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How to get child tested for dyslexia uk


Dyslexia - Diagnosis - NHS

The earlier a child with dyslexia is diagnosed, the more effective educational interventions are likely to be.

But identifying dyslexia in young children can be difficult for both parents and teachers because the signs and symptoms are not always obvious.

If you're worried about your child

If you're concerned about your child's progress with reading and writing, first talk to their teacher. You may also want to meet with other staff in the school.

If there's an ongoing concern, take your child to see a GP. It may be that your child has health problems that are affecting their ability to read or write.

For example, they may have:

  • vision problems, such as short-sightedness or a squint
  • hearing problems as the result of a condition such as glue ear
  • other conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

If your child does not have any obvious underlying health problems to explain their learning difficulties, it may be that they're not responding very well to the teaching method and a different approach may be needed.

Dyslexia assessments

If there are still concerns about your child's progress after they have received additional teaching and support, it may be a good idea to have a dyslexia diagnostic assessment.

This can be carried out by an educational psychologist or an appropriately qualified specialist dyslexia teacher.

They'll be able to support you, your child and your child's teachers by helping to improve the understanding of your child's learning difficulties and suggesting interventions that may help them.

Find out more about diagnostic assessments from the British Dyslexia Association.

Requesting an assessment

There are various ways to request an assessment for your child, although it can sometimes be a time consuming and frustrating process.

The first step is to meet your child's teacher and their school's special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) to discuss your concerns and any interventions that have been tried already.

If your child continues to have difficulties despite interventions, you can ask for them to be referred for assessment by a local authority educational psychologist or another specialist in dyslexia.

Or you can approach an independent educational psychologist or another suitably qualified professional directly. 

You can find a directory of chartered psychologists on the British Psychological Society's website.

You can also contact a national or local dyslexia association for help arranging an assessment.

The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) has an individual assessment service for children and adults.

The assessment procedure

Before the assessment takes place, you and your child's school may be sent a questionnaire that asks about your child and related issues, such as:

  • the general state of their health
  • how well they perform certain tasks
  • what you think needs to change

The assessment itself may involve observing your child in their learning environment, talking with key adults involved with your child's learning, and asking your child to take part in a series of tests.

These tests may examine your child's:

  • reading and writing abilities
  • language development and vocabulary
  • logical reasoning
  • memory
  • the speed they can process visual and auditory (sound) information
  • organisational skills
  • approaches to learning

Read about managing dyslexia for more information about educational interventions that may help.

What happens afterwards

After your child has been assessed, you'll receive a report that outlines their strengths and weaknesses, with recommendations of what could be done to improve areas they're having difficulties with.

Depending on the severity of your child's learning difficulties, it may be possible for their difficulties to be managed through special educational needs support, an action plan drawn up by their school and their parents. Read more about special educational needs support on GOV.UK.

In a small number of cases where a child's difficulties do not improve and progress does not seem to be made, you may want to request your local council do a fuller assessment that covers all aspects of your child's development, called an educational health and care (EHC) assessment.

If the assessment shows your child needs more special education support, they may have an educational plan made for them, known as an education health and care (EHC) plan.

This sets out what your child's educational needs are and the support required to meet those needs in a document that's reviewed formally every year.

Find out more information from GOV.UK about children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

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Page last reviewed: 07 March 2022
Next review due: 07 March 2025

School Won’t Test for Dyslexia.

What Should I Do?

This is a frustrating position to find yourself in and can leave parents undecided about the action that should be taken. This is also a real danger point for your child as a lot of parents don’t take any further action, believing that the teachers at the school know best. They often only receive 1-2 days training on Specific Learning Difficulties such as dyslexia so it is not surprising that they don’t always recognise what they see.

This can lead to your child struggling through their school years, the BBC reported in February 2020 that some Specific Learning Difficulties were being missed by schools and leading to those children being faced with exclusion because of the deterioration in their behaviour through their frustration with not being taught in a way they can access.

