For parents with children with dyslexia and/or dyspraxia

My DS is 6 1/2 and has just been tested through SPELD for a specific learning disability. It looks like we are dealing with dyspraxia with dyslexic tendencies. He starts SPELD tuition next term and is getting reading recovery help at school.

At the moment he is young enough to enjoy the learning and all the "extra" attention he is getting.

Hi Teo. We've just been for another neurolink and he said things were much improved from last time and we probably won't need to go back again - unless we want to. I think we might just before the start of next year.

He did think we had a candida problem and that can affect brain function so we are off all breads/yeast products and minimising sugars. The strange thing is that we don't eat a lot of either (DP does though )but my grandmother was susceptible to fungal infections (internal and external) and he did say that some people are more prone to them so that might be genetic. So back to crackers, wraps and hot meals for lunches I think.

We noticed huge improvements within a month after starting SPELD. Definitely at the end of the first term when I was still frustrated at the slow progress (impatient me) looking back to where we started and where we were at then, we had actually achieved an awful lot.

Hi Creamosa - funny you should mention the Candida thing, as a couple of weeks ago our SPELD tutor was off to a workshop/conference on candida infections and how they affect learning etc. Lets hope you notice an improvement soon.

We start our first SPELD session next Thursday. He will go from 9am until 10am on Thursday mornings so back at school by 10.30 with minimal disruption.

How old is your son? what year is he at school? My DS is year 2 this year and will be 7 in March. He is showing a great improvement in his reading even after attending some reading recovery. His handwriting and formation of letters needs a lot of work though.

Our kids are the about the same age. I have no idea what year at school though - we are at a rural school and all the classes are composite classes. I don't understand all this year stuff either, I'm from the primers, standards and forms era. I still think we are working at NE's level though and being a composite class I think takes off the pressure when a child is obviously so far behind, as there is always someone else that will be at that level. I've found boredom/distraction/not quite understanding what is required affects the handwriting, although letter formation improved markedly after the previous neurolink.

Does dyslexia always mean a child is behind in reading and comprehension or can they also be far ahead and still be dyslexic?

There are gifted children with dyslexia twoloops.

It's not definitive but this page has a lot of the signs http://www.speld.org.nz/is-my-child-dyslexic.htm Unfortunately I can put a tick next to nearly everything on the list

Sorry to hear creamosa, I can only put a tick next to a few.
Confusion with right/left.
Misreading or omitting common short words, was as saw, writes bog and gob for dog.
Slow, laborious oral reading ( but that maybe because I make her reread if she reads the words wrong )

May do well on weekly spelling tests, but may have many spelling mistakes in daily work
May misread numbers, will read and write 18 as 81
Still does letters especially numbers backwards but it isn't an everyday thing one day will be fine the next will have a lot of backwardness .
I have comprehesion problems I read instructions over and over and still do not get the meaning hence why a lot of my posts don't make much sense.

With DD2 I can tick a lot of the oral language and other problems but she is 3.

twoloops have you tried brain gym exercises to help? I had a heck of a job finding someone that would teach me them - and then I find out that most of the school's teachers have done a course but then they don't bother putting it into practice

Also have you been to a behavioural optometrist to check if there isn't some sort of eye/brain communication issue?

Left and right confusion is pretty common - I remember stuffing that up when I sat my drivers licence

Teo how did lesson 1 go? Our tutor was pretty pleased we hadn't forgotten anything during the holidays.

Not sure if being off sugar/yeast has helped - lot's of tummy aches as the moment - hopefully it's just the detoxing.

Hey Creamosa, unfortunately lesson one got cancelled as tutor's husband ended up in A & E, so first lesson will be this week. Will be talking to her about tummy aches also as DS has these a lot and we have been to the GP about it who gave him some granuals to take "to get things moving". They certainly did get things moving, so much so that I could not risk giving them to him during the week when he had school as I think he would die of embarrasment

Twoloops, when we got our son assessed through SPELD the results and information you get is overwhelming at first, but for us it certainly answered some questions. We were told our son showed more Dyspraxic signs with some dyslexic tendencies. For the skills that were tested we were given a percentile ranking against other children the same age - his general intelligence was ranked at 95% yet is academic skill was ranked at 8% - so we now understand why he is getting frustrated !! If you are worried, possible get a SPELD assessment done. Is this school able to help with any information?? you to have to be that pushy in your face mother to get anywhere I am afraid.

