dyslexia? Visual sequencing problem? second guessing myself.

[HattiFattner]

I had DS2s parent/teacher assessment this week. A very lovely and experienced teacher, who has taught both his siblings, and so knows our family.

SHe (and I) has concerns about DS2s reading, writing, spelling and numeracy.

On reading, he has not progressed from Y2 Sats level. He is in Y4. He is very hesitant, still does not really see the difference between "what" and "that" or "Where" and "There", but can pick up on very long words and decode them. Still hits a major block with certain sound blends - ai / ay in particular. Reads words from the middle - so last night, the word "rudely" became "Druley?" He was in reading recovery in infants.

His handwriting is a mess, which I have put down to him being a left hander. Teacher implied theres more to it than that - letters are transposed, badly formed letters, writes everything in very big letters (about 2 lines deep for each letter). He has done a writing/coordination scheme through the school last year, to try and get him better hand control.

Spelling he is 2 years behind his age. ALthough he gets 10/10 for every spelling test, he forgets the spelling when he has to write them in stories.

In numeracy, he also transposes numbers - so 315 becomes 351. He also writes numbers back to front P for 9 for example.

Teacher says she will now keep him on her radar. But im wondering (and second guessing) if DS has some form of dyslexia or visual processing issue.

And if so, what ....and how can I help him?

His confidence is taking a big knock because he is not moving on to the later books, he hates reading out loud and now avoids doing so ("I left my book at school" and "I finished it in class".)

He is otherwise a bright boy, funny, articulate. Just falling behind.

DebbieSolloway

Developmental Dyslexia has three underlying cognitive subtypes, or underlying causes. The underlying causes causes are various forms of cognitive information processing disability, for which currently there are no cures. Developmental Dyslexia has a genetic origin and the only cure would be via genetic engineering. Adults who have developmental dyslexia will always have their disabilities, the problem is that others will not try to understand our different communication needs, and causes us endless stress and exhaustion having to use their use coping strategies to adapt and use their preferred forms of communication. Disability discrimination based on ignorance, and a lack of willingness to understand the difference and different communication needs of others. Have as look at Co-occurrence of linguistic and behavioural difficulties in early childhood: a developmental psychopathology perspective

Those who have these various disabilities become better able to develop coping strategies to work around their disability as the gain more understanding of both their deficits and their alternative compensating skills. We also learn how to avoid the stresses of not being understood, and retreat from much of mainstream life.
With age the ability to run our coping strategies can decrease as coping with stresses of the aging process itself take priority in the working memory, and as a result our disabilities coping strategies have to make way.
In an ideal world Developmental Dyslexia should be assessed and diagnosed by a multi - discipline (multi professional) team. An audiologist to identify and assess any auditory processing disorders, an optometrist to identify and assess any visual processing disorders, and a psychiatrist to identify and assess any attention disorders. Which would then be followed by a further assessment and diagnosis of any of the identify disorders by further multi - discipline teams which would include a psychologist to assess the life long implications of living with the diagnosed disability.

Developmental dyslexia is a symptom of one or more underlying disabilities, and should serve as a screening process for further investigation to identify and clinically diagnose the specific disability or disabilities each child or adult may have.

by the way, opticians do not test for tracking/convergence
They do check for convergence. My DD has seen two different opticians locally and both picked up her convergence problems. She sees double at 20cm instead of 12cm

maizieD

you live in a world of your own devoid of the reality of humans different cognitive skill sets and skill deficits.
Reading disabilities, regardless of what you wish to call them have an neurological cause. For many phonic blending is not cognitively possible so you would appear promote disability discrimination. The documentary about your mentor Ruth Miskins demonstrated your lack of willingness to understand those who can not use phonics, the torture that boy suffered. Pure egotistical ignorance.

dolfrog, I think that 'living in a world of your own' is more your style than mine. In the real world teachers teach whole classes full of children to read well using SP. Any attempt to tell you this produces a torrent of ill informed abuse and ludicrous claims of disability discrimination.

I am very well aware that some reading difficulties have a neurological cause. It is also the case that a great many are caused by poor teaching. As you have never taught a child to read in your life, let alone a class of children and your point of view is unequivocably egocentric you are in no position to pass judgement on any teaching method.

Ruth Miskin is not, and never has been, my mentor and you must have watched a completely different documentary from me, because I don't recall any child being 'tortured' with phonics.

