Teacher suspect dyslexia and dyscalculia

[Abuxx]

Hello,
My son might have dyslexia and dyscalculia. How do I get him assessed for both?

He is in year 6. The SENCO lead has done a screening test for dyslexia which classes him as potentially having moderate dyslexia. I was in the processes of arranging for a formal dyslexia assessment with a qualified assessor.

However, his teacher now also suspects dyscalculia. The assessor I had hoped would do the dyslexia isn't qualified to do dyscalculia assessment. Do I need to get 2 seperate assessments done?

Would welcome any help / advice. He is in year 6 and we'd like to sort this out before he goes into secondary school.
Everything else is normal / good. No behaviour issues, well behaved in class.

I'd look for an Educational Psychologist, who could identify either learning difference.

Thanks - would there report be used to get extra time in exams -SATS, GCSE etc?

The assessment could be used as evidence towards access arrangements for Y6 SATs if DS met the criteria. You can see the rules here. an educational psychologist report isn’t essential for KS2 access arrangements. Internal school assessments can be used. Assessment in Y6 wouldn’t be used as evidence for GCSEs in Y11.

Specialist teacher assessors can also assess for dyslexia and for dyscalculia. Try the PATOSS website and also the dyscalculia network. Some are qualified for both areas and usually have extensive school experience alongside qualifying as assessors.

No idea about SAT's but any form of report won't help with GCSE's. School assess anyone who they think might qualify (and benifit) around Y9, and the exam board criteria needs to be met rather than a general report.

I work in a secondary mostly on the SEND team. I am having a lot of trouble finding someone to do a dyscalculia test onsite. Our Ed pysch is against it as he says its pointless as the student already gets support for dyslexia in maths from a maths specialist TA!
There won't be any change in access arrangements to GCSEs because the student already has all the adjustments that would come with dyscalculia as well.
If your primary has the same trouble I'm having the secondary may do better but the test is expensive so there is that as well. I can't just "do an online test " as in order to justify the expenditure I have to have someone who is suitably qualified do it.
However in the meantime it is possible for your DC to work well in maths and reading no need to wait for any tests. There are tons of excellent examples of how to help students with dyslexia all over the charities websites. And I always recommend getting dyslexic children to start listening to audio books so they can do reading for pleasure.

On the SATs front, access arrangements are decided/ requested by a child’s teachers in line with exam board regs.

A report might suggest access arrangements to be explored but it is down to the school to investigate and then to gather the information.

On the dyscalculia front, this is a true issue in number sense. Your child would typically be having trouble with “how much”, issues counting, basic arithmetic, money, knowing “how many” when glancing at a small group of objects. The definition has been updated fairly recently to focus on the number sense aspect.

Definition is on this link - be aware that some ed psych use a different one! there’s also more information about dyscalculia here, to help you decide if it is worth pursuing an assessment: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyscalculia

Dyslexia can cause a lot of issues with maths as the child can typically experience working memory difficulties and find it hard to work through calculations, find it hard to recall times tables and other procedures and also have issues with effectively processing the information. Reading can also be a barrier to mathematics.

Some parents start with a dyslexia assessment, making it clear to the assessor that there are maths difficulties - a specialist teacher assessor can touch on maths without doing a full dyscalculia assessment. There are gradually more assessors for dyscalculia and training is being rolled out further (I appreciate this may not be helpful to you right now!). Contact organisations mentioned in my previous post.

I taught Maths for over thirty years, with a special interest in the impact of dyslexia on mathematical learning, understanding and achievement (both my own children are dyslexic) and IMO genuine dyscalculia is very rare. Most diagnoses of dyscalculia I encountered were more likely to be particular instances of dyslexia.
As others have mentioned, a child with diagnosed dyslexia should already be entitled to reasonable adjustments/access arrangements. If a child is dyscalculic, then specialised Maths teaching from a teacher or tutor who understands the issue would be of great help.