The piece that finally fits

Part One of a Two Part Series

(I didn't want you to give up half way through).

After what seems as though was the longest month of our lives, we received the results back of Matthew's dyslexia testing. The interventionist called us and asked if we could meet Friday morning after the boys honors assemblies. She gave no indication as to what the results might be. It was a very nerve racking time as we went about our business until Friday morning.

Chris said, "No matter what. If he does or doesn't have dyslexia we will praise God." I knew he was right. So we went into the meeting on pins and needles. She broke the testing down for us and first established that Matthew is in fact intelligent enough to even understand the testing. He was--we knew that.

Then she gave us the results. The complete test is comprised of several smaller tests. Average is between 90 and 110 on this scale. Only on a very few did he score above a 90. And spelling he scored a 72 on. As she talked it was as if we were watching a huge tetris board being filled. Each shape filling a hole that we couldn't make fit before. She said things like his phonological short term memory is almost non existent. Meaning, when he is sounding out a word that may have three or four syllables once he has gotten to the end of the word he has forgotten the beginning sound. Which explained exactly why it was that he would look at a word and based on the first two or three letters would simply guess at what it was. How many times did I say "NOOOO slow down and sound it out. " Truth of the matter was he couldn't. She asked him to read the word "practice" to her and the first time he said it was "patient", the next time it was "parachute" and finally the third time the light bulb came on for him and he said "WAIT NO! THAT'S PRACTICE." His fluency is not nearly as high as it needs to be--and it affected his comprehension, but when she would read him the nouns in the passage and then have him read the passage and answer questions out loud afterwards his comprehension was outstanding. Which we always knew.

So there will be steps put into place to begin teaching him to cope with this diagnosis. I began crying when the actual words came out of her mouth "According to my testing, Matthew does qualify as a student with dyslexia and should receive services as such." I was in a room with four other women, three of which never knew of Matthew's struggles. So they assumed I was crying out of sadness. The diagnostician said "I know this can be a bit overwhelming, but..." And I replied rather quickly, "No you don't understand. Now we know what's wrong. Now we've found that piece of the puzzle that finally fits."

Matthew did not understand the reasoning for his testing. He said the diagnostician told him she was testing him to help his teachers learn how to help him be a better student. So we sat down last night and told him.

We explained that the results don't mean he is limited, and it doesn't mean he has the right to give up because something is too hard. It does mean that things may always be a little harder for him to learn, and he may have to work at it longer and differently than someone else does. But never...NEVER...does it mean he's dumb. As we talked, Matthew seemed to be getting it, and in true Matthew fashion the tears started flowing. I asked him what was wrong and he said "That's why I can't learn my multiplication tables."

He's so bright and he gets it. He KNEW, even without a diagnosis that something was keeping him from learning those stinking multiplication tables. And even if he never told us, it bothered him. So we looked up some famous dyslexics to show him he's indeed in good company. We learned that Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, JFK, and George H.W. Bush were all dyslexic. So was Picasso and Da Vinci. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein also struggled with dyslexia. And Harrison Ford (Matthew's favorite actor), Cher, Agatha Christie, and Walt Disney also all learned to overcome in spite of dyslexia.

I look at Matthew and am overwhelmed by his intelligence--even more so now that I know he's done it with a "disability". The diagnostician did say that as low as some of the scores were had Matthew not received the intervention he has he would certainly be in a much worse place than he is now. So for that we are thankful. God placed the people in his life that Matthew needed always at the right time. God created Matthew and He knew...