She has excellent credentials, experience and knowledge on dyslexia. It was expensive but worth every cent. My son doesn’t need OT, or speech language assessments. He processes slowly and has mild dyslexia. I am glad I picked it up now because the schools just put it down to poor phonic awareness, being slow and being more oriented to maths/science. My son is quiet, not a behaviour problem – a classic slip between the cracks kind of kid. They all under estimated him until I insisted a WISC IV was done at school.

This lady, Margaret, writes a comprehensive report with her findings, school & home recommendations. Our pediatrician wrote to the school and all of us will meet early next year.

There is nothing wrong with many Brisbane schools but I agree lots of educators are unaware of the warning signs of dyslexia. I knew because I work in the field and felt some thing wasn’t quite right.

The key to all this is pursue, pursue, pursue if you kmow your child and feel as I did – it ain’t just bad spelling – there’s a reason why he reads well (but in an odd way with unknown text), there’s a reason why he’s very very good at maths but only gets a C (timed tests = major struggles if you’re dyslexic), there’s a reason he gets 10/10 on learned spelling tests yet can’t spell ‘where’ when he has to write a piece of work. There’s a reason why his comprehension is good but his reading accuracy isn’t. You must exhaust all options and the medical model helps us rule out unnecessary and expensive assessments the school were hinting at.

Margaret Hardy is at Birkdale. Dr David Wood is our pediatrician. I highly recommend both as being kind, professional, helpful and WILLING to listen. I am glad I pursued and pushed and didn’t get fibbed off by the school who conceded an but no clue it was dyslexia (even if very mild). The signs were ALL there but they didn’t make the connection
. Now my son will get learning support that is tailored to dyslexia not just something remedial and repetitive that is often a waste of precious time for the very intelligent dyslexic child.

I hope this helps some Brisbane parents. I best myself up I didn’t have the aha moment sooner given what I do. BUT with my son, he’s bright, has muddled through, and it’s only now this year I’ve thought it should not be this hard for such a bright kid to be struggling this much with writing. Already my son who is happy to do the testing and extra work feels relieved. He knows he’s not dumb! He’s the opposite and now he feels there is hope that things are not going to be so hard for him. His motivation is excellent and now he hopes to start seeing more As on his report card. He works harder than the average kid but the dyslexia sees him getting ordinary grades.

Never give up if you think it’s dyslexia. It’s best to rule things out. Once you know it is dyslexia that’s half the battle won because there are many ways to compensate for it.

Good luck:)