Dyslexia Testing

[hillarysharbour]

Hi, my son is 12 & in year 8. He has hyper mobility and his handwriting & spelling is very poor. We've has concerns that he is also showing signs of dyslexia for some time. His school completed the screening recently and the report concluded that he has a few signs of dyslexia. His lucid spelling is below-low average, single word spelling is below average, reading speed low average, naming speed (picture) is deficient, processing speed cluster is deficient and all other areas are either average or above average. The recommended next steps are for his progress to be monitored at school.

I'm unsure if we should pay to have a more detailed private assessment completed and what the benefits are. If anyone could offer advice I'd be most grateful!

I imagine you have seen the hypermobility syndromes website hypermobility.org Is your son continuing to write and take notes in lessons? If so, the technical demands of writing may make him very tired and thus his spelling and reading speed may be low. If he is still expected to write and take notes etcin lessons, it might be worth exploring with your son's SENCo whether he can use speech to text software in school to take the pressure off and give him more "headspace" to attend to spelling and reading speed. If his hyper-mobility was identified by a medical consultant, he/she may be able to make suggestions regarding learning and teaching strategies that you can share with the SENCo and teachers. You could ask your GP if he/she could refer your son for physiotherapy where a physiotherapist may be able to suggest learning and teaching strategies that you could share with the SENCo and teachers. In school, if he is not expected to use energy to develop technical writing skills, he could, for example, use his phone or a dictaphone to record instructions rather than write them down and thus he may show improvement regarding reading speed and spelling during the period of monitoring. I appreciate that this is a difficult time for you all. Best wishes.

Thanks for your reply and apologies it took me so long to reply. Thats very interesting and you've given some great suggestions, thank you. He is still writing and taking notes in his lessons. I like the idea of speech to text software and using his phone to record instructions. I'm due to speak to Senco in a couple of weeks so will discuss this. Thanks

No problem. Hope it all goes well.

Depends how formal the school testing was - to qualify for extra time / other accommodations for public exams you will probably need a formal diagnosis by a Specialist Teacher (Level 7 qualified) or Educational Psychologist. If he needs to adopt a different working practice (ie voice to text software) you will need to demonstrate that this is his usual classroom practice at school.

I would definitely push for a private or school provided full assessment. It sounds as if they have screened for dyslexia but it's not clear if they looked at the wider picture, which can put dyslexic type presentations in a context. For example, I met with a child with a previous diagnosis of dyslexia. The assessor hadn't given a full intellectual ability screen and missed the fact that the child wasn't dylexic, he had a mild learning disability (e.g. not a specific disorder, but a global difficulty). The interventions are different, so it's important to go wide (IMHO). Good luck with your school and child.