Dyslexia, Slow processing speed and timed tests

[chickenmayhem]

Hi,

My daughter, who is nine has a fairly recent diagnosis of moderate dyslexia. Although very bright she attains quite averagely in most areas.

One of the biggest issues for her is her slow processing speed. She can read, write (albeit with some highly creative spelling!) and do maths well enough but when tests are timed she is really struggling. She never finishes or even half completes timed tests and this is knocking her confidence, especially in maths where they have daily mental maths speed tests.

Are these timed tests something that she should be offered additional time for or does she need to just put up and shut up?

Going forward I am also worrying about formal exams in secondary school as it seems that anything timed is no indication of her ability, but rather an indication of her processing speed. Is it possible to get extra time in exams for this sort of thing?

If she has a formal diagnosis of Dyslexia then in my school she would get extra time for assessments. This would include the SATs at the end of Y6 but what is given at those is in the hands of our LA; we send them the information and they decide what each child receives.

I don’t know if that then follows into secondary but I would have thought so?

Yes, her primary school will almost certainly give her extra time for SATS (when the tine comes), and in your shoes I would flag this (very likely) need to the Senco asap - especially in case there are other things that can be done to help her cope under time pressure: Assessment by EP or OT or other spesialist should potentially be considered, and/or small group/individual intervention (e.g. if e.g. handwriting/fine motor, or eye sight, or dyslexia or...) is found to be an issue.

At secondary level it is also worth flagging this early (e.g. vs. setting so that poor/moderate test scores are not equated with low ability). Many secondary schools willl do assessments for extra time ca year 9/10 so that it remains valid for GCSEs.

Ability and speed are two separate things that unfortunately often get muddled if the school/teachers - and parents - are not on the ball - so it is brilliant for your DD that you are.

Sorry, of course she already has a moderate dyslexia diagnosis with slow processing speed, so has obviously been assessed for that - if this was done at the school's initiative then they hopefully have that issue in hand. But it might not be the only issue, and they might need reminding/prodding, especially as she is coping pretty well and easily can be forgotten about - attention tends to focus on the strugglers, it is less obvious that a middle achiever is underperforming vs. her potential.