Result! An Educational Psychologist who understands.

We had the most fantastic education psychologist today. She wasn't frightened of using the word "dyslexia". The WISC IV IQ test was redone with some extra subtsets, we are awaiting the write-up. She had a copy of the letter we wrote to the current SENCo (see below) , it was great that he shared that with her. Matthew still has a gap between his reading and spelling and his age but it is moving upwards with his age.

Matthew most definitely has dyslexia- I could have cried, the first person who has not skirted around the issue whispering Specific Learning\difficulties, it could be this or that.

She believes he is a bright child who should NOT be in set 4.

Her 1st task is to write a pen-portrait for all his subject teachers with possible accomodations, this will be the 1st time they will be given his diagnosis of dyslexia.

She is going to tackle the Set 4 problem, but says she has had stand up arguments with teachers (HOYs and school managers) who won't accept that Dyslexic children should be in higher sets. She stated thar poor basic skills should not be a bar to higher sets. She says don't expect him to move overnight, but if there are 2 or 3 teachers who will stand up and say Matthew should be in a higher set then she stands a chance. I'm sure a good few of his teachers will agree in light of his "new" diagnosis.

Can you believe we are still fighting this battle after a diagnosis when he was 7.5 yrs old- bizarre!

Bean Bag Tossing

OK, not perfect, but great fun!

3rd Follow-Up Assessment

Click on the assessment for a closer look.

(for those of you that have come in late see Dec 17 2006 blog entry for explanations)

We are all delighted with these scores, we have no repeats of any exercises. We seem to be moving on to the next phase- getting into the green for a few visits. These results seem to back up the progression we are seeing.

Parents Evening

Firstly we visited the Language Support Teacher, who was very pleased with matthew's progress. She commented that when she first had him in Oct 2006 she had to sit next to him to egg him on, now she has given him work and wandered off, rushing back to find him keeping up and studiously doing it. She does dictation with the group, and sometimes he can't get it all down due to Dysgraphia and poor short term memory, but he is not doing to badly and getting the hang of it. He is getting all his spelling correct within the lesson.

The class teacher however knows there more than is coming out on paper. She is going to concentrate on him within a group of children she is going to target for the next term. Her best pupils cannot improve much more, so the others are to be pushed for their best. I am happy with this arrangement, she still wants us to try for 1:1 again.

Lastly we saw the SENCO. We gave her our concerns she has asked for 1:1 again, and is going to phone the Ed Psych for a within class/playground assessment to detail how Matthew learns within the class environment and how he interacts with the other children on the yard. She said if this fails we will have to apply for a statutory assessment which could lead to a Statement of Special Needs.

Our First Dore Assessment

We had our first assessment today 8am. We arrived early and met the manager there. We did the posturography test first.

Posturography Test

1 + 2.) The first 2 were standing still 1 with eyes open, then with eyes shut. The platform under foot was not moving.
4 + 5.) Test 4 was eyes open, platform moving, and the final one was eyes shut, platform moving, thats the one with no score.

The sensory analysis results are calculated values for the 3 balance senses and a composite value, as each test on posturograph is a mixture of the 2/3 balance senses.

Oculomotor Test

This was done in a dark room, electrode pads were placed on Matthew's forehead, and he was linked to the computer. A red light them moved smoothly, and also jumped around. Matthew had to follow them best he could.
Smooth Persuit (Eye Tracking) - Significant Difficulty was found
Saccades (Random Eye Movements) - Outside normal limits

Dyslexia Screening Test

Following these tests a Dyslexia Screening Test was undertaken. I was not present for this, Matthew was also asked at this point what he would like to improve.
Matthew's raw score for the Dyslexia Screening test was 2.89 on a scale of 0-3.0.

0-1, no/low risk

1-2, moderate risk

2-3, significant risk

On the report it just stated that Matthew had a risk factor of >1.0 and was at significant risk (age adjusted score).
The things that Matthew wanted to improve were

1. Copying off the whiteboard




2. Listening skills




3. Writing

After this we saw the Doctor who tests for primitive reflexes and talks you through the test results. She then recommended that should have the therapy as they could help Matthew because he had very definite signs of Cerebellar Development Disorder. (I agree)