Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 2E dyslexia parents (or other E

Want to say I'm about halfway through the Dyslexic Advantage book, and they've done an excellent job of making use and integrating research I've been following for years. I think the 2E/dyslexic scenario is far more common but frequently missed or misidentified.

I'd recommend the book to anyone dealing with the extreme of visual spatial abilities. Most of the visual spatial materials I've read miss many of the secondary implications that the Eides have managed to tease out through research, anecdotes, and their practice.

This makes me C-R-A-Z-Y.

Education is so language based, making it hard for the language LD kids to shine...

sigh.

I am usually a total e-book snob (only like to read books on my iPad), but your recommendation motivated me to order the book from our library.

Thanks again everyone. So this is my plan:

RIGHT NOW

Read Dyslexic Advantage - bought it last night, only $10 for Kindle version

Talk to our OT about my concerns - I was planning to talk to her about our treatment goals anyway and I'll see if she has any recommendations for home or school. Our family, the OT and the school seem to be working together well so far. If she has recommendations, I think the school will follow them.

Continue HWT

MID-OCTOBER

Talk to teacher - I am thinking 6 weeks will give her a chance to get an idea of where he is on reading and writing. I want to ask her to keep a close eye on anxiety over this type of work and on whether he improves over time. I did mention in our meeting last month that he does reversals, the testing we had done didn't test for learning disabilities like dyslexia, he has a very intelligent grandfather with dyslexia, that a LD and giftedness are possible in the same kid and that despite his extremely high scores he might not seem like other students she has seen that end up participating in the third grade gifted pull out program at the public school. She mentioned that for her students doing reversals she has them make the letters from clay for a while and it seems to help. To address his sensory need to "get away", we'd planned an area with read-along audiobooks. It read somewhere last night this might help if he has dyslexia too. She also plans to give him time to shine with advanced hands on science work, like making models. He loves giving presentations (show and tell) and making up stories/picture books so she wants to give him a chance to do this often.

JANUARY
If I still have concerns, make appointment with Eides

Feel free to make suggestions.

Because the Eides are so booked, have you considered scheduling an appointment now (for March I think you said) and canceling if you don't still need it by January? If you wait until January to schedule that puts the testing date up to or after the start of school next year. Just a thought. I don't know if the Eides have a cancellation policy that prohibits this or not though.

If it were me I would want the info from testing anyway, assuming the testing fits into your budget.

Hi, I am responding to the comment in one of the posts on this thread that their child's writing was more indicative of dyslexia to them than anything (paraphrasing). Anyway,I have posted before about being concerned my son has dyslexia or dysgraphia ... he already is diagnosed with benign congenital hypotonia (which makes writing and fine motor skills difficult for him) and, recently, he has been diagnosed with intermittent convergent strabismus, which means that his eyes are crossing and can result in dyslexia-like symptoms when reading and doing close-work. He's been getting Vision therapy and occupational therapy for the strabismus. Anyway, today he wanted to add some numbers together. He tried to write 124 plus 124 plus 90. All of the 2s and 4s were backwards - he then tried to write a 9 but realized he wrote a six but struggled b/c he couldn't figure out how the 9 goes. I told him how the 9 goes and told him his 2s and 4s were backwards and to write them over (I was cooking dinner). He writes them over and comes to show me - now he wrote his 2s and 4s the correct way but had written 421 instead of 124 and his 9 was not a 6 but was facing backwards. He will be 7 first week in September. Does this seem like dyslexia to any of you? I am waiting to get him tested on it b/c I think the vision and OT therapy needs time to 'fix' his vision problem but I am worrying all of the time and the posts on this thread really resonate. Sorry to hijack but just wondering what y'all think

marytheres, I'm on the fence with my DS6, he doesn't display some other challenges, but his extreme amblyopia leads to similar wiring problems as strabismus (I had/have both.) As he's wrapped with patching, we'll see if fine motor character formation and such improves, some of his "skip/interpretive" reading changes, and his lack of spelling/phonics vs. extreme pattern recognition vocabulary over this year.

ABQMom, hope you find it informative, too.

I'm responding from the perspective of having a daughter diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia in 4th grade after asking questions since kindergarten. She didn't struggle to read, though showed no interest until kindergarten. I estimate she went from zero in October to ~4th grade level by December.

KJP, I think you have a good plan. I might add: ask if the school administers something like DIBELS or AIMSWEB, and if they do, get the results when the tests are done. These are good, first cut screening tools, but at least the teachers in our school don't really understand them.

Also, for your discussions with the teacher in mid-fall, you need to keep in mind that the party line is that reversals are normal through second grade. It's the party line because it's true. However, they should decrease through time. the likelihood you have a kindergarten teacher who would view anything as problematic with regards to reading and writing at this point is very small. Instead, I'd ask things like "does he delay getting to work on writing assignments but not other tasks?" "how much progress has be made in X?" etc.

Keep a copy of things that come home with the return date on them. Watch not for the reversals to disappear, but for them to decrease dramatically. If you do end up with the Eides or someone similar, these will be useful examples.

Another question to the 2E dyslexia parents -

In reading the Dyslexic Advantage, I learned that there is a difference between reversals (b to d) and inversions (u to n). My son does both. Even f to t and sometimes j, m to w (depending on font, plus his name starts with W so he can keep it straight a little bit better than the others) Do your dyslexic kids do this?

While it wasn't specifically stated, the way it was written, seemed to indicate that inversions were indicative of more severe dyslexia. Of course in the spirit of the book, that is seen as a possible advantage in 3D visualization.

I agree with whoever suggested keeping samples. I just glanced back at some of my DD's first grade work to answer your question. I scanned some stuff onto my computer for a meeting. It was a great reminder for me just how far she has progressed.

When printing, my DD had a lot of reversals. She had some inversions with the letters b,d,p and q. When she wrote, her brain rotated that shape every which way whenever one of those letters came up. At this point (starting 5th grade), she rarely prints. She prefers cursive because it is so much easier for her.

Her brain seems to spin things through different axes. When she talks with her hands, you can tell that she is visualizing a three dimensional figure. She can now articulate that it is difficult for her to discern two dimensional orientation. She can't distinguish left from right. We have tried all sorts of gimmicks -- you write with your right, etc -- but none of them have any meaning to her.