Hi fwtxmom,
My ds12 has diagnoses of developmental coordination disorder, dysgraphia and an expressive language disorder. I suspect if he was seen by the Eides or another neuropsychologist who believed in the "stealth dyslexia" diagnosis he would most likely have it too. The neuropsych we've seen is aware of the Eides' work but doesn't necessarily agree that what they are seeing is dyslexia. From my perspective, the name of the diagnosis isn't as important as understanding what challenges your child faces and meeting them through remediation where it applies and accommodations where needed.
My first thoughts when reading through your description of your ds and his scores are:
1) What diagnoses was he given in his 4th grade eval? Did you get a list of recommendations that you've been able to follow through on? Did those things help at all? Do you think there is more your ds needs help with?
2) Spelling - my ds' spelling is just horrendous. I don't think he'll ever spell well. We were told to try a visual spelling program through a tutor, which we tried for awhile but put on the back burner when we had other issues with written expression which we felt were more important to address (and also had limited time in the day without totally wearing our ds out). Although it might not be anyone's first and optimal choice, there are ways to accommodate for bad spelling that will work both in school and in life after school, so that's the route we've chosen for now for our ds. He uses word prediction software when writing, and that helps him tremendously with spelling and with freeing up enough working memory to also use good punctuation. He's never going to win a spelling bee, but he's also not going to get so bogged down and deflated over bad spelling that he can't focus on other more important things he either needs to or wants to learn.
3) What did the psych say about the GORT results? They look good but not as high as your ds' PRI. Do you think reading frustrates your ds? Our ds has never had the GORT but I've often wondered what his results would be. He also has a higher PRI than VCI on the WISC, but not as large of a discrepancy as your ds. Our ds doesn't really read much for fun, and when he reads for knowledge he seems to skip around in books rather than reading from front to back in a linear fashion. He clearly likes to learn from illustrations and from working with his own hands much more so than from reading - but does that mean he has a reading challenge, or does it just mean reading isn't his area of strength? I have no answers there! I wonder about it often myself, and also wonder if his reading comprehension levels are falling relative to peers as he gets older - there is some indication of this in his achievement testing. Soooo... just fwiw, I've wondered about some of the same things too - still do!
polarbear
