Dyslexia - should I get my 8 year old dd assessed?

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My 8 year old dd - who will be 9 in August - has never liked reading as she finds it a struggle. Her everyday spelling is poor but if she revises for a test she usually gets all the spellings right. She also sometimes gets numbers around the wrong way - she will say 96 when looking at the numbers 69. How do you know if your child is dyslexic? She is also very easily distracted -her 5 year old sister needs much less prompting to get things done than she does. I'm not sure if this is a trait associated with dyslexia. Is it worth getting her tested? A friend of a friend had her child assessed and it cost £400. Thanks.

Foxy, I agree but not totally. For a child to know that they're dyslexic, so for example to know that there's a reason why their work is hard to read/ never gets on the wall/ they can't work out problems as fast as their mates, etc, is just so incredibly helpful. I honestly think a 'diagnosis' is helpful for their self esteem. Even if the school's useless it helps them to understand that they're not stupid, they're just wired a bit differently.

Traalaa thank you for the info. I will be speaking to the school again soon so will ask. All they have said is that reading and writing is very difficult for him.

maizieD thank you so much for taking the time to post this information. It has helped a lot. I really mean that! I realise that I really need to be doing more to help ds. As far as I know ds has always been taught to spell by identifying the sounds. His spelling is very poor because he has difficulty hearing the correct sounds so he spells words with the sounds he hears which are not the correct sounds.

Sorry op for asking questions on your thread. This has been very useful for me. Good luck

No problem tacal. It's great that this thread has generated so many useful responses.

Hi OP! I am in the same boat as you with my 8 year old DD. I spoke the LEA after school brought in someone from a dubious source to test her for visual distress and found all manner of things wrong with her (immature pencil grip, very slow processing skilla, retained ATNR reflex) that they could discuss with us further for the princely sum of £300! To be fair, the school.were horrified and quickly stopped using this lady! The dyslexia expert at the LEA was really helpful and pointed us in the direction of an optician who could perform a proper visual distress test on her and she also told us that year 4 or older was a better time to get her tested as by then they would expect any areas that are lacking due to just needing more time and maturity to be ironing out and that we would get a better and more accurate result if she was a little older. We also had an occupational therapist appointment to check for other issues and they agreed that although she had a few retained reflexes that they would in no way affect her learning, or indeed any area of her life! So we are now going to wait until the next parents evening in March and discuss further with her teacher, who also happens to be the SENCO. She already gets support and our school is a dyslexia friendly school, so not much will change if she does get assessed and diagnosed.

Also, just to add, she can read pretty well (Harry Potter, Jacqueline Wilson etc) but does skip words and cannot sound out if she doesn't know a particular word, her spelling can be very random, but she can learn to a test. She doesn't reverse letters or numbers very much, more that she misses out chunks of the word or cannot fathom out what the sound is that she needs to write down. Ask her verbally and she is much better at spelling this way!

Speak with the SENCO and see what they think. 8 is still young to be assessed so I wouldn't worry too much at the minute as there is still plenty of time as long as procedures are being implemented to help your DD. Good luck!

While I agree that having the diagnosis may not make much difference in the help you get at school, it is certainly helpful in helping the individual understand why they struggle and may be useful in later life (university, the workplace etc). It is also very useful when you need to talk to people about it (and I found this with my DS who was diagnosed with AS and dyspraxia several years ago too) just to be able to say "he has dyspraxia" or "she has dyslexia" rather than "he has some difficulties with writing/spelling/coordination/whatever'. This is whether it's just chat or when dealing with prospective new schools, tutors, extra-curricular activities etc and often people take you more seriously too. But I agree that it's the list of suggested strategies that is most useful immediately in a school setting.

tacal does your DS have a diagnosed hearing impairment?

cannot sound out if she doesn't know a particular word,

That's a bit useless really as children have no need to sound out if they already know a word! Sounding out is for working out unknown words. What does she do with unknown words?

cannot fathom out what the sound is that she needs to write down.

I'd say that she needs lots of practice at breaking spoken words into their component sounds. A simple count up on the fingers will do. For spelling she needs to write a line for each sound and write each sound spelling on its line.Then she can't miss any sounds out. Any child can do this so long as they don't have a hearing impairment or an auditory processing difficulty. Has this been addressed by the school?

I can't sound out words there are other ways to work out the missing work. Thank goodness.

Being dyslexia I agree a diagnosis is helpful in understanding how you feel about yourself. It was great to understand why I couldn't read like everyone else. But I was also to of my class at maths there was clearly something not right there.

