Will have an official dyslexia screening test make any difference! ?

[ladybugcatnoir1]

My daughter is 8 and it does look like she is dyslexic, her main issue is spelling and struggles reading also. The school did an online screening process which shows below average 'visual search'
The school are using colour overlays, and we have these at home but I don't really know how I'm supposed to tell if they're working.
My question is, as we have the means to pay privately for a full assessment, js it worth it?
Will it mean they will be able to pinpoint better what will help/ what she struggles with?
Thanks

Anyone?

We have just paid for a dyslexia/dyspraxia assessment for DD, 17. It would have been good to have done it earlier. We got scoring across various things such as working memory, phonological processing etc. It has explained why DD has so many struggles.

However it doesn't help with coloured filters etc. For that you need behavioural optometrist which we are currently investigating.

Has helped DD's self esteem to know she has average underlying ability and it is other things holding her back.

Not cheap though.

@ladybugcatnoir1 Just tagging you to make sure you see response. Nice user name. DD used to enjoy that programme.

Hey thank you! I didn't get a notification!
Tbh most people I speak to say their child didn't get diagnosed for years so it's that I want to avoid really. But also conscious that currently she's oblivious to an issue and I don't want to other her.

I think it came up as about £290 for an assessment, which I will happily pay if I think it will make a different. Her school aren't great tbh so I'm at a bit of a loss.

Also, dd and husband love miraculous haha!

This is where you look for a behavioural optometrist www.babo.co.uk/
We have been quoted between £200 and £420 for DD.

£290 for dyslexia assessment sounds reasonable to me. We paid more but live in SE and it included a dyspraxia assessment too.

Your DD can't be 'oblivious' to issues if she is using coloured overlays, and she struggles with reading. I'd go for an assessment and say 'to see if we can understand better why you are finding reading harder than some of your friends' or some such.

I'd do both if that's possible, knowledge is power. It will help you (and her) understand why she finds certain things more difficult and hopefully what would be most useful to help her.

One thing that stands out is that a behavioural optometry assessment would give you confidence if coloured overlays help and which colour is best.
My DD only had BO assessment and then in Year 9 school did the assessment for access arrangements which we have then used going forward.
One of the things both assessments did help DD with was that she was different and she should not get frustrated that Reading takes her long than other people. It got rid of the 'I am stupid that's why it takes me so long'.

There is no evidence that coloured overlays help children with dyslexia. Anecdotally some people report improvements using them but it is not a research backed intervention. A full neuro-educational evaluation is a great place to start as it will identify your daughter's strengths and challenges in phonological processing, working memory, decoding, encoding, rapid automatic naming, etc. If you have the money to do it I would say don't delay. The sooner you are armed with accurate information the better. 8 is not too young, dyslexia can be reliably detected from age 5.