dyslexia tests in northern Ireland??

shayne_2

my 3 children, grown up now, all have dyslexia, i had then tested fro free, the place was local & called right to write, not round here anymore, don't know if it was nationwide, they now test at school but when mine was there they refused to recognise it, thats why i got them tested, they got help at school after that, but i also had them private tutured for 1 hour a week with a school teacher, some teachers will do this, though the schools are not very helpful in recomending anyone, it really helped a lot, apparently dyslexia is hereditary, my husband is really bad, but like i said Tom cruise, jane asher are dyslexic & they do okay, my hubby has 3 businesses & okay i do the paperwork but he does read plans etc, dyslexics are very intelligent, it is not right you have to pay to be tested, if tested at school, they do use an educational psycoligist but there is no stigma to it, there are thousands of folk dyslexic, my 3 vary in degrees but are all doing well in there jobs, hope this helps

Freefromdebt_2

Have you tried googling DADS- Dyslexic and Dyspraxia Support based in Magherafelt ? I think they do dyslexic screening for a fraction of the price I have seen here.

Saucepanhead

I work in a primary school in the WELB. No matter what level of dyslexia you think your child has the school has a legal obligation to care & look after every child therefore they should be referring your child to the ED. PHYS. to be assessed if you have voiced your concerns to them. There should be a Special Educational Needs (SEN) teacher in the school that you could have a chat with. If they have been doing their job properly your child should be already going to SEN for help with his/her reading.

Hope this is of some help.:)

rover25

I would like to add to Saucepanhead's comments, They did not mention that each school only has a small number of children that they are able to refer. It is a % of the total no of children in the school. They can't refer all.
If the child has wider difficulties - global problems eg social, personal care, safety etc, they many be given a priority
Literacy Screening exists ( supposed to be a fast track process to screen chn with literacy only difficulties)
However, the child has to have worked through 2 education plans in class/school, they must be 7 and half and they must have significant gaps in their reading and spelling standardised scores compared to their BPVS/NRIT score,
I work very very hard every day to 'care' and 'provide' for the chn in my class especially those with difficulties. I wish I could get them referred but my hands are tied and I have to follow procedures. There is no one teacher allocated in my small 5 teacher school. Every teacher is extremley busy with their 24+ class and I can assure you they are all doing their job properly.

done_deal

I had my daughter tested recently at the Dyslexia Centre in Belfast. I had the same problem as you, in that the school were unwilling to test her, although she did get help from the SEN teacher & had done several IEP's over the years. The test at the Dyslexia Centre takes 3 hours & cost £380. A couple of weeks after the test is done you receive a very detailed report. In my case my daughter is slightly dyslexic & not bad enough to receive any extra help from school, so we have to find a private tutor for her. The thing is, it has to be someone who knows how to work with children who are dyslexic & I have found it very hard to find someone in our area. The Dyslexia Centre didn't know of anyone in our area either who was qualified to help, but they did suggest going to their classes. I decided not to because it's a bit of a drive & I think the cost is £40 an hour, which I thought was a bit expensive. If you have any questions, just ask, I will be glad to help if I can.

happy_gardener

Thanks for all your replys. Unfort i am no further forward ay the moment. I shall recap so far and see if anyone out there has anymore pointers for me.
I had a John Curry from NEELB, who told me to(1) contact Dyxlexia supprt, Newtownards Rd Belfast, (2) contact special needs County Hall, Ballymena , (3) and also gave me two names> Damian McLaughlin/Colin McClennand.
Dyxlexia group in Belfast> I have left 3 messages but no reply as yet.
Special needs County Hall> could not help me and gave me a tel number of a Ballee Office?? who phoned me back with a tel number for Damian McLaughlin.
It seems that there is another person who makes appointments for Damian..and again I have left 3 messages but no reply as yet.
I have emailed/left a message for the 'DADS' dyslexia place in Magherafelt as per the suggestion via this moneysavingexpert site (thanks for that).
The school that my son attend is fab but they do only have a % of kids they can refer and my son is not 'bad enough' to be referred.

I find this very fustrating. I do not have money burning a hole in my pocket, but I am willing to pay for private accessment, no matter the cost.
Thanks for all the comments so far and if anyone can help me further I would be appreciate it very much.
I would travel anywhere to have the 'test' done on my son.

concerned_parent

I am in a similar boat as yourself with my 8 year old daughter. We have been told by the school that they do not receive the funding for dyslexia testing but I contacted the Dyslexia Centre on the Newtownards Road in Belfast and they told me that they can do an independent assessment at their centre which last about 3 hours and costs £360.00. There is currently a 5 week waiting list.
I'm not sure if you saw the show on BBC3 by Cara Tointon (I'm not sure if the second name is correct) but I would recommend it as it is very insightful. It can be viewed on the internet.
Our 8 year old is currently waiting on filters from the optician with a purple tint that we hope will help make reading easier for her. If you haven't been to the optician I throughly recommend a visit as our child's dyslexia was diagnosed by her optician and not at school.

Hope this helps somewhat. It is reassuring to know their is other parents and children out there but finding them is somewhat difficult. Particularly when our child's school refuse to call it dyslexia and instead refer to it using the umbrella term 'learning difficulty'

hethmar

My son was/is severely dyslexic and had autistic spectrum disorders. Be very careful because in England the school/LEA wont recognise an independent test anyway, so you will have wasted your money.

First thing to do, is contact your local BDA group. They were a god send to us, we got a parent helper, son was tested and deemed "the worse case they had seen in the area" (and the school was still refusing to have him tested). With the help of the BDA parent supporters we were on the point of taking the School Governors to high court when suddenly he was offered funding for an independent school which specialised in dyslexic children.

Get some good advice from people who have the backing and knowledge to help you. The school and LEA who had been quite off hand with us when we first requested testing suddenly sat up and started looking worried when we brought in the big guns
http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-us/bda-projects/northern-ireland.html

smokiewater

Schools are infuriating at times when it comes to Dyslexia.

Our daughter is now 19, she started at a well known integrated primary school, where they refused to refer her for assessment, saying she was too young. In P4 she changed to Cedar Integrated Primary in Crossgar, who were excellent, she was quickly diagnosed as borderline dyslexic, but because there was some family history, she received one to one help from the education board. Her tutor was also excellent, another boy in her year was also getting help and between both children, families, tutor and teachers we all agreed to share the one to one time, so that they ended up with twice the amount of help but on a one to two basis. The headmistress at the school who has now since retired also recommended poetry for her to read which was an enormous help. She started P4 barely able to read and by the time she went into P5 was slightly above average, which was an excellent improvement!

It may have changed over the years, but when we looked into private assessment, this did not entitle you to any education board help at the time. We were lucky in that we were able to move to a really good school and she got the help she needed, our daughter is now a very keen reader. Unfortunatley the problems she has with numbers have never been fully resolved, but we are hopeful that as her confidence grows this will improve, she now rarely reverses letters and her spelling is quite good.

My advice would be to keep the pressure on with the school, with the right help children can flourish! Also a shared interest where reading can be brought into helped enormously. The poetry worked well for us together with lots and lots of horsey books - information and fiction ones, some schools argue that information books are no good for the imagination, but if they get them interested in reading, that is ok by me!

gibbyni

I got tested a few months ago, mind you im 32 and was done for the open university but it was carried out by 'Dyslexia services ltd' 02841 739024. took about an hour and was £250. In the end I was told have have a high IQ but also clearly have dyslexia.