Dyslexia and High IQ kid

Parents Forum
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@PurplePlum @elena13 “Yes, I’m not sure that the time spent trying to get a 504 plan would be worth it. It would be important to think about what you would be asking from the school. What do you want the school or teachers to provide and would they do so without a plan, just by asking?”

Just a note of caution on just asking for accommodations without a 504 or IEP. Some teachers may be willing to accommodate without a plan. Many teachers did this for my son. It was simple things like not making him color on worksheets or letting him type note cards instead of handwriting them. When I asked his math teacher to allow him extra time, he said he could not do that without a 504. Part of that is protection for the teacher, because if he gives one kid an accommodation without a 504 or IEP then he is making a judgement call. He has no “official” reason for other parents/students who question why he let X have extra time but not their child/them. Teacher usually want to help your child succeed, but are sometimes restricted due to external pressures.

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@calmom: Lol. We were hop, skipping, and jumping in glee at DD’s ACT score because not only did she earn that score with having timing issues in general, (and having really weird timing issues on the math part, which shocked her because she had always completed the practice math sections early and as I had said, was getting perfect scores in the practice math parts), but as luck would have it, she was sick that day of the test (she started coming down with a what we thought was a minor cold/sore throat the night before, but when I picked her up after the test, she had a fever and felt awful). So, I was not expecting her to score as high as she did. Do I think she could have scored 33-34 on another day and especially if she had extended time? Yes. But as I noted above, she said taking the ACT was a painful experience for her and she made me promise never to have her take another one. And her having done so well on the PSAT-10 (99th percentile), with no prior prep, is encouraging in that the SAT may be more her test and may better reflect her abilities. We shall see. In any event, I agree with you in that I am grateful and thrilled for that 30 ACT because for a kid with reading fluency issues, the reading and science parts of that test are painful. And if she never takes another standardized test again, at least the 30 ACT is a solid score. Will it get her into Harvard? No, but then again, she won’t be applying there. :wink:

@compmom: I am looking into the Irlen Syndrome that you mentioned. I have purchased the Irlen transparencies and already she identified one color that seemed to make the text more readable. I will have her formally assessed though by an Irlen specialist. It’s funny because the more I read up on the Irlen stuff, the more her symptoms fit in with the issues that the color transparencies and tints are supposed to address. Thank you for pointing that out to me!

As to getting a 504, I do see that it may be difficult or not worth it. When I asked DD what kind of accommodations would help her in school, she said really her only problem with her in-class work is that she does not write as fast as her peers and has great difficulty in completing in-class essays for her English class and for AP World. And she said that when she has a long AP-like multiple choice test in AP World, she has trouble finishing the test because it takes her so long to read the questions. Now, I do not imagine that either of her teachers would give her more time for that without a 504 or IEP. And as even she pointed out, if she is not eligible for any accommodations on any standardized testing, then giving her extra time in her AP class will help her AP grade for sure, but will not help her on the actual AP exam, since she won’t get extra time there. So, since in her case, her AP World teacher is trying to give them a true AP experience, she does not think he will see any value in giving her extra essay time unless he is forced to. In fact, she brought in a blank index card to one of her DBQ tests in AP World to use as reading/underlining guide to help her read the articles and her teacher said he would “allow it this once” but that she will be not be able to use an index card as an aid on an actual AP test and therefore she should “not get used to using it for class tests”.

I had a long talk with her last night and read her all of your responses and she was pretty overwhelmed with gratitude that so many people who do not know her have taken the time out to write such thoughtful and helpful responses. I thank you all most sincerely.

Having read all of your responses, I realize how very little I know about LD’s and 504’s and IEP’s, etc. I have a lot more reading to do, that’s for sure.

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@PurplePlum -

If your D had a 504 or an IEP, she could get the right to type her classwork, which might enable her to finish more quickly, or to have extra time to complete a test. That’s an example of an accommodation that is tailored for a specific issue. My sons don’t type quickly enough to make use of this accommodation so they are allowed extra time on a free period to finish class assignments and tests. The extra time work is done in the resource room.