Hey guys, thought I'd jump in here and give our story
C was late speaking, always had major issues with loud noise (steam trains, parades, fireworks, ... all the stuff most kids love) couldn't work out the alphabet and sounds, had difficulty with instructions. A whole bunch of stuff and we never really connected all the dots.

When he got to school he simply was incapable of understanding the letters and sounds and really the worst thing we did was send him at 5, we should have waited a year. His school in NZ was great though, they worked hard with him and the environment suited him so although he didn't speed ahead, he coped and was very happy there.

Then we moved to Australia and everything went downhill fast, he was well behind with reading (which we knew) and writing and the teacher wouldn't give him the time, the teacher was a yeller which distressed him more than it would most kids, he couldn't cope with the noisy classroom environment. After a number of meetings between myself and the school they referred him for the WPSII 3 test done by an educational psychologist. He was also miserable, really really miserable, just not himself at all, he was telling me he was dumb and he couldn't learn and he was stupid etc all the time.

In the period between doing the test and getting the results he had a very mild dose of chicken pox, which meant that although he was perfectly well, he had to stay home and I worked with him during that time.

I met with the special ed teacher and the educational psycologist and went through the report. They wouldn't label it dyslexia because they don't use that word, they call it learning difficulties, and then went through all the results. He probably has Auditory Processing Disorder and it was suggested to me that he go for more testing, he has issues with sequencing and short term memory along with other weaknesses and also a number of things that he was really really strong in. The trendy word for that these days seems to be Twice Exceptional or 2E.

I showed the teachers what we had done at home when he had CP and they told me they couldn't replicate that at home. At that point it was confirmed in my mind that I would pull him from school, although I didn't say that at the time. The teachers were given a host of things they had to do to allow him to cope, and most they did but some they didn't. Soon after I notified them I would be homeschooling from the following year, I was planning to homeschool him for a year to catch up. Anyway, he got more and more distressed about being at school and in the end I'd just had it one particularly bad day and I never sent him back again.

He has thrived at home, the anger and distress just visibly melted off him, he was a different kid by the end of the week! He is completely caught up educationally, ahead in many things, he is happy and learning and things are great. After the first year we felt we'd be crazy to send him back again.
I've never had more testing or any intervention done because it hasn't been necessary.

We are currently doing long division and the area of triangles and trapezoids for maths. He gets the theory behind it really well, but just can't consistently remember the steps. It's the first time where his sequencing issues are showing themselves as a problem that we can't just work around. I need to sit and read my Overcoming Learning Difficulties by Barbara Pheloung and Jill King again then formulate a plan. I have homeschool friends who have had to remediate for this too, so lots of help and support. At this stage I don't plan to see anyone, but it may come to that.

Anyway, that's where we are at currently My journey is a little different to you guys as we have turned our backs on school, so that makes life in dealing with these issues much simpler.

I'm totally the wrong temperament to do this at home myself.

I was told (after we got the appointment) we could've been referred to Child Development Services and had the assessments done for free.

Really the SPELD assessment confirmed what I had already suspected from age 2. It just helps with all the blasted teachers that kept saying - "oh no it'll come". It's no wonder the nation is dumbing down. I don't know why they are so adverse to catching issues early when it's been proven that the earlier you work with the better. Not that the school has any money to assist with extra aid anyway...........

Teo. I seriously recommend a neurolink session. I know it is more money but you will soon know if the tummy aches are connected to the stress of behind at school or whether it is something different. I'm astounded what the guy told me from just a few taps and pressure on the arms and legs. Truly weird - but has been so beneficial for us.

I'm not saying this to try to convince you, because I'm not out to make converts and I'm very much a "do what works for you" kinda girl...

I thought I didn't have the right temperament too, I thought I wouldn't have the patience or organisation etc. In the end I had no choice, I took the plunge because I had to for C's mental health. I found to my surprise that I enjoy it and it's a lifestyle that suits our family.

Oh there are many things I can teach successfully to a lot of people - I have surprised myself and done a few lectures. But a 6 year old to read, count, try to recite a simple nursery which we can repeat ten times a day for nearly 4 years and still not get word perfect - I am just not cut out for it. I'm probably too much by rote and not imaginative enough to think of alternative methods to teach something simple to a strong willed highly active mini-human. The SPELD teacher says my little one keeps her mentally challenged, especially in a non-cooperative mood.

I was going to call and speak to SPELD this week but wanted a little background. Could someone tell me at what age they do the SPELD assessments, how they do them and what the cost is?

We still worried where my SS is school-wise and we've been talking about paying to have him properly assessed, providing that's alright with his mother.

Thanks so much.

Check out the old thread in the over 5's forum Myfanwy.

