Reply to request sped eval for 7 year old with reading difficulties?

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[quote=Anonymous]I have a child (now about to graduate college) who had the same profile (including ear infections and significant family history) -- the early ear infections and speech delays are a significant piece of the puzzle. That, together with the ADHD, caused my kid to have language processing issues that made learning to read very hard, even though he technically wasn't dyslexic.

Make sure that hearing is 100% now & you might also want to ask for auditory processing disorder testing.  Even though my kid's hearing tested fine, he has a very hard time discriminating against background noise and sorting out multi-speaker conversations (which is basically the background environment in school all the time).

FWIW, we were in MCPS and had to pull him in 3rd grade and put him in a school that offered explicit dyslexia appropriate instruction in reading. He did learn to decode, but it would have been better if I'd gotten a dyslexia reading tutor in 2nd grade instead of 4th grade.

You are right that families shouldn't have to do it, but part of the problem, IMO, is, frankly, that schools do not actually teach reading with an evidence-based instruction.  And most of the "support" is just the same (crappy) reading instruction but with more attention and someone nudging the student to give the correct answers, and when the student can't, they are written off as "stupid".

I'm a tutor, and every year I come across a high school student with undiagnosed dyslexia.

FWIW, I would definitely ask for an independent educational evaluation after the school provided child study.  I also regularly encounter parents whose testing has been poorly done or where the tests actually show a problem but the narrative says there is no problem. You need an IEE, especially if you are experiencing "blurred boundaries" between your school role and your kid's needs.  You don't want to have to criticize the school study, you want an outside professional whose testing you can point to in support of your position.

Also, you mention ADHD medication.  That is not something you need to share with the committee, and the presence or absence of ADHD medication is not a consideration.  The law says that students must be evaluated and considered as if in their "unmitigated" state, i.e. how would they be performing if they weren't on meds for ADHD.

I can tell you that, while meds help, they are not a magic bullet that will enable your kid to read.  He likely needs very specific instruction that your school is not qualified to give (because very few public schools have dyslexic-appropriate instruction and even if they do they frequently don't provide it with the intensity needed.) [/quote]

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