Dyslexia impact on a family part 2
Supporting Children with Dyslexia
The best support you can give your child with dyslexia is the appropriate intervention to improve their reading, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, and language. You may have to learn to advocate for your child if he/she is in the public school system. If you can’t advocate on your own, you can hire an advocate to help you. Read your parent rights where you can learn more about your right to request an Independent Education Evaluation or request an IEP meeting. If your child has an IEP, your child should have challenging IEP goals that he/she is meeting year after year to close the achievement gap. Sadly, the IEPs that I read often have loosely written goals with a low bar and the child isn’t making sufficient progress. It is possible that you may have to hire a private, highly skilled therapist to help your child make the meaningful progress they deserve. None of this is cheap or easy. Another possible solution is to homeschool your child where there is enough time in the day for your child to receive all the needed interventions in addition to learn at their own pace without the pressures of school and constantly being compared to same aged peers. Does it really matter that your child isn’t at grade level? What matters is that your child is making progress, the progress that they can make year to year with the needed interventions. Children can be harmed in the classroom by not feeling “smart enough” or “able to answer questions quickly” or “read aloud when called on.” As a parent, you can learn how to help your child at home. There are many quality classes you can take online. And it takes time and true study. For my own kids, I hired people that knew a lot more about literacy intervention than me while I took all the needed classes and did my own study. My own children don’t want to work with me as their mom, so we continue to hire highly skilled therapists that do what I do for my own kids. Some leaders in the field include Pete Bowers and Dr. Gina Cooke. https://www.wordworkskingston.com/WordWorks/Home.html https://linguisteducatorexchange.com
Diagnosis of Dyslexia
Dyslexia can be diagnosed as early as 5 years of age! Do not let schools deny and delay screenings and evaluations. If you are concerned, put your request in writing to the school. “I’m concerned my child has a specific learning disability specific to reading also known as dyslexia and I’m requesting the school thoroughly assess my child’s spoken and written language, academics, cognitive processing, and all areas of suspected disability. Dyslexia runs in our family, and I know dyslexia can be hereditary.” A full assessment should involve a Speech Language Pathologist, Psychologist, Special Educator and Occupational Therapist (if there are sensory processing concerns or letter reversals when writing).
If you are seeking a private dyslexia assessment, typically a Psychologist, Neuropsychologist and/or Speech Language Pathologist. Many standardized assessments can have low sensitivity meaning that a child needs to score low to even show they are impaired. Be sure to ask the professional about the specificity and sensitivity of the assessment. Here is an example, your child is struggling in school. You know he is struggling because of the parent teacher conferences, the grades, the red marks on his paper, his frustration on his inability to do his homework, the tears at the end of the day, report cards and progress notes. Your child has been assessed but the tests come back as “low average” or “average.” You then retest a year or two later, and now your child is low enough to finally qualify for that IEP but too much time has passed for the achievement gap to close within a reasonable time. If intervention is given at a later age (let’s say 3rd grade), it may be difficult to close that achievement gap.
I haven’t found a standardized assessment that I love. I do use the Test of Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS) because it has good sensitivity but there are pieces of the test that I do not love. I do not love any test with nonsense words (made up words). We have enough words in the English language, why use nonsense words for spelling tests? Spelling and the grapheme choice is driven by etymology (where the word comes from) which is why in spelling bee’s children ask for the origin of the word to give them more information on how to spell the word. Sadly, spelling is taught by “sound it out” and it is also tested that way, yet that is not how our written language words. So yes, tests are also flawed! There is no test that I’ve found that addresses the etymology piece. There are tests for phonemic awareness, reading, fluency, comprehension and even morphology but there is no test that has all the needed pieces, so a dynamic test where the assessor analyzes writing samples, and their analysis goes beyond simply reporting test scores.
It is also important that multiple different assessments are used in addition to a dynamic assessment that goes beyond standardized assessment and looks at the child’s actual writing samples and reading fluency beyond just one-minute reads. Many assessors only assess and do not treat dyslexia and may not have the proper training and understanding on how to analyze a writing sample because they lack their own understanding of English etymology, morphology, and phonology. Please choose your assessor well and ask a lot of questions regarding their training and experience. The key in a good assessment is solid recommendations. If a child is dyslexic, it is helpful to know exactly what you need to do! It is not helpful to have weak recommendations that tell you to “read more” to your child or “have child make words with play-doh.” If the child is struggling to read and spell, they need explicit teaching on exactly how our English orthography works with a highly skilled therapist. Your child does not have time to lose working with an average “tutor” or therapist who just received a quick training. Your child needs a competent therapist. Often schools will say they can’t “diagnose” dyslexia. If your child is eligible for an IEP using the eligibility criteria of Specific Learning Disability for the area of need of reading, spelling, reading fluency or comprehension…that means your child is dyslexic. Schools can and should say dyslexia in the IEP. If the school refuses to say “dyslexia,” please share the following letter with them (Dear colleague memorandum written October 23, 2015: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/policy_speced_guid_idea_memosdcltrs_guidance-on-dyslexia-10-2015.pdf
The Office of Special Educational and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) has received communications from stakeholders, including parents, advocacy groups and national disability organizations, who believe that state and local educational agencies (SEAs and LEAs) are reluctant to reference or use dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia in evalutions, elgibility determinations, or in developing the individualized education (IEP) plan under the IDEA. The purpose of this letter is to clarify that there is nothing in the IDEA what would prohibit the use of the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia in the IEA evaluation, eligibility, dterminations or IEP documentation.
