Has my child some form of dyslexia ?

[SailingMum]

Hi,
We are getting concerned with my son who is about to turn 7.

He is described as very bright and intelligent, very well spoken with good vocabulary and with an obvious engineering mind. He is also bilingual.

When his teachers first met him, they told us that we were very impressed with him and thought that he would be "cruising ahead at full steam"... However, he struggles with reading and writing.
For instance, sometimes he write words with the letters in the wrong order as such "you" become "uoy" or he can do a full page of maths all correctly added at the exception that he wrote all the numbers the wrong way round .... He cannot instinctly read the letter "b" and "d".

He is a very sensitive boy and starts to understand that his friends are better than him in literacy so it hurts to see him like that.
We do all we can at home to help him but that's clearly not enough.

Are these signs of a form of dyslexia ? I would love to hear from parents sharing similar issues.
Thank you.

I'm going to watch this if you don't mind. DD1 is 9 and her reading is gradually picking up- yet her writing is terribly behind. She gets letters and numbers consistently the wrong way round (99% of the time), spells everything phonetically and I can't read her writing a lot of the time. She finds it really frustrating and feels that she's thick, other girls in her class are doing lovely joined- up writing and hers is very infantile and error-laden blocking. Sorry for hijack, I have lots of sympathy for you and DS!

no worries, you are welcome. I do hope that we will get to the bottom of it and find a solution to help our children, as they grow older it gets much harder for them around their peers.

hi
I would say get him checked out by and an independant educational psychologist (EP). I had the same worries with my lad, who has been diagnosed with dyslexia, and you can take it from there. Be careful when dealing with schools for years they told me that he wasn't, and what did i know I wasn't a teacher!! P.S When the school EP tested him they said he wasn't. My own EP diagnosis was that my son's dyslexia was as severe as you can get!! Good luck!!

He sounds a bit like my DS1 who is now 7. He still has b and d issues and will write numbers the wrong way around. We have been actively working with him using dyslexia /struggling reader workbooks. We've used Toe by Toe which is good but dull not particularly designed for 6-7 yr olds. Toe by Toe
Some people recommend Dancing Bears Sound Foundations

It has helped as his reading has stayed close enough to his peers that he is not noticably the struggling reader in the class even if he is not one of the best.

I have also taken him to see an Occupational Therapist as retained reflexes can hamper reading and writing. He fitted some of the "risk factors" for these as he was a C Section and didn't crawl much before getting up on his feet. He has quite a few retained reflexes so clearing these may help with some of the school issues. Once the reflexes are integrated then if any problems remain I will then go and see an EP.

One factor that is very much on your DS's side is his age. I think the general view is the brain is still flexible enough reduce the impact of dyslexia and similar at your son's age so intervening now may reduce the severity of the problems he faces later even if it can't eliminate them completely.

Can I just pop on here and say that my husband is severely dyslexic, but is extremely bright and has a great job and has had a great life thus far. He sees things differently to lots of people but that sometimes helps them.

Just thought I'd mention this so that if your child is diagnosed you might worry a tiny bit less

Hope I made sense!

Had my son assessed by an independent educational psychologist when he was six and he was diagnosed dyslexic. Fortunately for us, the school responded well to the diagnosis and gave him extra help. He is now 11 and well ahead with reading and spelling, though still clearly dyslexic (eg, has poor short-term memory and difficulties with organisational skills).

I think it is really important to get a diagnosis as early as possible so that the child gets the help he/she needs. The longer you wait, the worse it gets for the child. My son was already struggling with low self-esteem and the frustration of not being able to do what his friends could do. He was constantly in trouble at school. Without recognition of his dyslexia, he would have continued to struggle and been turned off school entirely.

Sadly, it costs a fair bit to see a private EP.

The British Dyslexia Association provide a checklist of signs of dyslexia here.

Dyslexia Action can assess children. You can find your nearest centre www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/parents/indications-of-dyslexia.html here.

Hambo thanks so much. Its easy to get bogged down in the immediate problems so its lovely to hear a positive story.

Toffeefudgecake its great to hear how well your son is doing.

You both have made me feel more hopeful.

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to reply. You have definitely helped me and my husband in our decision making here. We will get him checked by a professional rather than waiting for the school to take action.

Thanks Toffeefudgecake for the info, I will start researching right now.

We will be fine at the end ....

