DS7 is being evaluated for learning issues. Now that I've started reading about "stealth" dyslexia, my son fits most descriptions of it to a T. But I'm still wondering, if it's not dyslexia, what else could be causing his reading and writing issues? Vision has been checked and is fine. Is it possible that simply being underchallenged would cause the same issues?
He knew all letters and numbers at about 18 months but never started to read until kindergarten. He has extremely poor decoding skills. He does have excellent comprehension while reading silently, especially if he is reading long and complex material. If he reads short instructions, he often is confused. His spoken reading is poor...often skipping and substituting words and letters. His IQ scores put him squarely in the PG range (he hit ceilings on multiple subtests but we didn't do extended norms, so I don't know how high his IQ really is). He only reads about 1-2 grade levels up. He is clearly dysgraphic - extremely poor spelling, poor handwriting. He can give you a wonderfully creative oral response to a question or prompt, but his written response is that of child much younger.
He loves reading and devours books. But if there are no pictures in them, he won't touch them.
We got the results. The tester does NOT think that DS7 has any 2E issues. Although there WAS a big discrepancy between IQ and achievement scores, she attributes it to the following:
He is very reluctant to read or write things that are not 'interesting' to him. He WILL do it, but doesn't want to. She believes that his reading and writing education in his current classroom is extremely poor. So, he is acing everything they do in class and is not being stretched at all. Therefore, he is not learning anything in reading or writing at school. And since he strongly prefers non fiction to fiction, he spends very little time reading fiction at home. So, he is not developing his reading and writing skills at home either. He actually did pretty well with his decoding skills (I was shocked!). I also saw his writing samples from the achievement test and they looked good to me. So no dyslexia, no dysgraphia.
She thinks that the gap between IQ and achievement will be closed by giving him an appropriate education in reading and writing.
Any thoughts from anyone here?
I'm so glad someone posted this question because I have an interest in this topic also! I hope you don't mind that I grouped several of your posts together, but I realized our DD8 has many similarities to your DS7...and from the looks of it, others have some of these same issues with their kiddos.
We just received the basic information from DD8's psycho-educational testing (KABC-II and Kaufman Achievement) and are waiting on the full report. They reported to us that they don't think she has dysgraphia or dyslexia, but even when they gave her a spelling test she flip-flopped letters in some of her words - so as an example "people" was "pepole". She knows how to spell people and can verbally spell it. There were other things they noted, but since her comprehension was great they didn't feel there was an issue. So if this isn't some form of dyslexia then what is it? DD changes words when she is reading out loud and will sometimes just skip little words completely. When she does this, what she is reading still makes sense, it just isn't what is on the page. Like somewhereonearth's DS, our DD hit several ceilings and did not get extended norms so we don't know how high she can go, but her FSIQ is within the exceptionally/profoundly gifted category (depending on what chart you use). Her achievement scores were high, but not as high as we would have expected and we too were told it was because she isn't being taught at the level she needs to be. She loves to be read to, but doesn't like reading out loud. One difference - she doesn't really like to read for pleasure, and when she has free time, reading is never at the top of her list of things to do.
I read through all the responses that somewhereonearth received and it sounds like we should maybe start with an elaborate vision screening. If that doesn't give us some answers, then I guess we should start saving our money for a neuropsych eval instead of that trip to Disney World we had hoped for.