If you would like to discuss whether a private diagnostic assessment is appropriate for you, please contact me for a free 15 minute call.

There are reasons why schools won’t test for dyslexia which often have nothing to do with your child’s progress.

  1. There are costs to the school once your child is recognised as having dyslexia.

At this point, your child’s education will fall under the SEND provisions as well as being covered by The Disability Act 2016. This means that the school has to take action and provide your child with the correct interventions to help them succeed academically.

If your child is not recognised as having a Special Need or formally as dyslexic then they are not covered by these statutory acts and the cost to the school is less.

School budgets are being squeezed in real terms and as one headteacher told me recently, ‘my school can’t afford to have too many SEN pupils’.I was talking to a parent recently too who told me that her child’s teacher wasn’t allowed to suggest to her that her child may be dyslexic, they had to wait for the parent to mention it first. They still wouldn’t screen for it, but suggested that she pay for a private diagnostic assessment.

  1. Your child’s teachers may not have enough experience and training to recognise your child’s problems as dyslexia (including the SENCO).

Research by the National Union of Teachers has shown that the majority of state school teachers lack the confidence to identify pupils with dyslexia. I would cite this as a major hurdle to overcome when trying to get your child’s school to carry out a dyslexia screening or assessment.

Teachers do form opinions about children, especially if your child’s frustration comes out as bad behaviour in school. It has been shown in studies that teachers cannot always get past the behaviour to see why it is happening and formulate a plan to help your child learn.

  1. Your child is not struggling as much as others in the class.

Your child may be getting frustrated and not reaching their academic potential, but they may be just about at ‘age appropriate levels’ or just below.

This could be well below where they should be performing, but schools are not looking at your child as an individual, but as part of a particular school class. Don’t forget that they are deemed to be doing their job if your child hits ‘age appropriate levels’ at the end of Year 6.

You can see from the reasons above that there are political and behavioural angles to why your child may not be tested for dyslexia at school, despite them struggling with some of the basics.

You now need to consider what you should do next.

You may not be feeling very confident about taking further steps, especially if you view your child’s teachers as the professionals who should know and they keep telling you not to worry. However, I would urge you to take further action and I have listed my top 3 ideas for what you should do next.

  1. Make an appointment with the SENCo and present your evidence as to why you think your child may be dyslexic.

Never take no for an answer! It can be very difficult for a school to refuse a dyslexia assessment if you provide really good evidence for why you think your child may be dyslexic.

Spelling is a key area where dyslexia shows up, more so than in reading skills. If your child struggles to learn their spellings, can’t remember them the following week or spells the same words differently within their writing, then these are key flags.

They may also struggle with putting their ideas down in writing and sequencing ideas correctly.

Dyslexia can show up in reading with a child not being able to sound out words or being able to blend sounds into whole words. They may get to the end of a passage and not be able to tell you what they have been reading about.

In maths, dyslexia can show up with trouble in learning their times tables and being able to work out word problems.

In older children, they may keep on getting bad exam results despite seeming to put in a lot of effort into their learning and issues with writing are continually flagged up.

If your school is refusing to test for dyslexia, ask them to explain their reasons for this in light of your evidence.

  1. Talk over your fears with a specialist dyslexia tutor.

A specialist, like myself, understands the type of problems that dyslexic children have, including the lesser known aspects such as how working memory or processing speed affects academic performance.

I offer a free 15 minute call with a parent about their child’s difficulties and I have also set up a free Facebook group where you can also receive help and advice from me – you can join this here.

  1. Arrange for a private formal dyslexia assessment to be done.

You can contact me here to discuss this option.

Many parents have to resort to paying for an assessment themselves. It is often the first time that you have your concerns taken seriously.A formal diagnostic assessment explores your child’s learning strengths and weaknesses and checks whether the difficulties conform to a definition of dyslexia.

Most importantly, you will take away a detailed report which makes full recommendations for the steps your child’s school needs to take to move their learning forward, which also means you know what they should be doing.

