Our Lockdown realisations

Two mums reflect on lockdown and how it prompted them to pursue dyslexia identification for their children

Jacqueline’s story

When Chloe was struggling to retain what she’d just learned, mum Jacqueline turned to Dyslexia Scotland for guidance

It was a complete relief for my daughter once she was identified as dyslexic. Chloe’s dyslexia journey started in March 2020. When the UK went into lockdown, all of a sudden I had a part-time teaching job. What became evident pretty quickly to me was that Chloe was struggling with her writing skills.

Chloe could answer questions verbally but putting the answers down on paper involved a massive level of concentration. Her attention levels could only last for a maximum of 20 minutes and Chloe would often feel overloaded even at the age of 8 with trying to complete all the tasks on the Seesaw learning platform.

I noticed when Chloe wrote, the b and d were interchanged and often written back to front. The instructions from her teaching aid Lexia of “first the bat and then the ball” and “first the drum and then the drumstick” would work but not without a considerable amount of repetition. Chloe also didn’t respond well to Lexia, much preferring one-to-one coaching by me; often Lexia would have a more detrimental affect on Chloe’s learning.
Chloe could sometimes form, spell and construct a sentence perfectly then couldn’t within a 30-minute period after. I started to question myself, was I teaching her correctly?

I knew Chloe was creative and had some incredible ideas for stories but the issue was getting these ideas out of her head onto paper or typing on a laptop. I then looked at the Dyslexia Scotland website and realised that potentially Chloe could be dyslexic.
When school eventually re-opened, we asked for a dyslexia assessment for Chloe. I think (I’m not certain) the wait time was around 8 months, then there was another delay after we went back into lockdown again.

But Chloe was eventually identified as dyslexic and also dyscalculic, and a support plan was put into place at school, first in her primary school and now her high school.

What I have found invaluable is the one-to-one tutoring of a dyslexia tutor recommended by Dyslexia Scotland. Chloe’s tutor Yvonne provides coping strategies and gives her confidence which have been vital to Chloe’s educational progression.

Emma’s story

Emma’s journey to understanding her son’s learning needs was blocked by many hurdles – but connecting with Dyslexia Scotland has opened new pathways

Our son, Fiachra, has autism (diagnosed age 10) and dyslexia (identified age 11). Our journey to identifying our child as having dyslexia highlights the challenges that co-occurring conditions can play in the identification journey. Fiachra had early challenges in relation to speech and language, but our concerns were dismissed.

Challenges became more apparent during the Covid-19 lockdown. I think this is when many of us realised that there was something going on with our children, in the sense of feeling alienated when parents referred to home learning as ‘difficult’, listed their reward strategies, or shared their tactics.

For us it wasn’t difficult, it was impossible. We are parents not school teachers, and certainly not teachers with specialist training in supporting neurodivergent children. Fiachra was in P2 when lockdown commenced, and P3 when the second wave of school closures took place. In the short attendance window in-between, his headteacher and class teacher identified that he had literacy challenges, and we completed the first checklists for dyslexia. His teacher also felt there was something else going on, but she wasn’t sure what.
Throughout the second lockdown, we gave up on formal learning, and spent the weeks watching television, getting outdoors, playing computer games. After the reopening of schools we could see Fiachra was still struggling.

Getting the right help

My husband reached out to Dyslexia Scotland to seek a tutor and a wonderful, experienced, retired additional support needs teacher started working with Fiachra via video call at first and then in person. Quite swiftly his tutor raised with us that she thought there was more going on than just dyslexia. At the start of his P4 year, he was referred by our GP for ADHD. This is where things slowed down. At school, everyone was behind, because of the impact of Covid.

Fiachra was happy and engaged but was masking at school. His class teacher was supportive but Fiachra attends Gaelic Medium Education (GME). Children in GME generally get their formal dyslexia assessments later, as they learn to read and write in English at a later stage of primary school.

It became quite evident that there was not parity between the resources available for dyslexia in English and Gaelic. This was when I got involved with Dyslexia Scotland’s Branch network via the National Development Officer Lena Gillies, and we started to work together to improve the dyslexia resources available for GME – but that’s a story for a whole other article.
Fiachra had an initial CAMHS assessment via video call in April 2021, at which we were informed that they were referring him under the autism/ADHD pathway. This affected his dyslexia assessment, as local authority policy where he attends school is that a child cannot be assessed for dyslexia while they are on the identification pathway for autism/ADHD, due to ‘crossover’. This is a policy I believe is inappropriate as the conditions often co-occur.

At the start of P5, Fiachra received speech and language intervention, which identified significant word finding, memory and processing difficulties. His school implemented support on a needs-led basis. The other children in Fiachra’s year group had their assessments and received dyslexia identifications in P6. Fiachra was in P7 before he obtained his, after he had been formally diagnosed with autism 7 months earlier (and not ADHD).

There was, evidently, no need for his formal identification to have been delayed. Our journey is easily summed in the words of the principal teacher, who called to let me know the results of the assessments: “It’ll come as no surprise to you that Fiachra has dyslexia.”