I have a seventeen year old son who has dyslexia. He was diagnosed with it in second grade. He has gone through speech therapy classes and ese classes all during his school years. He is a senior and is graduating this May. At his last IEP we were told he was tested at a sixth grade reading level and math he was at grade 11. He was just tested two weeks ago by a psychologist for the state’s vocational education program. His test results came back and they told me all they can help him with right now is, to get him a job. They were going to pay for all his schooling. They said because he is not at a sixth grade reading level he will not be excepted into a voc. school. His test results were:
IQ - 91
Performance - 106
Verbal - 82
Math - 4th grade 8 mo.
Reading - 2nd grade 2 mo.
He is very bright and as long as it is verbal or hands on he can do it. He works on cars and does know about them. If you go by these test scores he can’t do anything. Where can I get him help. He wants to be a nascar mechanic. How bad are these scores? Any help would deeply be appreciated.
I know that I probably hurt his learning by helping with his disability. I would read things to him so he didn’t have to struggle. His friends help him with reading of applications. I now tell him he has to sound things out and try on his own.
Re: teenager and dyslexia
In addition to the names of the tests, I’d like to know the type of school(public school tech center, rehab center, community college, etc.) he is interested in attending and the nature of the training program. Does it require, for example, learning to do computer diagnostics for engine work, etc.? I’m assuming he is pursuing auto mechanics.
When you say state’s vocational education program, are you by chance referring the state voc rehab program?
John
Re: teenager and dyslexia
Over all those scores are not horrible. If he works really hard maybe he can actually raise his verbal IQ.
He may very well be college material if that is what he chooses.
Be careful with state voc rehab usually the speak out of both side of their mouths at the same time and end up doing more harm than good. Sending himto a state university cost voc rehab nothing. State Voc rehab will try to sabbotage him and will probably require he take a full load and maintain at least a 2.5 or something stupid like that.
Before he is subjected to college see what kind of accomodations are actually in place and make them prove it.
Re: teenager and dyslexia
Where I am working at a junior college, there is a ‘policy’ that students have to assess at seventh grade reading level or higher to get into the developmental reading and writing courses . However, there are “learning lab” opportunities to build specific skills in grammar and reading and Adult Basic Ed courses toward that end, as well. Unfortuantely the ABE tutors usually don’t understand LD issues well. We’ve got a pretty good mechanics program and the teachers don’t expect a lot of reading & writing.
I’d contact the schools directly (and perhaps more than one person, since sometimes the left hand doesn’t realize that there’s another left hand or right hand doing something ) — and would he be motivated to attack the reading skills at least enough to test into the classes? (If you’re in Illinois…)
Re: teenager and dyslexia
Sue, what school do you work at? Do they ever take kids that are still in high school for the developmental courses? Do they have a transition program to help LD kids get in the college mindset? I have a son with dyslexia also and I worry about college.
Re: teenager and dyslexia
“Sending himto a state university cost voc rehab nothing. State Voc rehab will try to sabbotage him and will probably require he take a full load and maintain at least a 2.5 or something stupid like that.”
ball,
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
John
Re: teenager and dyslexia
I don’t know specifics but it looks like to me that you may have a legal case against the school for failing to teach your son appropriately since he has been in the system for the last 10 yrs and is testing at such a low reading level.
Definitely repost this on one of the parenting boards, socks or one of the other folks there could probably be more helpful. At least this sounds like the description of one of the more famous sp.ed court cases I have read in my travels on the sp.ed roller coaster. Perhaps post this question to Matt Cohen on this site?
Amy
Re: teenager and dyslexia
There have been high schoolers enrolled especially in career classes in the “dual credit” option: http://www.parkland.edu/schedule/2003/9.pdf has some information (but it’s a pdf, not a web page, so it might download weird).
There are lots of transition services, though it’s still tough to work around dyslexia issues — and getting kids to recognize that in college, the teachers don’t have motivation to pass you along to make it look like they taught you. So we’ve got options for remediation but it’s a hard sell ‘cause most folks get angry at being told they need to learn the basics :(
Re: teenager and dyslexia
I thought I would tell you that the tests Ben were giving are the WAIS-III with the vocabulary at 7, arithmetic at 6, inforamtion at 6, comprehension at 7, block design at 12 and more. Overall the verbal iq score was 82 (12% tile), performance iq score 106 (66% tile), full scale iq score 91 (27% tile). Another was Woodcock-JOhnson III, letter-word identification raw 33-grade equiv. 2.2, reading fluency 25-grade equiv 2.7, calculation 23-grade equiv. 7.3, math fluency 92-grade equiv. 7.9, spelling 24-grade equiv 2.4; broad reading 2.2, broad math 4.8, broad written language 3.5.
The result from this test has put his self esteem at a low again. He said he has gone to school and tried for years. I told him he has to at least practice reading on his own every day. Now it’s time to build the self esteem up so he wants to exceed.
If you know any information on these ratings let me know. I really don’t understand all of these.
thank you.
Re: teenager and dyslexia
Did your school district have him enrolled in a program to teach him to read? What was it? I am wondering two things: 1) Did the school provide an adequate opportunity for your son to learn to read, and 2) Is there a reason for him to continue with specialized reading instruction or does he need to learn compensatory skills?
Ocmost please repost this on the parenting board. You may want to let us know what test was used for both IQ and achievement, this would help us answer your questions better. Good luck.