This makes it much easier for you to discuss your child’s needs from a position of strength with your child’s teacher and SENCo – they can no longer fob you off by saying that your child will catch up on their own!

A full assessment will take about 3-4 hours, I currently charge £450.00 which includes gathering background information from you and your child’s school, the assessment meeting and then a full, detailed report together with a follow up to talk about the contents if required. Many parents in my Facebook Group say that obtaining a full diagnostic assessment was the single best thing they did to help their child.

If you would like to find out more about this or book in for an assessment then please click here.

Will an assessment mean that the school puts more help in place?

Many parents are put off doing an assessment for dyslexia because the school says it won’t change what they do in terms of helping your child – but the reality is that they actually do change how they help.

There are many ways a school can help your child in the classroom for free and in my diagnostic reports I advise them how this can be done. These changes can be a great help for your child and may be all that is required to help them progress at school.

Your child may need extra time in their tests and exams so that they are not discriminated against and a formal assessment is often the way of showing a school who doesn’t believe you that your child does need this. Your child’s teacher will also learn from the report whether your child struggles with verbal instructions; whether they need their learning broken down into smaller parts or whether your child takes a bit longer to process what they have to do and then be advised how to overcome this.

Your child’s teacher(s) will no longer be ‘in the dark’ about how your child learns and they can plan how they can then help effectively. These are a few reasons why many parents say that a diagnostic assessment was the best thing they did for their child.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss a full diagnostic assessment – these have to be done face to face and I am based in Essex, UK.

#dyslexiaassessment #dyslexiascreening #privatedyslexiaassessment

 

Dyslexia and how to help a child? Interview: Sue Flor, British Dyslexia Association

Updated: 07 Feb, 2020

health Helpful Hints

Today we're talking to British Dyslexia Association Political Director Sue Flor about how parents can recognize dyslexia in their child and what support they can provide.

The next in our series of interviews with educators is an interview with Sue Flor, MBE and Political Director of the British Dyslexia Association. For over 40 years, the British Dyslexia Association has represented the ten percent of people with dyslexia in the UK. The organization aims to spread awareness about dyslexia and promote public policies that support dyslexics, both in and out of schools. nine0003

We contacted the British Dyslexia Association to learn more about dyslexia and how parents and educators can help dyslexic children.

So, Sue, let's start with a very simple question - what is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability, something that prevents a person from reaching their potential. Usually, dyslexia is diagnosed with signs of weak short-term memory or an underestimated speed of information processing, which affect performance. nine0003

What are the early signs of dyslexia?

It depends on the age. We believe that signs of dyslexia can be detected as early as preschool age, but it is very difficult to get a diagnosis before the child goes to school, because only at school the child's literacy is checked (a control test is given at the age of six). When assessing the abilities of children at the age of six, it is very difficult to understand whether someone is lagging behind in development, because this is only the initial stage, but signs of dyslexia in a child can be detected very early if he has difficulty learning nursery rhymes, is not able to concentrate, sit quietly while reading stories or have difficulty learning to sing or recite poetry. If kids mix up words and say things like "par cark" instead of "car park" or forget their friends' names or how to play games, these things can be early signs of dyslexia. nine0003

Poor sound perception is another symptom of dyslexia. We may think it's funny when young children pronounce words differently, but it really shouldn't be funny, it's a cause for concern. Dressing backwards, failing to put on shoes, and failing to catch or kick a ball are also signs. Our website provides a complete list of signs of dyslexia for parents to review. In general, early signs of dyslexia can be detected at a fairly early age. nine0003

Is dyslexia genetic?

Scientists believe that yes, dyslexia is genetically transmitted, however, it can manifest itself in different ways in members of the same family. I have five children and all have different signs of dyslexia. One may have problems with visual perception, and the other also, but really only because she uses one eye more than the other for other reasons. That is, all this is a combination of various factors, we cannot say that dyslexia is transmitted at the genetic level and everything is determined by this. nine0003

At what age can a formal diagnosis of dyslexia be made?

