could anyone tell me about dyslexia

[earthtomummy]

Broadly I know what it is, but at what age is it diagnosed usually? I ask because DS is only 4.5yrs and the school have said that it's too early to diagnose yet, but in future he may need to be assessed. Basically he can't decide which hand to use and is v.v. confused by this. He doesn't hold his pencil properly and doesn't seem able to write any letters. He also struggles to represent shapes in the air. Whilst he can count how many people etc are in the room, when he looks at numbers on paper (unless you show him just a single number) then his counting goes all over the place. He sees 9 as 6. His teacher siad that mirroring is v. common in lh children. I'm lh and a bit ambidextrous and DH is rh. He is quite clumsy and unco-ordinated - ie things like jumping, hopping etc. He spoke quite late - only really started to interact properly at the age of 3 and really properly when he started pre-school. Anyone got any ideas?

Have you thought it might be dyspraxia, which my ds has?
He took a while to find a hand preference, but is left handed now (four in Sept).

Aloha, not entirely sure what dyspraxia is. I'll look it up and get back to you

Looked up dyspraxia and DS doesn't really fit into the description generally. The question of lateralsim and hand dominance is the key problem I think.

I do know that dyspraxic kids can take a very long time to establish hand dominance.
He is very young however and I think boys can be slower to develop fine motor control than girls.
I think being able to count how many children are in the room is very good.

Great attention span, loves being read to, no interest - despite his love of books - in reading himself. He can get very panicky if we open his school folder with word and number games. I don't really do any of that with him, because he is very put off if I get involved, however much fun I try to make it. He just seems very anxious around writing etc. and we truly don't pressure him. DH is in child mental health and I was in adult mental health, so we're pretty aware of stuff and how to handle him without putting him off. It struck me today that school are getting more concerned about the dominance issue. Also, socially he can be quite difficult. If we have pplay sessions with his 2 best friends, they are generally okay. But if friends come round who he sees once a wk or fortnight (known for more than a yr), he can really sabotage it. He refuses to interact, sabotages the other child's play, can be rude and quite hostile. Now maybe - I hope - that is because he's a 4yr old. But part of me sees other kids a lot and is not so sure. Sometimes I just dread play sessions because I don't know what they'll bring.

My ds has dyslexia he was diagnosed at 7 when they realised that he couldn't read but was faking it by remembering the stories word for word. He did the numbers/letters (good few not one or two) back to front, was left handed but always debated which to use, had trouble copying things from the board, difficluty doing shoe laces, telling time. I did have my suspicions when he was about 5 with the back to front thing as it would be exactly right in the mirror and thats not that easy to do. HTH