Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional school doesn't want to test for dyslexia

Hi all. My daughter was identified as gifted in Kindergarten. She scored very well on the tests they gave, I believe Naglieri and Stanford.

From the day she began reading I noticed that she would omit words, add words, and had a hard time decoding unfamiliar words. I figured it was because she was just learning to read. Unfortunately the problem never went away. She's now in third grade and I believe its worse. After much research this summer I truly believe she is dyslexic. She displays so many of the characteristics that I'm kicking myself for not realizing it sooner.

I want the district to test her and I want it done soon! Unfortunately I'm getting some resistance because she is reading on grade level and making As and Bs in reading. Her teacher believes that she will not be taken seriously if she recommends testing for an on level, AB student. Her teacher is going to pursue it, but she said I will probably have to write a letter and throw a fit to get anywhere. I plan on writing the letter this weekend outlining all the symptoms I see and why I think it is important for her to be tested.

It's not fair that they won't help her (if they deny her testing). Even though she's reading on level I don't believe she's even close to the level she could/should be. I really want her to have this dyslexic label to give her an actual reason as to why she struggles.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to include in the letter? Does anyone know if the district has to test her if a parent requests it (we live in Texas)? Everything I've read seems to indicate that they don't have to honor a parent request. Thanks in advance!

Robin

We had this same issue with my son's school. He was never below grade level and therefore, the school wouldn't test and wouldn't do any kind of intervention. I can kind of see their point, except that my son is an exceptional student in all other ways. Also, the bar is so low for reading in the younger grades that it's likely that a highly gifted child would develop some kind of coping skills in reading that will keep them at the minimal level (which my son did).

I suspected dyslexia in kindergarten and asked about it then, but the teacher was dismissive. Same in 1st. Same in 2nd. And then I finally had to have him privately tested in he fall of his 2nd grade year.

Private testing is much better than school testing anyway because you get so much more information and recommendations appropriate for your child. It was only after I had that info that the school paid any attention at all. They still wouldn't give him intervention, but he did get a 504 right away and he was able to write on a computer. We had to do private tutoring for 2 1/2 years to bring his reading level up to something more appropriate for his abilities.


It's not fair your school won't test, but you will likely bang your head against that wall for years while your child isn't getting the help he or she needs-- so I suggest you get outside testing and take it to the school. They can't ignore the data once you have it. We did our testing through a Childrens Hospital. While it cost $1500, insurance picked up all but our deductible since he was diagnosed with a disability (if he had been fine, we would have had to pay).

I also suggest you start tutoring or some other kind of intervention on your own. It's actually a catch 22 because your dd will do better at reading and the school will be even less likely to help her. But with dyslexia, early intervention is extremely important and if you can afford it, it's money well-spent to get your dd the help she needs right now.

I suggest you go to wrightslaw dot com for information on how to advocate.

This. And also: did you make the request in writing, or just talk to the teacher? If you make the request in writing (follow the model in the Wrights' book From Emotions to Advocacy), they are legally obligated to test.

DeeDee

1. Most school districts require a delay of two years in order to fund testing.

2. To make your request "legal", put it in writing and send it to the principal with cc's to the special ed chair and any other administrative staff who are involved in testing (counselor, evaluator, etc.). Detail the specific difficulties that are affecting your child in the school setting - poor hand writing, slow writing, difficulty memorizing math tables, etc.). They may still deny the request, but it will give you a better shot.

3. Check with your insurance to see if you can get testing for a developmental delay. Most insurances will not cover academic testing, but they will cover many of the same tests in the process of testing for a developmental problem.

4. If you test privately, check with the district administration to verify the process and requirements the school has for accepting private results. Make sure you find out if they only work with specific evaluators. Some districts have strict guidelines, so if you know how to play the game before you start, it helps a lot.

Our district wouldn't test my son for the same reason, despite all of his teachers showing up at the meeting and stating it was an obvious problem. We had the testing done privately by a psychologist who often worked as a consultant for the school district. The next year, the school accepted the diagnosis and put my son in an IEP.

I missed this thread last week. Hopefully the OP will check back.

Here's where the sticky part comes in about being below grade level for gifted kids. The IDEA law the governs special education has this requirement for identification:
"Must not require the use of a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement for determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, as defined in 34 CFR 300.8(c)(10);"
http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cdynamic%2CTopicalBrief%2C23%2C

Schools now apply this as "Don't use a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement." So this is put in place so that a child with dyslexia performing 1.5 sigma below the mean is denied services because that child has an IQ in the lower end of the average range. As it's written, however, there's nothing to preclude the district from qualifying a child who has a significantly above average IQ, which might otherwise predict above level performance, who is performing at or near grade level.