Usually this is the age of seven years, it is quite difficult to determine it earlier, because children are still developing.

How can parents support a child with dyslexia?

Parents can help by showing their love, support and care, and especially by strengthening his self-esteem, which should never fall. Identify things your child is good at and focus on those. This is necessary so that the child knows exactly what he is strong in, does not feel hurt or worse than anyone. It can be art or sports - everyone has their own strengths, so be sure to help your child find them and give him all the best support. nine0003

What support can dyslexic children receive at school? Are all children with dyslexia given extra time on exams?

Parents should look for this information on websites or other school materials, talk to the school and see what they have to offer. Everyone has different manifestations of dyslexia, so not every child will need to work with a specialist. In many ways, this will depend on how the child copes with the school curriculum, whether he lags behind it. nine0003

Regarding extra time during examinations, it is not automatically determined for all dyslexic children. The decision is usually made by the school's Special Education Specialist, who assesses the situation and makes recommendations. If a child really needs extra time during exams, it will definitely be given - and the child does not need to be dyslexic.

What do you think are the biggest myths about dyslexia? nine0014

Probably a myth that dyslexia is a problem with reading and writing. Dyslexia is a much more complex phenomenon and can have an impact on a child's time management or organizational skills, memory, perceptual speed, and more.

UK Study Center would like to thank Sue Flor and the British Dyslexia Association for their time.

How to identify dyslexia in a child, where to go and examples of famous dyslexics

If your child spells wrong, reads haltingly, and faints at the thought of going to school, don't rush to hire tutors. Maybe he just has dyslexia.

“In the third grade, the teacher advised my parents to transfer me to a special school. She said I have retarded development syndrome, ”Maria Parfyonova informs me, as soon as we sit down at a table on the roof of the Bardeli bar, in which the daughter of journalist Leonid Parfyonov and culinary specialist Elena Chekalova successfully works as a manager. Parfyonova Jr. has been developing public relations without any delay in the trendy 15 Kitchen+Bar, and she is also trilingual and easily conducts secular discussions about history. But Maria is dyslexic. Like every tenth person in the world. nine0003

“Even today, few people know about dyslexia, and in my childhood, they didn't hear about it at all,” says Maria. “At school, they didn’t consider me a person: “Twenty-two mistakes in dictation! Well, what can we take from her?” Only one teacher ventured to suggest that Masha was not just lazy or lagging behind in development, and advised changing the public school to a private one. Her parents transferred her to the Golden Section. And then the girl was diagnosed with dyslexia. This is the name of the violation of the ability to master reading and writing while maintaining the ability to learn. nine0003

A dyslexic perceives text as images, in other words, sees pictures instead of words. Words that do not cause him visual associations, he simply skips when reading. Often, by the end of a sentence that other children can read with ease, the dyslexic is exhausted from nervous tension. It is almost impossible for him to retell what he read. Also, dyslexics do not see errors in the spelling of words and numbers. Often such a child swaps letters or numbers: for example, when solving a problem in arithmetic, he writes “5 +5 = 01” or draws “E” in writing in reverse. It is especially difficult for millennial children: in the era of social networks, Grammar Nazis lie in wait for dyslexics not only in Russian lessons, but also on Facebook. Maria Parfyonova, for example, stopped writing posts with adverbial phrases. “I don’t know how to coordinate them,” she says. “And people comment: “Nature has rested on you!” Such oddities infuriate unprepared teachers and overly ambitious parents. “My acquaintances with dyslexia - now successful adults - told how their fathers in anger kicked out the doors of children's rooms, broke desks. They thought the child was just being lazy,” says Maria Piotrovskaya, founder of the Moscow Association of Parents and Children with Dyslexia. Naturally, they fell into a deep depression. Teachers are no better: trying to make the student catch up with the rest in terms of performance, they forced him to read aloud under a stopwatch. It's a huge stress for a child." nine0003

