Educational pyschologist visit! So confused!

[Tiff23]

My son was assessed yesterday (nearly 15 yrs). The pyschologist said he has slow processing speed and sits just within average for intelligence.
He shows good phonological awareness and ed pysch says he is not dyslexic . This confuses me as he makes many spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. capitals mid sentence, no capitals for day of week. still confuses where/were, of/off,and has occasionaly inversed b for p! His maths book showed that he had wrote (on at least 2 pages) megative mumbers instead of negative numbers!!!!!
He did spell most words correctly in the test but looking at his writing, which is very small, he oddly put a lowercase g with the tail on the line (does this a lot). He does hold a pen very tightly, with odd grip. The pysch wasn't interested in this either!
When I showed examples of his work and pointed out his formation of letters the ed pysch didn't take much notice. Sometimes he can spell a word 2 or three different ways on one page!
He does maths sums in his head very quickly and doesn't show working out, would slow processing not effect this?
I am waiting on the full report. Just can't seem to work out what is going on and starting to feel gutted that a report which has cost £600 may not give me the answers.
Any thoughts much appreciated.

Very worried mummy

In some respects it is refreshing to hear of an Educational Psychologist making a clear distinction between dyslexia and general non-specific difficulties.

Dyslexia in the most classic sense should include a primary difficulty in single word reading and spelling, which is normally underpinned by a weakness in phonological awareness/processing.

However, it can also be muddled up with general difficulties in other areas of literacy, such as reading comprehension or construction of text. The reason this is muddling, is that these difficulties can and will exist in multiple different areas of specific learning difficulties, they are non-specific to dyslexia. However, many specialist teachers or psychologists will still formally diagnose dyslexia in this scenario purely because it is related to literacy.

Margaret Snowling has a great deal to say about this and has taken part in a number of podcasts and lectures which can be found online. She is probably the most prominent UK researcher and speaker on the topic of dyslexia.

All of this being said, regardless of a diagnosis being made, the psychologists report should still make recommendations for support and areas for development. This would be made regardless of any diagnosis of a learning difficulty. In this respect the report should help you figure out some of what is going on.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Will have a look at Margaret Snowling, sounds interesting. Yes, I believe it's important to make a clear distinction in order to give our son the correct help.

My son does read quite well but recently during homework time we were shocked that he couldn't read- arithmetic, instrument or wreath.