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!

perhaps an assessment by an OT to look at his sensory needs would be helpful?

But I told you things you could do and you didn't want to know....

Has he been seen by a developmental pediatrician at all? Or by any of the community health team? The sensory issues sound more typical of AS type concerns than 'straight' dyslexia. I think these type of differences are all very much on a spectrum of traits and I am not trying to diagnose at all, but a more holistic assessment might be helpful to you both.

My ds ended up seeing physio, OT and the paed and has a collection of borderline AS type traits none of which are in themselves enough to say he is autistic, but where some of the approaches developed for children with autism have been helpful. So for example he has high sensory needs and some of the things we tried which seemed to help were having different shaped writing tools, 'fiddles' which help him to feel calmer (currently a bundle of copper wire), school using time out when he starts to lose control (he used to throw the most amazing tantrums). Things we didn't follow up so much were taking martial arts (good for self discipline) a special chair cushion type thing to change his position and increase his sense of contact. Oh and the number one thing that helped his social skills was to get him referred to the region eye center for previously undetected but fairly extreme long sightedness as it turned out that one of the reasons he didn't pick up very well on visual clues was because he couldn't see them.

Mostly though it has simply been time that helped.

I'd also not dismiss some of the more alternative approaches as although I'd agree that the research information hasn't been very encouraging we know so little about how the brain really works to be able to direct the right children to the right therapy. If there are options local to you then I don't think you have anything to lose by checking them out.

Gifted kids can have sensory issues too. This might be something contributing to the mix, given his verbal panache and imagination.

I have considered AS before because of the sensory issues - but in other ways he doesn't fit the profile at all - he is extremely socially agile! But I see what you about some of the techniques helping - he fidgets and finds it difficult to sit comfortably at a table so maybe I can look at addressing that. Thanks again for the suggestions, I'm finding it really valuable!

Your ds sounds very like my ds, very bright, full of ideas, huge vocabulary and a great public speaker, but has far too much energy and struggles to sit still. ds also struggles with his temper and isn't great at thinking about the consequences of his actions. Apart from the synthetic phonics tutoring the thing that has helped him most is just growing up. Now he sulks instead of screaming it's somehow much more socially acceptable!

You could try checking food labels and putting him on the fish oils. I think this has helped my son a little bit. Yes, he has the huge vocabulary and is a great public speaker too! He is also a whirlwind of manic energy!