DebbieSolloway

You may find this collection of links Age and Aging Processes of some interest and you might like to scan through some of my online my online PubMed Research paper collections which cover a wide range of related issues

MaizieD

If I remember correctly you are a Teaching Assistant at a Secondary School, and do not work in a Primary School

I have been integral in helping my sons to read, and while helping with the various support option run by APDUK etc I find myself helping parents and adults understand why their children have failed to learn to read when using phonics because they have a cognitive barrier which prevents them from processing the gaps between sounds.
If those who run and woerk in the education system were properly qualified and aware of the research of the last decade or so then childrens learning needs can be assessed pre-school, which is why a phonics for all policy is pure disability discrimination for those who have this type of disability. And the Reading Reform Foundation lobby group are part of the problem that prevents a much improved education system.

Dolfrog - can you actually read and write? Or do you have software on your computer which reads out the text, and dictation software to write for you?

If I remember correctly you are a Teaching Assistant at a Secondary School, and do not work in a Primary School

Not quite right, dolfrog. Very experienced HLTA with a great deal of specialist training and in charge of reading intervention for the whole school. I do teach children to read from scratch and I certainly have to deal with all the casualties of poor teaching in primary school plus the very few children with significant difficulties over and above poor instruction.

I am not going to argue with you about the squillions of links to irrelevant research studies which you post nor your ill informed opinions about the teaching of reading. Your intense antipathy to phonics makes you unable to be rational about the subject.

IndigoBell
"Dolfrog - can you actually read and write? Or do you have software on your computer which reads out the text, and dictation software to write for you?"

1. yes i can both read and write, but sometimes with some difficulty as i am dyslexic.
2. I would not be able to use any software which reads out text, or have you forgotten the nature of my disability, Auditory Processing Disorder, which is thew underlying cause of my dyslexia.
3. and the same would apply to dictation software.

So I just have to make do and get on with coping in an unfriendly communication environment.

maizieD

Well it is you who has the ill informed opinions, and lack the ability to discuss the issues sensibly because you can only talk about phonics, and have no understanding human neurobiology, or how we learn.
And some of you posts are for those who share my disability are pure disability discrimination because you do not want to consider discussing the issues which cause our disability, an prevent us from using phonics.
So it is your refusal to discuss alternatives to phonics which is so discriminatitory If you were to discuss the needs of those who are not able to use phonics then you will enter the real world.
The reason you do not like the international research is because is proves the lack of scientific support for phonics only opinions and methodology.
It is one thing to understand the design of s communication system, but something completely different to understand the varying learning needs of those who have to use that communication system, especially id it would not be the communication system of the cognitive ability best match.

I had assumed opticians don't test for convergence as my optician said they don't (or rather she herself doesn't) - but seeing as dd got a referal to the opthamology dept at hospital I'm sure she'll have all the testing done there.

Interesting debate between dolfrog & maizie!

For your interest dolfrog: my dd2 - I believe I've mentioned her to you before - is mild/mod hearing impaired with suspected APD (I say "suspected" as no formal diagnosis but I do know that this is what she has). School is realising she has sequencing difficulties. Due to your information I shall be able to suggest a correlation between auditory/sequencing ability at the IEP meeting this week. Thanks, it's great to be informed.

Local independent and Boots both tested dd for convergence.

Interesting debate between dolfrog & maizie!

No it's not, kissing frogs! It's tedious in the extreme and has been going on on different forums (fora?) for 5 or 6 years now! Not only with me but with a wide range of education professionals!

I am perfectly happy to concede that dolfrog is very knowledgable about APD, as he obviously is, but in the matter of teaching reading his intense hatred of phonics and his entrenched belief in completely unproven theories, such as *'learning styles' makes discussion impossible.

I have frequently quoted this document from his own website:

resources.apduk.org/manage_apd.htm

in which one of the UK's leading APD experts recommends (among loads of other things) training in phoneme discrimination (which is a basic skill for learning to read with phonics) but he won't respond...

*learning styles

elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=2070611

(This won't cost you a penny, dolfrog, unlike all the £20 a view 'papers' you keep giving links for)

Well, back from the BO thismorning...Im shattered, and Im sure ds is even more so!

It will take a couple of weeks for the optometrist to feedback all results, but the obvious findings were that he has very poor visual discrimination - she thinks without checking the centiles that he will be in the bottom 10%. He simply cannot see differences, see patterns or see when something is wrong - she did a test that had him circle the letters that were back to front He missed quite a few. :( . He was drawing them in the air in order to determine if they were right way round or not.

His left eye has problems with focus, so she is going to recommend bifocals for him.

