Other difficulties

[LGP]

Hi. I've done a search on this site for SEN to check if this has been raised before but don't think it has directly.

I'm a Sounds-Write trained parent-turned-tutor and helping local children overcome reading difficulties. It's still early days (only trained Spring 2014) and I have a lot of questions - many of which I'm finding answers for on this site - thank you.

I now help a child who I think has difficulties in addition to reading. I think I can help with the latter but I wanted to check what I could usefully suggest to parents when other issues are apparent. For this child there seems to be some co-ordination/sensory-type problems - falls off chair, tripping over every day, constantly fiddling with objects etc.

I suppose that some behaviours may be avoidance tactics but with this child I think there is more to it. The parents think so too but are getting nowhere with the school. Their child is year 5 and they are obviously worried about the move to secondary.

What is the standard route a child like this should be steered down? And what can a parent do if school aren't pushing it - go to GP?

Many thanks.

[maizie]

Does the child have difficulties in any other area of learning (though, obviously, poor reading skills will affect other areas of the curriculum)?
Is the child making progress which might be deemed to be adequate?
Do the parents think that the child is able to achieve more than it actually is? If they do, then on what grounds?

I am thinking that if the child is not significantly behind academically the school may not be very interested in investigating physical difficulties which don't *appear* to be affecting learning. After all, if learning is not impaired they can fairly claim that the difficulties the child does have are not creating a need for anything special in addition to mainstream classroom teaching.

Have the school given any explanation of why they are not appearing to follow up the parents' concerns?

If it is a matter of physical concerns I would think that GP might be the next step.

[LGP]

Thanks Maizie, that's very helpful and is I think what the parents will do.

The child is on school action plus with IEP and school are supposed to be providing additional support for literacy but the assistant is off sick and no stand in provided since Christmas. The parents came to me partly because of this and also because interventions to date haven't had a lasting impact on her reading. They will be chasing up the school for the promised support and further assessment, and were thinking of GP for the physical side of her problems (although I suspect there is crossover between the two ie. unable to sit for long in class may be impacting her learning).

Thanks

[LGP]

Update: the parents went to GP and have an OT referral for the local hospital. Meanwhile she's really getting the hang of SP and tackling more correspondences and longer words

[Debbie Hepplewhite]

Excellent news - thank you for the update!