Your DSS is probably a bit young for the assessment. The tests are the Woodcock Johnson tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Woodcock Johnson tests of Achievement with some extra SPELD tests tagged on the end.

The cost of an assessment varies between SPELD regions as each region relies on f/raising and charitable donations with the balance made up from membership subs and how much the assessor charges in fees. So no straight forward answer for you

I have known there was something wrong from about age 2 and after two terms at school we only knew 6 words reading) . I was fobbed off initially by SPELD because of the age, however a new tutor moved into the SPELD district and she was willing to work with kids that were too young for formal assessment.

There are things/concepts in the assessment that I think a child needs top be mature enough or have enough school time under the belt to understand. We relied on the tutor to tell us when we should book in the assessment. Don't just be limited to SPELD, there is Danks Davis and ??? (sorry alzheimers kicking in) as well. The costs per lesson vary. Both Teo's and my child were assessed at 6 and after sitting in on the assessment I don't think it could've been done much earlier. For each segment of the test the assessor demonstrates what is required - sometimes it's oral, sometimes visual, sometimes words, sometimes pictures - and they may have to spot/say what is similar, the odd one out, the same etc. As the child completes each page correctly they get harder and harder until the child can't progress. They also tested handwriting - copying and also writing a sentence spoken orally by the examiner (spelling didn't matter). Finally there were some coordination exercises - skipping ball catching and throwing etc. It's a pretty full on 3 hours or so. Some/most of the exercises are timed.

What I would do in your case is talk to a teacher (at school or one you may know) who has done the Brain Gym course and ask for a copy of the exercises. Failing that the library or a kinesiologist. A lot of people told me to do "crossing the line exercises" but then didn't explain them in a way I understood, paying someone to demonstrate them worked for me. We don't remember to do them every day but I've adapted them so they can be done as "tricks" on the trampoline or a fun thing to do as a mirror image of each other. The other thing is ball sports for coordination - soccer, swingball, cricket etc. - even just simple ball catching and throwing on a regular basis. Also balance beams, gymnastics, ballet, dance classes, martial arts are good at improving coordination.

I would also look at a behavioural optometrist as an early port of call - it may be something simple like Irlens which is the problem and that can be easily rectified by wearing coloured lenses. There are a heap of issues though that can be picked up that can be picked up in kids with perfect eyesight. The assessor told us that vision therapy isn't really successful because of the huge commitment that parents need to make time wise. My Dad's DP's grandson has tracking issues and his parents have been battling all year with the exercises - and it's only supposed to be a 10 week thing.

What a novel - hope it helps.

The sooner you get onto it before the brain patterns get too hard wired I think the better off you are, hopefully his mum will come on board with you.

On a personal note we have just started reading level 7 today. lots of tears of frustration at all the "hard words" though.

Thanks for that. He's 6 next month so maybe we hold off until the beginning of the new year... He has been at school for three terms and knows less than 10 words, has trouble writing to a line, can't write many words, although can form all his letters and copy okay. His drawing is also far behind that of the other kids in his class.

He has a great vocab though and is good with numbers. He certainly isn't lacking in intelligence. I just find it so frustrating when I know that he could do this if we could just work out how to teach him. Anyway, I'll check that other thread, thanks again.

I would ring SPELD and see if they have someone willing to work with him anyway. I don't know what the waiting list is for an assessment in your area (SPELD area) but Teo managed to get in within a couple of weeks in Auckland but nearly a month for the report. In my area it's nearly a 6 month wait but we were lucky to get an appointment just 3 months out and report was back in a week. So it varies. If you wanted him to start something next year I'd be talking to them today. Not sure where you are in Wellywood but the contact numbers are here http://www.speld.org.nz/contact-us.aspx

Do find out about brain gym and you and his mum should start doing the exercises. Only takes 5 minutes a day and makes the left and right brains talk to each other. Oh and jigsaw puzzles are good. We get them quite often with our SPELD homework, 20 pce ones? - but not with the tray underneath so they have to work it out from the corner and edge pieces. Child and tutor do it together first at the lesson so the child has an idea what the finished picture is.

I am so with you on the frustration.

Our tutor went through the new progamme just released by http://www.learningstaircase.co.nz/steps/ and we had a play on it. She suggested we should get it for the month free trial period and by then she would have had a decent play with hers and have decided whether to incorporate it into her lessons or go with different software. If you have the latest SPELD newsletter it has the details on how to get the free trial - otherwise it's $160. She did say she had a few problems with installation on her computer and the help desk people talked her through the issues.