Can I pick someone's brains about dyslexia please?

[librarycard]

Hi there,

If you know anything about dyslexia, would you mind having a look at this please :)

DS3 is 7 (July born, left-hander)
On SEN register at school since YR1, now YR3. Originally put on register for 'failure to progress', 'failure to reach age related expectations' (using the word 'failure' about a five year old distressed me at the time and still niggles me now!) At that point dyslexia was mentioned by his year one teacher.
Since then he has had phonics booster groups, daily one-to-one reading with an adult, T.A. help in class and differentiated work.

His levels as of now, spring term, year 3 are :
Reading 2A
Writing 1A
Maths 2A

In spelling, he can learn the 10 spellings for that week, get them all right, but cannot use them in his writing, even if he were to try immediately after the test.
In his writing he spells phonetically and misses out most of the vowels.
He reverses b,d,p,f,t in writing and when trying to decode reading (but with reading, he self-corrects to make it make sense). He also misses out short words (like 'on', 'up' etc) when reading.
He regularly reverses numbers, both the numbers themselves (e.g.3 backwards) and the number order (e.g. 21 instead of 12)

He had early speech and language therapy and has been dsicharged, but still struggles with certain words. He still says 'b'sketti' instead of spaghetti, he has been going to tae kwon do for a year but still says 'twae kon do'. There are a lot of words like this. He also struggles to remember names and new long words that are names of things. He still uses the 'ed' suffix' on words inappropriately (e.g. bite-ed instead of bit, cut-ed instead of cut)

School will no longer talk about dyslexia with me, despite it being them who originally mentioned it to me! They say that DS3 is already getting support that is individually tailored to his needs so the cause of his difficulties is irrelevent... I feel though, that if DS3 has a condition that could impact his learning throughout his life, the sooner we all know about it, the better!

So, I suppose my questions are: Does this sound like dyslexia or something else you are familiar with? If so, what do I do next? Do I have to do what the school says and just watch and wait? Or is there anything else I can do?

He is happy and loves school, btw :)

www.dyslexia-assist.org.uk/

This is a really useful website set up by a friend of mine whose son had dyslexia but who didn't find out until he was about 11/12 there are some great resources on here

Hth

...and thanks everyone. mumsnet at its most helpful :)

Thanks kingfisher, will have a look :)

My eyes started skipping words recently. I teach literature (degree level) so that was definitely a problem... One eye was short-sighted, the other wasn't. Now I have specs, the letters stay still...

Dyslexia is such an odd thing really, it affects people in such different ways (spelling for one, organisation for another, processing for someone else and all of the above for a fourth...) that, up to a point, the school is right in saying that it's the intervention rather than the diagnosis that's important. I've identified dyslexia in several of my students who've never known previously (obviously I've referred them on for assessment, not diagnosed them myself! But never yet been wrong - I've had dyslexia training through work and other roles). The diagnosis has been useful for them, mostly due to being helped to find new strategies. I will happily explain things differently to dyslexic students, many of whom have problems organising their research material and structuring essays, so I help them to find visual strategies that work for them, such as imagining the essay as a 3D structure instead of a linear sequence of words. It's a bit different at 18+ though.

That's really interesting blackbird. Great that the new specs worked! I hadn't really clicked that him covering his eye might be connected to his difficulties with writing... Will definitely get his eyes checked out.

Great that you are so supportive of your dyslexic students :)

He sounds very like my DS who has a diagnosis of moderate dyslexia. Like yours, the school have always been supportive and given him extra support and tuition from day 1, well before any tests or assessments which were done at 7/8.

But for DS, getting the diagnosis really helped him understand why he has these difficulties. It was frustrating for him because he knows he's not stupid - he's very articulate (even with the pronunciation and grammar mistakes), great at problem-solving and brilliant at some specific types of things (eg art and design) – yet he was way behind in his class and seen by the others as a bit slow. (One time a parent of one of his classmates expressed amazement to me at an achievement of his – in a way that made clear her child had made him out to be useless :( I was so hurt on his behalf, luckily he didn't hear)

With a dyslexia diagnosis, he can make sense of it, and also we can discuss with him the advantages it can have too (lateral thinking, creativity etc) and there are books and websites about successful and well-known people with dyslexia, which are inspiring for him. Plus there are the things like extra time in exams which will come into play later.

The learning support teacher called me for a meeting before doing an assessment to ask if we wanted to go ahead and thought the label would be useful. I'm sure you could initiate that discussion from your side too IYSWIM.

magenta some of the things you have mentioned sound very like my ds too. He is very creative. He can make anything out of lego bricks! He hates the sets where you follow instructions - he prefers to start with a box of bricks then he makes stuff from his imagination. If he watches something on TV or reads something in a book, he'll go off to his lego and make it (for example Charlie's chocolate factory) When we had been to watch the lego movie, I ordered him an Emmett figure - he built a whole world for that figure :) He is also a great problem solver, is logical, is articulate and has a good vocabulary (despite his pronunciation / grammatical mistakes). He is also very happy and has some very good friends. It's good to remember the positives :)

You make a very good case for getting a diagnosis for the child's sake.

