Totally confused - just how dyslexic do you have to be to get a statement?

[sunnydelight]

DS2 (nearly 8) had his assessment on Friday, and the Ed Psych told me that his verbal reasoning skills were 86th centile, and that therefore that is what they would expect his spelling/reading scores to be as well. They came out as 3 and 4th centile respectively. She said he was "quite seriously dyslexic" yet when I asked if it was likely he would qualify for a statement she said it was unlikely. Now I'm no expert, but that seems like a hell of a mis-match to me. Before I go back to the school and talk to the SENCO (who has indicated that they may not accept a private ed psych report anyway) I would be hugely grateful for any pointers as to what I can legitimately ask for. Does a child have to go through the school action stage before they go on to school action plus for example? I am seriously considering home edding him rather than starting a long-winded negotiation with the school. My eldest was year 6 when he was assessed dyslexic and promised the moon by a school who then do nothing, I desperately want to avoid this again (sorry for the long post!).

Hi, Sunnydelight,
The criteria that qualify a child for a statement vary from lea to lea and you can request a copy of your lea's criteria from the education office.
You should be able to make a case with those assessment results. Your child's verbal ability is in the high average range and his literacy skills are well below average. It is likely that this discrepancy is statistically significant and sufficiently unusual in the rest of the population to say that he has special educational needs that need special treatment.
Since the school have already involved the EP, he is already at school action plus. Given your family history of dyslexia it is reasonable to assume that his delay in literacy will not disappear by itself and he will therefore need additional support.
If you want a private EP assessment, the lea do have to take their findings into account. Chartered EPs can be found on the website for the British Psychological Society, www.bps.org.uk.
Hope that helps.

Hi eclipse, thanks for responding - I was beginning to get paranoid!! The EP report is private as DS2's teacher said that it would take about 18 months to get an LEA EP so in terms of the school I'm starting from scratch - I would hope that this would at least get DS2 to school action plus stage. I'm really interested to hear you say that the LEA have to take the private EP's findings into account - is that from experience or do you by any chance know the statute/policy paper that comes from? I was talking to a friend with some experience recently who said not to be fobbed off by a SENCO saying they couldn't accept a private report so any ammunition you (or anyone else) can give me would be much appreciated.

All the legislation information is available through the DFES website. Go to www.dfes.gov.uk and look up 'special education needs'. Select SEN Toolkit and SEN Code of Practice. You can download all the documents from there. For advice, a good place to go is www.ipsea.org.uk.
It sometimes gets things moving just to send the EP report to the LEA and request a statutory assessment (for a statement). At least you'll get noticed that way and you'll probably get the EP to see your child pretty quickly.

It's so frustrating, isn't it? My ds has only been school action, and not even that all the time. I've thought about the idea of trying for a statement, more to help with secondary school entry, but I'm not getting very far. The response I get is that he needs to be significantly underperforming for his age rather than for his ability.

The assessment will give you a starting point for raising issues with the school. I have never had a problem getting the school to accept ds's private assessment, but getting any worthwhile support is another matter! At the moment he does some extra stuff with me, but not too much. Poor thing already works harder at school than most others and can only take so much. Ideally I'd like to go into school to work with him - as soon as my official qualification comes through from Dyslexia Action that's what I'd love to do workwise, though I don't suppose funding will be forthcoming...

Good luck - he's already got you in his corner which is a fantastic start. Just don't let the teachers fob you off, and make sure you are happy with the quality of support as well as the quantity. It's amazing who gets classed as a specialist in some schools!

You can apply for a statement yourself- check out IPSEA's website for the wording (you'll find easily on google). The LEA are then obliged to assess whether they will carry out an assessment for a statement. If they refuse you can appeal against that, if they then carry out the assessment and decide not to issue a statement you can appeal against that.

I do think it would be quite a battle to get a statement for dyslexia (although not impossible) and you need to really think what a statement would give you, and whether its worth it. You may have to then battle to enforce all parts of the statement (we did), although it was useful in that it led to a 1:1 (unlikely for dyslexia I think). It may be that the help your son needs can be provided without a statement. I'd focus on getting the right help really initially. Have a look at IPSEA's website though and talk to their helpline they'll be able to give you a better idea of your chances.

The only dyslexia unit in any of our local state secondary schools is for statemented pupils only - a child who is school action is very unlikely to get the necessary support. I think this is one of the main reasons people look for statementing, certainly in our area. Personally I don't think my son's dyslexia is anything near the severity needed for a statement and 1 to 1 would probably not be great for him anyway. I just think it's appalling how many children are not achieving their potential - statementing them all would not be practical obviously, but too many children are still being failed in something that can be very effectively tackled.

oh if it would give access to a great resource like that then worth applying for a statement. Think units like that are quite rare though. But a statement in itself doesn't necessarily lead to the right help anyway. You have to be careful how its worded and in which sections. We were very careful with the wording on the speech therapy bit for our son (which was a battle in itself) but he was still withouth speech therapy for 8 months when his SALT went on maternity leave. IN the end we got it because I threatened the council with the local govt ombudsman (which I could only do because we'd battled in the first place to get it in the right part). Very little of the rest of the statement (except for hours of 1:1) was enforceable in any way.

