Dyslexia assessment in schools (Wales)

[Zofloramummy]

Hi I’m hoping someone can give me some advice. My dd aged 9 has been having problems with reading for years. It really became apparent to me how much she struggles during lockdown. Her spelling is also an issue and she isn’t able to retain learnt words the following day.

I’ve had her privately assessed for visual stress and they have diagnosed Irlens syndrome and a visual field convergence problem. I have paid for new tinted glasses with a prism to help this. One of the recommendations from the assessment was a dyslexia assessment as there can be a strong correlation between the two. My daughters teacher has met with the SENCO who has said that they don’t offer dyslexia screening in Wales as it can be compensated for in class??!

They have given me a contact to pay privately for the assessment. This can’t be right surely? I thought that as a parent I could request an assessment and another professional has advised one! Am I wrong in thinking that they aren’t meeting their statutory requirements?

I teach in England and none of the schools in our county will pay for a dyslexia diagnosis - you need an Ed Psych or suitably qualified assessor and they are very expensive.

Instead, we screen to identify those children whose profile suggests dyslexia, and support accordingly.

So basically - if we think a child is dyslexic, we put all of the appropriate strategies in place without the need for a diagnosis.

If parents want a diagnosis, then yes we suggest they pay.

Just to add - if your school doesn't offer screening, and many do now rely on teacher judgment instead due to lack of funding, then you can get online screeners from reputable providers such as Nessy for about £10, and follow-up interventions that your child could do at home daily for a similarly-priced annual subscription.

@rawlikesushi that’s what I asked for, the screening, but apparently it isn’t offered by the LEA. I’ve had a look at the Nessy site and I’ll pay for the screening on that. My main concern is access to accommodations for class work and exams in secondary school. Will not having an ‘official’ diagnosis affect that? My dd is much better in class with a chrome book and having board work printed out as she can’t keep up with copying.

The British Dyslexia Association offer assessment with a specialist dyslexia teacher for £540 but I’m not sure whether that would be accepted as they aren’t Ed psych.

@rawlikesushi thank you for replying

[quote Zofloramummy]@rawlikesushi that’s what I asked for, the screening, but apparently it isn’t offered by the LEA. I’ve had a look at the Nessy site and I’ll pay for the screening on that. My main concern is access to accommodations for class work and exams in secondary school. Will not having an ‘official’ diagnosis affect that? My dd is much better in class with a chrome book and having board work printed out as she can’t keep up with copying.[/quote]
The lack of diagnosis shouldn't make any difference to the accommodations and adjustments being made in the classroom, where difficulties should be addressed regardless.

Your school should be able to provide coloured overlays, coloured paper in workbooks etc as this has been proven to help your child.

If your child struggles with processing speed then extra thinking time and verbal rehearsals can be provided and planned for.

If your child has a poor working memory, then written instructions can be provided alongside written instructions.

Whatever their area of need, adjustments can be made without the need for a diagnosis.

At our school, parents are often disappointed when they present us with a formal diagnosis as they expect a sudden raft of adjustments, when actually most are already in place or not needed.

If your child struggles to write in a phonetically plausible way, to the extent that their work can't be understood, then we would allow them to use a laptop from home for longer pieces of writing as long as their typing is competent (if it isn't we would carry out a touch-typing intervention, or ask you to do that at home).

I don't know how secondary schools assess for extra time in exams.

Good luck with it all. I have two dyslexic children so I do know how worrying it can be. Personally, I would not worry about a diagnosis but I would want to know that they were aware of difficulties and had appropriate strategies in place.

@rawlikesushi she has just completed her one page profile and one of the things she put down was class noise because she can’t think. She also said she gets headaches with board work copying because she finds it visually very hard and her spelling is consistently poor. She also skips or substitutes high frequency words, has trouble keeping her place in large amounts of written texts, can learn a new spelling one day and forgets it the next, can’t tell the time, flips numbers and letters (3,9,b,d,p,q).

Verbally she is fine and can retain huge amounts of facts and knowledge and remember it. She also plays the violin and struggles to follow the music as she plays so she learns each piece bit by bit so she can play it without reading the music.

She is amazing to me how she has self compensated for her difficulties. I am going to do the nessy screening and then pay for the online programmes. I’m also buying her a chrome book for Xmas so she can do her homework on it.

For the last 3 years she has been in catch up literacy and numeracy groups at school and I’ve voiced my concerns to the teachers. It’s only since the visual stress assessment and me meeting with the head this year that they’ve taken other steps such as breaking up her written work, moving her to the front of the class and having a chrome book for her to use (arrived last week) so they can differentiate her work more easily. I’ve noticed a real change in her attitude towards school since this has happened. I think she thought she was stupid and having a reason (irlens) why has really helped her realise that she isn’t.

I just want to cover all bases as I suspect she has dyslexia as well as irlens. She also has some elements of dyspraxia. She is also bright, funny, social and very kind. My fear is that she doesn’t reach her potential because of learning barriers that whilst they can’t be ‘fixed’ can be compensated for. Thank you listening

She sounds great, and she's lucky to have you supporting her.

School could offer ear defenders if she is bothered by noise.

Board copying is a bit rubbish - surely just date or learning objective at this age? They could make sure the board is the correct colour for her. It will help her without disadvantaging anyone else.

Keeping her place in written text is a skill worth persevering with - could use a ruler or a coloured overlay with a line across it.

Spelling tricky of course but less worrying than you might think if phonetically decodable. Could try a spellchecker.

I'd do the diagnostic test, send the report in showing her areas of weakness, and make an appointment for a chat.

Her teacher did immediately change the colour in the board after her irlens assessment to fuschia! She now has her tinted glasses so that helps. When she told me that the words move on the page and when she is tired she sees double I was gobsmacked as she had never mentioned it before as to her I guess that’s normal.

@Zofloramummy You could see if you can find an EP here who can diagnose for dyslexia:

The British Psychological Society’s directory of chartered psychologists - www.bps.org.uk/lists/DIR

The Association of Child Psychologists in Private Practice –
www.achippp.org.uk/

@Ellie56 thank you for the link. Apparently in her ‘group’ today they had a session on fidgeting, I’ve also had several teachers tell me about her daydreaming in class and she tells me that she finds it hard to hold her concentration. An EP would be able to not only look at dyslexia but inattentive ADD I guess so it’s probably worth spending the extra for a fully rounded assessment.

Aah we had exactly the same problem with my 10-year-old. It can be so hard can't it? They don't test for dyslexia here (England) in schools either. We found 'Write from the start' on Amazon a really good book to help with reading. It's repetitive and my boy didn't really like it but we found it really worked, 10 mins a day is enough as if he's anything like my son then the concentration doesn't last long lol. Short spurts of learning activites can be good, literally 5/10 min games a day. Even though we didn't get a dyslexic diagnosis from school we used the 'Dyslexia Gold' programme for him to work on and it really helped. They also do a cheap screening test to! Something to start with maybe? xx dyslexiagold.co.uk/?ID=DG