Dyslexia? Getting assessed.

[MerryMarigold]

I have 3 children. ds1 (8) and dd (5) are very similar personalities and are showing some of the same issues academically. Ds2 (5) is very different and thrives at school.

Ds1 and dd both just seem to love life (though not school much!), playing, swimming, drawing, dancing. It's wonderful to watch them when they are not at school, but neither of them like school much. Ds2 loves school, wants to do school stuff at home, is a different kettle of fish.

Anyways, so ds1 and dd show similar traits, but ds1 has really struggled due to other issues (partly being a boy and the eldest). I don't know if it's worth getting them assessed for dyslexia because if they are dyslexic, it is fairly mild I think ie. teachers not picking up on it.

Here are the things they both do, or have done:

• shoes mostly on the wrong feet (even when put in front of them the right way around). Ds1 got it when he was about 7, but it took years.
• a lot of backwards letters and numbers. ds1 rectified this by year 2 with a lot of concentration. dd is doing more than half letters and numbers backwards.
• struggle with correct letter formation. Ds1 forms about half his letters wrong, which started in YR and carried on. Dd is starting this already and I don't know how much to try and fight against it. It just seems like making school stuff even more boring (writing the letter 'a' over and over).
• reading is slow. dd can read letters and single words but really struggles with sentences in books (even very simple ones) and can't read the individual words anymore, like it is overwhelming. She had a book the other day with 'Jack' in it and kept reading 'Jank' every time. Maybe she was swivelling the c into an 'n' (took me a while to get that). ds1 had major problems getting his reading started. He is ok now, but reading is still a sub level behind everything else he does, even writing. All his levels are quite low. I think most of his reading is by memory of whole words despite having a very heavy phonic base in YR- Y2.
• Their drawings often involve a lot of symmetrical patterns and lines, loads of them. I love their pictures, but they're certainly abstract! Loads of circles and spokes and lines, all filled in, lots of colour. They prefer 'decorating' eg. I draw something and then they decorate it, very intricately or ds1 now draws his own stuff but does loads of intricate, detailed stuff on it.
• Self esteem for ds1 very low. dd seems ok for now, but is comparing herself to ds2 (her twin).
• Ds1 really struggles with telling them time on a clock.

Anyway, so for those of you with experience of dyslexia, does this sound like it? Should I get it assessed? Is there a place I can get them assessed or does it need to go through school?

Thanks!

I just noticed nobody had replied. Hard to say as a lot of what you say can be true of non dyslexics too. Why don't they like school? Low self esteem is something that could be a big problem for them.

On dyslexia, most schools will say it's way too early at 5 to know, but for your 8 year old they should have a view. Sadly a lot of schools think if a child is doing okay/ ticking their sats boxes then not to worry.

I think maybe ask for a meeting and talk about self esteem first. Any good school should work with your son on that regardless of potential dyslexia. Also find out his levels. A flag for dyslexia is a 'spiky' profile. Dyslexia covers a wide spectrum of learning difficulties so no two people will be the same. To give an example when my son was assessed (just turned 8), his reading age was 11, but his spelling age was assessed as 6. So that's a spiky profile, ie a huge dip. So ask the school for levels. If there's a spike of any sort definitely query it and use it to push for assessment.

The only other thing I can think of is maybe call Dyslexia Action. They'll happily talk through your concerns and should be able to advise on whether testing is sensible. Private testing is £500. Best way though is to get the school onside and try and get any testing done through them. Not always easy and can take time!

Thanks for replying.

Sadly a lot of schools think if a child is doing okay/ ticking their sats boxes then not to worry.

I think this is the case. His levels are at the very bottom of 'average' nationally and a bit below average for the school, but not drastically. He doesn't seem to be assessed separately for reading and spelling in terms of levels. It's writing which will be handwriting, punctuation, spelling. His writing is above his reading but only a bit. I have read through the dyslexia action stuff and a lot of it fits, especially his specific struggles in maths, reading, writing. But what has made it clearer to me is how similar his sister is, and how different his brother is. I can now see how a child without dyslexia (or some other difficulty) learns and how much easier it is for them. Today I was thinking how they seem to see things almost in kaleidoscope, which is an amazing gift but not when it comes to the difference between b,d,p,a n,u,c etc.