S17 is taking APES this year. The teacher sent an email before school starting saying that chapter vocabulary definitions and summaries had to be handwritten. I emailed her back, referring her to S17’s IEP, and asking if it would be okay for S17’s HW to be typed. No problem. His AP Gov’t teacher wants hand written index cards for certain things. I emailed the teacher and asked if it was okay for me to write the cards based on what S17 told me. No problem again because he has the IEP. My son’s accommodation for the AP tests are already in place.

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I think your daughter might really benefit from accommodations that are tailored to the specific needs mentioned above. She is always going to do better than administrators and SPED folks think would qualify for help, because of her giftedness, but her performance (regular meaning of the word!) and intelligence should match up, and accommodations would seem to be needed to make that happen.

I do think meeting with an advocate or lawyer would be helpful in charting a course, not in an adversarial spirit but more researching.

That said, I did all that and one of my kids refuses accommodations in college! Another one of my kids thrived ONLY because of accommodations and her life has literally been changed by their availability.

Would your daughter’s life be changed? It is not clear. You and your daughter can judge that best perhaps. In some cases, accommodations are absolutely and clearly needed, others, not so much. Good luck!

I sense this thread is ending so just slipping one more in! Good luck with Irlen- that would be wonderful if it really does help…

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I agree compmom that meeting with a lawyer and charting a course can’t hurt a bit. I did manage to locate a clinician who understands 2E kids (seems well-regarded) and who has agreed to review the evaluation report that I have and comment on it–giving me insight in to what he thinks is going on. Of course he can’t change or create a new diagnosis unless he evaluates DD himself, but I’m really only looking for feed back and to see if he thinks we missed any testing, what he thinks her issues are, and for advice on how to proceed. From what he says, I can then regroup and decide if we think we should bring what we have to an advocate or lawyer as compmom says, just to get an idea on what will or won’t fly in my state in terms of any kind of accommodation based on the current report which obviously does not contain a firm diagnosis. Of course the recommendation may be to have her re-assessed at some time in the future by a different clinician with more of an expertise in 2E. In any event, I am working on figuring out what she needs today, tomorrow, and the next day, etc. in terms of tweaks that she could use to make things better–like trying to get her the audio books and such, for example. As was said up thread, diagnosis or not, she needs to work with her strengths and learn to manage her weaknesses. We may never know exactly what her true diagnosis is, but at least now we know that it is an issue that she needs to manage going forward. And I am taking the wealth of information here with me to help get her to where she needs/wants to be.

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UPDATE:

@compmom: THANK YOU! I had DD tested for Irlen Syndrome and she has a severe case of it, according to the assessor! In fact, it was absolutely unreal to sit there and observe the assessment. It was so crystal clear which color transparencies helped her read more fluently! I heard the difference in her reading and was amazed. She needed a layer or four different colors to achieve a result that really aided her. What the assessor discovered, was that DD actually sees “rivers” in her text and some of the lines of the letters “moved”–like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=river+effect+in+text&biw=1056&bih=485&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ6ePXy67SAhVqiFQKHXflDOAQsAQIJg#imgrc=RZkMwfuDThn9wM:

No wonder the poor girl had trouble reading! And the really sad part of it was that DD thought that it was normal to see “rivers” and moving lines, and she thought that was how text was supposed to look! Yikes!

I am so glad that I had her tested! She had many of the symptoms of Irlen, especially extreme light sensitivity. She now knows what color transparencies to use and what color lined paper to use to help “calm” the text down, so that she would have to look hard to see the rivers. There are tinted glasses she can get after she tries out the transparencies for a while to make sure she likes using them. And while it is possible that she does not have dyslexia, but rather just Irlen Syndrome, the assessor said that she could also have both. So, only time will tell to see if her reading issues are resolved. At the very least, I am confident that her reading issues will be improved.

The really amazing thing that happened is that when I contacted one of her teachers to inform him of DD’s diagnosis and to ask if she could use the transparencies in his class, he forwarded my request to the school’s 504 coordinator who contacted me and told me that I could get a 504 for my daughter with an Irlen diagnosis! She told me that a couple of other students at DD’s school have Irlen Syndrome as well and receive accommodations! I really was worried that her school would not be receptive to an Irlen diagnosis and that I would have an uphill battle, but that was not the case.

