Private Dyslexia Assessment

[ZanyFawn]

Hi,

My 10yo DD is really struggling at school with reading and writing.

I first noticed it in year 2 and have spoken to all her teachers since then about the possibility of her being dyslexic. They’ve all said she isnt.

She was graded as not being where she needs to be for Reading/Writing and maths in year 2 & 3. I got her a tutor just over a year ago and she’s not only caught up with maths, she’s now doing year 6 work. Her end of year 4 report showed her as ok for maths and reading, but behind with writing.

She was finally signed off as a free reader towards the end of last year, but she struggles massively. She mixes words up, skips them, adds words and spends a lot of time de-coding bigger words. I don’t think she’s absorbing what she’s reading because she’s spending so long just trying to read the sentences.

She asked her current year 5 teacher to put her down a level in comprehension as she was only scoring 50-60% in tests, which her teacher has agreed to do. She says that she feels embarrassed because aside from a few kids with obvious/severe needs, everyone in her class is doing the harder work.

At home, she has meltdowns with her homework and finds it overwhelming. I’ve explained this to her previous teachers as she’s clearly masking this when at school.

She is generally a worrier and can be very anxious. She’s super hard on herself when she can’t understand the work and can’t cope with not getting things 100% correct.

Day to day she is very well behaved, polite and kind. She’s super creative and loves arts and crafts. Her teachers say the most lovely things about her behaviour, manners and effort in parent consultations so I know she is absolutely trying her best.

I can’t understand why the teachers keep dismissing any kind of learning disability when she’s clearly struggling so much. I feel fobbed off and am at the point now where I don’t feel I can let it go on anymore.

Has anyone been in a similar situation where a private diagnosis has uncovered a learning disability missed by school?

Bumping

Hi Zany I took my DD to the Bristol Dyslexia Centre privately and was really glad I did. She turned out to be only slightly dyslexic, but in our case teachers had flagged it but also told us how hard it would be to access support in school.

Just being able to talk to professional assessors who could see and help with a range of issues can be really beneficial.

Contact the BDA for people that can assess.

It's not a cheap route to go, but their ed psychs are VERY thorough. It could well be more than just dyslexia. Could involve some elements of slow processing too.

IME schools dismiss, dismiss, dismiss. It's often an unwritten school policy, top down, because they're struggling to manage the level of SEN support that's needed. It's almost certainly not related at all to what the student actually needs.

I’d pay privately for an educational psychologist’s report/diagnosis if needs be if I were in your shoes. The teachers can’t possibly know - they’re not qualified to assess, these reports are really in depth, and you know your child best as you see them when they’re not masking. I would pick the teachers up on their lack of qualification to comment every time they say they know.

Have you spoken with the SENCO at school rather than class teachers? It’s worth speaking with them as a last resort before paying privately. I’d ask to meet them face to face, lay it all out and push for an assessment. They’ll happily not do anything in my experience, but I think if you have a diagnosis they can apply for a bit more funding to support things like teaching assistants and assistive technology. They don’t need an EHCP to sort all this - DS never had one as school didn’t think it was worth applying as they thought it would be declined (criteria at the council getting stricter because of the amount being applied for), but they still managed to sort out extra funding and help for him.

Having a diagnosis (‘moderate dyslexia’) has helped get DS 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 time with teachers for English and maths, exam/assessment help e.g. a scribe and reader for certain parts of tests, touch typing lessons and a Chromebook to use in class. School lets him use speech to text / text to speech software and type his work as his handwriting is awful.

Thank you.

I will definitely get a private assessment. I am happy to help provide anything she may need in class if the school can’t/won’t.

Looking at these assessments, am I better to book with a psychologist than an assessor? There seems to be a bit of a difference in price, but happy to pay more if it would make a difference?

How quickly could she be assessed privately?

SENCO is lovely but very young and inexperienced in my opinion.

An educational psychologists assessment is definitely worth it if you can afford it - they are comprehensive and will look at an all round picture of what your DDs strengths and weaknesses are.

Waiting lists vary, if you state which area you're are in I’m sure you’ll get some recommendations.

I’m in North London and happy to travel.

We went through the BDA the summer. Had an Ed Psych appt within 3 weeks. Was £882 rather than£690 with a specialist teacher but was well worth it. She diagnosed dyslexia but was also able to suggest if ADHD and autism was worth looking into (a specialist teacher can only say yes or no to dyslexia).

An ed psych is better because they will work within NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines, which will put more pressure on the school to accept the diagnosis. Those are the criteria any ed psych the school involves would use.

Even then, the school may well try to push back. But it'll be harder if they can't discredit the diagnosis.