He does have 'help' with self esteem/ social skills issues in that he goes to a special talking group for kids with issues. (Not sure if this makes it worse, but anyway the school are working on that!).

We have parent's eve tonight so I will bring it up.

Good luck tonight then. I hope you can get some answers somehow.

hmm well a member of staff at school dismissed my concerns because they said DD was doing too well to be dyslexic.

as it turns out she didn't get diagnosed with dyslexia but with a rare language disorder instead which affects reading, writing and speaking (and they hadn't noticed it at all). We did it all privately and I discovered that actually she could have been assessed younger than the school claimed.

There is a general opinion that as long as they are managing then it doesn't matter but it either unravels as they get older or they never reach THEIR potential which could be substantially higher than the average child and therefore expected levels.

Please, if necessary ,get them tested yourself if needs be but I don't think that it can be done well until they are 7. My experience was that I was concerned that DS was quite bright but his spelling and handwriting let him down. Teachers in Y3, Y4 and Y5 fobbed me off when I asked could he be tested with things like, "he is just a boy" etc etc and said that our county will not pay for tests (untrue). We decided to pay to have him tested and yes he was quite severely dyslexic. In his last year at Junior school he was given no extra help in the classroom and we have to pay to have him tutored in order to improve his English.
Be prepared to fight all the way.

I should have added that my DS was actually very good at reading and at Maths. However, he found it difficult to recite times tables -something I now know to be common with dyslexics.

the other thing is that if you wait to get them tested then IF you have already employed any of the dyslexia teaching methods or your child is particularly good at coping strategies of their own then they are less likely to be picked up in a test as dyslexic.

nonicknames, who did you you see and how did they discover it? I think the private route may be the way to go as we have been faffing for 3 years now trying out various routes.

Teacher at parents evening said, no strategies this year have made much difference. He switches on and off. Concentration and ability to do things. Things he could do yesterday he can't today. Some good days and some bad days. They want to investigate adhd. He's not all that hyper, but it could still be add - or it could be other issues which then affects his concentration and focus.

well it is a hard one to know where to turn really.

My parents said they would pay whatever it cost to find out what was affecting her which was a relief so first I found a local child psychologist and spoke to her explaining the problems and asking for her advice.

I had already decided that for us the primary things were an IQ test so we could see if she was extremely bright like I suspected which could then explain her oversensitivities (Dabrowski's overexcitabilities of gifted children) and would also show up memory issues, possible processing issues etc. I also wanted a dyslexia test of some sort done so she said she could do these when I asked her about them and we went ahead with a WISC IQ test and a dyslexia screening test.

WISC test showed she was very very bright but her verbal score was substantially lower than her non verbal, processing and memory scores. So this indicates some problem (it was 33 points lower). The dyslexia screening didn't show her as being dyslexic so afterwards I was asking more specific questions of her (she is only 6.5) and she said she can see it right and think it right but can't say it right so I found a private SALT and contacted her. She then identified this word finding difficulty.

DD has an eye problem too - her eyes don't work in synch with each other, she has poor spatial awareness and depth perception, is oversensitive to light and contrast too so she has coloured glasses which make it possible for her to read and write comfortably.

suggesting ADD, ADHD or ASD for children with an unrelated problem is quite common, someone in America said that he felt ADD and ADHD didn't exist because he went through loads of children with them and discovered most had vision or hearing related problems that hadn't been picked up on. Now I am not saying that is true but it does show that lots of 'other' problems can easily be missed because people think it is something else. We had ASD suggested and it most definitely isn't, she doesn't even meet half the requirements for ASD diagnosis.

feel free to PM me if you want to.

oh and dual exception children (very bright but with a specific learning difficulty) often have good days and bad days, more so than other children.