Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Stealth dyslexia - how do you know?

Thanks so much for all the responses. DH and I read through all of them together tonight, along with some information a neighbor sent us last night, and have decided we're going to pursue outside testing. I don't believe school testing will show much based on talking with our neighbor (whose DD7 is at the same school and was recently diagnosed with dyslexia). She gave us this fact sheet, which we found really helpful.
http://www.interdys.org/ewebeditpro5/upload/TestingandEvaluation.pdf

It corroborated my thoughts that, although DS is a proficient reader for his grade level, the substantial gap between his written language abilities and his other abilities is a strong indicator that a dyslexia evaluation is worthwhile. DS doesn't have the fine motor skills issues or spatial issues that many posters mentioned, but we see a lot of the issues discussed in the fact sheet on phonological processing, fluency, and reading comprehension.

It's so helpful to hear others' experiences. Some of it fits DS, some of it doesn't, which explains why this can be so difficult to identify; there's no single set of issues that a parent or teacher can point to and say "that indicates dyslexia." One poster noted to watch how DS reads when he's tired, because the giftedness doesn't mask the underlying problems as much. DS can't read when he's tired; he can't make it through a sentence without assistance.

Thanks to all of you; your experiences are helping us decide how to move forward, and remind me that I should listen to my instincts rather than doubt them.

Knute974, we're in the same area. FWIW, I'll PM you with testing info from my neighbor - they got some very definitive answers, although their DD may have a completely different situation than yours, and it sounds like you're probably done with testing after two goes at it.

Coll,

I'm not sure that I can justify more testing in our instance either, but in case I change my mind, would you mind pming me with your tester info as well. I don't know if we're in the same part of the state, but it might be worth knowing who out there is really good with 2e kids. Our second testing experience was with someone with LD experience, but not enough gifted experience. She felt that dd's issues were due to pressure and that, if she wanted to, she'd perform and we shouldn't worry if she didn't b/c she was clearly not below grade level.

She also felt that there was no ADD b/c her 3rd grade teacher said that she was fine and "nothing special." A psych we consulted for counseling later strongly disagreed.

An update on DS6 and request for other thoughts. We took him to an Orton-Gillingham tutor Wednesday, and she did an assessment (Gallistel Ellis) to determine what phonics skills he does/doesn't have, but it didn't really help us determine if he has any type of dyslexia or not. He did fairly well on the phonics rules he's already learned in school, although was laboriously slow at it, and not so well on things they haven't covered.

If we go forward with tutoring, it would be beneficial regardless because he misses his 1st grade FAST phonics when he goes to 2nd grade for math. We've been trying to do a little of the phonics lessons on the weekends with him, but we haven't done a great job making time for it, and he's very resistant to us teaching him anything.

If we do the tutoring, it would be twice a week with some homework. We'd need to ask his teacher to waive some of the homework she gives out (he has nearly an hour a night, which is ridiculous and not in line with school policy, but that's off topic). If we could go to her and say he has dyslexia, we'd feel comfortable asking her to work with us on the homework. Without that, we feel uncomfortable asking for another accommodation - thanks for putting him in 2nd grade math, but now that he's missing phonics, he needs phonics tutoring, and can you waive some of his homework so he can do it? She'd likely be willing to work with us either way, as she's been very collaborative and supportive.

We're leaning toward not tutoring right now, and waiting to see how his reading and phonics skills come along over the year. We're debating whether to do the formal testing (looking into whether insurance would cover it or not), which would hopefully provide a real answer for us - although previous posts in this thread sound like it's not so clear a lot of times. We just asked him his opinion, and he said he'd prefer to go to the tutoring so he can learn to read more quickly.

We're back to our original question - does he have some level of inherited dyslexia and would OG tutoring be beneficial, or is he just slower with reading than his other skills and needs a little more time for those to catch up. He spends so much time in school and on homework already, we're not interested in adding to that if it's not really needed - although he did just say he'd like to spend the extra time so he can learn faster. Sounds like a number of previous posters have kids in similar situations where it's borderline whether your children really have any learning differences or not. We'd be happy for other BTDT thoughts.

This is such a catch-22 situation, and from personal experience, I'd want to err on the side of caution. You suspect there might be an issue but aren't sure. Your ds is already spending a lot of time on schoolwork and you don't want to add more. The gotcha is, if he does have some kind of a challenge, you'll eventually appreciate knowing sooner (as in now), rather than later. Time spent trying to learn without appropriate accommodations or understanding can turn into a large time sink, and can also impact a child emotionally. It's not at all easy to tease out when your child is 6 and just starting in school. So if it was me, I'd go forward with psychoeducational testing before I continued with tutoring. Please note, I'm saying that as a person speaking from total hindsight - my ds has a split in PRI/VIQ/FSIQ vs processing speed similar to your child's split - and that split impacts his ability to fully access his education in a very dramatic way. We didn't find out about his challenge until the end of 2nd grade when he hit the places in school where he just couldn't keep up anymore with an unrecognized disability. You may have your child go through testing and find that there isn't any kind of challenge, and that's not something to think is a waste of time - that will be good info to know. OTOH, on the slight chance that perhaps your child does have a challenge of some kind, you'll be glad you did the testing and understand what's going on.

polarbear

If your child is asking for the tutoring so that he can learn faster, he is already feeling a bottleneck. I'd go forward with testing if it was my child. Testing our son at age 5 revealed some fairly significant challenges that we had not suspected, and confirmed others that we had suspected.

I stumbled upon this forum while researching information regarding stealth dyslexia. The handwriting, the not tying shoes, the not riding bike, the huge gap between intellectual ability and writing output...all describe my son exactly. (He's eight.) I had already come to my own conclusion that he has dysgraphia but is it due to stealth dyslexia? I don't know. We are home schooling him and I feel so inadequate in providing what he needs. Where do you even begin? I suspect his reading (which he does not like to do) is about being able to memorize words and not actually "read" them if he encounters a new word.

http://dyslexicadvantage.com/ - I did not read all the responses so if this has been suggested as a resource, please disregard the duplication.

BabsR,
Having BTDT, I'd begin with an OT evaluation and a thorough assessment of his visual processing, phonological processing, and visual-motor co-ordination, if you haven't already. Addressing deficits that show up in any or all of these areas can, frequently, dramatically improve all of the skills that you mentioned. A good neuropsych eval is probably worth looking into as well, and could help you pinpoint what exactly is behind what you see, so you can implement targeted interventions.

As a follow up to my original and secondary posts in this thread, we've found a center that does reading and spelling evaluations rather than the full battery of psychoeducational tests. The cost difference is $500 versus $1500, and we already have WPPSI testing from last year showing average processing speed versus gifted level verbal, etc. scores. We're not experiencing any other issues (behavioral, motor skills or coordination, etc.), so we feel that the more focused testing will give us the information we need. We're moving forward with the testing in December. They'll make recommendations for the type of tutoring he needs. Thanks to all, particularly polarbear's response to my second post in the thread, for your suggestions; they've been so helpful in determining a path forward.

This morning, we were doing phonics at home since he misses it at school to go to math in the next grade up, and DS said "Mom, do you know how I figure out hard words? I skip them. Write me a sentence with a hard word, and I'll show you." He read the sentence out loud, skipping the hard word and reading all the rest of the words around it. He said said "See, that's what I do, and most of the time I can figure out the hard word without sounding it out." !! Confirmation that he's doing what we thought he'd been doing.