Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I was right. I wish I wasn't though.

We have something in my house we call "4th grade onset dyslexia." The kids, of course, would always have been dyslexic, but it's 4th grade that things hit a wall, testing is done, and --we're super lucky -- IEP with Orton Gillingham tutoring begins.

You describe a kid not dissimilar to my two. At the qualifying meeting for DS9 a few weeks ago, the key quote of the meeting, from the reading specialist was, "well, he reads at a post-high school level, but he's not so secure on the alphabet."

We went through a lot of "a ha" moments with my DD 3 years ago when she was in 4th grade. It was a painful year for all. Many hugs.

Be careful here. It's really easy to see smart kids who read well, and then view the written product as sloppy and lazy. I'm not sure that's what is behind the comment, but tread very lightly. DD got a lot of "well, if you're so smart, why can't you..." comments from teachers. It started to rub off on us, and DH and I started with similar mindset. The fact of the matter is, that she was working just as hard as she could, and sloppy and the appearance of lazy was the consequence of her brain trying to do way more than it could handle -- too few skills were automatic. Apologies if my comments are misdirected. This is a tough age for a girl's self esteem.

In parallel with finishing the dyslexia evaluation (as aeh says, both my kids' diagnoses are based on differential performance between verbal IQ and academic performance on phonological processing skills), have you ruled out ADHD? I might suggest it's wise to have some clarity on these issues *not* being ADHD if this is the case, making it clearer to everyone involved that evidence-based instruction for kids with dyslexia is the right path for her.

OK, this is awesome. Fabulous. Wonderful. A school that, in one fell swoop, say "twice exceptional." Our district does this, and people are starting to move into this suburb from outlying areas just to get their 2e kids served. It's rare.

First -- your daughter is already aware of her 2eness at some level by expressing these worries. I would, in the absence of any other information, suggest you urge her to try it. First, it will bring her into contact with peers. Second, it can work on self esteem (or inoculate the self esteem in light of also starting special ed). In a school that recognizes 2e, the gifted teacher will also likely have some experience to bring to the table that the regular ed teacher does not.

As for what services will look like -- they will be what she needs to work on her goals. It's the individualized part of IEP. I'd suggest, though, that you need more clarity on the dyslexia part (as aeh is suggesting) to know exactly what's needed. An IEP can be tailored to teach specific compensatory skills that are needed to adapt to a low processing speed, as well as Orton Gillingham intervention to make the orthographic code more automatic in reading and writing.


You need levels and a baseline for high frequency words, for phonetic words, and for nonsense words.


I do the same thing, and I have a colleague who also struggles with similar issues. We both have kids with "4th grade onset dyslexia."

Get the report. Monitoring improvement for a kid achieving so well requires subtle reading of a lot of data. Even if it's nothing, document it and keep track of it. If you continue to have concerns, you need a baseline from which to work.

Finally, since I'm seeing bits of my DD in your descriptions -- when we got the neurospych report, and again when we'd finished the IEP, I took her out for chocolate cake, and we went through the data. 4th grade was terrible for her self esteem on so many levels, we've done a lot of work to communicate clearly and consistently: You are smart. You have the ability to learn. You can work hard and learn, but some of how you learn needs to be different from other kids. At the start, adults will teach you these new learning skills. Once you've learned them, the hope is that you can use them when you go on in school.

I had laid out the testing to her as a process of hypothesis testing -- her brain is wired in a way that learns differently than teachers teach; she can't learn certain things; she just needs to work harder and she'll learn eventually. (Certain hypotheses were less than genuine...). I walked her through the results to show her how the psychologist evaluated each hypothesis: "This verbal score means that you process words and their meaning better than 998 of a thousand kids, but this other score means that in a group of 20 kids, you might be the slowest to process the information." I explained that the doctor suggests that this would be really frustrating for a kid, particularly one that is so smart that she's aware of how others are experiencing the world. I walked her through the nonsense words bit, and explained that other kids actually pull apart each letter and sound when reading so that they can assemble a word from the sounds. It was stunning. She looked at me and asked "how would anyone do that?" It was revealing. It motivated her to cooperate with the OG tutoring and other intervention, and considering the cognitive skills, OG intervention lasted just a few months, and the gains have been retained.

Certainly. Collect testing reports for anything that she has had already. You can request additional testing through the public schools. Alternatively, you can take what you have to a neuropsych, and obtain additional testing. Either way, you will want both to present your suspected concern (stealth/compensated dyslexia), and be open to other possible exceptionalities (e.g., ADHD, DCD/dysgraphia). Make sure subsequent evaluators have access to prior testing, so they have better context, and don't unnecessarily duplicate/invalidate testing.

I'll be happy to look over any other data you find.
The early milestones you report are gross motor and mostly lower trunk in nature. Fine motor and upper body tone/coordination is a different animal. I wouldn't too easily assume that it was truly fine, as, if the OT didn't have the cognitive data to compare, he/she might have assumed everything was okay because it was at least 85--which would be okay if her cognition were uniformly 100, but isn't so fine if PRI numbers are well above average.

Your responses were very helpful. I had the meeting today. They are not allowed to give me their opinion as to weather I should seek more/outside testing.

The did give me the WJIII results though...The seem fine to me.

Broad Reading 123 94%
Letter word ID 122 94%
Reading Fluency 123 94%
Passage Comprehension 114 83%
Reading Vocabulary 127 96%

Broad Written Language 125 95%
spelling 116 86%
writing fluency 120 91%
writing samples 124 95%
editing 119 89 %


Broad Math 114 82%
calculation 117 88%
applied problems 114 83 %
quantitative cocpts 130 98 %

oral language Ext 128 97%
story recall 120 91%
understanding directions 113 80%
picture vocabulary 123 93%
oral comprehension 125 95%

academic skill 124 95%
academic fluency 117 87%
academic applications 123 93%
academic knowledge 87%


She also had the occupational therapist test her.

