Learning disabilities or not?

[elliejjtiny]

Ds is in year 7 and has been delayed in his development since birth. He was diagnosed with global development delay as a baby, then mild learning disabilities, then moderate learning disabilities. He learnt to read in lockdown (year 2/3) and learnt to write his name in year 3. He got an ehcp when he was in year 3. His school reports have always said working towards expectations in most areas.

Writing has always been his biggest struggle. Even now his writing is illegible and he often doesn't put spaces between words never mind punctuation. He had a scribe for year 6 sats and suddenly he was doing really well. He didn't pass the teacher assessed writing part but he just about passed everything else.

At secondary school he has been given a lot of help. He has been put in a tutor group where his tutor is a trained senco (although he isn't the official senco for the school, someone else does that full time) and he has a 1-1 helper who has been amazing with him. He is now at age related expectations for most subjects and greater depth for science. He is still at working towards for art and pe.

The senco is now saying that he doesn't have moderate learning disabilities because he is at age related expectations for most subjects.

Is that right? Not wanting to be negative but I think if they took away his support he would really struggle again.

His handwriting is still like a child in year 1 would write, although over the years he has managed to get his letters smaller and stay on the lines. The letters are often not recognisable, there is no punctuation and often no spaces between words either. On the computer he is better because you can see which letters are which but there is still no punctuation and most of the words aren't spelled correctly.

Apart from his writing the main comments on his report is that he struggles to focus. Sometimes he can be really organised but others really not. He has brothers with autism and adhd but he doesn't show any signs of autism although he is quite literal, e.g. they are told at school they can always email the staff with any problems or queries so he now emails the head teacher to tell her if he will be missing school for a dentist appointment even though we have said we have told the school office and he can tell his tutor if he wants but he doesn't need to email the head. He is very popular at school and very kind to others. He is quite lively compared to his peers but I put that down to his development delay.

I'm wondering if he maybe has something like dyslexia but I wouldn't have a clue how to find out.

I am concerned that if his diagnosis is wrong then I will be supporting him wrong as well. I want to support him to get the best out of his education but I want to do it right. Also I really struggled at school until I finally got diagnosed with dyslexia at university and then I suddenly started to do loads better with support. So I'm always concerned about ds losing his support at school.

The senco doesn't really have qualifications to state what learning disabilities he might have. She can say that he is no longer presenting in this way and that a reassessment would be helpful, and try to get the LA to provide a new EP assessment. However I am quite confused as you describe significant ongoing issues and I would ask how well he might do in a test (using a computer) where he isn't being heavily supported.

It is probably that your son is achieving at school because of the one to one help. That's a success for everyone. I would contact that teacher to emphasise his success and acknowledge the help of his TA. Then I would ask what the teacher considers the next step to be. It's possible that they were glad to let you know about your son's progress and nothing else. But if the next step is to remove all help, you need to know. Ask how they will maintain his progress

You need to arrange a meeting with the school SENCO to unpick his learning needs. You don’t mention an EHCP but doubt he would have the support without one.

I’d be wanting to know how much of his work is independently completed and how much is facilitated by his 1 to 1.

Does he have support in Art and PE? Suggests fine and gross motor difficulties.

In order to get a full picture of his needs he would need a new EP assessment. This would unpick things like his processing speed, visual perception etc. His IQ score would indicate whether he has a learning disability. You can Google the levels.
School may not be willing or able to fund the assessment.

It does sound like he has some literal understanding and immaturity. A typical Y7 pupil would not be emailing the Head. This could be in line with learning needs though.
If you are worried about Neurodiversity you can also discuss this with the SENCO.

Poor handwriting cam be adressed by writing access to typing into his ehcp
Ask for full set of new assessments and provision to allow him to type or access to scribe

Usually the goal is to calculate the child's underlying abilities and have them get to a place where they're working at that level. The amount of support needed to achieve that will be different. This is a controversial topic though.

Moderate learning difficulties are significant and wouldn't be something a child working at age expected levels would have tbh but it depends, maybe the support he is getting is enabling him to achieve. The fact he's working at age expected levels would be seen as a success of the interventions, not necessarily his learning difficulties being gone. An EP report is only valid for 2 years though and is only a small snapshot of the child, so if you want to, get a new report. However, bear in mind that the level of support your child is receiving now, may greatly reduce. Basically, if it ain't broken, don't fix it, and whatever is in place now sounds very good.

Thank you. All through primary school he was really behind everyone else in the class academically until they gave him a scribe in year 6 for sats. The head teacher said at the end of year 6 that he was really surprised and impressed that ds had made it through mainstream primary school and that he initially thought he would be moving to SN school by year 2.

His 1-1 TA is amazing and it's definitely at least partly due to him that ds is doing so well. The 1-1 scribes for him most of the time at the moment, prompts him when he gets distracted, explains things ds doesn't understand. Ds also does something they call scaffold learning where he gets a worksheet with prompts on rather than having a blank exercise book to write on. I can't remember what else he does.

One drawback of having 1:1 support is that the TA can end up doing all the work for the child, so it looks like the child is making good progress. I see it time and time again. Then as soon as that support is withdrawn, the child falls flat on their face.
In my LA, ‘learning disability’ is a diagnosis that can only be made by a paediatrician with assessments to support that diagnosis from an Educational Psychologist. Where such a diagnosis is made at a young age, it’s very useful to be reassessed at a key transition period - eg moving from Primary to Secondary. I would ask for an interim Annual review (if your DCs AR isn’t due any time soon) and as part of that review ask for a new EP assessment. Then you will have an accurate indication of your DCs strengths and areas of weakness.