VR vs NVR - does this mean anything?

[stclemens]

I was struck by the discusson on dyspraxia and VR/NVR. DS is always very good on VR - gets top scores, and not surprisingly as he reads extremely widely and has a high reading age. He is also v. good at maths (got Gold in his maths challenge, top of his class). But his NVR scores while OK have not been outstanding (did not get into Tiffins for example as his NVR score was too low).

He has always struggled with drawing questions (eg draw the other part of the shape on the other side of the mirror line) or rotating shapes in 3D (and those problems that are like find the net that describes this cube). Never liked Lego, clearly not destined to be an engineer!

Does this mean anything? He is clearly bright but I wondered if this disparity could mean anything.

Might do, but equally, might not. It is possible to be non visual and have poor spatial awareness and not be dyspraxic. But, if you are concerned, then it might be helpful to seek an opinion.......

so i am like your ds, when map reading i always have to turn the map in the direction we are going and can never find my way back to a place i have only been once or twice, visual memory is poor but can remember everything that i have been told or have read. Academically professionally i am fine (phd-academic etc) i also manage ok in not getting myself lost all the time. if you are bright you, without thinking about it, develop compensating strategies. But i have noticed that the more visual stuff i do the less bad i am for a bit, so my suggestion as a) not to worry but b) perhaps getting him to map read, show you the way home etc may stenghten those weaker areas

It might be worth asking an Ed Psych whether the disparity in scores is significant, one of my DDs NVR test scores in a particular assessment dipped and the ED Psych did comment that even if we didn't have evidence the score was normally higher, it wasn't a significant divergence from the norm in terms of VR / NVR, which suggests that it can be. Even if your DC achieves in spite of it, it is always useful to know the extent and nature of a learning difficulty, if you can afford an assessment. It might become more significant in further study?

The main issues with dyspraxia do not stem from not being very visual or having poor spatial awareness. These things can be an issue for some things in education (eg some elements of NVR tests) but they often become less of a problem the older you get (says the woman currently nursing a trashed back and arse due to falling down the stairs ) There are other aspects of dyspraxia which start to become an issue in education and can carry on to be much more of a Thing in adult life so my advice, as a person with dyspraxia and a mother to two children with dyspraxia would be to investigate further, not because map reading is important (it isn't really, you can almost always find someone to do it for you) but because other issues may need more support.

We were told by school that DS couldn't be dyspraxic as he was good at reading. I guess he is just not very good at visual things! I suspect he is not so far off the norm that it would be seen as a major issue, but he is a bit clumsy/lacking in fine motor control, has crap balance and also drops things constantly - will never be a sportsman (adds to list of things DS is unlikely to do).

stclemens your school clearly knows nothing about dyspraxia. The things you describe are certainly dyspraxic traits but they are only a few of the common traits. Get him tested.

Incidentally - both my dyspraxic DDs are gifted and talented at all types of literacy (although their handwriting is shit). They both read before they were 3 and had adult reading ages before they were 7 or 8. Dyspraxia has got nothing to do with ability to read.

I was very very good at reading, but am dyspraxic; it would have been useful to realise this at school but not much/nothing was really known about it in those days.

Even Dyslexics I know can be very good at reading, it may just be demonstrated by their spelling etc. (because they might be very bright and have very good coping strategies).

stclemens I would be very worried about any school that claimed to know whether your child did or did not have a medical dx. Their business is education.
Another here that has a bright child with dyspraxia. From an early age learning coping strategies to hide areas that they know they are weak in.
Mine too has a frighteningly good memory - developed probably so he never had to write it down - and can recall verbally whenever required.
It is worth having dyspraxia investigated as it can highlight very specific areas of difficulty. It is much better use of time to work on areas of greatest difficulty than doing a coverall programme for the general symptoms.

Some of the more challenging things to do with dyspraxia aren't actually relevant to education - but it's good to know about them and try and head them off at the pass, as it were, or at least be forewarned so that when you have to address them it's not a surprise.No two dyspraxic people are the same, of course. And actually - GPs can't 'diagnose' dyspraxia. Some of them are as hazy about it as some schools are. You need experts to make any meaningful evaluation.

@auntevil - yes the photographic memory is something all my kids have, me too (although its getting a bit box brownie these days) but apparently that isn't a well known dyspraxia trait - although I wonder how many times it has to be observed to become listed as 'well known' (I also wonder if it gets missed because it's a Good Thing and these lists so often focus on the negative or challenging aspects)

Russianonthespree auntevil One of my dyslexic daughters also has a photographic memory. That of course meant she romped away when learning to read by look see.

stclemens Specific Learning Difficulties are a spectrum of difficulties, different DCs can be affected in different ways. In fact the term "dyslexia" has now been tightened up to refer only to DCS with problems with reading and spelling and as both of mine score above average in these areas, strictly speaking, the label no longer applies.

However as the Ed Psych says, since they have the diagnosis we might as well stick with it because teachers etc. are more likely to understand the general nature of their difficulties and the support they should get. Misunderstanding abounds. My DDs former Headmistress simply couldn't believe she had a problem either but in fact alongside her visual memory being right up there with her ability some areas of memory and processing are at the 10th percentile of the population, and the way in which she writes is quite bizarre, I couldn't begin to describe the way she has found to hold the pen and form her letters to speed it up, it looks as though she has a deformity of the hand. Up until now her photographic memory and coping strategies enabled her to still get the top marks without extra time and she wondered what the point was of the label (which her school didn't even think needed to go on her UCAS application ). I even had one teacher say she was cured I wish, another case of like mother, like dc. It is only now at university that the strategies she has developed are proving to not compensate for her difficulties and she has realised she needs support, and extra time.

I really do recommend you find out if there is a difficulty so you know what you are dealing with. Of course alongside these difficulties people with SpLDs have many strengths related to the different ways in which they think.

Hi my previous message got lost, so I will just say thanks very much - great to hear about your very clever girls, and you have give me food for thought.

I can't add anything more to help stclemens but my 11 yr old DS has always scored in the 99th centile for VR with NVR around 60th and Quantitative around 50th. At age 7 he was given a diagnosis of dysgraphia which is improving with OT and we were told not to force him to do cursive writing as the planning/motor functions would be too difficult for him so he still prints with very variable letter & number size and formation.

He didn't do so well in his 11+ exams for various indie schools (he sat them here in the US as we are returning to the UK this summer, he also had only 3 weeks to prep for them!) especially in maths but also with some of the NVR papers. So we recently had him assessed by a special ed tutor to help with his maths. But the results she's given us seem to point more to a processing disorder and ADD-inattentive rather than a specific LD with maths.

So.......(long way to get to this...) my dilemma now is whether to get a full assessment done while we are still here in the US with a view to identifying what could be causing the problems we're seeing. If I do that will the SENCO at his new school in the UK be able to accept a US report/diagnosis? I also want to avoid medication so what are the interventions for processing disorders and/or ADD-inattentive?