Also agree with what @Bumpinthenight said about other conditions such as ADHD.

https://www.edpsych4kids.com/

Hannah assessed one of my children, she’s so thorough.

I am another poster suggesting an EP assessment rather than an assessment by a specialist teacher/assessor. A good EP assessment will be more comprehensive.

If you are in North London you could try Jemma Levy, Ruth Birnbaum, Vivienne Clifford, Catherine Pierce or Stephanie Satariano. They will all be within travelling distance. Expensive and won’t be immediate but worth it.

Thank you x

Dyslexia specialist teacher here. I am somewhat wary of private EP reports as far as a dyslexia diagnosis goes. If you are pretty sure it is dyslexia without much more complexity than this, you would be far better off finding a dyslexia assessor through Patoss Tutor Index at
https://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/tutor-index-landing
Not only is an EP report likely to cost you double, but it is far less likely to be as thorough as a specialist dyslexia assessor's report. I've come across EPs who have used discontinued standardised tests, whose understanding of dyslexia doesn't meet current diagnostic criteria and whose reports are very slim on recommendations for support. Whilst being a 'lesser' qualification than an EP, a dyslexia assessor's diagnostic report will be more thorough, will be very up-to-date on diagnostic criteria and crucially will contain many recommendations for support.

The time to bring in an EP might be when a child's profile is more complex because an EP is qualified to assess for a wider range of conditions than a dyslexia assessor. If in doubt you could ring the Helen Arkell Centre, which provides the gold standard in dyslexia support. They are based in Farnham in Surrey and have their own assessors as well as recommendations for EPs and I think if you contact them would be able to tell you which would be best.

You could also try contacting your local dyslexia association and talking it over with . However I would avoid the BDA. Yes they have a list of assessors but they won't have your child particularly in mind when they recommend one and their assessments cost more because essentially they take a cut of the fee.

We had similar issues throughout school with teachers insisting that my DD wasn’t dyslexic. We finally got her tested in Year 12 and it turns out that she is on the 94th percentile for intelligence but only 13th for processing speed. Her high level of intelligence had ‘hidden’ her needs from the teachers as she had presented as average overall. She now has extra time and a laptop and is thriving academically.

A good EP report absolutely wouldn’t be less thorough. A good EP wouldn’t use out of date standardised tests either. There are some poor EP reports, which is why it is important to make sure you use someone good, but equally there are poor dyslexia assessor’s reports.

An EP report fulfils rather different function, even a good one. For a straightforward dyslexia assessment, it is best to go through a qualified dyslexia assessor with an assessor’s practising certificate Their training for a dyslexia diagnosis is far more thorough and they have to renew their practising certificate through their professional body every three years. This is why you hardly ever see a poor dyslexia assessor’s report.

anyway, the OP seems to have made up their mind to go for an EP, and of course that is their choice,

I don’t agree that it would be best to go to a dyslexia assessor. Which is fine, not everyone has to agree on everything. Based on my experience of having seen thousands of EP reports and dyslexia assessor reports while support parents with EHCPs, neither do I agree you hardly ever see a poor dyslexia assessor’s report. You get poor ones of both.

Yes! No concerns raised by teachers but we were worried so asked for help. They did an initial screening which showed fine in some areas but poor in others - overall low risk.

Hiwever, paid for full assessment yesterday and although the specialist agreed there were some areas where DD had created many strategies to get around her difficulties and therefore scored well; there were
mamy others where she found it very hard - and enough of the key indicators diagnosed her as dyslexic.

It was £500 but totally worth it as now school and us can help her prepare for SATs better and it will be great foundation for transition to secondary

I agree with this. We went with a patoss assessor and got a much more indepth report than i was expecting. The areas they assess are so wide and thorough I highly recommend them.

Not that I suppose it matters because we are doing what’s needed to help our children when they can’t/won’t, but do schools get annoyed/shitty with you going to get them assessed independently?

Some schools are funny about parents pursuing support, sadly. They shouldn’t, and it is poor of them to be like that, but some are.

One thing to note, dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty rather than a learning disability. The latter is a separate medical diagnosis in its own right.

I did actually google as I wasn’t sure how to describe it and the answer I got was that it is a disability.

I think you are right though and will use difficulty going forward. Thank you for clarifying x

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty. It is also a disability as per the Equality Act’s definition, but it isn’t a learning disability. A learning disability is a particular diagnosis. See this Mencap page.

Thank you x

Yup. My DC's teacher / SENCO, every time the diagnosis is mentioned (not by me, by them) comments, 'But it's a private diagnosis.'

Which is crap because the diagnosis was made by a senior NHS consultant, in a private consultation. What's the difference? DC was given a 99% SEN profile. It's not made up.

BUT regardless of school, we wanted to know.