Yes, you will be fine, SailingMum, quite right. If your son is dyslexic, he just learns differently. And remember that dyslexic people have lots of talents, typically: creativity, strong visualisation skills (often think in pictures)and good at 'hands-on' tasks, to mention just a few.

Best of luck.

You don't actually need a diagnosis to get help. DS sounds very similar to your DS, although his main problems were with spelling and writing. His reading clicked and improved hugely when he turned 7.

He had a lot of extra 1 - 1 mainly in year 4 and 5 because he was obviously very bright and it was to help him to meet his true potential. He was on the SEN register in primary and then again in secondary for having a SLD, although primary school said he wasn't dyslexic because he read well, but SENCO at secondary said he almost certainly was but reads well because he was well taught using phonics.

He is 15 now and still struggles a bit with writing and has awful spelling but he has just started his GCSEs and is forcast As and A*s even for english.

DH had similar problems but was taught using word recognition methods and struggled to read until he was 10. He is now and engineer.

Can I just hi-jack rather than start a new thread on the same subject..?

My daughter is 7 and in yr 3. She has just changed schools and 4 weeks in has just been put down to the bottom groups for maths and english. She is really depressed about it.

I have long suspected that she has some dyslexia-type issues. Her reading is OK now, but her written work is a real struggle. Homework is a weekly nightmare. She doesn't know b's from d's, writes anagram spellings of words, has no clue about punctuation etc etc. In other words all the classic signs. She's also very creative and very keen on humanity subjects.

ANYWAY, the school has a SENCO and I have spoken to her about my concerns. The school however maintains that getting her assessed would have no real benefit as she would still only get the extra help she is getting already. Also the education dept. doesn't recognise the assessments of our local dyslexia centre so I'm not sure what help getting assessed would be. Apart from to re-assure me that DD isn't thick! Which I'm sure she isn't, but the school keeps giving me that pitying look like I'm some over-protective mum who can't handle my child being an under achiever...

So my question is, do we get her assessed and what will this achieve???

I know that pitying look, Minko. Had that so much with DS1. One teacher even gave me a book on discipline because she thought his bad behaviour at school was my fault . You have to try not to care and it does get easier.

I have never regretted having my son assessed and finding out what his issues were. It meant that we could put a name to his struggles. At last, I understood that his apparent disobedience was a result of his terrible short-term memory (apparently, one of the classic signs of dyslexia), which meant that he could not remember long sets of instructions. I was able to show the assessment to the teachers and they could see what his problems were. And in our case, it meant that the school took my son's problems seriously and gave him extra help, though I think this may depend on the school. It may be that your daughter won't get any extra help at school, if she is getting plenty already, but at least you will be armed with knowledge and can take appropriate action if you feel she needs more or different help.

Also, it meant that my son had a name for his problem and no longer thought he was just thick.

I have never regretted having my son assessed.

U may find it helpful to look at my blog
How English spelling irregularities aggravate dyslexia:
englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2010/04/english-spelling-irregularities.html

Masha Bell

Your son sounds like my son, he is mildly dyslexic (as am I) but he is also bilingual which aggravates it.
My son is 8 and was picked up by me but its taken 3 years for somebody to agree its not because he bilingual but there is a more underlying problem.
Get him assessed, with my son he was a bit scared and got angry because he couldnt do what hes friends were doing. We had a lot of problems with school last year
Now he understands what is the problem and what he has to do to resolve the problem he is as cool as..

PS the teacher has stopped calling him lazy and shouting at him and me. A big plus in our book

Did anyone see the programme about Kara Toynton and dyslexia on BBC 3 this week? It was well worth watching.

I would recommend getting a test for colour filters via an optometrist. We have finally done this for my DS1 who is now 18 and it has made a really big difference to him. He now has glasses with a yellow filter. (Cost about £35 for the test, same for the lenses, and more for teh frames.)

If you are doubtful about this, you could experiment by getting some different coloured acetate sheets from an art shop (may need to ask, as our local one keeps them behind the counter). They are only about 60p each, and if they don't help with reading, you can always make Christmas decorations!

I wish we had done this before. The glasses have helped with reading, writing,using the computer ...

Copper - I meant to watch that programme, but missed it. Maybe it's available online?

Have never tried the coloured glasses thing. Definitely worth a try though. Thanks.

The problem schools have is that teachers get very little training in what to do with children that don't follow the usual path of learning to read and write. I am a Reading Recovery teacher and specialise in teaching children like yours to read and write (both dyslexic and not). As a mum and teacher it always shocks me how schools almost discourage parents from trying to get the best for their child.

