My son this week made me take stock and really look at him. Not that I haven’t looked at him before but this time I took notice of what he does…. My son, as you all know, is my pride and joy however he is also struggling at

school and at home...He is bored at school and says he doesn't want to be there.... His report says he is behind. His IQ test (done at 4) says he is below average and yet i know (as a mother does ) that he is smarter than he lets on....I was chatting to a friend the other day and spelled out a couple of very hard words after her son had attacked her youngest with a dangerous implement and my son then copied exactly what I had said to his sisters skull (very scary stuff and I had to pull him off)….

To me it was too much of a coincidence I sat with him later on that evening and got a hard book out (Thomas the tank to keep him interested) and we took some time reading...he was very good at it but he was skipping words (he also has a habit of reading right to left) …. So I decided to do some research and I discovered some interesting information that I wanted to share with my Minti family

My son is very good at acting dumb…. He pretends he cant spell, cant read, cant understand… The truth is the kid asks some very in-depth questions and knows a lot of mathematical stuff off the top of his head…right now he is teaching himself the times tables and last night he started on his 5x…(I have not shown him and it is not being learned in his year 1 class yet.) My son's problem is that he wants to feel accepted and seem like the others and I think he may be pretending he can’t do things to accomplish this. So what does a mum do when she feels her son is falling through the cracks?I learned a lot this week and so this article is gonna consist of a few parts ...

The first Point of call for us was Behavioural Visual Optometry

Children (especially those with above average I.Q's who are then called "Twice Exceptional”) can have learning disabilities. These can be Investigated by having a Behavioral Optometric Assessment done, as there may be treatment available. Behavioral Optometrists are  Optometrists that assess both eyes and their working functions. This means your child is having a vision assessment that will look at the ability to focus, maintenance of focus when shifting between the board and the desk, tracking ability etc. Many vision problems affect a Childs concentration, follow though on tasks, getting ideas down on paper, and other problems – so through this assessment you can discover if there is a problem such as Dyslexia which hasn’t been picked up by other screening. In Australia this cost is partly covered by Medicare.

Some diagnoses or situations, which can be affected by these visual problems are:

-Easily distractible
-short concentration span
-ADHD.  
-Asperger's syndrome
-Dyslexia
-dysgraphia
-Laziness
- Irritability, lack of cooperativeness, aggression
-other behavioral problems

I booked in and took my son to have the eye exam..... I have bad eyes and i wanted to make sure he had not inherited my vision (even though i had an Opthamologist at the hospital assess him when he was younger) my son was great though ...His eyesight was perfect...His problem was he was skipping letters, Getting lost in the pages when he is reading,  reading right to left, and getting his letters mixed up. At the end of the assessment I was told my son has a learning disability ..Dyslexia and I need to take him to the Irlen Centre to be evaluated for coloured lenses ( if he is mature enough right now to tell what helps and what doesn't - otherwise we wait for a while)..

I got home and called the centre right away. I spoke to the Assessor who told me to read up as much information as i could before the Assessment for lenses.......To be honest it felt like another nail in the coffin as we already have enough to deal with but as a mum you do what u need to do for your kids and for me this means trying everything and anything until I have exhausted all options

To be continued