Dyslexia testing advice

[Cuckoocloud]

My son is age 16 and I have had a niggling worry for a long time that he may have some mild form of dyslexia but unfortunately I have never followed it up. There is dyslexia in the wider family. School have never suggested this but there has been concern about the standard of his written work in subjects like History and English. His spelling is fairly poor and his sentences and structure of written work often don't make sense and he doesn't recognise it.
His music teacher did ask me once if he had ever been tested.

As I have mentioned in a previous thread, he has just got a D in his English Language GCSE and got a C in other essay subjects - history, RS and English Lit. despite thinking he had done a lot better. This has prompted me to think about it again and wonder if anybody could give me any advice on the subject e.g. How I would go about getting him tested.

Hi cuckoo. I don't have any advise on how to get tested etc but can just offer you my perspective.

My DH is dyslexic and in his 30s. During his teens/uni years he was discouraged from getting tested by his parents due to the stigma this might create or disadvantage him in the future. well i agree with their reasoning and disagree too.

I do think that a dyslexia diagnosis may have discouraged him from pushing himself onto a career where he needs to remember huge amounts of info/letters/numbers etc. he may have just taken an 'easy' option instead and held himself back. saying that what's wrong with playing to your strengths, he is hugely talented in art/creation/sculpting/anything with his hands and his depth perception/hand eye co-ords are above average.

Dyslexia cannot be cured, only managed. thus a diagnosis may have helped him find the support, methods and systems he needs in order to work/function at a level of a non-dyslexic person, sooner than in his 30s.

We have come to the conclusion that certain things are not his strong point, but he can succeed through EXTRA time, effort and study. multi-coloured notes, organised folders, structure and system.

Basically my point is, in my opinion, its important to out why you want the diagnosis and how it might help you/your son.

We had both of ours tested by an educational psychologist, you get an extensive report usually detailing IQ etc and any indications of dyslexia and how bad it is and advise on how to proceed from there.
They are not cheap we were quoted two years ago £650 for a redo for requesting extra time for GCSE's.
The LEA also have an ed psych they too can do an assessment if the schools thinks a child warrants it you don't pay for it I think if yoir schoool is an academy they have too. DS1 was actually in the end reassessed by them, but unlike the private one we paid for, which we found out at a later date was done by a famous expert in this field and IQ testing, the LEA ed psych was not "fully qualified", she was nice and we continued to get the extra time so that was the point of the exercise but she took the view that as the first one had been done by such a well known expert there was nothing she could add and just to continue the original recommendations made in the first report but somehow I would have had less faith in her if Id been looking for a new diagnosis.

As the parent of a dyslexic daughter now aged 15, I think that diagnosis definitely helped her. She was diagnosed at age 7 and thought herself stupid at being unable to read and write. It was expensive - we paid for the diagnosis and specialist teaching up to the end of year 6.

If your son still at school or college? I would suggest approaching the SEN department if so. You can see an Educational Psychologist privately but I think it would be in the region of several hundred pounds nowadays.

My daughter gets extra time in written exams and the use of a laptop in school/exams where necessary. She is in the top set and starting year 11 now has done 5 GCSEs but mainly achieved Bs whereas her immediate peers are almost 100% A/A*. She is interested in psychology but knows she is unlikely to get the grades at A level to study it at University. She is good at art and likely to make a career in that field.

A diagnosis doesn't solve the problem but does go some way to identifying strategies to help.

I was only diagnosed after pushing to be tested at Uni.

At school they weren't keen to test me because that would mean if diagnosed they would have to allocate extra funds.

I wish I had pushed at school though as the basic extra of a little more time in exams would have made such a difference to me. Also the retaining of my eyes through colour tints of the computer screen helped too.

Please do push for this help, your DC may only need a small amour of help which will make a huge difference to them.

Will no help I mainly achieved B grades. I am most annoyed that as I was slightly slower to get the explanation in maths I was not aloud in the class where I could get an A grade, the max on my paper was a B which I achieved.

My dyslexia sounds very like how your DC is affected. Though dyslexia is so varied and actually has a lot of strengths associated with it. I wrote my dissertation on its strengths.

Good luck and don't accept no for an answer from your LEA.

As cold cottage has highlighted Specific Learning Difficulties including Dyslexia, Dyspraxia etc affect people differently. A report from a qualified Educational Psychologist will give you a precise picture of your DSs ability and the difficulties he faces in achieving his potential, if any. It is important to say that sometimes they do find that the issue is with ability or motivation etc. rather than a neurological difficulty. We have found the reports invaluable in that not only did it help our DDs to develop appropriate coping strategies and access support and extra time, they also helped them understand their strengths and weaknesses and gave them the confidence of knowing they were bright, just not in conventional ways that traditional teaching and especially testing methods suit. It also helped them appreciate that as a result they had to work harder and smarter to achieve what they want, dyslexia is not an excuse. One of my DDs did four essay subject A levels, hard work but she is off to a very good uni to read English. My other DD is a Scientist, but what do you know but she has to write essays (on ethics and policy issues, scientists have to be prepared for the real world ) and she has found that she especially needs support now with assimilating the sheer volume of technical information delivered in lectures. Both have two GCSEs in languages.

