Guest Blog: Hilary Laxson of The Dyslexia Life
When my daughter was three years old, we saw early signs of her struggle learning to do age-appropriate milestones. She had most of the symptoms listed on fact sheets of Dyslexia. She struggled to write any letters, let alone her own name. She did not learn to tie her shoes till age 7. She couldn’t write numbers. She often appeared lost with the directions we gave her.
It is possible to identify a child with dyslexia or Specific Learning Disability in reading, writing or math, as early as three to five years old with a properly trained neuropsychologist, child psychologist, or developmental pediatrician.
1 in 5 people are dyslexic. In a typical kindergarten with a class of 30 kids, almost an entire table of kids would be dyslexic and require specialized instruction in the general classroom. The way we teach in most public schools does not address the whole table of dyslexic kids because we don’t use multi-sensory instruction to help learn all aspects of early education. The more time you spend in the world of dyslexia the more people you will find with similar stories. 50 percent of people who have ADHD also have dyslexia. Dyslexia is passed at a rate of 50 percent between parents and children. Parents are often the ones to raise the alarm about their children and suspected learning disabilities long before any licensed professional notices.
Are you worried your child might be dyslexic? Here is a list of symptoms compiled by the Yale Center on Dyslexia and Creativity.
I got into Dyslexia advocacy to make sure what happened to my active-duty child in public school did not continue to happen to other active-duty kids. As a military family, you deal with many issues not typical to normal American lives like repetitive deployments, PTSD, separation, stress, and many other issues. The resources that were available to my child either from Tricare or public school were not openly offered or shared. We spent almost 9 years in Coronado, CA before moving to Georgia in public schools. Most of that time I didn't have a tribe who understood this world I lived in with a dyslexic child.
A military family can spend, on average, 2-3 years in one place. Managing continuation of care, whether medical or educational for a special needs child, creates a large burden for families who move so often.
If Dyslexia is not diagnosed until age 8 or later, remediation requires 3-5 hours a week, with one-on-one support, depending on which multi-sensory reading program you use AND It will need to be done in a special education setting in most public schools. The amount of remediation is largely dependent on the severity of your child’s dyslexia and what other co-morbid diagnoses they have along with dyslexia. There are minimum requirements of any dyslexia intervention program and they vary largely
I grew up in a medical family and did not know how to help my child at the beginning. When we thought she was having trouble we just hired a teacher to work with her at school. We hired our first tutor at age 3 to work on penmanship, letters and numbers. Unfortunately, after years of living in the dyslexia world I NOW know I pretty much wasted our money. We did not hire anyone who had any kind of degree or certification which focused on dyslexia cases and multi-sensory reading, writing, and spelling instruction. We hired special education teachers in both Hawaii and California, but none of them had any training using a multi-sensory program to help a student with dyslexia. We didn’t know our right to have an evaluation at public expense in our local school district at no cost to us. You have the right once a year to request an evaluation for special education at no cost to you. Even the multiple pediatricians we saw in three years at Base never offered or suggested to send her to a neuropsychologist, developmental pediatrician, speech-language pathologist, or child psychologist for additional testing.
The best way to change your child’s story is to act early and do something. Early intervention can be started as early as 4 if you even think you might have a problem. Most special operations households experience even more deployments, separations and stress than your typical active-duty family. Anxiety and dyslexia exist together often and it becomes even more important to do something quickly to change your child’s path.
Early intervention can be done at home with a parent or in a preschool program that uses early applications of phonemic awareness. Early phonemic awareness is learning how words are broken down. The easiest way to explain this is by using an example, take the word “SAT”. If you can remove the “S” and replace it with “M” we have “MAT”. Can you remove the “T” and add a “P” and get “MAP.” If you can’t do this by age 5 it is a red flag for reading problems.
Another way to catch Dyslexia early is mandated screening of all kids in all 50 states every year from K-2. Until this becomes the law a parent can use a screener online. Here is a list of screeners compiled from The Gaab Laboratory by Dr. Nadine Gaab at Boston Children’s Hospital. A dyslexia screener does not identify you with dyslexia it only indicates if you have some of the markers of a reading disorder and may need a formal evaluation for dyslexia or further testing by either your local school district or from a licensed neuropsychologist, child psychologist, developmental pediatrician, or speech-language pathologist.
Dyslexia is a lifelong struggle. Even someone who is remediated will have challenges their whole life. This is why it is key to find your own support. This support can be from other parents with dyslexic children, support groups, hospital support groups, and organizations like SEALKIDS,
Want more help, support, or community? Join my free group, Warrior Parents of Dyslexics, on Facebook.
Free download to Request an Evaluation for Special Education
Here is a link to download a sample letter to use to request an evaluation for special education services from your local public school district. It should be emailed and mailed to your principal and head of special education services at the District Office.
Hilary Laxson was a Coast Guard spouse for 12 years and has been in the military community since 2000. She graduated from the University of Denver in 1999 with a BSBA in Finance and obtained a graduate-level paralegal degree in 2000 from the University of San Diego. She has a child with severe dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Her family started going to Coronado in the 1980s and moved to Coronado after college. She spent time in California, Georgia, and Hawaii as a Coast Guard Family member. She has a child in high school with severe dyslexia and other learning disabilities. She’s the parent volunteer for Decoding Dyslexia Military for Georgia and actively involved in advocacy for active-duty families in the State of Georgia. Last February, she attended “Say Dyslexia” Day in order to help bring more attention to dyslexia in the State of Georgia. Georgia passed SB48 “the Dyslexia Law” in 2019. She runs a parent support group on Facebook called Warrior Parents of Dyslexics for parents all over the USA who need help navigating the world of dyslexia. When she’s not helping parents with dyslexic children, she works full time as an online business consultant and business manager.