I second the evaluation with an optometrist. It may be colored lenses, vision therapy or both. The comment about retained reflexes is also pertinent. At my office we start vision therapy with retained reflexes evaluation and go from there. The teacher needs to understand that there is some kind of visual processing problem that can and needs to be addressed. He is at the perfect age to do that.

minko, my youngest (DD8) has just been assessed by an Ed Pysch we had to pay for. She reads above her age but has appalling handwriting, no phonic memory for spellings at all, work is untidy to illegible or painfully slow, academic performance average to below average.

It turns out she has an IQ of 136 so is severely underachieving due to severe dyslexia, dysgraphia, auditory processing disorder and dyspraxia. She needs voice recognition technology in the long term, lap top in the classroom at the moment and a scribe in English Humanities and Maths. None of this was accepted by the school until we had her assessed . Now, because the Disability Discrimination Act means that it is a legal requirement for schools to allow such children to 'access the curriculaum on an equal basis with their peers' the school has accepted that DD needs this support.

Your school will be required to meet your daughter's needs if she is formally assessed and in these days of cuts they may be reluctant to order one . Your local dyslexia centre reports wont do because it has to be an Ed.Psych recognided by your local LEA if you want her to have support paid for by them. If, however you are lucky enough to have the money there is nothing to stop you having your daughter properly assessed privately. At least then you will know what you are dealing with and your poor daughter will not feel - as so many do - that she is a dunce.

So glad to see this thread. I'm fairly sure DS (almost 7) is some order of dyslexic (and he's also bilingual). What does assessment consist of? And what sort of interventions are helpful?

Thanks BCBG. Whilst her new school teacher is definitely doing her best I think I'm going to start looking for an Ed. Psych. I've heard they have waiting lists even for private assessments though.

It would actually be some sort of relief to have a diagnosis. Poor DD's confidence really is low at the moment...

Hi. I am SO glad to have found this thread. Good luck to everyone trying to get help from schools etc.

My DS1 is 13, yr 9, and we have finally got his test and diagnosis this year, after battling throughout primary (since yr 1 when he first got glasses), and the first 2 years of secondary (it has come about because he has the same English teacher this year as he had in yr 7, and she was appalled had how much further backwards he had gone - handwriting and spelling mainly, as well as the associated organisational problems - since she last taught him) Luckily the previous head retired last year (an "expert" in dyslexia apparently, she dismissed it immediately), so the English teacher bumped him up to the top of the list while the acting head was in charge!

He has a laptop in class, and someone helps him with things I think. We were told that luckily he is bright enough to have developed his own coping strategies to get by (presumably why it was missed in the last test). I'm not sure what happens next, we had to go to the GP for a referral to some kind of specialist.

I have to confess to being bitter and angry, that it has taken so long to get this far, that DS has spent almost all of his school life being labelled badly behaved and lazy, and that my instincts as a parent were dismissed as wanting to "label" my child (In my early days on MN I even started a thread, and happened upon a very unsympathetic group of people who echoed the "lazy" "typical boy" ideas). Am afraid I cried when his english teacher told me over the phone that he had volunteered to read out loud in class for the first time ever the other week.

I missed the Kara Tointon programme, but my mum saw it and I think it upset her as she recognised so much of DS1 in it. DS1 has since watched Daniel Radcliffe in the making of the new Harry Potter, who is apparently dyspraxic, and DS is wondering if he has traits of that too.

Sorry for hijack, just wanted to say, keep pushing the school. Good luck.

DS1 as worried about the stigma to begin with, but since he had it explained to him he is much much happier and understands that he isn't stupid, just he processes information differently. The teacher said it's like teaching a different child

Hi! Totally recommend the SENCO/Ed-Psych/diagnosis route. My story, though somewhat different, ends similarly. My firstborn Daughter, who is 7+ yrs, (Year Grp 3) has had a statement in place since a couple of years, a TA to help her with reading and writing tasks, and is on P Scales and not the Nat. Curr.
A statement/diagnosis will help the whole family, and the child in question, more than anything. so push for it. I did, though my MIL, hubby were against it, I saw the wisdom of the route the school recommended and followed it up with my input when asked. Incidentally, we're bilingual (or tri-lingual, in my case!) and DD's memory of stories, songs etc is amazingly good!