Severely dyslexic DS and he's so sad

[FleetofHope]

Hi I'm new to this board (although not to MN)

I know that dyslexia is low on the scale, but it is making him so sad :(

He is severely dyslexic and also has some dyspraxic / sensory integration type issues. He's a lovely, lovely boy, and so bright, but he finds school soul destroying on a daily basis. It's like the education system has stolen my boy's true personality - he hasn't been the same child since the day he first walked through the door. I have been pro-active, and moved him to a school where he gets much better support and I do lots of work with him at home - and I do loads of reading to him and try to help him to learn without needing to read.

But he is just so unhappy. He's got a wonderful imagination, he sees the world in such an intuitive way and school just makes him believe he is no one and can offer nothing.

I don't know what to do any more. I can't pull him out an home school him, and I'm not sure it would be the right thing because he's such a sociable boy. Do I just have to accept that this is his lot and keep looking after him? Has anyone got any advice about what I can do?

All contributions gratefully received!

have you spoken to school about how he's feeling? They should be able to help with this. How old is he?

He's 8, almost 9. They do help practically with the learning side of things, but I haven't really spoken to them about how unhappy he is. The trouble is that he's a stoical side and quite private don't know where he got that so he wouldn't want to lose face by admitting at school how much it all bothers him. I would still tell school, but it means they have less insight than they might into how he feels because he covers it up

Is the Head nice? Perhaps make an appt and just talk it all through. They need to know how he's feeling about things so that they can help. You don't need to let ds know if he wouldn't like it.

That's a good idea, I keep in touch with the Senco and his class teacher well, but maybe I should talk to the head too - and just say "he's unhappy" I just worry so much about his mental health in the future if I don't change something. I can see him developing anorexia if we're not careful.

Yes do that - any good Head would be really concerned to hear that one of their pupils was so unhappy and would want to help.

In the meantime maybe something like rescue remedy might help, even as a placebo? They do chewing gum (boots sell it) and it tastes nice - quite orangey.

My son has mild/moderate dyslexia and secondary school has been much better as the emphasis shifts from being almost exclusively the three R's. His friend has severe dyslexia and it's still very hard for him. Try and find something that your son can shine at. Investigate technology - touch typing, voice recognition software etc. Audio books are good. You Tube has lots of good documentaries. There are also some dyslexia forums out there that may be able to offer more advice. There are also books out there that talk of the positives of dyslexia such as: Dyslexic Advantage.

Thanks guys, I will look into rescue remedy, I hadn't thought of trying some placebo type effects for him! Also re the dyslexic advantage, I will try to play up the benefits he has - and he definitely does have some gifted qualities. I just wish he would seem them! When I tell him he's wonderful, clever, full of potential, is going to make a great adult he just says "but you have to say that, you're my mum"!

aw bless him - he sounds lovely!

He is lovely, just a gorgeous child, but sometimes he gets wildly out of control these days because he's so distressed :( and this is the boy who never even had terrible twos! I have just ordered some rescue remedy gummy stars from amazon - seems like the ideal type of thing! Thank you for the tip :)

There is loads and loads and loads you can do to cure to dyslexia.

Don't let him rob his life - there's no need to.

You do however need to look at:

• diet
• supplements
• vision
• hearing
• neurodevelopment

You work through all of that lot and you will cure his dyslexia.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one Indigo. I'm afraid I don't believe you can "cure" dyslexia. All the studies of the various therapies show vast differences between the outcomes the parents believe have taken place and the actual levels of improvement. I don't think there are any magic bullets.

I am trying for it not to rob his life though :)

zzzzz sadly coloured overlays don't work for him. That's completely the right word - he is an absolute sponge! He just absorbs everything he's exposed to. I was told when he was yr 1 that he was the most verbally sophisticated child they'd ever had! He's got strengths (music and sport) but sadly they don't help much in the classroom

Thanks for the responses

You don't give any details of the level of support your DS receives at school or his levels. If you have not already done so I would suggest that you read the Rose Review. Regardless of whether or not dyslexia is a 'condition' that can be 'cured' it has beneficial effects to consider things such as retained primitive reflexes.

My son is also very verbally strong. Have you tried drama classes? My son goes to classes where they write and perform their own plays every term. Through this, we discovered that he has a real love for the theatre as well. He may not be reading much but he is definitely soaking it up in other ways as previously mentioned. I am hoping that as he gets older, he'll be able to join a debating group. Perhaps your son's verbal strengths could be the key to giving him a bit more confidence - they definitely are with my son.

Do you know any adults with dyslexia? It runs very strongly in my family (virtually all the men in the last generation or two) and it really helped my son to talk to his uncle and cousins who have all been very successful in different ways despite the dyslexia (in fact one of my cousins sees his differently wired brain as an advantage). The other thing that helped for ds was to go totally back to the basics with synthetic phonics with a specialist tutor essentially re-teaching him the code for reading. He still has major writing and spelling issues, but cracking reading made a huge difference. Before that I read aloud a lot and also went through a lot of books on tape.