Maria Piotrovskaya herself, former head of the board of directors at Renaissance Credit Bank, left the world of finance and audit when her daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia. Maria tried to figure out what it was. It turned out to be easier to reduce the debit to the credit. In Russia, only speech therapists and neuropsychologists can tell about dyslexia with knowledge of the matter - narrow specialists, to whom they go in the direction. In the system of education and social support, dyslexia was also not heard; at the legislative level, the rights of dyslexics are not protected in any way. Maria opened her association in October with the support of Ruben Vardanyan and his charity project Philin. The initiative was supported by GITIS, since dyslexia is a common diagnosis in people of creative professions. And the State Hermitage, which is headed by Maria's father Mikhail Piotrovsky. Now the museum is preparing a program for schoolchildren, built not on memorizing texts, but on visual images. nine0003

Every tenth person in the world suffers from dyslexia. But there are no official statistics and schools for such children in Russia.

“Our main task now is to explain to teachers and parents that if a child receives low grades, this does not mean that he is lazy or does not want to study,” says Maria. - The next task is to help change the legislative framework. To be sure that tests for dyslexia are carried out before entering elementary school and moving to middle school. We are also working to ensure that the school has teachers who are certified to work with such children in the lower grades - for starters. At least one per school. Diagnosis is usually made between the ages of five and nine (in England, diagnosis is made at age four). So the sooner teachers start working with such a child according to a special scheme, the more likely it is that he will graduate from school perfectly, he will be able to realize himself in any profession, avoiding psychological problems. nine0003

“Dyslexia is considered to be inherited. But our experience shows that this is not necessary,” explains Inessa Khvostova, Managing Director of Lucullus Educational Consultants. - By the way, it is more difficult to identify dyslexia in girls than in boys: apparently, because they are more successful at hiding problems with their studies. That is why it was previously believed that the risk group was mostly boys.

To demand changes in Russian laws, we need statistics. She, of course, is not. “We go to schools ourselves,” says Maria Piotrovskaya. - Not only in Moscow, but also, for example, in Chechnya and Ingushetia. In these regions, there are also many schoolchildren with dyslexia, in addition, education is bilingual, and this is an additional burden for children.” The association is developing teaching methods for children with different perceptions, which are going to be transferred to the Ministry of Education. The luminaries of science are working on it: psycholinguist Tatyana Chernigovskaya, neuropsychologist Tatyana Akhutina, vice-president of the Association of Speech Pathologists of St. Petersburg Alexander Kornev. And Piotrovskaya and her colleagues conducted free master classes called “Underachievement is curable” in five secondary schools in Moscow. The teachers came and honestly admitted that in every class there are underachieving students with characteristic features. nine0003

Parents come to the association's small office on Gogolevsky Boulevard. The center “Club Intellect 135” operates there, where a neurologist of the highest category, Gullzhan Sakbayeva, works with children. She still has few wards: most mothers, having learned about the diagnosis, pretend that everything is in order, they just need to hire tutors. Or they disown dyslexia as a deadly disease.

“I stopped posting gerunds on Facebook. And people comment: “Nature has rested on you!”

Alexandra Shishmareva, a student of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, also has dyslexia. At the master classes of the association, Alexandra acts as a speaker. “As a child, I truly hated school,” she says now. - It got to the point that she began to get sick with everything that was possible, just not to go to class. The godmother sent me to St. Petersburg to the candidate of psychological sciences Elena Nikolaevna Chesnokova. For ten days, from morning until late at night, she worked with me according to the adapted American Orton-Gillingham system. For example, we sculpted the letters of the alphabet from plasticine - first from A to Z, then from Z to A. When I returned to school, my literacy gradually improved. Last year, Shishmareva received high scores at the Unified State Examination in Russian and Literature and eventually entered the history department of Moscow State University without exams. nine0003

