Where do I start with a diagnosis?

[SpaceRaiders]

We’re really struggling with dc who’s nearly 7. She’s very bright, confident and articulate but very very fidgety, always bouncing around, seemingly day dreaming or looking outside instead of focusing on what she should be doing. Her handwriting is neat but she’ll write numbers and letters in reverse. Sometimes she’ll write from right to left, struggles to count beyond 20 without a hundred square to refer to and routinely gets numbers mixed up 15 will be written as 51, she’ll count say, 12,13,14 then 50 instead of 15. She also struggles with spellings, although her reading has improved hugely over the last year. She also has a slight lisp, which then affects her spelling as she confuses ‘s’ sounds with ‘th’.

She’s already having dancing bears 1-2-1 sessions, twice a week at school but my gut feeling is that there is an underlying cause for the issues she’s facing. Where do I start in terms of getting her accessed? Does the school take the lead? Private or NHS?

Trust your gut. She sounds just like my son. I’ve always had my suspicions, but school dismissed them. It took lockdown #1 to cement my beliefs, and I got him privately assessed last year, which confirmed that he was dyslexic.

Before I did that, I started him at a dyslexia centre for an hour private tuition per week, and of course wrote to school letting them know. Once we had the formal assessment, they got their act together to put a plan in place.

You will need to push with your school very hard. They won’t take the lead on this unless you push for it, and you might find you’d be better off getting your child privately assessed. Even then, some schools don’t accept reports unless arranged by themselves.

As a start, ask to speak to your SEN lead. Put it in writing so you have a paper trail.

I’ve only just seen your response, I’m glad you were able to get a diagnosis. My gut is swaying towards dyslexia, perhaps ADHD and her symptoms seem to fit. We have both in the immediate family.

YY lockdown has really highlighted where she is struggling. I don’t think I’d have otherwise noticed quite how bad it is. We moved her last autumn, after nearly two years battling her previous school for support. Thankfully this one is a little more switched on, but even then I don’t want to seem like that parent. I can see that without having consistent regular 1-2-1 support she’ll be floundering again.

It depends on your area, so find the local team and follow their procedure. Unfortunately, despite it being called a National service, the NHS varies hugely depending on your postcode.