If you can get a statement that says "teaching in dyslexia unit" then yep go for it- I'd be writing the letter to the LEA now. But if a statement will result in something like "requires extra help in literacy" (which is meaningless and very hard to enforce) then I wouldn't bother as energy might be better employed elsewhere. IPSEA has lots of examples anyway.

We struggled for years to get DS2 a full statement for dyslexia. There is a strong family history. Eventually managed it when he was 13. By then he was 5 years behind in reading and more in spelling. We had also had to pay for a private EP report which LEA did take into account.We were originally told a private EP report would not be taken into account.
We have 2 more dyslexic sons (school action) and will not be pushing for a statements. Both are poor spellers and behind in written english but with lots of hard work from the boys as well as us their reading is OK. Their reading age is already too I for them to qualify for extra help in SATs/GCSEs.

Do'nt know why I just typed I instead of high!

NAGY, does that mean that by helping ds with his reading and himputting in a huge amount of effort, he's actually at a disadvantage SATS wise?! It gets sillier and sillier. I assumed that even though a child was working hard to improve reading, their processing time would still be very slow and that would justify the extra 25% time.

sweedishmum, you say dyslexia can be very effectively tackled & I note you are (soon to be) qualified in the field. Can you tell me what is the optimum way of tackling it? DD has mild dyslexia and I don't really know what the best way to support her is. She see's a senco once a week (used to be twice) at school and they do wierd brain gym things and look at spelling strategies, but I'm not really sure how much it helps or what I should do with her at home. She's 11.

Sunnydelight, sorry to hijack your thread - I don't really know the answer to your question, but a friends child who is very dyslexic uses a laptop in school for all his work and that has helped him a lot.

Full blown statement? as opposed to school action plus?

In our Lea you need a dx and the child needs to be 5 years behind their chronological age.

And even then some get 'stuck' on SA+

Sucks!

children with a dx of dyslexia should automatically get an extra 25% in GCSE's + A levels (the school just has to notify the exam board).That may not be the case for SATS, and could have chabged, but was the situation in the late 90's.

private dx are fine for that btw.

Dyslexia can cover a wide range of difficulties and children learn in different ways. Obviously recommending anything in particular to a child I didn't know wouldn't be very wise but I've listed some of the simple things we have built in at home. Remembering of course that dyslexic children work extra hard at school to achieve so need lots of relaxation time at home.....

• he works better in complete silence for homework etc (v easily distracted)

• we choose books carefully (love Barrington Stoke - high interest books by great authors printed well on cream coloured paper). Reading little and often, often reading a page each. Lots of books on CD so he has access to age-appropriate texts

• good quality ink pen - stops him pressing too hard. I also get him to write on a soft surface from time to time - some of the underlay from laminate - to check pressure. Using a cursive style that means not taking the pen off the paper in the middle of the word, even though it is slightly different from school version

• sometimes we use a coloured reading ruler (from crossbow.com)

• I help him break down spellings phonetically for school. Spelling words out loud as he writes them. Writing words in the air or one someone's back while saying them out loud

• reading cards and spelling cards - school should be able to explain

• overlearning everything including tables and not being surprised when he forgets them the next day!

• Toe by Toe - often recommended on here

• my ds forgets things - I get him to look at me, then repeat back what I've just asked him to do

• remembering to have fun!

Obviously there is loads of software that can help - the SENCO may be able to suggest something suitable. Personally I find the more we have, the less we use. I prefer to play word games with him instead.

Sorry for the long waffle - sleep deprived right now!

Thanks sweedishmum - we don't do much at home as she's quite anti. We do have an extensive CD book collection though .

Swedishmum- I was told by senco that because DS3 (age 13) now has a reading age of 12+ he will not get any extra time in exams. I will of course check this out. I naturally thought he would qualify for extra time in exams like his older brother.

Gosh, I haven't logged on for 24 hours and was amazed to see all the responses. Thank you all for taking the time - sometimes just knowing that others are in the same boat is a real relief. Thanks for the resources swedishmum, I left the Ed Pych's office with a catalogue for software but it's hard to choose which ones exactly will help. I have heard toe by toe mentioned a lot here so I'll have a look at that too. One of my real issues though is the fact that DS2 is so knackered by the time he gets home it's hard to get him to do anything else - hence the thought that I might home ed.

The best spelling program we've found for PC is Wordshark. They do numbershark too.
I think all dyslexic children have to work so hard at school they're all knackered when they get home!

Message withdrawn

LEA's cannot adopt blanket policies. Period.

For people to be told that a child "needs to be 5 years behind their chronological age" is doing these children a great disservice. Just as importantly it is illegal for LEA's to operate in such a manner!!. How many parents have been lied to? IPSEA would very much like to hear of MB's particular LEA.

just wanted to say that i feel exactly the same as you SunnyD...

my son is not dyslexic...but like you was promised the moon (and stars) when he was diagnosed with ADHD then Aspergers ...he's now almost 13...and he's still not statemented...as noone will accept that he is struggling enough....

so just knowing i am not alone in my frustration does help me feel stronger ...i hope you do too.