Yes to the instructions! Even from a young age when DS got a new set of art materials he would get me to hide the box because he didn't want to see what the manufacturer reckoned you should do with them :o he only wanted to do his own thing.

(I have a younger child who is the total opposite, always very keen to follow the instructions and be like other people, I find both fascinating!)

Your DS sounds fab btw!

Thanks Magenta, he is a super little boy :)

My older boys are 'instruction-followers'. The eldest in particular would follow the instructions, make the model then put it on a shelf and move on to the next one. Now these sets have been handed down to DS3, I can see DS1 is secretly appalled that DS3 takes them apart to use in his own creations!! AS you say, it's fascinating to see how different they can be.

Re the covering of one eye, my eyes work independently of each other and the only way I can read without my glasses is to close the eye that has a tendency to wander off what I am looking it. Without doing that it's nigh on impossible to read, though for some reason it is easier on a kindle.
I can physically feel my right eye drifting off to one side, that's how I know when I need new glasses.

That's useful to know comfortingCwtch I'm going to contact the optician after the easter closure to get his eyes tested again. I will mention that he covers one eye.

Sorry, I haven't read through all the posts. It def does sound like dyslexia-but also SLI (speech and language impairment). I would ask for a re referral to SALT. In my exp school does v little even with a diagnosis of dyslexia ( and many dismiss the possibility because they don't do anything anyway) but a diagnosis may help you to understand better your childs particular strengths and weaknesses. There are lots of strategies to help with SLI but you need a good assessment from a speech and language therapist. Dont worry, the fact you are asking the questions now is a good thing as you can get help. Sadly, for a lot of children these difficulties aren't picked up till much, much later.

My son is 8 and in Y3 and is approx level 1c/1b in maths, reading and writing.

He has a diagnosis of moderate to severe dyslexia.

He had early speech and language difficulties and still does have some although his NHS speech therapist doesn't seem interested.

He has to over learn the topic words as he finds it difficult to add them to his vocab plus he has mild word finding difficulties. He has difficulties with phonics as he struggles to hear the individual sounds. His auditory/working memory is also effected so he needs instructions simplified. He also has a separate difficulty with handwriting as he has hypermobility which is extreme in his hands.

It would be worth a referral to OT for your son to check not only if he has any motor skill difficulties but also to check for visual perception difficulties as they won't be picked up on a general eye test. The OT picked up that my son has a severe problem with visual closure (he can only recognise words/objects/people if he sees the whole thing) which besides his other difficulties also has an impact on reading/writing. However the development window for that doesn't close till age 11 so with targeted support we are hoping it will improve.

I echo the positive difference that having a diagnosis has made to my son plus it's also uncovered his big strengths and has meant that school no longer "stream" him based purely on his literacy ability. He no longer hits his head saying he's stupid!

Just to add my husband identified that he had experienced many of the same difficulties and was diagnosed at age 40! He has a first degree in engineering as well as a masters in advanced engineering where he received an award for the best MSc work. He has still found benefit in the diagnosis as he works so hard to achieve what he does and tires after writing a page. He still thought that he must be lazy as others find it so much easier despite his achievements!

cinvergenve is not a brain problem it is caused by muscle weakness. Your high street optician can easily diagnose it and give you simple free excercises to help it. My dyslexic ds mentioned above doesnt have convergence problem, my non dyslexic dx does have it. She was seeing double but didnt know it was wrong so we didnt know until she went for a normal eye test. Dont waste money on engaging eyes. you can do the right exercises with a pencil.
Op ds is 19 now and wants to be an engineer. Its not plain sailing and looking at some work he did last week he still spelt words 3 different ways on the same page.However he got a small but prestigious engineering scholarship for 6th form,good offers for uni but didnt get the results needed.Has gone back this year to try again and also got good offers from top engineering unis. We will see in August if he gets the grades.He also got a gold and best in scho in the Senior Maths Challenge (worldwide maths competition) In primary i tbought he was just ok in maths. He really flourished in secondary school in sciences and humanities.

I have astigmatism so see two images (easily corrected by glasses) but I don't have convergence

And FWIW my dd who had convergence problems was reading very fluently and with emphasis by 1st term in reception. DS took until yr2 to click but as i mentioned above and still cant spell

Actually MsSS I had no problems reading although when I read for long periods of time (hours without a break) I had headaches.

2 nhs opticians picked up dds convergence and they also picked up dh. One treated him with prisms because he was an adult and the other did pencil push ups. My MIL also had convergence problems treated with prisms but we didnt know at the time.
I know who invented engaging eyes and she is not an optician and wouldnt trust her at all.

As i also said above dd had no trouble reading. It was only when optician said to her do you see double when you read that we found out about it. Her convergence was quite bad. She saw double at 20 cm instead of 8cm which is the norm.

MsSS is advertising her own product .