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Hello!

I'm a Wichita-based licensed psychologist who test students age 7-50 for learning disorders in reading, writing, math, & for related disorders such as AD/HD & nonverbal learning disorder.

Brian

background

about brian


Testing

I’ve tested close to 4,000 students over the last 40 years, and I have been involved in all parts of testing: School Psychologist, Licensed Doctoral Psychologist, Test Developer/Project Director, Tenured Associate Professor of School Psychology, Researcher, author of dozens of peer-reviewed research articles on assessment, & learning disabilities, chapters in textbooks, taught graduate testing courses, psychometrics, statistics, & special ed. law. I’ve consulted for testing companies, including the College Board (SAT), Riverside Publishing, The Psychological Corporation, etc.

Approach

My goal is for you to better understand your child’s pattern of strengths & weakness and how it affects his or her life, especially in school, and what to do next. I will explain your child's pattern of strengths & weaknesses in a meaningful and practical way and focus on their strengths. I use current well-validated tests that are accepted by all institutions.

View Vita

all about

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is an inherited pattern of strengths & weaknesses. The strengths are often in high-level thinking (such as in 3D-spatial-hands-on ability) & the weaknesses are typically in automatic processing areas (such as basic auditory memory, rapid retrieval for exact sound, word, rote fact, and/or processing speed). I focus on the student’s strengths, and on telling the student about their strengths while testing, and then the parent & student at that afternoon’s meeting, as well as in the report.

Read about dyslexia:
Dyslexia
Signs of Dyslexia
Myths of Dyslexia

testing

services

Doctoral level KS licensed psychologist (KS LP #1073, NPI #1912297334)

Out of network health care provider (BC/BS non-contracting provider #119729)

For detailed services and pricing, click here.

Cognitive
Ability

High-level thinking without reading & writing.

  • verbal skills
  • nonverbal pattern solving
  • 3D visual-spatial areas

Automatic
Processing

Processing relevant to school.

  • auditory memory
  • language retrieval speed
  • 2D symbol speed

Academic
Achievement

Attain success in studies.

  • untimed high & low frequency phonics
  • timed reading & comprehension
  • writing/spelling & math

Phonological
Awareness

Untimed sound awareness.

  • rhyming
  • deleting sounds
  • substituting sounds
Get the answers

Q & A

Please feel free to read through the most frequently asked questions below:

Dyslexia is an inherited pattern of cognitive strengths & weaknesses. The strengths are in complex thinking (often hands-on/3D visual-spatial), & the weaknesses are in automatic sound-language processing (usually internalizing, storing, & rapidly retrieving sound-text info). The processing weaknesses interfere with reading & writing (& sometimes math), but give strengths in high-level thinking – the student can think in ways others cannot, at the expense of difficulty processing text automatically & efficiently.

Dyslexia is difficulty reading words fluently & accurately – it typically involves difficulty with auditory-sound &/or rapid processing-retrieval of specific sounds, symbols, & words. Many US schools teach phonological skills so well that those are wired in, but processing deficits remain. Appropriate instruction builds & reinforces brain connections for reading.

Yes, In the public schools Dyslexia is called “Specific Learning Disability in Reading” (SLD is one of 14 areas of exceptionality that schools test for to qualify for special education. One must qualify based on stringent rules, AND have an “educational need.” Both those things are determined by the public school team, of which the parent is a member.) Dyslexic Students who don’t qualify for an IEP can receive Section 504 Accommodations. The reason SLD in Reading should also be called dyslexia-dysgraphia is because much relevant research calls it that! MOST states now have dyslexia laws: click dyslexia at improvingliteracy.org

In the DSM-5/ICD-10 Dyslexia is called “Specific Learning Disability with Impairment in Reading” Dyslexia also gets called Reading Disorder, & sometimes Language Learning Disorder.

DSM-5/ICD-10 DIAGNOSTIC CODES: 315.00/F81.0/R48.0 Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading (Dyslexia, Severe in Rate/Fluency/Comprehension) X’s 3D spatial ability is at adult levels, but her auditory memory & sound/symbol retrieval speed at 6-7 year level pull timed reading down to 7-8 year level. High-level ability must help decode text & is less available for comprehension.

315.2/F81.81 Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Written Expression (Dysgraphia, Severe in writing/spelling/fluency) X’s 3D spatial ability is at gifted levels, but his auditory memory & sound/symbol retrieval speed at 6-7 year level pull writing down to 7-8 year level. High-level ability must help retrieve & sequence 2D symbols, & is less available for detail-organization & holding onto/stringing together written language (sound + 2D symbol + fine motor).

