dyslexia assessments

[shelsco]

Have asked this question in the middle of another post but occurred to me that I have more chance of an answer to it posting it as a question in its own right. So...
I've heard somewhere that repeating a dyslexia assessment can lead to better results the second time it is done as the person gets more used to the tests. DS has been diagnosed with dyslexia and school aren't really accepting report so it has been suggested that getting an assessment from someone in same LEA as school would be a way to force them to take it seriously. I don't have any objection but I just want to make sure the results don't improve as otherwise his difficulties won't be addressed. Does anybody know anything about this and, if there is a second assessment, are there any particular things I should ask about?
Thanks in advance.

my daughter was assessed privately - we then headed to tribunal and I had her dyslexia teacher assess her to see how her levels were - her levels hadn't moved at all so concluded that she was still dyslexic!

my only concern about the LA EP is that they tend not to do a full test but do parts of it and they tend to be on the areas the child has strengths in so it skews the results. we have now won our tribunal and still she has not been assessed by anyone from the LA although I expect that this will happen shortly as the assessment begins.

Well that's my concern. DS has strengths in some areas and if they test these but not his weaknesses it will actually work against us.

That is what happened to us too. The Independent EP picked up three problem areas, the LAEP saw her report before seeing Dd3 and then tested her on something she scored average on

I am now getting her a new assessment but the Indie EP is only testing the low areas to see if any progress has been made. I am fairly confident there wont be.

The LA EP has only met Dd3 once and is about to write a report for Statutory Assessment!! She is meeting with me 2 days before the report needs to be in so that is going to be great isnt it

This is what I suspected. In my letter I have put that I would only be happy for an EP to test if it was equivalent to the original and showed DS's full profile. I particularly stated that I would expect his areas of weakness to be looked at as tese are what seem to be in question. don't know if it will make any difference. Whole system seems to be corrupt.

you have done the right thing putting it in writing shelsco so you are clear what you are expecting them to do - I have a whole batch of reports from various people showing the areas of difficulty so if the LA EP comes out suddenly and goes against all of the previous reports it will make them look pretty stupid - I expect that I will need to get an indie report at some point but for now will see what the LA EP does.

Well I do have three different reports from three different specialists (behavioural optometrist, APD specialist and specialist dyslexia assessor) but none of them work for our LEA. Apparently if they did it would make it much harder for school to ignore them. Having said that, one of them works for a nearby LEA and another is a national expert in APD who is on the steering committee which advises The British Society of Audiology on APD. Their assessments all show weaknesses in cognitive skills but school still carried out a reading comprehension test (reading comp was his highest score on the dyslexia assessment) and then used it to say he was not dyslexic enough, despite cognitive processing scores being on lowest 3%.
I have everything in writing but I'm getting the impression that schools are more or less above the law when it comes to matters of SEN. I don't think I've ever felt so stressed. Complete failure to follow the guidelines but they can't seem to be brought to account for it. That's why I'm more or less expecting the EP to cook the books. It seems to be a case of closing ranks and covering their own backs rather than doing the right thing.

I know this isn't going to help as such but this is typical LA behaviour - try and ignore indie reports - parents end up at tribunal where the reports are then accepted by the tribunal leaving the LA looking ridiculous - I guess the LA bet on a lot of parents not going to tribunal.

can I ask who you used for the APD assessment? and how much it cost - feel free to PM me the information

I've messaged you bjkmummy