Hi all,

We recently received assessment results for DS6. He tested as PG with dyslexia/dysgraphia. He is having trouble in school with reading/writing assignments, and general behavioral issues.

We are trying to sort out the best way to start addressing his dyslexia challenges, preferably without squashing his dyslexia strengths. The (public) school is maintaining their position that no services are available to him because he is performing at expected levels.

It seems we have many choices - private school for dyslexic learners; private tutoring with a dyslexia "program " (e.g. Lindamood Bell); hiring a tutor; doing things on our own at home.

We are open to any of the above, but not sure how to dial in what is the best path for DS. And we have so many questions - how do we find out his level of dyslexia? What are the right questions to find out if a private school or tutor is suitable for a 2e kid like DS. And in the back of our minds - what is his "prognosis."

I've provided his quantitative test results below. Any suggestion as to how to kick off?

Many thanks - and here are those numbers:

FSIQ (extended norms) 149
GAI (extended norms) 178
VCI(extended norms)- 188
PRI (extended norms) - 139
Working memory - 113
Processing speed - 94

Achievement test results (WIAT-III) were low relative to IQ:
Math Composite 135
Oral Composite 134

Whoa! Those are HUGE IQ scores!

My son is also dyslexic -- tests in the pg range (if you count the DYS cut off as pg -- not even close to your son!)

We remediated with intensive tutoring through Lindamood Bell. I felt lucky because they seemed to "get" him and started him at the right level. But they were very clear that they don't usually see kids like my son -- and your kid is about 3 standard deviations above my son. I think part of what worked for us at LMB was the individual staff. I think that you have a really unusual kid. Is homeschooling an option?

Sorry no advice but I'm hoping to learn from your thread if we are 2e

I notice you do not have reading or writing achievement. That would be pretty key in looking at dyslexia. I would also look for some phonological awareness testing, such as the PAT2 or CTOPP-2. The PAL-II is another good instrument. You'll need to look for testing that examines nonsense word decoding/reading, so that he cannot cover any decoding weaknesses using memorized sight vocabulary. Do you have visual-motor data, such as through an OT eval? The PSI is concerning (although less so for a six y-o on the WISC).

Hi aeh

Thanks for the input. We are awaiting the final written report. But the preliminary report included the following. We didn't get a composite score, though, for reading/writing. Is that something we should ask for?

The WIAT-III subtests that look like reading and writing achievement were these: Early Reading Skills - 99; Spelling - 104; Oral Expression - 114; Listening Comprehension - 146.

The WJ-III subtests were these: Writing Samples - 106; Letter-Word Identification 101; Word Attack - 109; Spelling of Sounds - 102. Also (though not strictly reading/writing) - Understanding Directions - 76.

Also - On the Gray Oral Reading Test he scored below 20th percentile on all subtests.

Re the other tests you mentioned:

On CTOPP he had too many errors to even be scored.

Beery-Buktenica Visual Motor Integration Results were: Visual Motor Integration 64; Visual Perception 120; Motor Coordination 84. These results are very confusing to me. Among other things, the kid is athletic and coordinated. He's been riding a bike with no training wheels since he was 4, and he regularly hits 45 mph pitches from a pitching machine. And he has great fine motor skills when it comes to Lego or drawing things he is interested in drawing.

There are several other test results, but none with the initials PAL or PAT.

Any further feedback you can provide would be so appreciated. Also can you expand on why the PSI is less concerning for a 6-year old?

The more I look at this information, the more confused I get. Of course I hope and trust that the final report will explain things in detail, but I'm having a hard time waiting because school is already going badly.

I'm getting so anxious even as I type this out .... Ugh.

Sue

Hi Displaced,

Thanks for your reply. It's a wild ride isn't it? I'm glad to have your company.

Sue

Hi Gabalyn,

Thanks for your reply. You made me smile and panic at the same time. It's so funny to think of DS as an outlier in THIS of all places. And many thanks for the LMB feedback. I set up a call with them for today and I will definitely spell out the issues based on your input.

