The dyslexic population is most assuredly greater than the population identified as dyslexic (SLD) in a school setting.
I'm the parent of two unconventional dyslexics that are also gifted. In both cases, we've been "fortunate" that the giftedness trumped the disabilities early and they placed into the gifted program. Of course, that's "fortunate" because it wasn't until 4th grade that their disabilities came to a head and lead to appropriate intervention services. Better, of course, would have to identified the dyslexia when I brought the concerns forward in 2nd (1st kid) and kindergarten (2nd kid), but was brushed off because she's weird (1st kid) and OMG LOOK AT THAT MATH (2nd kid).
My DD recently had to pull together a family trait for a genetics lesson easily traceable across generations. I suggested "terrible speller" as a family trait. This has been something I've experienced as well -- grade skipped, radically accelerated in math, and "if you're so smart, why don't you just proofread?!"
I'm especially interested in this topic lately because I believe that my DD is dyslexic (and probably me as well). Thankfully she was able to be identified gifted by the school district, but I suspect she is higher LOG than anyone on the outside could see. I think of her as my iceberg. My district is working on changing the identification assessment tools and I am on an advisory committee that has the opportunity to put my two cents in. I'm not a professional in this field but an interested parent. I feel that the GATE program has become more of a high achiever program and that the method of identification has contributed to that.
What a great opportunity to make a difference. When I've felt as though the school district is listening, I suggest:
*multiple entrance methods: A kid can enter with observations from teachers (HIGHLY biased towards age, socio-economic status, good behavior) but also from test scores WITHOUT the need for those checklists.
*multiple onramps: kids can be ID'd in kindergarten or in 12th grade or anytime in between. Interventions must take into account the multiple onramps (e.g. "if you don't hit a bar here for math by the end of 3rd grade, you're pretty SOL).
*clear communication to parents about the process for identification with welcoming language (parents suffer from impostor syndrome on behalf of their kids all the time, *especially* when 2e issues are at play), welcoming parents to nominate their kids; communication to kids that they can nominate themselves.
*alignment of program with entrance criteria: That is, if it's a math class for gifted kids, remove the requirement for high verbal IQ and high reading scores.
*procedures for looking more closely at kids who hit the cognitive qualification but miss on performance. This is a sign that someone should look more closely for learning disabilities being masked by cognitive abilities.
I also be explicit about the impact of twice exceptional kids on identification procedures. I would start my making sure the committee is familiar with the impact that learning disabilities have on a gifted child. Shifting to a behavioral checklist exclusively will exclude a large number of kids with disabilities (particularly developmental and behavioral), but can help to identify kids that are in that realm of specific learning disabilities affecting reading, writing, and math. I really like
this table as it gives examples of where those behavior checklists go wrong.
I think that it's really common from what I've read and also experienced to see gifted programs in schools become streamlined into what is "easy" to id as gifted. It's never going to be practical to give a WISC to every student who might qualify (including kids who don't "look" or perform as gifted). For instance, when my school district screens using a fairly-widely-used learned ability test, only the verbal portion is given, so any kid who would have qualified based on either non-verbal or an average of verbal and non-verbal, but isn't strongest in verbal isn't going to be given any further screening (unless they have a parent who is on top of things and makes a case for further consideration and eval).