teacher thiks my son may be dyslexic but wont diagnose till he is 8 what can i do

mirrorimage0

hi all, have just got back from parent teacher meeting and my 6 yr olds teacher seems to think he may be dyslexic, he is quite a bright child and has all the imagination and get his work right when talking about it yet when it comes to reading and writing he just cant do it.
the school wont get him assesed/diagnosed until he is 8 and even then in the borough we are in she has said they do no extra funding with children with dslexia.

the question im asking is does anyone know where i can get any assesments done before the next yr and half as i dont want him eventually giving up because he cant do it i would like to get something done now about so any advice greatly appreciated

(sorry about spelling mistakes in title it wasnt done intentionally i just dont know how to edit the title)

TomsMom

Dyslexia Action, Dyslexia UK, British Dyslexia Association. Google them and you will find their websites.

My son is dyslexic and we had the worst time getting him help at primary school. We eventually had him diagnosed privately and also joined a local dyslexia association. This was all 30 years ago and things have changed a lot since then so I can't actually point you in the right direction but the three above would be a good place to start looking.

Good luck!

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thankyou for replying, i have googled quite a few different sites and got some really good info, it just seems on a lot of it there is a lot and lot of words and chat and nowhere that points you in the direction of getting assessed and help within school.
as the school wont asses him until he is 8 i am going to look into getting him privatley assessed and have fount loads of sites for this on the internet ranging from £150 up to £500 but a lot of them send you the tests etc then you return them to get diagnosed, i dont see how that actually works without assesing the child himself.

im taking him to the opticians tomorrow as our little local one knows a lot about it and he will chat away until i understand lol

crockpot

My son is 6 1/2 and just gone into year 2, school where not happy to do much in year 1 though.

I have told them that I was not happy with his progress in year 1 and wanted to meet with his teacher and SENCO special educational needs co ortdinator, they are now doing the Aston Index on him to test his strenghths and weakness, if this points to dyslexia, they will then test him.

Keep on at school, it is your right as a parent to ensure that he is getting extra help, you pay your taxes, they have to teach him.

Might help, keeping quiet about dyslexia for a bit, they alway say `too young` I was told could not test until 7.

Go into school and ask what help they can give him and ask what more you can do to help him. If you get no where with teacher go to the head.

Opticians is always a good idea, hearing test too, ask school and school nurse will test in school.

GOOD LUCK

Mojisola

Don't buy a test that you have to fill in and send away - find someone local through the dyslexia organisations.

Ask if your optician will test your son with coloured sheets to see if that helps with the reading. We were lucky that my optician had an interest in dyslexia and she tested my DS and he now has tinted glasses that help. Different people need different colours - and different shades of colours.

As dyslexia is a "specific learning difficulty" I don't see how your LEA can refuse to provide extra help once a diagnosis is made. On the downside, the help that was provided for my son at school was virtually useless - most schools still don't seem to understand about dyslexia. What really helped him was been able to record his stories and other school work and having them typed out for him - once the strain of trying to write things was taken away, he was able to perform at his best.

Our local dyslexia organisation has Saturday morning classes and my son learned so much from going to them. Well worth a try! You may be able to go to them without waiting for a formal diagnosis - not sure about that - but the teaching methods will help him whatever the problem turns out to be.

MrsTinks

I have a mild case of dyslexia and my older cousin has VERY bad dyslexia - when I was 8 and he was 16 i was ahead of him when it came to reading and writing. My ex is also dyslexic and believe it or not is a VERY successful paramedic Dyslexia is not life stopper by any means - richard branson is dyslexic - he's done ok for himself
Yes you might be able to get your son tested this early but speaking from my own experience then I think my dyslexia would have been much harder if I hadn't had such a strong love for books from very early on... I had series of books I was addicted to and would read again and again after my grandmother had read them to me several times - because i KNEW the story I think the letters eventually made sense... Apparently I was slow in starting reading when I was young - nearly a year behind my peers - but within a couple of years I was miles ahead. I'm not saying this is the case for everyone - but try and get him interested in books and comics - even if he is dyslexic then it will certainly help him
I'd be really careful about telling your child you think he has dyslexia or even if he is diagnosed - honestly I think too often kids then stop trying because they think it's unacchievable and don't want to try something they think they KNOW they will fail at...

full-time-mum

My brother is dyslexic (he's in his 30's now). My mum suspected but the primary school told her he was just lazy. He went through secondary school in the 'remedial' group and was constantly told that he was either stupid or lazy. It has coloured his whole attitude to life.

It was the council who picked it up when he was working as an office junior and sent him for testing after which he 'lost' his job.

I know this sounds all scary but he has since gone on to take NVQs and done some other study with the proper support and extra exam time/use of spell checkers etc and is now doing OK.

My advice would be not to take this lying down. Don't go in all guns blazing but be assertive and insist that your son gets the help that he needs. At the end of the day, you need the school on side and going in spouting off in anger is only going to antagonise. Keeping calm, consistent and insistive is the key.

