Bemused by DD’s assessment result

[Cuppatea14]

We took our DD for an educational assessment to try to figure out why she’s struggling with her spelling. The school were at a loss because she reads well ahead of her age, so she doesn’t present as dyslexic.

Anyway, we got the report today and it confirms that she’s definitely not dyslexic, but does identify her as on the ‘extremely high range of ability’ (with a score of 150 on the Wechsler scale, if that means anything to anyone?)

Very nice to have someone confirm our kid is bright but we are still none the wiser about why she cannot spell? She also struggles with things like remembering months of the year in the correct order, and is generally what in the 90’s we would have called ‘a bit of a ditz’. So we are amused by her results and clueless as to what to do next. Anyone any insights?

We will have a follow up with the psychologist in a few weeks time, curious to hear if anyone has pointers on what we should ask.

Well, I stand corrected on the FSIQ.

Visual scanning at speed and fine motor control and coordination are relative weaknesses. Might be worth looking at behavioural optometry to see if coloured overlays help at all.

I would have called that a dyslexic profile, assuming she has had appropriate teaching. Her spelling is low average, all of her attainments are lower than you would predict from her cognitive assessment. What dyslexia definition is the EP using? Rose report?

Given that dyslexia is identified where reading and/or spelling are attained slowly or with great difficulty despite appropriate teaching, and where that can't be explained by a generalised learning difficulty or disability, I would have said she is dyslexic if I did this assessment . She's having much more difficulty with those attainments than she should, even though objectively they still fall within average or low average range. I would be interested to hear the EP's view.

She sounds identical to me as a primary aged child - I still have to think carefully about which month correlates to which number, although I got there eventually with spelling..! I have ADHD. It wasn't raised as a possibility as a child (despite my brother havIng a diagnosis) - I assume because little was known in the 90s about how it presented in girls. For me, the spelling only really clicked at late secondary where there were tangible consequences that my brain could rationalise as important (i.e. being marked down in exams).

In my dyslexia report it was my short term memory and processing speeds that were low, but I was very high on all other axis, problem solving was one of the highest they’d tested (so she said), which makes me feel better about getting words and letters mixed up in speech and writing, and not being able to trust my instinct for left and right without confirming it to myself about three times before hand. I’ve always been v strong on reading, comprehension and vocab. Dyslexia (as it was described to me) is about disparities between skill levels instead of a level. Sounds like your daughter is well equipped to find out what she wants from life! I’d be well proud.

id not worry too much about chasing a diagnosis when you know what the problem is

She’s bit below average in spelling and remembering the order of things

let teachers know she has these problems and just play around until you find strategy’s that work

coloured gels , songs , posters repetition
tuition and don’t fret , the most important thing is she enjoys reading and feels good about herself

My child has atrocious handwriting and spelling but very high IQ. Fortunately they already had an eHCP due to ADHD diagnosis so come secondary school we very early got the requirement for typing and computer use for long text in the plan so they werent marked down. They were diagnosed with dyslexia later on, about age 13, when they finally told us “words jump around on the page”, before that we thought processing and fine motor skills aligning with the adhd diagnosis. I am saying speak to her school to get a plan in place so moving on it doesnt impact her as much

I can also confirm the Wechsler test results. Ds was tested by an Ed Psych many years ago and had an overall score of 150+ I think they can be reluctant to go above that as there just isn't very much data available at the extremes. He also happened to have poor handwriting when little (didn't help that he was left-handed and had to use a fountain pen!) and quite poor eyesight, which we didn't realise needed correcting until he started school. All of these issues have resolved. So, take heart!

I’m another adult who struggled with spelling, the months, times tables, telling the time but with a very high reading age. My teachers were perplexed but judging by this thread I wasn’t the only child like that. It did mean my secondary school essays were covered in teachers red pen and I was told I would get a grade lower than I would have if I had been able to spell.
I think I see words as a whole picture rather than composed of individual letters and while I can recognise them quickly I can’t reproduce them easily. Just like that test where you have to draw your own watch face without looking at it and you realise you can’t.
I practiced spellings and promptly forgot them. The only thing that helped was writing them out over and over as I’d somehow get the muscle memory in my hand. So if someone asks me how to spell something I have to motion as if I’m writing it in the air.
If you want my advice I would just let your daughter accept herself for what she is. In the world of work computers will correct her spelling. I have a child with dyslexia whose reading score was in the lowest tenth centile. That’s where the real struggles lie. Your daughter can read and she’s intelligent. We all have difficulties we need to manage and after gcse spelling becomes much less of an issue in my experience.

@Cuppatea14how old is your dc?

the fact her primary ‘teaching’ language is Irish is relevant as the attainment assessments are in English. When did she start formal English reading/ writing/ spelling in school?