Sue

You have no composite scores for reading and writing because none of the clusters had enough subtests administered. These are the reading subtests:

WIAT-III Early Reading Skills 99
WJ-III Letter-Word ID 101
WJ-III Word Attack 109
GORT <20%

Average across the board decoding skills, in isolation, below average when in connected text. Both normative and personal weaknesses.

Writing subtests:

WIAT-III Spelling 104
WJ-III Writing Samples 106
WJ-III Spelling of Sounds 102

Average basic skills and brief written expression. Hugely discrepant from cognition, of course.

Oral Language subtests:

WIAT-III Oral Expression 114
WIAT-III Listening Comprehension 146
WJ-III Understanding Directions 76

High Average expressive language, curiously divergent listening comprehension, with one measure extremely high, approaching his verbal cognition, and one noticeably below average. The big difference between the two is that the first task more closely resembles natural language use, while the second requires you to attend very carefully to long series of rather artificial directions. Auditory working memory and attention are important for this. All areas are weaker than verbal cognition.

Math: Appears comparable to his perceptual reasoning.

VMI: I will posit a hypothesis having to do with encoding of symbols, which is the big difference between the real-life motor coordination activities you describe, and the abstract/symbolic designs that constitute the test materials on the VMI.

CTOPP: So basically his entire vocabulary of decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) is memorized, since he appears to have untestably negligible phonological awareness.

PSI: It's the beginning of the norms, and the range of normal development for fine-motor skills is wide, so it's harder to interpret in isolation. But given the VMI and CTOPP results, I would say the relative weakness in PSI is not just developmental.

You have CTOPP results, so the PAL and PAT aren't as critical, for dyslexia. I might like PAL scores for dysgraphia, though.

I would say, based on the prelim results you've posted, you're looking at quite significant deficits that are very dyslexic/dysgraphic in appearance, in conjunction with extraordinary strength in verbal ability, and relative "weakness" in perceptual ability (though clearly still normatively strong).

ETA: You don't necessarily need R/W composite scores.

aeh, if I may butt in here for a moment, can you comment on the significance of the reverse profile, when a child is relatively good at the understanding directions test but struggles with listening comprehension? Does that get you thinking about any disorder in particular?

Hi Sue,

I'm not a professional, so can only speak from my personal experience parenting one dysgraphic child and one dyslexic child, but here are a few thought for you that might help -


Dysgraphia is not just about fine motor ability, it's a neurological issue related to connections the brain which make the act of developing automaticity of handwriting a challenge. Many dysgraphic people are great artists - my ds is able to draw *amazingly* well - he was drawing pictures that made adults gasp when he was only 3-5 years old. There are, however, fundamental differences between the act of drawing and the act of handwriting. When you draw, you leave your pencil on the paper most of the time and lines connect/etc; when you use handwriting you are constantly having to pick up your pencil and put it down in another location. More significantly, when you draw you are creating as you go, but when you use handwriting you are putting a specific symbol on paper that - in order to be fluent - you have to have developed an automaticity of muscle/brain memory that allows your fingers to "know" what they are drawing without having to think about it. My dysgraphic ds will tell you - he has to think about how he forms his letters, even now, at almost 15 years old.



I think you'll find a lot of us 2e parents will have a lot of empathy with you here! And just my experience, but with some kids it's a lot tougher detangling the puzzle than it is with others - for instance, even though he is severely challenged, my dysgraphic ds' challenges are, for the most part, fairly straightforward. My dyslexic dd, otoh, soooo totally not straightforward or easy to know which direction to go re remediation etc. This may not sound helpful… but fwiw, *understanding* is just one part of the challenge - the other part (for parents) is advocating and making decisions re which way to go re accommodations etc. What I've found is that it's a journey - you won't have all the answers up front, but you do your best to understand what you do know from testing, observing your child, looking closely at academic work and classroom experiences, and even your gut feelings. Then you make a plan, accommodate/remediate/etc, and then somewhere along the way you'll make progress and that may yield yet another clue which yields another adjustment in the remediation/accommodation/etc plan. It can all seem incredibly confusing at first, but you'll see your understanding and clarity grow as you move forward.


