Conflicted about Eval?

[Shelsi]

I just posted a thread asking about the costs of evaluation and now I'm even more on the fence!

 

How often is it that a child may have many signs/symptoms of dyslexia but end up out growing it? Ds, 8, has a lot of the signs on the Barton list. Honestly, for the most part, it was like reading a description of my kid. However he reads above grade level, he can spell slightly above grade level, and I don't really feel like we'd change much school-wise. His writing, both handwriting and composition, is definitely behind however he's grown leaps and bounds this school year. He learned cursive and it's made a HUGE difference. He also has developed much more writing stamina. He'll actually write 2-3 sentences without tears now whereas last year anything more than 1-2 words ended in tears and frustration. We're working through WWE1 and he was able to formulate a complete sentence on paper without help for the first time on a geography worksheet.

 

This will prob sound horrible regarding my dh but I feel like a dyslexia diagnosis for ds would be most helpful in our home life. Dh gets so frustrated with ds for his "quirks." I think dh would be more understanding on why ds is so intelligent but then can't get some really simple concepts or follow directions (or know his left from his right).

 

How hard is it to get a dyslexia/learning disability diagnosis later on in life? For instance if ds went to regular high school and we discovered he needed some accommodations would it be harder to get an IEP? His quirks don't seem to affect his school work much, except for the writing but like I said even that is getting much better.

 

Also ds says that sometimes his brain thinks in reverse and letters switch around on him. He'll often write a word, reversing 2 of the letters, realize what he did right away, erase it, and then write it backwards again, realize it immediately, and usually he'll get it on the 3rd try. However it doesn't happen with numbers at all? Is that typical? He's really good at math although he couldn't memorize anything by rote until this school year (more of that leaps and bounds growth I'm seeing). He used to reverse his numbers when writing them but I haven't seen any of that this year and he can do more mental math than I can (and I was a math minor in college).

 

Do you think it's ok to wait another year and then re-evaluate on how he's grown this year and decide on evaluation? Or wait til high school and see if he even needs it? I'm not convinced he'll need accommodations in school since at home he finishes his school quickly & easily for the most part and is able to do most of it independently.

 

Thoughts?

 

And FTR, dh is not against the evaluation at all. We just have a bunch of expenses right now (moving in 1.5 weeks and just sold our house at a loss) and like the title says I'm conflicted because I feel like academically nothing would change for us at the present since everything we're doing is working.

[momsuz123]

I'll be watching this thread, as my 7 /yo dd is possibly dyslexic. I had a speech therapist friend do some screens on her - some she failed, some she passed. My concern is what if I don't get the eval, work like a dog and get her help now. Then years down the road, would it be easier for her to get accomodations and such with an official dx? If we teach our possible dyslexic kiddos enough, will they still be dyslexic down the road? I think you are kind of thinking the same thing. Good luck.

 

Did you see this screen/test? www.lexercise.com

Edited October 27, 2012 by momsuz123
added something

[Lecka]

I am starting to see that my son really does seem to have dyslexic traits.

 

I have done early remediation and he is reading on grade level, but he is still missing little words. He is still making mistakes with words from the Dolch list. It is not going away.

 

But he is reading!!!

 

I think for him right now, it is good for me to try to understand him by reading about dyslexia.

 

But he is in public school, and while public school works, I don't think an evaluation is necessary.

 

I think I will be able to see in plenty of time to get needed accomodations, how fast he is going to be able to read. If he is going to need accomodations for standardized tests, he is going to need it in school before that, very likely.

 

I am afraid I do not wonder so much about him improving so much with remediation that he might no longer be able to qualify for a diagnosis. I wish I did, though. He can do phonemic awareness now, but he does make an occassional mistake, and it is not effortless for him. He still makes mistakes, sometimes, by reversing some letters when he sounds out a word and then blends it, or when he spells. He can correct his mistakes, he gets it, he does not always do it, but it seems like it is still there.

 

Then so far -- he has trouble memorizing his math facts, and his handwriting is not good and has a lot of reversals. But those are not big deals.

 

He also has great comprehension and a great memory, and can piece together intricate details of things in a good way.

 

Last year I was asking -- does he have dyslexia if we do early remediation and it works? A lot of people said, it does show up, reading is just one thing. I do agree with that statement.

 

But everything seems better now, b/c he is reading as good as he is, and it is obvious he is good at things that are not rote, and that is already counting for more even in 2nd grade, compared to how little it counted in Kindergarten, and it will just count for more and more, and rote count for less and less, as he gets older.