We used the services of a charity, those who can pay £450, but they also help those who cannot. You can access advice from the Dyslexia charities. Our borough have very good testing processes and support in place but provision is hugely variable in state schools.

Even if dyslexia is diagnosed extra time in public exams etc is no longer a given, the rules have fairly recently changed, your writing, processing, reading, working memory or what ever is found have to I think now be below average to get the extra time. The use of lap tops especially in exams may be less of an issue.
DS1 has "moderate" dyslexia he can read well therefore is not severe enough to justify a statement, there is no extra funding at school level for him, he was and is in fact is seen weekly by the learning support dept, given help and advise, but sensible non expensive suggestions made by the LEA ed psych were simply filed under B for bin by his "outstanding high achieving state school" only of he'd been statemented would they have been under more obligation to actually do them.
He and we know he's quite bright (top 5%) and that he doesn't do things like write because he finds it simply such an enormous effort, (the equivalent to writing with you hands tied behind your back), but in my now extensive experience and having spent 10 years banging my head against a wall stuffed with couldn't care less teachers, few of his teachers are interested, have ever read the report or even the abbreviated one sent round by the learning support dept, and endlessly repeat the same comments about his often poor performance. He significantly under performs across the board.

Yes Happy Gardening the latest changes to the regulations on access to extra time are quite specific about how low the scores for working memory and processing have to be to access extra time, in the below average range. The upper limit of that range is I gather, the 14th percentile ie 86% of the population would score better, a very significant level of disability for someone whose ability may be in the top 5%. We found out that my DD whose scores in her pre GCSE tests were on the borderline might lose her extra time with 6 weeks to go to AS levels, it was only by bringing forward her pre uni tests which put her at the 10th percentile that secured her extra time. My older DD did not get extra time at school in spite of an ED Psych recommendation because they judged that they could not provide sufficient evidence of need though this paved the way for a crisis during her first year uni exams when all the stresses came together in a perfect storm.

A diagnosis does not magically open doors to a level playing field. Like you we have found the level of awareness and support from teachers is very variable, though we have also been very lucky with two teachers whose support has made all the difference for my younger daughter.

www.patoss-dyslexia.org/SupportAdvice/TutorAssessorIndex/

Luckily or not shooting DS1's processing puts him in the bottom 5% working memory broom 10% so extra time has never been an issue. Ds2 lost his.

Happy My DD who had been completely panicked at the prospect of losing extra time so close to the AS exams without any hope of having time to come up with coping strategies, she suffers panic attacks before exams at the best of times, said after the tests " I have never been so pleased to be below average" ........... I know a lot of pupils who have lost it as a result of the changes.

They can also help with computer program's which can help.

The best thing for me was having the screen adjusted to make it easier for me to use. It started off with a pink tinge then changed to grey until it eventually trained my eyes back to the normal screen.

I also had budget for my dissertation interviews to be transcribed. This really helped me

Getting our DC tested was the best thing we ever did as it gave her an explanation as to why it took her so long to do things that her friends found so easy. Plus it also highlighted the exact areas where dyslexia affected her. Her vocab and comprehension and spelling were always very high level and advanced but her processing skills of turning that into words on paper were just so very slow. She was in the top set for English, wondered if she should be there, her teacher said she was definitely in the right set, but just had to accept that she would probably never finish a piece of work in class. Not a criticism from the teacher - just a fact. Most importantly the diagnosis meant that we could come up with strategies such as using a phone for reminders of appointments or meetings or to remember to take certain kit into school. Her teachers let her use her phone in lessons/assembly when they gave out instructions (they knew she wasnt texting!) Plus we cut and pasted the relevant parts of the reports and emailed them to all of her teachers. Some teachers initially thought she couldnt be bothered to listen to instructions being given out in class - the report explained that she was listening but would most probably have forgotten instruction 1 and 2 by the time instruction 3 was given out as it was her processing skills that were the problem. Some of them would discretely scribble such instructions in the corner of the board for her to refer to during the lesson. Some teachers said that it meant they actually did things slightly differently in their lessons and that in fact benefited many other students not just our DC. Some teachers never did anything to assist or help - but then you wonder why such people are teachers in the first place though! And because she is quite intelligent, fast witted etc many teachers would never have even guessed she was dyslexic if it was not for the report - well until they saw how little written work she was able to produce in a lesson - but then could have assumed that was due to being lazy/couldn't be bothered....as she always came across as a fast paced, quick thinking, advanced, mature, articulate student. But that just shows how dyslexia comes out in so many different forms in each individual.
But yes it was worth getting tested - even just for her own peace of mind and for her own coping strategies - never mind what 'extras' it gave her at exam time.