He has mixed right eye/left hand dominance, although he uses his right hand for practical tasks like catching.

SHe said he has retained the grasping reflex, where a baby will look at an object and reach out his hand simultaneously - DS is moving his hand/shoulder when his head is moved. This is making things difficult for copying words from the board, for example.

He is using auditory cues to help him discriminate between objects (so memorising a sequence by sounding them out, rather than visually memorising).

He is very "tight" when writing, and very slow, and so she is going to recommend pens/pencils/writing slopes for him.

Of course I may have misunderstood much of what she was saying, but she def. thinks there are things we can do to help make things easier for him.

Spoke briefly with teacher, who is already making plans for interventions.

Thanks for the information above all, I may come back and process it all once I have seen the formal report!

Really pleased you're starting to get some answers. :)

All kids with these kinds of problems also have retained reflexes.

Vision Therapy does a little bit of retained reflex therapy, but if you feel like it after you've done vision therapy you can also do retained reflex therapy. (And to make it more complicated retained reflex therapy also does a little bit of vision therapy.... :) )

My DD has mixed dominance. AFAIK there is nothing that can be done about it, it does make them a tiny bit slower.

My DS has huge visual discrimination problems, and the OT recommended word searches, spot the differences and where's wally.

Sounds like your DS might also benefit from being assessed by an OT :(

The thing to do is look on this as good news, because now you can start to address his problems.

Hi Hattifattner
Glad you have had some answers, it is always alot to take in.
The good new is there are lots of really simple easy things that the school & you can do to help.
Also many of the symptoms you describe especially the mixed dominance can also be caused by Bilatera intigration & sequencing problems (Have a google) the truth is the reading writing etc difficuties all overlap with the retained reflexes & BIS.
Before you spend £££'s on private therapy & assessments check what is available on the NHS locally. Many NHS hospitals have BO's and reading difficulty clinincs within hospital eye depts, Specialist sensory OT's will also be able to ehlp with retained reflexes and the be able to offer advice & equipment to school.
INDIGO - Mixed dominance can be improved, does your DD have mirror posturing, so if she catches a ball with one hand does the other hand mimic for example. Many of these problems are caused by the two sides of the brain working indipendantly rather than together. DS2's OT has been working through a sensory integration programme to help improve things & we have seen huge improvements in coordination.

DontRemeberMe - Thanks, I'll google all that.

DDs currently at a new therapist who seems to know what he's doing, so we'll see how that goes :)

Hattie,

I would add to what IndigoBell and DontRemeberMe said about consulting with an OT - if you can, get all the retained reflexes assessed.

My son has similar issues - cant write. We went the OT route and it made no difference.4 months into retained reflex program and we are beginning to see improvement.

3 months into the program he told me its easier to read, letters dont appear blurred or jumpy.I never knew.

From what you say his Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex appears to be retained. Does he also begin writing in the middle of the page or towards the right?

IndigoBell,

ATNR causes bilateral integration problems. RRT should help fix or improve it. bit.ly/v7diTI

Feel silly, me giving IB advice!!

Debbie! I accept and welcome advice from everyone.

You're much better at research than me, and I appreciate all the links and notes you send me.

Ok, just checked.

DDs ANTR is fine, but she is still left eyed and right handed. This contributes to slow processing (although I don't think in a major way, because she is no longer nearly so slow)

I really don't think at this age there is any way to switch her from being left eyed to right eyed - or at least thats what the optometrist said.

Nor do I think it's a big deal.

thank you - its good to know that there are others who have already walked this route!

Can I ask.....once I get this report, where do I go from here....do I ask the school to organise an EP, do I go to the GP and ask for a referral to OT, do I just forge on privately (there is no money in our LEA, so services are tremendously slow). Presumably the BO will make recommendations. I just dont want to be in the nomand land of "we'll wait and see....we'll try this and see how it goes...." - because thats what we have been doing for too long, and I dont want him falling any further behind.

No harm in asking school to refer him yo the EP. But they almost certainly won't. Which I wouldn't worry about, because I think an EP report is absolutely useless. I certainly wouldn't pay for a private one.

If you can afford it you can choose whether to go yo a private OT or ask your GP to refer you.

With DS1 I went to the NHS OTfirst, and a private one much later. With DS2 I'm going private, and aren't bothering with the NHS. I'm paying £400 for a full assessment.

Or instead of a normal OT you could go to one that specialises in RRT.

Check with your school ... I can refer children directly to a specialist OT service and I know the North West has a similar service