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.

My child was in very similar position. Went through the Dore programme and hasn't looked back. www.dore.co.uk

I agree that a label of dyslexia doesn't actually help a child, but the ed psych report was very beneficial for DS - up until the point where the ed psych came in, his school were totally unconcerned by his lack of progress because they just thought he wasn't very bright (and refused to listen to anything I had to say on the matter), but the report saying his non-verbal reasoning was 98th percentile as compared to his 11th percentile reading ability forced them to acknowledge that he was (a) very clever and (b) needed some help!

So there can be a benefit in the ed psych report, but I didn't pay for his - I browbeat the school into getting it done.

dolfrog what are the methods that you have used to teach yours sons to read and write? Also how did you learn yourself? You seem to have high functioning literacy which seems to suggest that whatever you have used has worked. I would be really interested to know more about your methods of teaching. My DS functions reasonably well these days, but his literacy is totally inadequate to match his intellectual abilities which causes a huge amount of frustration for him.

right - report is in!

Poor eye movement control with tracking and moving to next line of text.

Bilateral integration: cross body integration poor.

Saccades, the jumping eye movements were not accurate. Pursuit movements were shaky. Convergence control is stressed when jumping from distance to near. Stereopsis, the ability to keep both eyes on task and perceive fine levels of depth perception, poor

Reversal analysis poor - 27 percentile, age 6.5 (he is 9)

Strong retained Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex

Visual Perceptual Skills:

Visual Spatial very poor - 4th percentile, age score 4 years 9 months.

Visual Sequential memory: 98th Centile, age score 18!

Visual Discrimination 84th centile, 12 years

Visual memory and Visual Form Constancy normal.

Visual Motor integration normal

Wold Sentence Copy test: very slow for age.

I guess I need to sit down with the school SENCO and his teacher on his return to school to look at next steps.

Thanks for reporting back, and I'm glad you got a full report done.

Most important thing to concentrate is on the eye movement. He needs to practice tracking from left to right.

I don't know anything about poor spatial - but great that his discrimination is good.

Did they recommend vision therapy?

yea, vision therapy for tracking and focus issues, various exercises for bilateral intergration and some strategies for helping with handwriting. Plus new script for glasses.

Well done Hatti!
My DD's report (age 6) was very similar. The vision problems/dyslexia debate is interesting. I think that for some it can be purely vision but for others it is both. Fixing the vision issues can go a long way towards helping a child improve their school performance. And yes, dyslexia is just an umbrella term. My DD had a lot of classic dyslexia symptoms- ambidextrous, approaching problems in a round about way etc. Our EP recommended the behavioral optometrist so, a very integrated approach from the start.Having that report is important as it is a useful stick with which to beat the school. You may find that you get the odd neanderthal teacher who doesn't 'believe' in dyslexia and you'll have to shove it up their nose- hard! It's a long road but I hope your DC now knows that this isn't about being stupid, this is just a brain with different wiring.

Dot to dots for spatial problems according to Write from the start

Here are some activities to address difficulties with visual-spatial relationships:
-Make an activity sheet of identical shapes, forms, letters, etc. with one of them positioned differently. Have the child point to the one that is oriented in a different direction.
-Do the same as above, but use actual objects. For example, line up for paper clips on the table with one slightly rotated and ask, ?which one is in a different position??
-Climbing through a homemade obstacle course of pillows, blankets, etc.
-Parquetry blocks, tangrams, and pegboard design sets (found at Amazon and school supply stores). Have the child reproduce shapes or forms from an example.
-Equilibrio Game
-Jig saw puzzles
-Have the child draw a person with all parts of the body, or assemble a person out of cut out body parts.
-Drawing maps of home, school, etc. Trace the way from one room to another.
-Gross motor activities of running, hopping, jumping, skipping around obstacles.
-Throwing objects at a target (bean bags, balls)
-Simon Says, Hokey Cokey games

edhelper.com/visual_skills.htm

Horsemadam - if you want more advice about what you can do to cure your DCs dyslexia besides vision therapy, please message me.

I have a load of suggestions which are a lot more effective than sticks to beat school with or compensating strategies.

Hi IndigoBell,
Thanks for the offer but, I don't think (nor do most experts) that you can 'cure' dyslexia. It's just a difference in brain wiring and perception and it can have some advantages. If you look at list of very successful people who are dyslexic, you'll see that the dyslexic brain is actually an advantage in some careers. My DD has learned very early never to give up and to work harder than her peers- I admire her for it. She reads 2 novels a week and we just keep on top of updating her strategies as the work at school becomes more demanding on her eyes. And she doesn't have vision therapy. She has the correct specs and a simple focus exercise done twice a day.
She doesn't need a 'cure'. Just understanding from the school that some things will challenge her more than others is enough.

Many experts don't believe dyslexia exists horsemadmom so it stands to reason you can't cure something that doesn't exist.

If you look at the list of very successful people who are dyslexic (and there is no real evidence that many of them were dyslexic) I doubt they became successful by sitting back and saying I've a problem but you've just got to understand ...

Mrz, horsemad, indigo, thank you for taking the time to read.

Based on the info I posted above, am I looking at a dyslexic child? Im a little confused about when a vision issue becomes dyslexia, when it can and cannot be "cured" or remedied. And the whole retained relexes thing seems to be controversial. More questions than answers I think for me!

