I told my ds that he has dyslexia.

[Renee in NC]

He was HAPPY!:001_huh:

 

He said at least now he knows *why* things are so hard for him - it isn't because he is stupid.

 

He is ready to start Barton (this one did pass the screening.)

[LizzyBee]

My middle daughter was 11 or 12 when I figured it out and told her. I could see the relief on her face. I've read that kids who aren't given the correct name for their LDs will self-label, and she absolutely did that. When she was in 3rd grade, she would pull her hair and call herself stupid. I pulled her out of school to avoid that kind of thing and it still happened! It took me a long time to figure out that she's dyslexic because she read within the normal timeframe, although much later than her older sister. I finally got The Mislabeled Child book, and the dyslexia chapter could have been written about her except for the reading part. Before that, I read an article by a journalist whose dyslexia was confirmed by brain scans; he didn't have difficulty learning to read, but he can't spell worth a darn. Once I pieced it together, we had her evaluated to confirm that I wasn't out in left field.

 

OTOH, my 7 yo, whose dyslexia is much more severe, is just confused when I talk about dyslexia. When she was tested for APD, she didn't pass any part of the testing, and one test couldn't even be administered because she did so poorly on the practice questions. But as we were walking to the car, she said, "Mommy, I think I got them all right." I just thought to myself, "No self-esteem problems here!" :001_smile:

[Renee in NC]

Lizzy Bee, my 8yo sounds just like your 7yo!:D

[Laurie4b]

That is so typical and so why it's important for us to continue to gently get the word out that "labels" are not the enemy. Having a disablity that is self-labeled and which is not remediated well is the enemy.

[WishboneDawn]

That is so typical and so why it's important for us to continue to gently get the word out that "labels" are not the enemy. Having a disablity that is self-labeled and which is not remediated well is the enemy.

 

Ditto. I was 15 when I learned I had ADD and wasn't simply lazy or stupid. Some of the worry over labels from well-meaning parents just makes me crazy. Take a moment to look at it from the child's perspective and the possible good it can do becomes fairly obvious.

[Mom22ns]

My ds will tell you he has autism. He is on the spectrum and I didn't try to explain the spectrum when he needed an explanation of why he was different. It replaced labels like "stupid", "different" and "bad"; and he hated autism instead of himself. We look at having an ASD as something that makes certain things harder for him, so he has to work harder and overcome it. It isn't an excuse, just an understanding of why some things are harder. People label, whether they admit it or not. If you don't give the right label, the affected child, other children and adults around them will make up their own labels and they will not be good ones. Using the right label is stress relieving, guilt relieving, most of all, empowering.

[Maria/ME]

It was a relief to all of us when we found out my dd10 had convergence, tracking issues. And then when we went to OT and discovered mild Sensory Integration issues. She was relieved, we all were....to figure out why her brain does things different and how it affects her whole body! Hooray! We didn't have to feel like we weren't just "clicking" or "doing enough"....and we learned how to work with her better! Win/Win!

 

Hooray for getting the piece of the puzzle that helps your family!