If you aren't getting the support you require from the teacher then find out which teacher is the SENCO and have a chat. If you still get no where then speak to the head and if you still aren't happy then take it to the governors - there should be a complaints procedure.

I suspect the wait until he is 8 bit is just passing the buck to the junior school. It can take several years to get a child statemented (if this is indeed what is needed for your son) so the sooner the process starts the sooner he will get the support he needs.

It might also be worth looking around at all the junior schools which will be available to him - one may have more experience of dealing with dyslexia - although you would have to weigh this against moving away from his current peer group.

SuziQ

You are perfectly wthin your rights to ask the school to get an eductaional psychologist involved. You can point out he may not be dyslexic but have some other problem,which needs treatment NOW not in 18 months time-and schools aren't qualified to discount this or daignose themselves.
Your school senco-as already mentioned-should become your new best friend and also find out of there is a n organisation called TEACCH in your aea. (whilst they do a lot of work with autism they do deal with communication dosorders generally,if only to work with the psychologist after diagnosis to advise the school on supportive mechanisms for the child in school.)We have a worker come in from them to my sons' school and she has been FANTASTIC.It was only down to my sons school that we finally got him diagnosed as autistic spectrum,and the senco was outstanding (and still is.)

SuziQ

Just found this info:

What happens if a child has special educational needs?

It is estimated that 20% of children may have special educational needs of some kind. However, only a very small minority of cases will have special educational needs of a severity or complexity that requires the Local Authority (LA) to determine and arrange the special educational provision by means of a statutory assessment and statement. For the vast majority of children with SEN the school will be given advice and support to help ensure progress without the need for direct LA intervention.
If you have concerns about your child and believe they have considerably greater difficulty in learning than most other children of about the same age, you should first discuss them with your child's teacher. You will be advised of the support available from the school to help them reach their full potential. The majority of children will have their special needs suitably met in mainstream schools, without statements. If your child is pre-school, your doctor or health visitor can help.
In a small number of cases, the help that a school can provide may prove not enough to meet a child's special needs. In these circumstances, parents or a school can request a statutory assessment of the child's special educational needs. The LA will then look at information and evidence provided by the parents, school and other professionals, and decide, within six weeks, if a statutory assessment should go ahead.
The LA has a further 12 weeks to decide and inform parents whether or not a statement of special educational needs will be made. Therefore, if a statement is agreed, within 18 weeks of the start of the process parents will receive a proposed copy of it, including all the evidence and reports. Parents have an opportunity to say if they do not agree with any part of this document.
The final statement is sent out no more than 8 weeks after the proposed version. It sets out details of the child's special needs, the provision to be made to support the child and the agreed school placement. It will be monitored and reviewed annually to ensure it continues to meet the child's needs. In general, fewer statements are being made for children in mainstream schools because resources are made available to them faster and more flexibly than ever before.
If the LA decides against issuing a statement it may provide a Note in Lieu of the Statement. This will describe the child's special educational needs and explain why the LA does not think it necessary to make a statement. It will also recommend suitable support for the child to be provided by the school.
The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice issued in November 2001 by the Department for Education and Skills provides more detailed information.

vixarooni

My boyfriend is 22 and i swear he has dylexia. He takes probably 3 times longer to read a sentence than i do, and he does funny word spellings. If he writes anything it is littered with crossed out words and he'll put capital letters in the middle of words.

He has never been tested, and i have no clue why it was never picked up by school, or anyone for that matter apart from me!

Anyway, he ended up not doing very well at school, he hates reading and writing but he is now in the police as a PCSO where writing is a part of his daily life, and hes just going to become a police man so even though dyslexia is a problem, it doesnt stop you doing anything!

What really helped me read well was a story book with a tape that told the story. It taught you how to read words, how the words were said and they were fab stories. My mother swore by them for me and i think its something that can be a real help.

gingin_2

We have just gone through the same, my son is now 8 1/2 and for at least 2 years I had been saying we felt my son has some sort of learning difficulty. Our school said it was something he would grow out of. Yesterday his school finally said they were going forward and getting him officially assesed which was, bizarrely, a huge reason for celebration for us. He is bright, is in top- middle sets in his class and my biggest worry was, like you, that he would slip behind with his work, but for the last 2 years, thanks to the hard work and communication between his teachers and the school's SENCO coordinator, and I like to think us, he has not slipped back.

We were lucky in that in the last 2 years his school have beautifully tailored his learning to suit his needs and I hope you can push your school in to doing this. 2 years ago I was certain that our son had dyslexia (we were told that this term is not as commonly used now) but as he grew older we could tell it wasn't an issue with his reading it was more his processing of information that he really struggles with alongside a few other things, he still gets his letters and numbers mixed up which made me think dyslexia, but his reading is perfect . Obviously your child could be different but I can see why in our case they left it until he was 8. I personally feel if my son had been diagnosed at 6, they might have made a different and perhaps wrong diagnosis to the one I suspect they might make now.

We too saw our GP and had specialised hearing and sight tests done, just to rule that out.