DSX403 ASSESSMENT BRIEF 3
Vignette: Alex, aged 11y 7m
Alex is 11 years and 7 months old. He is in his final year of primary schooling and will
be entering high school in the following year. Alex seems to understand much more than he
articulates. He tends to stutter or stammer when under pressure, and overall mispronounces
many of his spoken words. Alex also has trouble finding the right word to say in
conversation.
According to Alex’s parents, an architect and a professional writer, he has not had an easy
time at school. His speech problems were identified prior to entering school, and he was
placed in a program to encourage articulation development. After six months he was
dismissed from the program as his speech had been considered to have sufficiently
improved.
Alex’s mother noted that over the years, when trying to read with him he would find any
excuse to avoid it. Alex’s parents also noticed quite early on his growing disinterest in
books. Alex appears to be increasingly ‘sulky’ and tries to avoid schoolwork of any kind.
Alex has difficulties with isolated words and struggles to read his school texts.
His mum said Alex is a whiz at solving complex puzzles and likes to make model airplanes
in his spare time. Alex also excels at maths, with excellent problem solving and reasoning
skills. Alex’s mum has also noted that he asks her frequently why he can’t read, and why is
he in a different reading group to his peers at school.
Alex’s reading is laboured; words are mispronounced, substituted or omitted. Words
correctly read in one sentence may also be misread when repeated in another sentence.
Alex does not like to read aloud, and will go to great lengths to make himself
inconspicuous when this is expected of him. Increasingly, he will ask to go to the toilet
when his turn is approaching. If called upon, he often acts up, making the words into a joke,
or tumbling onto the floor and laughing so that he is sent out of the room. When writing,
Alex’s letters are misshapen and wobbly. He avoids writing and resorts to breaking his
pencil or pen, distracting rather than commence any writing task set either at school or at
home.
Alex performed poorly on a non-word reading test, and demonstrated great difficulty
deciphering words on a single word reading test, opting for seemingly random guesses, or
alternatively, making a guess at a word based on a known word with similar letters. In
contrast, Alex does not generally demonstrate difficulties with comprehension. For
example, Alex is able to read short passages silently, and answer questions about it, using
clues such as pictures in the book. His comprehension is better when a text is read to him,
and he retains greater details about texts when listening to it being read aloud or recorded.
But he struggles when he is required to decode text and his comprehension is seriously
impeded. He seems to work very hard, but his work does not reflect this.
Alex’s parents are concerned he will get left behind in high school, and are seeing the
effects on his self-esteem. They report he is negatively self-effacing, puts himself down and
gives up trying. He has also recently given up even trying to do some things, because he
feels he cannot achieve anything and says ‘the effort isn’t worth it’. He compares himself
unfavourably with his peers and thinks he is ‘stupid’ and worse.