6 year old child doing a 7/8 year old NVR as opposed to an 11+ issue.

I would say 95% on NVR suggests the child is very bright.

What is his VR score like? A big discrepancy between these results can indicate various things.

Indigo thanks for your reply. I have actually read your posts with interest and you have indirectly helped me a lot already!

One of my daughters has huge difficulties with words and reading especially. After reading one of your posts about Irlen syndrome I went to look into that more and she seemed to tick most of the boxes, including the headaches. I got her some coloured overlays and they helped hugely. We feel this is not the whole story though.

I will try the VR test and see what happens with those? I suspect the issue will be reading the instructions as words seem a problem...

Maybe we should have her assessed, but I am trying to work out how to help her in the short term as she does struggle on a daily basis...

I think for a VR test you can read the test to her, as long as she answers the question.

If she scores low on the VR (and high on the NVR), then that indicates dyslexia.

If coloured overlays are helping you need to do more work to find out what's wrong with her vision. She's very likely to have convergence insufficiency and eye tracking problems. Far more likely to have that than Irlen syndrome.

Depends on your budget what you can do about it :)

Vision Therapy from a behaviour optometrist costs around £400.

Or you can do it yourself at home. Google and you'll find loads of examples of exercises you should be doing.

For eye tracking try reading the first word and last word of every line in a page.

For convergence insufficiency you need to focus on something (like a pencil) which is near, and then something else a bit further away.

A lot of things like that. None of it rocket science. A few minutes every day for a few months should help a lot.

However, the thing I'm most excited about at the moment is Reading Plus. This is an 'improve your reading' program for people with eye tracking difficulties. This is my top recommendation if you can afford it. :)

Great recommendations Indigo.

If I had her assessed by and ed pshychologist or similar would they test for all of that? Or would they just give an indication of "dyslexia" and then you take it further from there?

An Ed Psych would cost more than vision therapy, and not test her eyesight at all.

An absolute waste of money IMO.

An EP report would give you no clues at all as to how to cure her reading difficulties. Which is the only thing you want to know.

The defn of dyslexia is someone who struggles with reading and / or writing despite being adequately taught.

Therefore you can diagnose dyslexia yourself :)

Really, that is all 'dyslexia' means. It is the laziest diagnosis ever.