And this brings me to my next question. Since I am a fish out of water with this 504 stuff, do you guys have any suggestions/comments/advice on what I should do/what should I try to get included in the 504? We are in the preliminary stages of planning out the 504 and the school has just sent me a consent form to sign for them to evaluate DD. In my phone convo with the 504 coordinator, she stated something about not being able to get DD more time on tests, etc. with this Irlen diagnosis, and I did not push her on it. I do not think she knew what a 2E kid was and I sensed that she was starting to think I was a bit crazy when I started to explain her possible dyslexia in a gifted kid. She attributed the lower grade point average in DD’s APWorld class as “that is what happens when a kid takes an AP class”, since these classes are more challenging. She did not seem at all receptive to what I was saying. Since I don’t have a formal dyslexia diagnosis, I dropped it for now and figured I’d focus on the Irlen accommodations.

I wonder, is she correct that DD could not get more time as an accommodation in a 504 for Irlen?

What else should I be aware of/ask for? I definitely could use guidance here and I do want to see an advocate/attorney at some point just to understand our rights, but for now, I just wanted to get the 504 in place for DD’s use of the transparencies.

Also, I wanted to note that I also just found out that DD sees “visual snow” similar to, but not as bad as this:
http://www.eyeonvision.org/visual-snow.html

I discovered the visual snow thing by having a discussion with her about seeing the rivers in her text and asking her a bunch of vision questions and after about 30 minutes of her trying to explain to me what she sees when she looks at something, I finally figured out what she was trying to express and googled the visual snow image I linked to above, and she said that is exactly how things look to her on a somewhat less severe scale that the picture depicts. Again, she had no idea that that was not normal. She again thought that we all see things that way. So, obviously, she has something going on in her brain in terms of her visual processing!

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The accommodations need to match what the diagnosis indicates is needed. I don’t think an Irlen “diagnosis” would qualify for anything other than accommodations related to use of filters or possible adjustments concerning lighting in the room (if there are available testing rooms with different lighting conditions) – because all the Irlen evaluation does is highlight a visual perceptual issue that seems to be resolved with use of colored filters. The Irlen testing doesn’t provide any information about processing time.

Again, with your daughter’s existing scores I think it would be hard to qualify for added time on the test, but if you want that – the you will need some sort of diagnosis that establishes something that impacts processing time.

The Irlen label establishes a need for some sort of visual assistance materials-- it’s the functional equivalent of someone needing a prescription for corrective lenses, except that she may be using colored overlays rather than specialized lenses.

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Here you go (read it carefully, breaks are included but not extra time. This will be relevant for standardized testing.)

http://www.readingandlight.com/accommodations/school

I would use this list if these approaches fully resolve the issue. If there are still reading issues, then I think other accommodations would be needed, such as extra time, extensions on work, reduced course load, that kind of thing.

Your daughter is gifted and a truly level playing field would mean she would also perform at a gifted level : )

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@PurplePlum Rejoicing that your Dd has a diagnosis! Truly, what a blessing!

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@calmom: Thank you–that definitely makes sense.

@compmom: Thank you so much for the link! It is very helpful!

@Mom2aphysicsgeek: Yes, I am very happy that we have a diagnosis and that the Irlen transparencies appear to be helping her. My hope is that she will greatly improve…we shall see how it goes!

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@PurplePlum, I just wanted to post here to thank you (and others on this thread) for nudging me to finally have D16 tested. Her results show that she has a type of dyslexia (that impacts other symbolic interpretation as well) because of a disparity between the way she (visually) processes colors and symbols. I haven’t seen the report yet, so I don’t know the details. I thought, from my own research, that she might have Irlen type issues a few years ago so she has been using colored overlays and just started using text to voice software. Now she will have access to that software for free and potentially some accommodations (if she wants them). The best thing, I think, is that she has been told (by a professional and not just her mom!) that she is intelligent and her struggles are real!

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@PNWedwonk, I may have missed it, but what type of professional did you use for the assessment? How wonderful to be able to have something in writing to begin to get proper accommodations.

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@PNWedwonk -

With each of my sons, the relief they felt on finally getting an answer was palpable. Suddenly, it wasn’t that they were stupid and lazy (though they are all still lazy), but that they had something verifiable that explained why they had trouble in school. It really helped with their self-esteem and confidence. I hope it does the same for your D.

