Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Reading issues - dyslexia - need Neuro recommend

Welcome to the forums, MamaRachel. I'll start my reply with a *hug* disclaimer, I'm a parent, not a professional. As a bit of background, I have two 2e kids (one has a reading challenge) and a 3rd child with vision issues (great eyesight but issues with tracking, double vision, peripheral vision etc). I'm going to offer up a few thoughts, but please read them for what they are, thoughts from a parent, not the recommendations of someone who has a background in this


I'm a huge fan of neuropsych evaluations and a global look at what's going on when our kids are struggling. OTOH, the *most* valuable evaluation we had for our dd who struggles with reading came through an SLP who specializes in working with students with dyslexia. My dd is not classically dyslexic - she has a challenge with associating sight and sound... but the evaluation from the SLP / reading specialist was much more thoroughly centered on reading specifically than a neurospych evaluation will be. The *only* reason I'd contemplate doing this type of evaluation first for your ds is that you haven't mentioned anything that points to an issue other than reading, there aren't concerns with teachers/others thinking there's more to it, etc. Although a neurospcyh eval will be extremely helpful in understanding your ds, I'm guessing the neuropsych eval will also end with a recommendation to see a reading specialist for either a closer reading eval or perhaps for remediation if there's an issue. The wait to see a private SLP may be less than the wait for a neurospych. The other thing you can do is request an evaluation through your school district (you'll want to be sure that an oral reading test is part of the evaluation).


I wouldn't assume that it's willingness - it might be, but so many of us here who are parenting kids with learning challenges have seen what looks like unwillingness in our children's behaviors when they are in early elementary when really it's inability to complete the task they're given, but they are too young, don't have enough life experience to understand that it's not the same for everyone, or are unable to communicate that there's a challenge. My 2e ds still has this same "look" sometimes even though he's in high school.


The thing I'd note here is that he seems to have the same issue when he reads aloud to you at home, and his teacher has noticed an odd result on testing that she thought he'd do well on. Performance anxiety and perfectionism might not be expected to cause issues under those different scenarios. With 2e kids, it's so easy to be seeing them as the very bright children that they are that it's easy to chalk up something that's not quite what we expect to be either anxiety or perfectionism. I can remember very clearly adamantly explaining to my ds' 2nd grade teacher that my ds wasn't writing anything down because he was a perfectionist... and I was soooo wrong.



He's probably getting the context of what he's reading without having to read all the words correctly. My dd with vision issues reads in chunks and and has no difficulty flying through novels and remembering every single detail... but reading for knowledge in something like a math or science textbook is much more taxing because she has to purposely focus in a different way than reading fiction. It's not a comprehension issue, it's the effort to get the visual information into her brain. That said, your ds sounds more like my dd who has an actual reading challenge than my dd who has vision issues, because you haven't mentioned anything else that points to a vision issue. One thing you might consider re vision is - how does your ds sit when he's reading or writing or drawing? Does he have relatively good posture or does he bend his head around or contort his head/body while looking at a book? Does he look at you and make eye contact when talking or look to the side? Does he seem clumsy at all? What does his handwriting look like (my ds is dysgraphic, and my vision-challenged dd had handwriting that looked basically like my ds' before she had vision therapy).


Try not to be heartbroken over this - instead, give him audiobooks and read to him. He can still love reading, even if he doesn't read the same way you're used to reading. If he has dyslexia or another type of reading challenge, he can have accommodations at school. A few years after my ds was diagnosed with dysgraphia I ran into one of his preschool teachers (he was diagnosed in 2nd grade). She'd never known him to have a struggle of any kind because she'd known him when he was 3-4 years old in a play-based preschool. I was holding a book I'd been reading about dysgraphia or something like that, and she asked me why I was reading it, so I explained ds had dysgraphia, and I will never forget her reply - because she was so sad... she was sad because he wouldn't ever be able to use handwriting... and honestly, I didn't say this outloud (I said something much more polite lol).. but I was thinking - why on earth does it matter if he never uses handwriting? Why be sad? He can still write. He's not sick. He's not dying. He's not going to not be able to do anything with his life. He doesn't have to be unhappy or not achieve greatness because of it. He did have a tough time throughout most of elementary school and parts of school beyond that, but overall, he's doing really well and he's got a great life. I realize handwriting may be a little less of an issue since most of us in today's world rarely use handwriting but... I feel the same way about reading. My dd with the reading challenge loves loves loves audiobooks and uses audio text books for school work.


He won't "never" read. The key is understanding what the issue is. There are many different programs for teaching reading - my reading-challenged dd was tutored in a Lindamood-Bell with a twist type of program and made tremendous progress. She still doesn't like to read though and much prefers audiobooks, so for her, the challenge isn't going to just evaporate - but she's doing great in school and she reads by listening. It's not all gloom and doom

I'm also not a huge fan of the concept of "the gift of dyslexia" but if you find out your ds does have a reading challenge, you might want to read about the strengths that many dyslexics share. For my 2e kids, there was a lot of work we had to focus on when they were in elementary school to remediate and figure out how to best accommodate, but once we'd gotten through that first slug of getting things figured out, they had access to a world in which there strengths were able to be nurtured and their talents were able to shine. Your ds will get there too

Best wishes,

polarbear