It's best described as a problem with short term memery. Often people relate it to our reading which is often the case to start with in children, but as you can see on this thread some do learn to read but then still have all the other issues associated with dyslexia.

I did learn to read, but I'm still dyslexic. My working memery or short term memory still doesn't function very well and I still have to work hard every day. Written work is very hard and always will be, thanks to computers though I don't have to form letter that's is really hard work.

Think like this your child is trying really hard just to concentrate on foaming the shape of the letters. With each word, then they have to try and spell the word as well. They can't ever automatically remember this each time they have to think hard to remember. At least typing takes away one process the best thing I ever did was learn to touch type. I could then write without having to think about forming letters it was liberating. I was one of the only children allow to do my course work on a PC, so glad all children have access to this now.

Those that can read remember they also say a dyslexic brain has to work x10 hard to read. It's very tiring even now I find it hard work. I need to keep up my reading practice to keep up my fluency as well or it slips. I'll never be a speed reader but what I am good at is picking incorrect text.

Books with double words anoy me I can't stand tabloyed papers as they as so bad. Often extra words in the text everywhere not everyone will pick these up. But as I read every word I notice evening. If only I was a lot faster I could be a proof reader.

Sorry I've gone off on a tangent, I thought it mite help to see it from the other side. Do get your children tested it does help also look now into how it effects help they can get for exams. When I was at school you had to have had your stament for so many years before GCSE years started to qualify for extra help in exams. I know things have changed but check this out, I had friends who missed out on help as they didn't qualify. It can take time to get these things in place as well, my parents had a right battle with one examination board for extra time and a scibe. Where the others where fine about it.

maizieD my ds does not have a diagnosed hearing impairment. He has a diagnosis of autism (high functioning, attends ms school). I have been told it could be a sensory issue but I really do not know what causes it. He had his hearing checked a couple of years ago at the clinic where he received his autism diagnosis and I was told there are no problems with his hearing. Salt told me to read lots of rhyming words to him and play games with rhyming words.

MigGril your post is very helpful and it is good to know that typing can help. My ds has recently started typing some of his language homework and he seems much happier doing it this way. He has a fine motor difficulty so writing is tiring for him and I he also has a lot of dyslexic type difficulties.

My son was diagnosed at 11.The initial Dyslexia test performed at school by the Senco said he was unlikely to be Dyslexic.When he subsequently attended an assessment at the local private school they questioned whether he had been assessed due to certain anomalies.His subsequent assessment was he is quite severely dyslexic. He can read well but finds it really tiring reading small text.He uses a blue overlay to help reduce the contrast of black and White.He can spell the same word several different ways within a 5 minute interval.
Writing stories and answering Comprehension type questions are very difficult for him.Short-term memory and working memory are both issues.
I found his Junior school both useless and totally disinterested in his issues.Most State schools don't have the funding to help Dyslexic children so turn a blind eye.Secondary schools are better.
I would recommend testing by an experienced professional listed on the Dyslexia websites.

DD2's school was a dead loss when it came to her dyslexia. I had been at them from the word go, as teaching her to read was horrendous. I was told there was only one Ed Psych that she could go to and there was a 2 year waiting list. The 'help' provided in the mean time was a Learning Support teacher listening to her reading for a couple of minutes (literally) once a week. I moved her to a different school when she was in primary 5, within the same council control, and she was assessed for dyslexia within the first couple of days and support and help put in place at once. At secondary school, she took exams electronically and had regular contact with learning support. We then moved and she ended up at another crap school where they didn't believe she was dyslexic. I had her tested for Scotropic syndrome and she got coloured glasses, which helped her reading immensely. A kindle has also helped her, as she finds electronic text easier to read and she gets enormous support at university, where they did further testing and discovered she has quite an unusual kind of dyslexia.

It is always worth pushing for a diagnosis - one way or another your mind will be at rest. Had I not had some teaching experience personally, and also my DM was a teacher, I might have meekly gone along with the school's casual attitude and DD2 would have struggled a lot more than she has done.

Little - this is what I'm worried about, DD is still at primary school and has another year and a half to go and so far they have not taken her difficulties seriously, and I have been so overwhelmed with trying to get her older brother his statement that I haven't had the energy to push them on it (she has been managing OKish). I have thought about moving her, but she is very happy at her current school despite the difficulties, I have just sent in her proper assessment and am awaiting a response but I feeling I need to gear myself up for another battle.