Despite the best efforts of volunteers and philanthropists, there are no schools in Russia that specialize in teaching dyslexics. Even in the advanced Golden Section, where they took on the daughter of Leonid Parfenov, there is no individual approach to such students, says Maria. “Nobody gives you extra time on tests,” she says. - Because then the parents will come and ask: "Why is Masha allowed more than my Vita?" Although in the "Golden Section" there were still many advantages compared to a regular school. For example, I studied Russian not with the class, but with a speech therapist, three times a week. With the teacher of the European Gymnasium, Maria Markovna Kazbek-Kazieva, Parfenova developed literacy: “She has her own methods for memorizing spelling rules. Maria Markovna pulled from a deuce to a four in a year. Two more years and I would start to write normally in Russian.” And the stories of Sergei Dovlatov helped the girl learn to read: “He writes the way people say. Also, reading his prose aloud, you can practice intonation - there are no long sentences, like, for example, Tolstoy's. nine0003

In the United States, dyslexia is considered a "special feature". This is the definition given by the National Institutes of Health and the International Development Association. Dyslexia is included in the Education with Disabilities Act, which is in force in thirty-seven states.

In the UK, dyslexia was introduced into the Chronically Ill and Incapacitated Persons Act in 1970. In 1987, the European Dyslexia Association was founded in Brussels, representing the interests of dyslexics in the European Parliament and UNESCO. “When I left to study in Europe, I was in shock,” recalls Maria Parfenova. - At the City University of London there is a disability center where they work with you. For the UK, this is an absolutely normal story. By the way, I must say thanks to the Golden Section school: in a letter of recommendation from there, they wrote to me that “due to the imperfection of the Russian education system, Maria’s grades are lower than they could be.” nine0003

Secondary education in the UK is based on either the A Level system or the IB program. The latter is better adapted for teaching children with special needs and more suitable for dyslexics. In Moscow, for example, the European Gymnasium, the MES, the Anglo-American Gymnasium and the President School work according to the IB system. “In history lessons in an ordinary Russian school, events are told according to the textbook, concisely,” explains Maria Parfenova. - And in the IB system (I studied it at school in Italy), students are recommended to use visual materials as much as possible. For example, while studying the history of the Cold War, children watch a real American propaganda newsreel. Then a visual comparative analysis of events is made. I can now draw this sign from memory. nine0003

The sooner a child is diagnosed with dyslexia, the more likely it is that they will not have problems with learning and socialization in the future. “A child with dyslexia is extremely difficult to learn if the education system is built around reading, writing and remembering large amounts of information,” says Leslie Shaw-Wall, director of Foremarke Hall Repton Preparatory School in Derbyshire. “In Britain, various programs have been developed to educate such children.”

Angered dads knock down the doors of children's rooms, break desks. Teachers force the child to read under the stopwatch. nine0081

First, the degree of dyslexia is determined: minor (several characteristic features), mild, moderate, severe. Children with a severe form are usually sent to private schools that specialize in working with dyslexics. “But in fact, there is no need to apply to special schools,” says the director of Foremarke. “Most dyslexics study in regular schools – in the UK there are regulations that require an individual approach to the education of children with disabilities and special needs.” Dyslexics are given twenty percent more time on tests, and they take exams in a separate class. nine0003

It is important to know the main thing about dyslexia - it is not a disease, it cannot be cured. It is called "the gift that is always with you" - so poetically Ronald Davis, founder of the Center for the Study of Reading Problems in Burlingame, once called dyslexia. Often dyslexia is indeed a gift. Children who read and write with difficulty often have well-developed non-verbal thinking. They master many skills much faster than their peers and show creative abilities, such as an exceptional ear for music. They differ in sociability, often succeed in painting. nine0003

“According to Fernett and Brock Eide, authors of The Benefits of Dyslexia: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain, people who can’t focus on the little things tend to see the situation in a complex way, to imagine how processes will develop over time,” says the head of the London office of the educational agency Connexus Academic Advisors Vlad Konyashkin. Seeing relationships that elude others is another virtue of dyslexics. Pay attention to how your child draws conclusions. Dyslexics are distinguished by the ability to reason when the facts are not enough or they often change. Adding three-dimensional spatial perspectives is easier for dyslexics. In the future, they can work in the field of design, architecture, be engineers, builders, inventors, organic chemists. ” nine0003

But even if the child is still out of tune, playing the twenty-fourth capriccio of Paganini, it is definitely not necessary to give up and take him out of school. After all, Steve Jobs was also diagnosed with dyslexia. And mathematician Alan Turing, who deciphered the supercomplex German code during the war. And even the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Winston Churchill.