What I've found after receiving those final reports was that I then had more questions - so for me, I found it really helpful to schedule both a follow-up interview with the person who did the testing (for us, this was included in our "package", and then schedule another extra follow-up for a month or so later, after I'd had time to take ds/dd home, get back into our routine, try a few things out, and really have time to think through what was in the report. Once I'd done that, I always had 100+ more questions to ask, and by making an appointment and actually going in to see the tester and ask the questions in person led to a much more thorough and helpful discussion than trying to ask them via email would have accomplished.


How much longer do you have to wait for the report? Have you asked for informal accommodations at school while you are waiting? What kinds of things are going badly at school at the moment - if you list a few, we can try to brainstorm to help you come up with strategies you can use until you get your report.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hi aeh,

Wow - amazing explanations. Thanks very much.

"CTOPP: So basically his entire vocabulary of decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) is memorized, since he appears to have untestably negligible phonological awareness."

This sounds exhausting and limiting to me: But it also rings true based on how he "reads." He has a huge reading vocabulary, and can read - for example - complex Magic the Gathering cards quite fluently. Until he hits a word he doesn't know. Then it's all stop.

So I guess I'm back to wondering - is there anything here that would help us decide whether we should go with a private tutor or Lindamood Bell-like thing to support him in school - versus - do we need to pull him out of public school and look into a school for dyslexic learners? Or should we just start trying things and see how he responds? That sounds so hit or miss and time seems to be flying.

FYI - in parallel we are grappling with how we would home school. It's just something that would be very, very hard for us for a number of intractable reasons. But I'll bet lots of people at this sort of juncture say that ....

I'll take a dice roll at that. Based on reading various stuff the Eides have done (Dyslexic Advantage, +) and articles linked from their site.. The extreme listening comprehension maps to the heightened semantic ability associated with dyslexia along with that "seeing the forest" sort of mind. The opposite would be the tree and detail orientation which ranges into the autism spectrum.

Hi Polarbear,

Thank you for your thoughtful post. You are calming me down! And that is a brilliant idea to set up a post-post report meeting. ven with an outline, I never do seem to get all my questions remembered/asked when I'm in the throes of the meeting. Why can I do that just fine at work, but not in this context I wonder?

To your question - DS has all sorts of struggles at school. He is halting at best on any sort of work that requires writing. Last year in K, he was perpetually kept in at recess and lunch to finish work. (This continued even after there was a written plan that said NOT to do this). He has already been told by this year's teacher that he will soon be in the same boat. This quickly spirals into him being embarrassed. And he is naturally hyper-vigilant and quick to make a first strike if he thinks anybody is threatening or teasing him or ABOUT to threaten or tease him. Finally, all these problems are wildly exacerbated by noise, chaos or people getting in his space, which is basically the definition of a K/1 class room. So - many challenges.

I have read in a few places here about an accommodation of sitting near the teacher. I haven't asked for this simple but powerful step. DS always turns to trusted adults for security, and I can't wait to get this in place! Any others suggestions will be most welcome.

Thanks again to you all,
Sue

Mm-hm. Not an unreasonable scenario. Also, individuals with very strong working memory, but not necessarily the language-related ability to go with it, could very well perform like this. Some of them might fall on the spectrum, others may not. There are also visual supports, of a sort, provided for the WJIII Understanding Directions task. The task consists of a series of familiar-looking scenes with various details. The directions are something like, "If there are two trees in the picture, touch the balloon and the table, but first, touch the cat." A person with a good memory can use the visuals in the picture to help tag the steps of the directions. A person with an excellent auditory memory can just memorize them by rote and think about them afterward. There is no particular verbal logic to the directions, so they are not all that amenable to support with high verbal intelligence.

WIAT-III Listening Comprehension, OTOH, is designed to resemble naturalistic listening tasks. It consists of brief to moderate-length listening passages designed to resemble excerpts of conversations, advertising, or lectures (like a snippet of a Discovery Channel show). While it relies quite a bit on auditory working memory, as well, it is all meaningful, and consists, on the whole, of long enough passages that you can use contextual understanding. Some of the items also specifically require you to interpret the passages, rather than simply retain and reproduce details.