Horse - Is your daughter happy that she has to work twice as hard as everyone else? Would she like to be cured?

Does she want understanding? Or does she actually want to reach her full potential?

It's not your decision to make. You're the only one who can help your daughter, and you owe it to her to try absolutely everything that might help.

Lots and lots of 'experts' know how to cure dyslexia. The only people who don't think dyslexia can be cured are Dyslexia Action, and Educational Psychologists. And that's because they're trained in the wrong areas. There's no way an Ed Psych could help with curing dyslexia.

What have you got to lose? Your DD may well have a simple neuro development problem, and there's a half dozen places that run neuro development programmes that can help.

Your daughter's whole life will be better if her 'dyslexia' is cured.

Dyslexia is used as a catch-all term for a variety of symptoms, with dyslexia being the effect of these. Visual issues can therefore contribute to it but therapy can mitigate that particular issue and help overall.

Hatti dyslexia is an umbrella term that basically means a child/adult has difficulty with reading and as such is completely useless in identifying how to help the child to overcome those problems. You have successfully identified an obstacle to your child's progress and can now plan the best ways to help him overcome that obstacle.

A label of dyslexia is pointless and unhelpful ... knowing a child has visual problems gives a clear route forward.

Hatti - it's not that simple. 'Dyslexia' is a term given to any child who struggles to learn to read and or spell. So therefore your child has dyslexia.

However, dyslexia is not the cause of the symptoms, only the label given to people with those symptoms.

The dyslexic symptoms are caused by one or more of the following:

• Poor teaching
• Vision Problems
• Auditory Problems
• Dietary problems
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Neurodevelopment problems.

All of which can be cured. Once you've cured all of the above problems, your child will no longer have 'dyslexia'.

Yes, most of these therapies aren't recommended on the NHS, or by an Ed Psych or by school. There's a lot of reasons for that, which are more related to money and politics then to their effectiveness. (Almost everything that is recommended on the NHS, the research has been paid for by huge drug companies who subsequently go on to make huge profits)

You have to do your own research, and then work out what you can afford, and then go for it.

You can do things very cheaply if you have to. It's easier if you have a bit more money to spend.....

But basically, I've been researching dyslexia for the last 4 years, have 2 children who have been labelled 'dyslexic', and I don't believe dyslexia exists. I have seen nothing to convince me that the problems dyslexic children have can't be cured.

I have not given up on my children, and am continually amazed at how easily the majority of parents give up on their children.

The problem is that 'Dyslexia' is viewed as an educational problem (due to it's defn of having problems with reading and or spelling ), whereas an actual fact it's a medical problem (like you've started to find out with finding out about DDs vision problems)

Naturally the NHS don't want to spend any money curing dyslexia, and nobody is forcing them to.

Ed Psychs know nothing about how to treat dyslexia - but for some unfathomable reason they're classified as the experts in dyslexia. They of course make a lot of money from diagnosing dyslexia. But offer nothing in the way of helping.

And dyslexia tutors also make a lot of money from viewing it as an educational problem......

The British Dyslexia Action I don't get at all. They too make money from selling diagnosis and tutoring. So maybe that's why they support that line of thinking. I don't know. I spoke to them once, at the very beginning of my journey, and they were so dreadful I never spoke to them again. (They told me dyslexia couldn't be cured, and wanted to sell me an Ed Psych report detailing DDs problems - no thanks. ) But I still don't get why they aren't more of an advocate for alternative treatments.

And it's no wonder that teachers and SENCOs believe Ed Psychs that nothing can be done - Ed Psychs are supposedly the experts who teachers and SENCOs are meant to listen to.

But as a parent your only constraints are time and money. You can do an awful lot more than school can.

I am continually amazed by the number of parents who say my child is dyslexic as if that somehow makes the problem ok.

The same goes for dyspraxic, autistic etc etc, Mrz.
The label or pseudo medical (in most cases) diagnosis becomes an end in itself.
It's not just parents. Teachers do it too.
I have very little interest in whatever the current trendy name is for a condition.
I dela with presenting difficulties unique to the child.

Labels should be viewed as a starting point not an end in themselves and often are a barrier to getting the help needed

Ah, there was me thinking that a diagnosis with a label was the first step to getting funding for the school to actually help my child.

Dream on.

'Funding'
'Help'

Even if you get both, the chances of them being of any use to your child are remote.
I don't subscribe to many of Indigo's views on ways to remedy areas of educational need but I concur whole-heartedly with her view that if you want something done, one of the best ways to actually get it done is to start putting the effort in yourself.

Sadly (with some noble exceptions) most schools and teachers are poorly equippped to deal with these matters and the process of seeking 'support' becomes more important than any solid outcome.

A diagnosis brings no funding. (Obviously, otherwise school would recommend you get a diagnosis)

And school can't help your DC. It's not that they don't want to.

All they will do is more phonics teaching, or other teaching. 'Overlearning' I think they call it.

But they can't help with vision problems, or auditory problems, or neuro-developmental problems, or obviously dietary problems.

All they can do is teach. Which is what they've already been doing to your son for the last 5 years. There is probably nothing they can try which they haven't already tried.

I just want to save you the 3 years I wasted trusting school and then blaming school. :)

You don't have much time. Your child's already in Y4. You need to fix all his problems before secondary school.