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If colored lenses or overlays totally address the problem of slow reading rate, then extra time would not be appropriate, I would think, though extra time was on two out of three accommodation lists for Irlen Syndrome and extra breaks for standardized tests was on all the lists. I think an expert in Irlen and/or on the ADA/504 plans would know.

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@sbjdorlo The tester has a PhD in Special Education and Higher Ed. Administration and his dissertation was on Learning Disabilities in Higher Ed. I picked him because he had been an Academic Dean at D’s LAC working with students with learning and physical disabilities. He went into private practice (he said) because he spent too much time monitoring legalities and not enough time working with students to increase their capabilities.

At home, I probably would have found a NeuroPsych PhD, but choices were more limited and our goals were different for D as a college student than they would have been when she was younger.

I had a long skype-versation with her tonight and she talked me out of bad-momming myself re not doing this when she was seven. We are thinking that her need to develop coping skills was a plus. But I do think I should have done it by the time she hit High School. Seven might have been good too. :confused:

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Good to know. Thank you. I will look into that for my youngest son, 12.

Were it that easy, we all would have figured out our 2E kids years ago. I understand mommy guilt. My middle son, 19, was like an onion as I peeled off the layers to get to the core of who he is, and cried a lot during the process.

Diagnosed with unilateral hearing loss at age 9
Diagnosed with depression, math disability, writing disability and slow processing speed at age 10 1/2
Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at almost 11
Diagnosed with severe convergence insufficiency at 11 1/2; began therapy
Diagnosed with OCD and anxieties at 12 1/2
Diagnosed with a worsening hearing loss at 15 and had a tube put in and a hearing aid fitting at 16.
Diagnosed with no improvement on vision disability after 4 years of therapy at 16 1/2, and had eye surgery.
Diagnosed with dehydration tendencies at 16 1/2 after going to urgent care 3 times in a year for dehydration (we got this one figured out, and it hasn’t been a problem for several years-yeah!)

Wanna exchange mommy guilt stories? :stuck_out_tongue:

Retesting at 18 confirmed the math disability, the writing disability, and the very slow processing speed. Eyes could use surgery again, but he’s adapting well enough and he doesn’t wear his hearing aid. Teens are awesome! :slight_smile:

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@PNWedwonk : I am so glad that you have found out exactly what your D’s issues are. And please don’t feel bad that you did not have her tested sooner! It sounds like she was able to develop some solid coping skills–which is what my D is working on, especially since her issues are not fully addressed by the Irlen overlays.

I am so glad that this thread has helped you and that your D will be able to get accommodations if she chooses!

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@PurplePlum I haven’t read the whole thread yet. Did you find an assessor? I recently found Dawn Kinard through the Gifted Development Center and Barbara Gilman. They are non-profit and specialize in 2e. If you get the online newsletters and magazines for Dyslexia,Gilman’s name pops up. Her passion is advocating for 2e kids. My kid got tested through them and for the next test they want me to use Dawn for her speciality in Dyslexia. We have already communicated a lot. I have also consulted with Nicole Ofiesh in Menlo Park, CA over Skype. She specializes in college-bound kids with LD. I got her name from the authors of the Dyslexic Advantage by Drs. Eide and Eide.

My kid is younger than yours by a couple of years but I am starting to put together what he needs for college apps and tests.

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I’m an older psychologist. I no longer do testing. To keep current with the equipment can cost $8-10,000. When I worked In psychiatric hospitals, I had my choice of what test to pull. I was doing at least one full evaluation a week. Easily, 20 hours. Plus, I wrote my MS thesis on tests. Two of my advisers are famous in the field. People can do a full year post-doc in speciality areas, like the NS program at Yale. In my locale, I have gotten to know who is good at what. I try to recommend accordingly. The psychologists that I know who,do testing almost do this exclusively. I think nothing of recommending someone in a city 1 1/2 hours away.

Just wanted to add another perspective.

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@bookworm, when you say 20 hours, I assume you mean your time? (Including the evaluation and report?) D ended up completing about 10 hours of testing which seemed like plenty. (Especially for an older student with a fairly clear diagnosis.)