How old is she? My dd was a v bad speller in early years - eg extremely bad aged 6. Her y1 teacher did say she was a lot worse at spelling than her overall ability with reading and grammar and sentence construction.
I did consider whether she needed testing for dyslexia or something similar but didn't in the end.

But gradually she improved in her spelling -and is now doing well at an essay based subject at a good uni.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia in the 00’s (appreciate processes may now differ) as age 11 I had a reading age of 16 (which was the maximum for the test) and a spelling age of 8.

I learnt to read early and quickly, but my spelling is atrocious. Sometimes spell check can’t even recognise the word I’m aiming for.

I’ve realised I read so fast that I don’t really look at the letters, only the shape of the word and then make some guesses from context. This means I really struggle to remember how to spell with words that contain a lot of vowels or double letters.

Whether she’s dyslexic or not - if she’s a very good reader - maybe she also has this issue.

I had a high reading age (GCSE level at age 7) but couldn’t spell. It was ADHD. Spelling is now fine though, it just kicked in at some point.

How’s her reading and spelling in Irish? How old is she? Ours go to a Scottish Gaelic school and I speak some Welsh. My understanding is that they are phonetic languages - that English isn’t. Could that be playing into it? How’s her letter formation? Is it readable as letters but the letters are wrong or can she not write?

Sounds like my son who as a teenager was diagnosed with ADHD and also visual tracking (uses blue overlay) - last year he acquired 10 GCSES but cannot do months of year or alphabet on correct order even now.

DD2 has combined ADHD. We thought it was dyslexia but it is more likely a processing issue and memory.

i have 2 dyslexic DC and both are very different. One won a spelling bee in Year 7, reads but can’t comprehend. The other in Year 10 still struggled to spell their name, struggles to read, has amazing comprehension and is a whizz at English Literature. All of these things co-exist, don’t rule anything out.

The Wechsler IQ index tables generally extend to 160. A FSIQ of 150 is > 99.9th percentile and occurs with a frequency of 1 in 2300. In other words if you took a very large secondary school with 2300 pupils, a child with a FSIQ of 150 would still as likely as not be the brightest kid in the school. This level of ability is generally referred to as highly gifted.
The spiky profile with the low processing speed and reading scores suggest some form of twice-exceptionality (called dual and multiple exceptionality or DME in the UK). The WISC allows other indices to be calculated, in particular general ability index (GAI). This focuses on conceptual ability and excludes processing speed. it would be worth asking the assessor to calculate it.
I would suggest reading up on masking and compensation and I wouldn't necessarily accept the negative dyslexia outcome at face value - children as bright as this can have full-blown conditions which are masked because they're so bright they can develop compensation strategies that pull them up to the average range. There are other conditions like dysgraphia and sensory processing disorder that might be worth thinking about.

Further info:
https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/highly_profoundly.htm
https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/twice-exceptional-definition-characteristics-identification/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24935885/

This wouldhave descrbed me perfectly as a child- even at med school my nick named was dizty. She is likely dylexic (as am I )but her high cognitive function enables her to mask it. Have a look at this web site:
https://www.madebydyslexia.org/dyslexicu/

Could be dyspraxia. It can cause issues with spelling, sequencing and handwriting.

The bilingual thing can muddy the waters a bit, especially if she is quite young.

An ed psych will usually diagnose dyspraxia or dysgraphia if the think that is the issue and suggest OT.

OP my son is suspected dyslexic, he's an excellent reader and very quick at maths, but he has really struggled with writing and spelling, has poor memory and recall. With the reading we only noticed when he said the letters 'were sometimes the wrong way round'- I said 'but you are still able to read the words?' And he said 'yeah, I just flip them round in my head so they make sense'- he is 7. Might be worth sitting with your DD and asking her what she is struggling with.

Do you know how she learnt to read? If they naturally pick it up from being read to and looking at books, sometimes they skip the phonics bit and just “catch” reading. My eldest did this, was a very early reader but didn’t ever sound out words so when it came to spelling found some spellings tricky as she didn’t spot the errors.

My dd is much older and doing really well across all subjects... but is a rubbish speller and always has been. At primary they put it down to her trying to do things too quickly... she also doesn't 'see' words in her head to spell them out.

It’s the percentiles which count the most - her spelling is in a very low percentile ie if there were 100 kids 84 would be better spellers than her

Also spelling and intelligence not the same thing loads of kids with dylexia at grammar schools.

I've had a dyslexia assessment when I went to uni in my 30s. I'm dyslexic. Since then I had a 'screening' test at a local college who say I am not.

As a child my reading age was well above my chronological age.

My advice would be to treat DD as if she is dyslexic, I've not taught for a few years but my teaching was 'dyslexia friendly'.

PowerPoints were on a blue background, I use the font 'lexia' which is easier to read.