Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional What Age for Dyslexia?

I'd like to get some insight into when you might have suspected dyslexia, when you got your child tested and what age he/she was diagnosed.

DS5 is fairly good with single-letter phonics, but has a hard time blending. He also can't rhyme to save his life. For example, I'll say "What rhymes with bed?" and he'll guess "house". He'll also throw out random guesses if I try to ask him what a word says and sometimes it's not even close. He'll also sometimes write letters or numbers backwards.

I'm not particularly worried at this point, as these things could all be developmental and it's not troubling in the real world to have a kid who can't yet read at 5. (And it's a just-turned 5.) But every once in awhile, I have this feeling that it might be something more than development. But I know that early intervention can help...

Is this too young to seek out testing? What does testing for dyslexia entail? Should I mention to his doctor? He's currently homeschooled.

Thanks!

When my son was that age we got on the wait list for gifted/dyslexia specialist. He was seen a year later at six (needed to take WISC) was diagnosed with dyslexia among other things.

If you want to try some "home remedies" for decoding our specialists recommended Toe by Toe, Explode the Code and mimio.com for our son.

You could also take him to a Lindamood Bell center for testing. Testing is on sale for $295 right now.

We have a family history for dyslexia so we were on the look out.

It's definitely not too early. Check out this video by Susan Barton. She's really good and I've seen students make incredible progress with her methods. It's a long video, but it talks about the signs of dyslexia from age 1. It also places emphasis on dyslexia as a language disorder, affecting many areas of development outside of reading.

http://www.dys-add.com/videos/dyslexiaSymptomsSolutions_Part02.html

DS5.3 is EXACTLY the same like your DS! He just finished first trimester of Kindergarten and we're pulling him out to homeschool. He seems to be doing a lot better with me one on one than in class. I did ask his teacher to watch for signs of dyslexia and I'm still going to the parent conference on Tuesday to find out what she has to say (the school doesn't know yet that we're pulling him out). Even his first report card (Common Core Standards based grading) suggests that there may be signs of dyslexia. We have been suspicious of this for quite awhile now. Other things come super easy to him but reading and even writing is a whole another world.

Ds6 couldn't rhyme at that age and he is an advanced reader. We used to play odd one out - bed, red, donkey etc. Gradually I made them a little less obvious

That does sound like it might be dyslexia. Reversing letters is still normal at five, but the rhyming would give me pause. And the blending. My son could read some CVC words at three. We unschooled, so he wasn't getting (hardly) any reading instruction, and I wasn't at all worried -- just surprised -- when he wasn't doing more at 4, at 5, or at 6. By 7, he knew all of the sounds, but still wasn't reading. We did a little online curriculum (reading eggs), and he could do well on the exercises, but then could.not.read the passage.

When I really strongly began to suspect dyslexia, however, was when he was 8 and was reading. Because he would read James and the Giant Peach, but couldn't read easy single words accurately, like "parties." My mom sense just told me that was wrong. No one "believed" me, because he was reading, but the reading tutor I hired (who initially thought I was a PITA and/or crazy) eventually told me there was "something."

Sounds like your mom sense is going off here. Always a good idea to trust that. I second the recommendation of Lindamood Bell. I did that testing too. It is not a bad little battery for the $$. The one caveat is they may not be familiar with stealth dyslexia. They usually work with pretty impaired kids. My son tested 99% for comprehension, but 75% for speed and accuracy. They said that was an unusual profile, and I knew that was similar to what the Eides describe. I asked her if it could be dyslexia, and she said no, because all his skills were above grade level.

They did suggest some tutoring, because she could see some of his skills were weak, but she didn't push it, which I appreciated. So the LMB testing wasn't definitive for me, but it did give me some good information, which eventually supported my decision to pay for a full evaluation.

Btw, he eventually did do the tutoring at LMB, and I was really happy with it, so you can PM me if you get to that point.

What you describe is still age appropriate. My experience is that it's hard to tease out at this age even for people that are experts at early identification, and particularly for bright kids. I've got two kids with language development quirks. One also has siginificant speech development quirks as well, and was evaluated 4 times, the last two with me specifically asking about dyslexia. I got "send us a postcard when he starts Harvard at 11." And these were the experts in the state. I suspect he's in the same category as my daughter, diagnosed dyslexic at age 9 only after she'd let any phonics skills atrophy. Her remediation was so fast that I now doubt it was dyslexia or stealth dyslexia. Instead, I'm wondering if it was simply developmental or a consequence of massively asynchronous development together with an education system out of sync with her.

My first stop would be for a full audiology exam.

I wish I'd had my super-smart son diagnosed at age 5, instead of 7 1/2. That was two years of learning and reading practice he missed out on, not to mention 2 years to get the idea that he wasn't as smart as the other kids, since reading wasn't clicking with him.

My son knew his letters and letter sounds by 2 1/2, but he just could not make the leap to sounding out words. He has a PG twin brother who did make that leap and it was a daily frustration for him that his brother could read and he couldn't. By 5, he told teachers he was afraid he would never learn to read-- and he obviously had reason to believe that, whereas teachers just ignored his (and my) concerns.

If I were you, I'd get him evaluated by a qualified professional. Sign up now, even if you change your mind, because it often takes a long time to get tested. If you're not ready yet, I second the advice of trying some reading intervention programs on your own. We tried some when my son was in K and it was a brutal experience. He hated it and didn't make the progress we would have expected. And that should have been another warning sign for us.

Thanks!

Syoblrig -- Are you saying that your son could recognize all individual letters and their sounds, even though he couldn't string them together? That seems to be where my son's at.

What does the testing consist of?

My son had the following:

WISC-IV, WIAT-III, WJCogAT-III, RAN/RAS, CTOPP, and selected subtests of the PEEX2

It would be difficult to get an accurate diagnosis at five. I wouldn't worry about testing right now.

You could start a home program now and then look into testing next year. The home programs are available with out a diagnosis and they won't harm a non-dyslexic if your child ends up fine.