It was still gutting to see him being one of the few children in his year who didn't get an honour roll call at prize giving this year (we are in Canada and although he is now 13 he just finished elementary school this year, so it was a bit of a special occasion). He had a great teacher this year and worked very hard, so missing out just because of his disability was very tough. Unfortunately hear they won't diagnose him because his compensatory skills are too high (like your ds he is very bright, so the problem is that his verbal and written skills are a total mismatch). Still next year he will move completely onto a laptop, so hopefully that will make a big difference.

Thanks for all the replies - it's good to make the most of other people's experience! keepon I will check out the Rose Report, I hadn't come across that yet. niceweather I think you're right about drama classes they could be reall what he needs - he's always the hold who delivers his line in assembly with the most panache! We've struggled with clubs before because he goes to his dad's in a different city every other weeken which rules them out, but they do have a drama club at school, so I will sign him up and go from there.
nooka he does have a strong family history of dyslexia, but on his dad's side and he and I don't get on so I haven't been able to tap in to it. I suggested he talk to his dad about it and his response was his dad hadn't told him he was! I think ex is ashamed :( he suffered a lot at school too, but successful now!

Another boy is DS's class has severe dyslexia but only recieved the correct Wave 3 interventions, voice recorder and dance mat touch typing when DS who is on SA+ rather than a statement received the interventions.

The Rose Review is the main dyslexia report that LEAs use, especially to calcuate the rate of progress or ratio gain in standardised tests. It also highlights the consequences to self-esteem of inadequate support. If your DS is not happy this may indicate that he needs more support. Make sure that he is getting all that he is entitled to. What's on his IEP.

Hi, sorry, I forgot to give his age. He's 8 nearly nine and his reading age is 5 1/2 and his spelling age is 6 1/2. The level of support he gets at the moment is 2 hrs per week 1-1 out of class and then access to support from the TA during his lessons as and when he needs it. I think the cause of his distress is just a feeling that he's "stupid" all the time - he never feels like he's good at anything in the classroom. He's been having intensive synthetic phonics single the last two years and I work on it with him every day and it's helped him start to learn but he hasn't "cracked" reading yet

It must be very tough for your son. My son's friend has severe dyslexia and it is very tough for him too. Given how bright your son is, his reading should probably be ahead rather than age appropriate so you have an even bigger discrepancy. Did you see the recent research that showed that larger letter spacing can help? At the end of the day, there don't seem to be any magic wands although there are lots of things to try... white font on black for example. My son has blue tinted glasses from the Dyslexia Research Trust which he says have helped him with blurring but his dyslexia is mild/moderate and his reading is ok, although behind what it should be. I think he learned by memorizing the words rather than decoding them which is something he still struggles with. There are some dyslexia forums out there where you may find some more expert advice and support.

Unfortunately it becomes more common for DC to feel 'stupid' as they progress through KS2. imo it is very important to act where there are definite indications of damage to self-esteem. Eg see the MALS (Myself as a Learner Scale) which was developed by Robert Burden who writes about self-esteem and dyslexia. Do you have enough info to calculate his rate of progress in SATs and ratio gains (ie how many months per year) in RA and SA? Have interventions increased the rate of progress? Is it adequate? How much of a discrepency is there between attainment and assessed ability? Is he on Action or Action+?

I'm guessing that you had him assessed privately? What sensory issues does he have?

Sorry for all the questions - schools can sometimes act as if they are giving lots of support (more than they should even) out of the goodness of their hearts but actually this can be much less than what DC are entitled to and the effectiveness of the support they are giving needs to be measured and the results acted upon.

I agree, we found that the support the school offered was good for some things, but totally ineffective for actually addressing the dyslexia. I think that is because we had the assessment outside of the education system, and the SENCO was convinced that ds had behavioural problems instead, so the support was geared around that aspect (he does have behavioural problems, but at that point I think they were very closely related).

Is the support the school is offering right now from someone specialist (ie not the SENCO or a TA)? The reason why I ask is because we accessed a synthetic phonics tutor who used the Sound Reading System and she was fantastic (we only had six sessions over one summer holiday when ds was 7 and it was enough to crack the code for him. However he had been taught using mixed methods so was thoroughly muddled at the start.

Hi, DS's report was done by an LEA Ed Psych when he was six. It only dealt with the dyslexia issues - the sensory issues are from my own observation and reading and he hasn't had a new assessment done yet. The sensory issues he has are, not liking the feel or certain fabrics, not like the sound of certain materials, won't rest his hand on paper to write (uses a piece of material to rest on), doesn't like too much noise, very prone to tuning out what's being said to him. His response to not liking these sensations can be pretty extreme - it's not just a case of him saying he doesn't like it. To be honest I haven't made any real progress on how to help him with it yet.

He is in an independent school now - his first school's response to the e psych report was "we don't have a problem teaching reading" and they essentially were not prepared to do anything. We have a local prep with an excellent reputation for dealing with dyslexia and I took the view that that coupled with a smaller, calmer atmosphere (in view of his difficulties with loud noise) was the right thing. Ad a consequence he's not on Action or Action+ as such being outside the LEA. His 1-1 teaching is delivered by a dyslexia institute trained teacher and I do dancing bears with him at home.

Are there other things I should be doing? I'm just keen for him to be happier, but not sure how it can be achieved.