My 7 and a half year old son is active but has a problem concentrating. He fidgets all the time. Where the main problem lies is that he does not want to read and despite having read words earlier is unable to read them again with fluency. However if pushed to do the home work from school he fairs pretty well. In fact his record at school is pretty much glowing except for the fact that he needs to make extra effort at reading and spellings. Does he suffer from a learning disablilty? Should I go in for tests? and if yes which ones should I do?
it sounds like he may have adhd like my son is 9 he fidgets squirms cant concentrate forgets stuff list goes on you can get the school to test him thats what they did to my son or you can go to docter and they will get you to fill out a bunch of papers at home and for the teacher to fill out at school of what symtoms he has on the sheet.they will ask you if you have family history witch we do and they will go from there of what they feel like it may be.
Just happened to read your post. This is my first post. I am the adoptive father of a son, Junior, who was first told that he had learning problems in the first grade in USA. The son was born as a result of his mother being a victim of gang rape in her country, st, Kitts. St. Kitts is a little island country in the Caribbean, which was a British colony, which was used by British plantation land owners to grow sugar cane and process it into sugar and rum. The workers were Africans that were kidnapped from Africa and made slaves. The language there is English. I met Junior's mother through being a Christian pen pals and then went to St. Kitts to met her, got married and adopted Junior. I am telling of part of his history to state that when we were first told that he had learning disabilities, we thought the teacher and/or school district might have been prejudiced against people of African descent or people who were foreign born. We had contacted a private attorney who said that he was willing to send a letter to the school district to keep him in regular ed classes, but decided to not go that course. Junior is now 21 years of age and took some testing on adult norms to see if he still had learning disabilities and he still does. So, I am speaking with experience and suggest that you spend time sitting in on your child's classes & observe.
No one on here can diagnose your child without proper qualifications and seeing him in person. I was offended at the above response. I feel this country is all too ready to overmedicate children. He may just need some one on one learning time. To have learning disabilities diagnosed, I would suggest you see a speech and language pathologist. The best place to go, in my opinion, is a local recognized university. You will get a discounted price, and because they are reviewed by ASHA, you will get someone who you know is qualified and up to date on the most current information and research. This is not to discredit a mental health evaluation (where attention deficit may be diagnosed), but you should seek language and fluency evaluation first, I believe.
If in fact your son does have ADHD, well, my sister's son also has that. He was on Ritalin for years. I recall my sister telling me she was laid off for a summer (she's an RN) and her son was behind in reading, and they sat on the couch all summer and practiced reading. All the 1:1 attention that summer resulted in his going up 3 grades in reading. I think he was about 10 that summer.
You need to work with your school. I am a school psychologist and I can tell you about the law...
You have the legal right to call a meeting with your school to request formal testing. If your child's difficulties are significantly impacting his education, which is sounds like they are, then the school and you can make a formal referral to special education and they should test to see if your child can be classified for special education for a learning disability or AD/HD. Then your child will get specific individualized programming such as reading support and interventions if that is what he needs.
Learning disabilities are individual to the child and the definition is blurry, but I would start with the school and know your rights. 85% of students with a learning disability have it in the area of reading. Your child's difficulty with reading may cause him to be innattentive and therefore look like he has AD/HD (or visa versa - his attentional problems may make it difficult for him to focus on reading).
-SG
p.s - it isn't "your son is adhd", it is you have a child WITH adhd, and only a doctor can diagnose that (with testing from the school).
Oh my gosh. A Speech and Lang pathologist CAN NOT diagnose a learning disability. You REALLY need to talk to the doctor and the school psychologist and get your facts straight...
How do I know my son has learning disability 
