7 years and struggling with reading and writing - autism? dyslexia? What else?

[etcher70]

Hello,
I would love some help regarding my son 7 year old son's reading and writing problems.
He's a bright, kind and imaginative little chap with an extensive vocabulary BUT despite being read to at home every day and having loads of extra help at school he really struggles with reading and writing.
Often he will 'get' the big words but struggle with the smaller everyday words.
I'm beginning to think that there may be an underlying issue - and he does show some signs of mild autism (fizzing when he is tired etc) - but nothing that either we or the school can define as being a definite issue.
I love him so much and don't want a 'label' - but I want to be able to help him move forward and for him to get the help he needs so he can stop feeling so frustrated.

He's also the youngest in his year so spends a lot of time 'catching up' in all sorts of ways.
Any advice would be really appreciated.

Dyspraxia can also be linked to reading and writing difficulties - have you asked the school for a full asssessment? I can only think I’d want the label to know which targeted strategies would help.

Have you had his ears and eyes checked?

Duckduckgoose - we've not explored the idea of dyspraxia yet - I will check it out thank you.
Redsky- we've had his eyesight checked but no problems there. Perhaps we need to have his hearing checked too.
Thanks both for the feedback x

My ds struggled with reading and writing at primary and also had behavioural issues that the SENCO was convinced was autism. He ended up having a few assessments which showed some AS and other quite minor developmental delays followed by some sessions with a physio and an OT. At 7 we had him assessed for dyslexia (it runs very strongly in my family) as his spoken and written skills were so divergent and he was really struggling with writing. His Ed Psyc report showed working memory issuers and as school wasn't really geared up to support him (they were very focused on his behaviour issues at the time) we found a synthetics phonics tutor after a recommendation here on MN. Over one summer he had four or five sessions with the tutor and it made an enormous difference, and reading hasn't really been an issue subsequently.

We didn't worry so much about the writing and just got him touch typing and onto a computer for as much of his school work as possible as soon as we could and he did very well, especially once he was at secondary school.

Last year he had a reassement for university and the Ed Psych said he he was better described as dyspraxic / has developmental co-ordination disorder, mostly affecting fine motor control (ie he has problems writing, tying shoe laces etc but he isn't generally clumsy).

I think he feels better for knowing this, although I have noticed he uses it as an excuse more lately (he is a teenager though so inclined that way I guess).

The plus point is that after a very rocky start he has been very academically successful, got into an excellent university and is thinking about post grad study. Knowing that his difficulties were not because he was stupid made a huge difference so I'd really recommend an assessment.

I believe you also get specific information on what they find hardest as part of an assessment, this should be the key part as even a label is a general and not specific thing

I would look into convergence insufficiency or binocular vision. A behaviour optometrist can diagnose and treat, but it's at your expense and you need time to do the home exercises. We thought my DS had autism/dyspraxia but was mostly his eyes (acuity test at opticians will not detect) and the therapy was nothing short of a miracle.

This is a new thing in UK and interestingly I was talking to a HT at a private school the other day (who has years of experience assessing special needs) who was talking about how vision plays such an important part in children's struggles. Was great to hear as most people think I'm nuts when I mention this.

Oh btw my DS was diagnosed relative dyslexia, but lost the diagnosis after therapy. Teachers at new school are baffled as to how he even got the diagnosis, but I can 100% vouch his difficulties were quite significant.

OP note vision is NOT the same as acuity. A test at opticians measures acuity not vision. Acuity shows how the eyes see, vision shows how the brain processes the information from the eyes. An acuity tests cannot take into account if a child's eyes tire too easily throughout the school day.

I would suggest keeping a diary etc as to if time of day is important. Also check your child's balance bcse if your child relies on vision to balance then it is natural that their eyes will tire easily throughout the day. Look at how your child copes in visually stimulating environments eg does behaviour change in any way?

Your comment " he gets the bigger words" is very telling because it's easier to guess the longer words if you can't see well.

Ihuntmonsters - thank you so much for your positive message! It's great to hear that with your help your son has overcome his early struggles and is now doing well.

I don't think that my son is dyslexic but the dyspraxia symptoms sound familiar (my son also struggles with shoe-laces). I've just found a synthetic phonics tutor online so we'll give that a go.
Thanks for taking the time to post and for the useful advice!

If he's struggling with short words but managing long ones he's probably memorizing the shape of words rather than actually getting to grips with phonics. Phonics is the best overall method for teaching children to read but there are some children who it doesn't work well for and it can take a while to notice they haven't got it if the child is managing to memorize enough words. This happened to DS2 who ended up in a very bottom set of one for literacy until I worked on his phonics using a very repetitive, methodical, slightly old fashioned method called 'Toe by Toe,' it is probably a bit long winded for a seven year olds stamina, DS did it at about 9 but it worked really well and writing followed from reading, other more fun methods are available but I would avoid relying too much on computer practice, I think it doesn't sink in as much, obviously this varies from child to child. Dr Seuss books were very useful due to the repetition and rhyming.
He ended up leapfrogging over most of the other children in his class and has done extremely well academically. He has also been diagnosed with high functioning autism and this often goes along with dyspraxia/dyslexia type issues and an atypical learning style that can make things take longer to get to grips with.

I really hope it works for you etcher70. My ds is coming up 20 now and so was (I hope!) the last cohort to be taught using mixed methods but I know that there are still many schools and teachers who do not teach phonics well. I think for ds having a very large vocabulary was a real disadvantage as guessing from first letter and context gave him too many options and he found the process tiring and upsetting.

Watching him get how reading actually worked was a great moment for me as the tutor explained and he realized that there was a code to break that he could actually understand. Unfortunately I learned to read very young and although in retrospect of course I do use phonics back then I found it very difficult to explain and my 'sound it out' help was a bit useless really. The tutor made it so simple it didn't take ds long at all to catch up and overtake his peers.

I wouldn't rule out dyslexia. If he is bright and you are exposing him to lots of books but he's not picking it up, it's a real possibility. My two have dyslexia and I remember when DS was about the same age he could read words like 'treasure' and 'children' but not little words like 'of', 'is', 'to' etc. He has severe dyslexia but loves reading (now). Don't think of it as a label. Understanding how your child learns and teaching them in a way that works is the best thing you can do!

Thank you so much for all of your help and encouragement on this thread.
I feel much more optimistic knowing that we have some practical solutions that we can try and it's also good to hear of your own experiences of getting through this.
We're going to start with the synthetic phonics tutor and try to find a behaviour optometrist locally.
I've also registered with toe to toe and had a look at their website - but I don't want to hit him with too many things at once!
Thanks again for all of your suggestions.
x

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