We happened to "luck out" in that our school is now looking to get themselves out of hot water for under identifying kids. DD was identified for grade level performance in spelling and writing because it was << 2 sigma below her verbal IQ. Had we gone into this process a year earlier, we would have been ignored and cast off as pushy parents with entitled kids.

I poked around and found that Texas was the first state to have a dyslexia law. Here's a link to their handbook:
http://www.region10.org/dyslexia/Documents/DyslexiaHandbook11-10-2010.pdf

In skimming it, I noticed this call out to specific ability discrepencies that imply simply achieving adequate grades is not the measure:

Also, I've read references that coping mechanisms that gifted dyslexic children have can start to unravel around 3rd or 4th grade.

I'll second the posters who suggested private testing - it is usually much more thorough than school district testing, you are able to (much more easily) ask questions and get answers once the testing is complete (and most likely you'll have a ton of questions if your child has a learning challenge), and you'll have a test adminstrator who doesn't have an agenda that might bias how much information you'll receive or how much testing is done (many of us have been in situations where our school districts do not want to . You also are more likely to get a forward-look at what your child will need throughout their education and life, vs a school eval which will look at what your child needs right now.

Many of us here with 2e kids have had the experience of finding out that getting a diagnosis is only the first step in a long journey, and many times that journey includes a lot of advocating for your child, and sometimes feeling like you're banging your head against a brick wall with the school. It's important not to get caught up thinking of this as a school problem, but to refocus to looking at as this is your child's *life*, which is much more than just school. School's a huge part of life in the early years, but a person isn't going to no longer be dyslexic when they graduate, or when they play piano, or when they are in Girl Scouts etc. You also don't want to send your child through life with only partial information or without help just because they didn't meet a low-enough bar to qualify for school services.

You might also find, like we did with our 2e ds, that you can fight the good fight, get services through school, and it's still not the answer or still not enough and you'll still need to get help outside of school.

I apologize if that sounded bleak - it's really not! The key is, there is so much you can do for your child, but to get anywhere you'll need to know everything you can about the challenges your dd has.

With respect to reading, it's easy to think a child is dyslexic with the type of symptoms you've noticed with early reading. Two of my three children struggled with early reading (one below grade level, one above grade level); both were evaluated for dyslexia and neither is dyslexic - but *both* had very real challenges that needed to be addressed. My older dd had an unrecognized vision challenge which we were able to remediate and she went on to become an above-grade level reader very quickly. My younger dd has a challenge with associative memory (she learns much better with auditory input), and reading is still a bit of a struggle for her. Testing was extremely important for both of them, even though neither one is dyslexic.

If you want testing through the school, the first step is to make a written request. The school then will be legally required to respond to your request within a certain time period (I don't know what that time period is in your state or school district, but there is a Federal time limit of 60 days; some states and school districts have earlier deadlines). You can find info about your state and district online, but it might take time to dig it out that way. www.wrightslaw.org is a wonderful reference; take a look at their yellow pages link and see if there are any non-profit parent advocate groups near you - if they are, call them up and explain your situation and ask them what they recommend. Having the advice of a local advocate was invaluable to us in advocating for our ds.

The school doesn't *have* to test, but they have to respond to your request by either agreeing to test or by giving you a reason why they feel testing isn't necessary. In our school, that decision is made by the team that would also convene to write an IEP if your child is found eligible; the team includes teachers, sped department staff, school psych, school rep, and - very important - parents. You are a part of the decision process. The tricky part of this is knowing what to advocate for re testing, which can be difficult if you don't already have specific information about your child's challenges and if you don't understand your school district's qualifying measures or what to ask for in terms of testing.

One other small note - school districts don't diagnose dyslexia - they test for eligibility for services due to a learning challenge in either reading/writing/math etc. They won't refer to that challenge as dyslexia (at least they don't where we live).

Gotta run - hope some of that made sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - I was posting at the same time as Zen, and just read Zen's reply. One potential "gotcha" with a reading challenge being identified through a school dyslexia screen are the "reading real words in isolation" and "problems decoding nonsense words" - both of my dds were able to do this adequately during testing, and as I mentioned, neither has dyslexia but *both* had significant challenges which were preventing them from being successful fluent readers. JMO, but I think it's important when pursuing both school testing and private testing to move forward focusing on the challenges you've observed rather than a preconceived notion of what the diagnosis is - because you don't want to limit the "look" (testing) to be too narrow to miss a very real challenge.