It IS exhausting and limiting. And a testament to his tremendous intelligence, that he is reading at grade level sheerly on the strength of his memory and verbal abilities.

Do not wait to remediate. The best approaches for dyslexics require them to engage in conscious re-training of their decoding strategies, which is increasingly difficult as they build sight vocabulary. Lindamood-Bell, Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, Barton, are all good strategies. He needs to learn phonological awareness from the ground up. Home programs, relatively easily implemented by parents, include Toe-by-Toe, All About Reading--both much cheaper than tutors certified in the name programs, and modeled on the same principles. My suggestion would be to look at LB, OG, or Wilson, for short/mid-term therapy, and to give you and him exposure to the approach as implemented by experienced professionals, and simultaneously supplement with TBT or AAR at home, in very short, daily sessions. Once you catch onto the approach, you may be able to continue at home, without the very pricey therapists. I'm more familiar with AAR than TBT; AAR goes up through high school-level decoding, in four self-paced levels. I know others here have excellent experiences with TBT, as well.

Oh my gosh, this stuff is so fascinating. And the tests are really sort of elegant in the way they look for strengths and weaknesses. Aside from being an incredibly stressful analysis of my child, this is a completely engrossing academic exercise! Like the ultimate puzzle.

And FYI - in the hope of catching something that would be DYS portfolio worthy, I just videoed DS reading the complex instructions on 4 of his Magic the Gathering cards. I shamelessly fibbed to him, and told him the videos were for his big cousin Brett, who also plays the game. Otherwise DS would never have done the reading for a video. Utterly fluent, except for the glaring points where he seamlessly substituted the wrong word without ever realizing it ("fare" for "far" and "Aera" for "Aura"). He really is reading Every. Single. Word. as a sight word.

AEH - I so admire the work you do and the eloquent way you have of explaining it. The kids you work with are fortunate. I hope their parents realize it ....

Interesting. My six-year-old son had the CELF-4 Concepts & Following Directions (scaled score 12) and Understanding Spoken Paragraphs (scaled score 6) sections, and the CASL (subtest scores from 77 (paragraph comprehension) to 126 (antonyms), with the others right around 100) and TNL (97). I don't think he has a particularly good working memory, but I don't have testing to support that opinion. Are those tests similar to the WJIII subtest, with visual supports that he could use?

Sorry for getting into the middle of your discussion with the opposite profile. I hope it's not too confusing.

ElizabethN - I seriously don't mind a bit. It's two sides of the same coin, right? Understanding your DS helps me understand mine better.

This is just horrible! I feel so for your ds. This happened to my ds too, but fortunately his teacher stopped after I threw a bit of a hissy fit about it. Not really a hissy fit, but I'm a relatively calm, quiet person in real life and when it happened and the teacher tried to explain that it was the right thing to do I became slightly louder than normal In a big way lol!


I wish I had time to look it up at the moment, but I don't - but - I think there is info on why this is a bad idea somewhere out there either at wrightslaw or another advocacy site. Are you asking for an IEP or a 504? If you are, you can add an accommodation that specifically states he will not lose recess/etc as a consequence of not completing work. I would also add an accommodation of either extended time for work (take a worksheet home and return it the same day if he can't finish it in class, or let him save and finish his work over the weekend etc. At the same time, I'd be *very* careful not to overload him with work that takes *TIME* away from his day. He's so danged smart, chances are he doesn't need to do the same repeated work that other kids do to learn a new concept. Right now it's important to focus on remediating the areas you can - but at the same time not letting the time it takes to do that suck up so many of his waking hours that he becomes frustrated.


I don't know if he'd be up for wearing these or not but it might be worth a try - do you have a pair of noise-cancelling headphones? My ds has a pair that he wears at home when his sisters are being crazy and he's trying to get his homework done. He's worn them in class a few times when he was writing just to drown out any distractions while he worked.

Re writing - for now, I'd scribe for him at home, whenever he has a writing assignment. I'd also let him start keyboarding at home just so he can become familiar with it. Request that he be allowed to either answer orally at school or scribe to an adult when he has a writing assignment.