8 signs your child may have dyslexia

“Most people think that dyslexia comes down to the inability to read and write,” explains Vlada Konyashkina, head of the London office of the educational agency Connexus Academic Advisors. - It's a delusion. These children face other challenges as well.” nine0003

A dyslexic differs from a child with low IQ in that:

1. He lacks organizational skills.

2. He has trouble doing things sequentially (for example, a child has trouble doing a math problem because they confuse the order of steps in a solution).

3. There are difficulties with the perception of time.

4. The child is constantly distracted.

5. He often has mood swings.

6. When reading, it seems to him that the letters are moving, and he confuses their sequence. nine0003

7. There are problems with the speed of information processing and memorization.

8. It is difficult for a child to build complex sentences with a complete thought.

Dyslexics remember information better if it is presented in the form of concrete examples or stories from life, rather than abstract reasoning. For example, your child is likely to remember perfectly well who and what gave his sister for her birthday two years ago, but not his class schedule.

Where to run

How dyslexia is diagnosed and where special children are taught, says Inessa Khvostova, Managing Director of Lucullus Educational Consultants. To diagnose or rule out dyslexia, a child is asked to listen, read, and remember sequences of words, numbers, or colors. Thus, short-term and long-term memory, the ability to analyze information, the level of attention and concentration are checked. They will also offer tests for logic, for reading comprehension, for verbal and non-verbal thinking, as well as tests for intelligence. nine0003

However, dyslexia does not imply a lack of intelligence and does not put an end to education and career. For example, my dyslexic husband is an architect. He can only draw if he listens to an audiobook. And I, for example, can’t listen to audiobooks at all: attention is scattered.

No two dyslexics are the same. Dyslexia manifests itself differently for each person: one with dyspraxia, the other with attention deficit disorder.

Recommendations are based on test results in each individual case. The school is chosen the same way. For example, the More House school in Surrey, England is suitable for children with a complex form of dyslexia: there they study a maximum of five subjects instead of the generally accepted twelve, and besides, teachers teach them overtime. nine0003

Seaford School in Sussex and Bryanston School in Dorset work well with medium uniforms. Almost thirty percent of the students in these schools are dyslexic.

Even Eton and Winchester Colleges will accept students with a mild form of dyslexia (there are eight percent of such special students). Children are engaged with the teacher individually or in mini-groups.

Famous dyslexics

You don't have to have an A in penmanship to go down in history. nine0014

Richard Branson

Founder of the Virgin Group and top business role model in the 2000s dropped out of school at sixteen but wrote nine motivational books. Everywhere there is at least a line about dyslexia. Knowing his peculiarity, Sir Richard surrounded himself with professionals who excelled him in academic excellence, and delegated most of his authority to them. And he began to come up with new projects. Branson has neither a certificate nor a diploma so far. But there is a fortune of almost five billion dollars. nine0003

Michael Phelps

The number one swimmer has the record number of Olympic medals. And in the children's medical record - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyspraxia (disorder of the motor apparatus, in which there are problems with coordination).

Steve Jobs

Dropped out of school several times and only lasted one semester in college. I never really learned how to write and read. And, probably, that is why he gave humanity a phone that can independently select words in messages. nine0003

John Lennon

Entered teachers into a stupor by not being able to spell a single word, confusing consonant words and writing, changing letters in places. Now these texts are sung all over the world.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

The irony of fate: the poet, whose poetry is torture for dyslexics, himself suffered from a text perception disorder. Hence the stanzas "ladder", and ignoring punctuation marks. Reading to Vladimir Vladimirovich never came to fruition: materials for his poems were collected by Lilya Brik.

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