BOT -2

Fine motor precision 20 above average
fine motor integration 14 average


Beery
Visual perception 101 average


Therapist said she has beautiful handwriting in isolation but is inconsistent and forms some letters from the bottom. She said many times that teaching her to write would be frustrating and a waste of her time and that she should focus on text to speech or typing.

Dysgraphia was mentioned, but no further test were indicated.

I asked about word attack and the test was not given.

So, she is starting 45 minutes, twice a week in the gifted program with is group, research projects and presentations.

She is also starting one on one special education to help her organize her writing and math help.

She will be seeing a person to help her use assistive technology for writing as well.

She will be given extra time on state tests.

The psych said she would check on her from time to time to make sure she is coping.

Should I be looking into anything else?

My hunch is that these scores do not indicate dyslexia.

I asked the team if they suspected any further disability and they were not allowed to answer and the teacher said she has to turn her back...I think she did suspect...because why not just say... she is confident. Anyway, I'm wondering what your thoughts are..

Again, she reverses letters, doesn't know left from right. Cant track. and seems to have hit a level block in reading and writing. Can't finish anything when timed.

She was diagnosed with "specific learning disability."

Thanks so much for all your expertise.

Other things I would request.

Does she get extra time on in-class tests? (Not just the state tests.)

How well does she type? What about being allowed access to a computer to type anything that requires a lot of writing.

She is in 4th grade. Perhaps a modification that allows her to type answers to 'homework' worksheets where there is a lot of writing. I can remember my kids having assignments in 4/5th grades that were huge packets of filling in answers on worksheets based on the social studies or science texts. And I could imagine this type of assignment could take hours for your daughter and get very frustrating. Maybe someone could scribe her answers? Maybe she could do only every other problem & the teacher could provide her a key so she could study for tests.

Can you get homework/seatwork assignments shortened. I don't know about your school but I remember a lot of busywork. In math as well.. One accommodation I got out of my DD's 5th grade teacher was that she could do every other problem of the math homework.

I wouldn't worry about the 'forms some letters from the bottom'. IMO it is an outdated idea that letter should be formed from the bottom and unnecessary. As to knowing left from right, is she strongly handed? My husband is ambidextrous and because of this is not very good with telling right from left because of it.

Those WJ scores are pretty good in general. I think it is clinically significant that the OT emphasized that handwriting should not be her avenue, despite average and above test scores. Her clinical sense is telling her that there are struggles not captured by the test scores. (And her Beery VMI is a bit low, considering how well she did on the WISC-IV PRI--though it matches Block Design.) None of the tests given address phonological processing, phonetic decoding, or phonetic spelling (the subtests from the WJ that would have were not given: sound blending, word attack and phoneme/grapheme knowledge, respectively).

They are in an awkward position wrt recommending further testing, as that would be tacitly acknowledging that their initial eval was inadequate, which, on some level, it was. OTOH, the team clearly feels that she is dyslexic and/or dysgraphic, because they gave her the special ed classification of SLD, which pretty much is IEP language for dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia. (Those terms are rarely used in IEP documents. Instead, they are named Specific Learning Disability-basic reading skills, written expression, or mathematics (reasoning or calculation).) So, in that sense, the eval was adequate--because it resulted in the appropriate services for writing and math.

I would still like to see the phonological processing, decoding, and encoding testing. Ask the school first. They might do it (or they might not have the right assessment tools, which might be another reason they are hesitant about additional testing).

But great that she is getting both support and advancement. Good place to start from.

Well, Thank you for your amazing insight. I am still getting my head around this. On one hand, I am so thankful to the school for identifying her as both gifted and LD. I know that not all schools consider the gifted part. I am so thankful that they are including her in the gifted programing. On the other hand, I feel like the term "specific learning disability" might not be specific enough. They are allowing for more time, allowing and encouraging her to use type her assignments and pulling her out for direct instruction in writing and math. I really think I aught to be thrilled! But they have not addressed her reversals or her left/right confusion. I did 2 level of All About Spelling with her last year when I homeschooled. Maybe I will just be happy about what they have offered, not ask for more dyslexic specific testing and work on the third All About Spelling book with her during the summer. The school really does seem to be doing their part. I do suspect the classroom teacher has more information than she is sharing. She is very factual and wont talk much. I think she probably things dyslexia and can't say. I'm sure she has seen it before. In fact, this teacher is the former gifted teacher. Earlier in the year, she told me that the program wasn't that great in elementary school. But to make sure we get her in by middle school. Again, thank you so much for th information. I guess I am still thinking..

If they were to do dyslexia-specific testing, and she were identified, the intervention ideally would be some version of Orton-Gillingham or Wilson reading, which is the basis for AAS's home program.

Specific Learning Disability doesn't really get more specific than SLD with an academic area appended to it. There are eight:
oral expression
listening comprehension
basic reading skills
reading fluency
reading comprehension
written expression
math calculations
math reasoning
IEP software I've seen doesn't usually have a field to put the category of SLD (though it may be in the IEP somewhere, just not an obvious place).

Dyslexia, in IEP language, would be "specific learning disability in basic reading skills". Unless the phonological processing and basic decoding of unknown words testing are done, and reveal personal or normative deficits, this classification would not be supportable based on your existing testing. The primary intervention that is not likely to be available without the classification is OG reading instruction, which would be ideal to have throughout the school year, but which, yes, you could cover through supplementation with AAS.