 

edit: Overall I think he is going to need to be evaluated, but I think now is not the time. I think we will do it before he is out of elementary school, though.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Lecka

[Crimson Wife]

There is such a thing as "stealth" dyslexia, which is something I'm keeping an eye out for with my DS. My cousin has it and wasn't properly diagnosed until college. He is "twice exceptional", and the giftedness helped him compensate to a certain point. My aunt kept getting told that "no one is good at everything" whenever she sought help for my cousin. Finally, he got to college and was no longer able to compensate. Turned out he is dyslexic and once he got help for that, he was able to finish his degree.

[Shelsi]

Interesting. I'm so torn! I feel like I need to decide now whether we're going to do it this year or hold off a year or two because we need to re-enroll in our FSA next month and figure out how much will go into it for the year. Without the eval we'll only do maybe $500 whereas with the eval I'll put more like $2500-3000 in there.

 

So, in theory anyways, if he's dyslexic it should show up in testing no matter when we do it? If that's the case then I think I'd like to wait a year since school is going well & that would give me some time to get settled in our new state & network a bit on who to go to and who to avoid.

 

There's a way to get it done through the school system too right? We're moving to FL and I think I read somewhere that they can be difficult in trying to get testing done.

[Lecka]

I hear different things about whether it will show up after a remediation program.

 

Some people say it can be hard to detect after they have gone through a reading remediation program.

 

Personally I have got some records for my son, because he has done the Dibels screening at his school and he had an evaluation when he started private speech therapy. And then I have his IEPs.

 

So a year ago, I felt like, if he does get completely remediated on his phonemic awareness but still have some reason to get diagnosed, I would have my bases covered.

 

This year I feel like, it looks like he is going to show no matter what.

 

But I have seen people post things saying that they think kids should be tested before starting remediation, and that it can be missed afterward, if a kid does do really well in areas that have been remediated.

 

Honestly I do not know enough about the testing process to know this.

 

It is not a question I have had to ask, because I do have the records from speech therapy. But at this point I think he would show up anyway. But I do think my son was really on the severe side with that, and so for a lot of kids it might not show up. It is a legitimate thing to look at. There are definitely people who post saying you should go ahead and do testing for that reason. I don't know, though.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

Interesting. I'm so torn! I feel like I need to decide now whether we're going to do it this year or hold off a year or two because we need to re-enroll in our FSA next month and figure out how much will go into it for the year. Without the eval we'll only do maybe $500 whereas with the eval I'll put more like $2500-3000 in there.

 

So, in theory anyways, if he's dyslexic it should show up in testing no matter when we do it? If that's the case then I think I'd like to wait a year since school is going well & that would give me some time to get settled in our new state & network a bit on who to go to and who to avoid.

 

There's a way to get it done through the school system too right? We're moving to FL and I think I read somewhere that they can be difficult in trying to get testing done.

 

Do you have to decide the amount upfront for your FSA? For our HSA, we put money into the account as needed with a max allowable for the year.

 

I wouldn't make a decision like this when you're stressed and trying to move. You haven't even really nailed concretely why you're doing it, and with the move you don't have any lead on a psych. I think if you get to your new place and make friends in the homeschool community there and get connected to someone who knows a good psych, this will sort itself out. You'd learn more than just his phonological processing in a neuropsych eval, so YES it would be helpful to you to get the evals. Yes it would probably make a huge difference in your home life. (it did ours) But would I be stressing about that when I'm trying to move?? No, lol.

 

Put the money into the account so you can get the eval later. It sounds like when things settle down, you're going to want it. To me, in your shoes I'd also be asking about vision evals. I'd probably up that FSA amount a bit further to plan for that.

[Shelsi]

Do you have to decide the amount upfront for your FSA? For our HSA, we put money into the account as needed with a max allowable for the year.

 

 

Yes, FSA's are a pain in the butt. Not only do you have to decide upfront how much to put in, you don't get a refund if you don't spend it all. So if I put $1500 in there and we only spend $1000 that year then we lose the extra $500. They don't roll over like an HSA.

 

This move puts a kink in the works but at the same time we wouldn't even be able to think about getting this done without the move. If we wanted it done around here it'd be at least a 4 hr drive to a neuropsych. It's just too bad that the FSA open season falls right in the middle of our move - we'll have only been in FL for about 2 weeks. I think we might push it off a year.