Re the issues with noise/etc - one of my dd's had this to the extreme when she was your ds' age. We couldn't take her much of anywhere her sensitivity to it was so bad. There are so many different things that can cause a sensory over-response… it might be helpful to consider having your ds evaluated by a sensory OT, who would be able to make suggestions on simple "tricks" that can be used in the classroom to help ease his sensory anxiety in the classroom. This has nothing to do with your ds - you need to ask a professional lol! - but fwiw, our sensory OT had my dd sip water through a straw when she was bothered by distractions but was supposed to be doing "seat work", and she also had her wear a leo under her regular clothes because the sensation of it against her body helped her feel calmer. As I mentioned, those are things that were mentioned for my dd, not necessarily your ds (especially the leo lol!) - but the key is, they were just a few of literally thousands of different ideas our dd's sensory OT came up with to help dd cope when she was anxious over loud noises, classroom chaos, etc.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Yes, for one of them. The CELF-4 C&FD does have visuals; you point to items based on spoken directions. USP and CASL PC are very similar to the WIAT-III LC, where you hear paragraphs read aloud, and then answer questions about them. Antonyms is not, nor does it have visuals, but it has very short verbal stimuli, and relies much more heavily on verbal reasoning and oral vocabulary than anything else.

Notice that your son did very well on the task with visual supports and the one with limited verbal stimuli, and poorly on the tasks with lengthy verbal stimuli.

Hey Polarbear -

You know in the middle of our K drama, I was told that there is actually a law in California that says a child cannot be denied recess as a punishment. As a new member of this board, I promise to make a contribution by looking for this law. This form of punishment really is so very counterproductive.

Scribing and keyboarding. Easy, and I'm going to start NOW. Same for asking if he can bring work home. I ASKED for that last year, but his ridiculous teacher wanted to keep him under her thumb. A fat lot of good that did. He is not so easily broken, I'm afraid .... Actually - I'm not afraid of that. I'm glad.

Thanks also for the headphone idea. He might just go for it. On Labor Day, we did a behind-the-scenes tour at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Absent the headphones, it was like a bomb going off - both in the public areas and behind the scenes (think "pumps"). He was never distracted for a moment in an hour-long tour. Without the headphones - forget it. For him, and for me! But I never would have thought of applying this in class. Brilliant! Not so sure about the leo idea though ... ;0

I don't if it's obvious from my words, but you guys are all giving me so much to feel better about. Thank you.

Sue

I did notice that - I'm just not sure what to make of it. He is getting once-a-week pullouts at school with the SLP to work on paragraph comprehension, since he tanked two different subtests on that. I just wish I could feel confident that the work he's doing is actually directed at the real problem, whatever it is. I have this fear that we are treating a fever by dumping ice water on the patient, instead of looking for a source of inflammation.

OK - so that wasn't even too hard to find. The statutes are from the Californai education code (https://law.resource.org/pub/us/ccr/gov.ca.oal.title05.html):

California Ed Code:

§304. Leaving Room at Recess.
Every pupil shall leave the schoolroom at recess unless it would occasion an exposure of health.

§352. Detention During Recess or Noon Intermission.

A pupil shall not be required to remain in school during the intermission at noon, or during any recess.

Ironically, our highly regarded public school system has a policy directly in conflict with the law:

XXUSD code:

Recess Restriction
A teacher may restrict a student's recess time only when he/she believes that this action is the most effective way to bring about improved behavior. When recess restriction may involve the withholding of physical activity from a student, the teacher shall try other disciplinary
measures before imposing the restriction. Recess restriction shall be subject to the following conditions:
1. The student shall be given adequate time to use the restroom and get a drink or eat
lunch, as appropriate.
2. The student shall remain under a certificated employee’s supervision during the period of restriction.
3. Teachers shall inform the principal of any recess restrictions they impose.

I think I need to do some follow-up!

Sue

That is exactly what I love about assessment... ...And the kids make solving the puzzle meaningful.

Do you know what form the language therapy takes?

Not really. I think that it is based on hearing stories and then talking about them - what happened, inferences about motivations, stuff like that. I know that there was something using an iPad to hear the stories and answer questions, because he loves getting to use it.