Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Monitoring gains in a stealth dyslexic

DD was diagnosed dyslexic & dysgraphic at age 9 based off of a discrepancy model between VIQ & phonics+writing. At the time, her reading level varied between 7th and 12th grade based on the reading test, generally testing lower on single word tests. Spelling and writing skills were moderately below grade level at the time. Somehow, miraculously, the school agreed to an IEP and has been serving her with reading and writing goals.

12 months ago, after a year of intervention, she'd hit the top of every reading test they gave her, including those pesky single words. The school is still giving her the same tests, so there is no ability to show growth in reading. It also looks like there will be no future growth to see in writing (TOWL-4) after this last round. I'm not sure where the ceilings are, but DD can't be far from them (several scaled scores of 20)

She is remaining on the IEP with these diagnoses for monitoring. I'm concerned that if her skills are way beyond 12th grade, we won't note a fall of the skills until they've fallen a long ways. We won't catch the loss of hard won gained skills until there's a lot of repair work to be done.

(Holy smokes, it looks like my kid made something like 10 years of growth in writing in less than 2 years.)

At what point does it become pointless to continue testing? Or do I really need to be pushing for different testing for monitoring?

Geo, it's just astonishing.

You know what else astonishes me? That you got them to use a discrepancy model. I've never gotten any traction that way, despite many oddities.

Testing may increasingly look like using the SAT writing test format, or evaluating against some kind of local program standards, rather than things like TOWL (where she's maxed the test). You know what a good essay looks like, and I think you will have to trust yourself to see the point where something is askew if that happens again. You'll see the stress level go up, you'll see resistance go up, all the old things. Don't borrow trouble about this yet!

Kudos to you and DD in the meantime.

I realize "results may vary" but oh how hearing that gives me hope!

Just finished homework with my dyslexic and dysgraphic 6 year old. He had to draw two animals that start with p. He picked pig and panda. All he had to write was "pig and panda". Poor little guy reversed one p, two a's and the d.

We still see reversals. They are becoming rarer, but of course, that's the one thing everyone refused to quantify or address.

DeeDee, the school appears to be qualifying on the discrepancy model for dyslexia/dysgraphia because they are over correcting for past misdeeds wrt dyslexia (and they're in trouble with the state over it). DD is one of maybe 5-6 qualified, and each has a third or more 'e'. Of those parents I've talked to, though, the school isn't serving the other 'e's.

Thanks for your feedback on the monitoring. Considering our tenuous state here wrt services, I'm thinking we do need something quantitative and less dependent upon my opinions. The SAT is an interesting idea. Thanks. I regularly collect data on the emotional state. That's become habit from our super rought year 2 years ago.

There is a test called the Nelson Denny that my son's dyslexia doctor used as part of the testing he needed to get College Board accommodations. The Nelson Denny is a reading test for high school and college students.

As a homeschooler, my son (who has dyslexia) didn't have an IEP, but I did monitor his progress with various tests and had him professionally assessed on a handful of occasions. I stopped with the regular testing when he was working on a high school level across the board, but I continued to keep an eye on his progress in an informal way. He is now 17 years old and doing college coursework, and I'm still seeing improvement. In fact, there seems to have been a surge of improvement since he turned 16.

Just as an update, DD's writing goals are transitioning to generalization across the curriculum. I failed to convince anyone else in the room that the single skill below benchmark (phoneme segmentation on the CORE) was a concern. I had the IS insert the raw scores of the TOWL into the present levels section, and the director of intervention will find another test with higher ceilings.

I definitely got the sense from the IEP team of "let's take this Farrari out and see what it can do!" The rest of the IEP is geared towards getting DD ready to earn high school credits next year. I'll follow up with the director of intervention on the higher ceiling test in a few weeks once we have sufficient information to make a decision on science placement.