All About Dyslexia

[mahes_gopal]

Its a paradox when parents complain that educational therapist charge three figure per hour. When there therapist like me are doing it at affordable two figure rates even middle class parents can afford. Higher end places like MSL and me were trained in the same organisation and have the same amount of experience. The only diffrence is one is a money making entity and me I do it purely for passion and monetary rewards are secondary. BUt when I keep fees affordable parents have this suspicion whether you are good. They rather pay three figure and go there as they believe that more expensive is better.

[cnimed]

nani:

I read this topic with interest and had cover page 1 till date. Would like to know how do one define or draw the line between lazy vs learning disability?


Eg. If a child is above average and do not require learning support in school even to the extend of being in the gifted class,how would he/she be affected by dyslexia? Stating from a point that being dyslexia is not inter-related to one's intelligence.

Other than going for a test (which is costly), is there any other way one can diagnose if a child has dyslexia?

you need to go for test for diagnosis. School referrals for the tests are not costly. For gifted kids with dyslexia, look up \"stealth dyslexia\". An indicator for further investigation is if there is a big desparity between verbal IQ score and their written output. They can often 'cover up' to do as well as average kids without dyslexia at the lower levels but will start to struggle later on. Gifted kids with dyslexia can read through context and higher level comprehension skills. However they may be very poor at reading if you actually make them sit down and read word for word. These kids are harder to diagnose and their handwriting difficulties may be more obvious than their reading difficulties. They should be remediated like other kids.

[cnimed]

As JonC said, lazy kids can do it with some effort using conventional methods. Learning disabled can’t do it even if they hit their head on the table. They expend a lot of effort for little results and you find you need to look for alternative methods of teaching. Gifted kids with dyslexia can master strategies that help them overcome deficits but the underlying deficits can still be detected occasionally if you are aware of it.

[JonC]

We were lucky to have 1 of the very senior therapist, about 3 months we see initial result, from non reader to able to start reading. But still need to complete the syllabus and also re-enforcing (due to DD has very bad short term memory problem as well).


After 1 year plus, the therapist left for a complete different line. Now we are staying on with another also very senior therapist, but we will just wait and see.

Although DD now reads, but gets tired very easily when doing "proper" reading as this is not the first nature, cannot last for an exam of 2 to 3 hrs of reading, and switch back to lazy non reading guessing mode and of course results suffer. The reading behaviour is different if DD is doing an exam paper with us staring, so no matter how long the paper is, DD will struggle on, of course the result will be better than those which half of the paper is guessing. We are currently trying to overcome this hurdle, and if ok, DD can considered graduate. Sigh!!!


@mahes_gopal

Do you do 1 to 1? DD will not benefit in group of even 2 kids, that is 1 additional kid on top of DD. Anyway DAS’s 1 to 1 (for Singaporean) ain’t cheap, near 3 digit or just above 3 digit.

[mahes_gopal]

I charge $60/hr one to one and $35/hr for 2 in a class. PM me for detaills.

Cheers

[getz]

I think you are mistaken. The therapists in MSL have all recieved in depth advance training and are acredited by the academy of orton-gillingham in new york. If you have just attended their basic training, you cannot call yourself a therapist. BTW, the basic training is open to the public twice a year. When you call up to enquire, they will explain to you the difference. There is a huge difference between therapy and tutoring. Parents need to check the credentials of the person you are engaging. Basic training is to start you off, a therapist needs a lot of training before they are good enough. However, if cost is a consideration, then attending the basic course for parents is a good way to start helping your child. You can read more on the academy's website at http://www.ortonacademy.org


You mentioned that you are trained by the same organisation.. i believe the organisation is MSL itself. They do a lot of internal staff training which is more advance than the basic course I believe you attended. A lot of parents who send their children to the centre also attends the basic training so that they can help hasten the therapy. Most of the kids from the centre actually do very well in school.

\".....educational therapist charge three figure per hour. Whee me are doing it at affordable two figure rates even middle class parents can afford. Higher end places like MSL and me were trained in the same organisation and have the same amount of experience. The only diffrence is one is a money making entity and me I do it purely for passion and monetary rewards are secondary. BUt when I keep fees affordable parents have this suspicion whether you are good. They rather pay three figure and go there as they believe that more expensive is better.[/quote]

[mahes_gopal]

Sorry I was trained by a big organisation where their head was lecturing before joining MSL. I too have advanced training in OG and even a psychology degree. Advanced training does not = Three figure

If your aim is to really help instead of puring making money.

[serenechi]

Hi any mummy or daddy,

Can anyone advise beside DAS is there any enrichment class for language and literacy. I try Care Corner in Toa Payoh, but they don't conduct on weekends and the only available is on wednesday night but full. His is P1 and can only during the weekend which currently DAS don't advise to put his on 2Hr or Sat & Sun. I had checked the private but pretty ex.

:?:

[bebe]

Out of curioisity…do yr children know that they are dyslexic?

How do u tell them?
And how do they feel after knowing that they are dyslexic?
Any change in behaviour after knowing their condition?

[MyBaby]

bebe:

Out of curioisity...do yr children know that they are dyslexic?

How do u tell them?
And how do they feel after knowing that they are dyslexic?
Any change in behaviour after knowing their condition?

My DS is now in Primary 2, diagnosed and started sessions at DAS when he was in K2. We do not consciously tell DS that he is dyslexic nor do we hide the term or avoid using the term totally.

When DS just started Pri 1, we told him that he attends DAS as he has a special way of learning to read and write which is different from the way his teachers teach in school. We liken his attending DAS with his older sister attending outside math tuition. So we call DAS as the place he learns to \"read and write\".

When DS started P2 this year, an incident happened such that his teacher had to inform the class that DS is dyslexic (with my permission and also, the teacher didn't exactly use the term as it would be beyond the students anyway, so that teacher used the term \"need help with reading and writing\"'). When DS came back that day, I asked him how he felt when the teacher mentioned that and he said he was ok. It helped that in his class there are students who are also \"\"special kids\".

There was also a recent occasion where he asked me point-blank \"what is dyslexia?\". Since he asked in front of the family during dinner time, he probably didn't mind his condition but just wanted to know. So I answered \"your special way of reading and writing is called dyslexia\" and he accepted it.

I feel that kids (even at a young age) are intelligent and astute - they will sense it even if you don't tell them. So I prefer to tell my child first and in the way I want him to view his dyslexia rather than to hear it from someone else. We prefer him to view it as \"learning differently from others\" and not to view it as a \"difficulty\" or \"inability\".