KG - 1st Grade Difficulty rhyming, remembering phone #, address, names, may get it one day, forget the next, mixes up order of sounds or letters in words, reads big as dig, does’t like reading, prefers to listen High-level thinking strengths: figures things out hands-on, solves puzzles, likes legos, good comprehension of stories read aloud

2nd - 8th Grade leaves out parts of words or confuses sound order; takes a long time, gets long words right but short words wrong, omits or inserts short words, forgets skills just learned - seems like a brand new word, omits or adds sounds, suffixes, plurals, reading choppy, lacks expression, takes longer on tests & homework, difficult learning foreign language, doesn’t like reading Strengths: understands big picture concepts, generates ideas, curious, understands what’s read aloud, hands-on, thinks creatively, does better when more time on tests

Adolescents/Adults: reading is slow & laborious, doesn’t read for pleasure, reads fine in area of expertise, avoids oral reading, poor spelling, uses short words when writing

All ages: when there’s a lot of text to process at once small errors occur (processing glitches) - e.g., reading and as are, they as there, there as they. These are words the person could get if given that word only, but in the middle of many other words their processing gets overloaded. Similar processing glitches occur when writing sentences (one can accidentally leave a letter out of a word, or mix up letter order in a word they’d spell fine in isolation). Such processing glitches are normal when processing capacity gets overloaded! The student is not trying to “make you mad” when they get hard things right but miss what looks easy!

ACT/SAT search on accommodations or disabilities at www.act.org & collegeboard.org Test companies usually approve accommodations from a school counselor IF a student has had a plan of accommodations for 3 years (ACT) or 4 mos. (SAT), testing is current (3 years + for ACT, 6 years for SAT) & the school doesn’t have too many students with accommodations. Otherwise, one must submit their report & info for case review. If achievement is close to grade level, ACT says impairment is NOT severe enough to warrant accommodations, b/c disabilities require “substantial limitation” (evidence of below average performance – multiple reading subtests < 25th %ile {some agencies want evidence of achievement < 16th %ile!} plus evidence of low grades on tests or courses.) Colleges are more lenient & most relaxed their old 3-year test shelf life requirement (don't ask me: check their website or call ‘em!) Sometimes the best timing strategy is to be tested about age 15/16 - in time for ACT, & it still counts for college! But, if achievement is not below average (& see the crazy stringent criteria above) relative to the general population, a testing agency can deny you accommodations & say “you may have a disorder but it doesn’t rise to the level of a disability” or “there is not evidence of a substantial limitation in a major life area.” (reading, writing, math, & test taking count as major life areas!)

Special Education - & - Section 504 are totally separate! Special Education is IEP services & accommodations, whereas Section 504 = accommodations only (& less paperwork).

A medical diagnosis is not needed for a Section 504 plan. 504/ADA law defines disability as (1) "a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities" (2) a record of such an impairment, or (3) regarded as having such an impairment (e.g., having previously been allowed accommodations). 34 C.F.R. §104.3(j)(1) Therefore, a dyslexic student who does not qualify for Special Ed as SLD, but who has below average reading, can qualify for a Section 504 Plan of Accommodations (JL Martin, Attorney, 2010).

Public school teams have to “consider” my report for Special Education & Section 504 decisions, but the final decision is theirs. You can refer your child (in writing) for a free evaluation through the public school. After meetings & interventions the school team may decide to test the child for 1 of 13 federally designated areas of exceptionality (SLD in reading, OHI, etc.) Schools won’t test if the child is not struggling enough (the child has to be one of the lowest in the class). To qualify, the child must meet the school’s criteria for that designation, plus have an “educational need” (be far below grade level). Schools are overburdened with difficult cases, & can’t always be counted on to provide what you need, b/c they are stretched so thin. Also, the law is schools don’t have to provide the best possible education, but merely something that helps.

Other evaluators: http://kasp.org/Independent-Evaluators-List your school & independent School psychs can test your child sooner than I & at a lower price! They’ll say “Specific Learning Disorder in Reading” (SLD) instead of “Dyslexia” – but, they’re the same thing!

NO! Reading & Writing: Get good treatment going early - don’t wait for testing! Best to spend the money on good treatment. Testing will still pick up the pattern of dyslexia, because processing deficits remain though untimed phonics improves! Appropriate programs emphasize phonemic awareness, explicit systematic synthetic phonics, fluency & comprehension, vocabulary, & writing through varied, immediate-feedback multi sensory instruction: Orton-Gillingham or Lindamood-Bell based programs like the Sound Case, Alphabetic Phonics & Multi-sensory Reading & Spelling (FLC 684-7323) www.neuhaus.org www.LBLP.com Barton www.dys-add.com www.sondaysystem.com

Testing helps you understand your child’s pattern of strengths & weakness and how it affects his or her life, especially in school, and what to do next. I try to explain your child's pattern of strengths & weaknesses in a meaningful and practical way - and to focus on their strengths.

Testing can result in accommodations at school and the rest of their life (more time on tests, take test in quiet area, etc.)

Testing does all this by comparing a student to a very representative sample of same age peers across a wide variety of tasks.

NO!! It’s impossible to see backwards! Reversals after the age of 7½ (or very frequent even before that) are a red flag for dyslexia. Reversals are due to 2D symbol difficulty and processing capacity overload (fewer connections-less myelination in the brain’s letter recognition area; Dehaene, 2014). Reversals are a symptom of dyslexia - though not all dyslexics make reversals. Dyslexia’s main weakness is sound-language-2D-symbol processing, not reversals or vision.

Reversals exist because through human history, the automatic recognition part of the brain evolved for fast facial recognition & fast predator-prey recognition (even for snake visual pattern recognition: mirror image didn’t matter - it’s a tiger! It’s a snake! It’s my relative!) Now we make that part of the brain quickly figure out a “b” from a “d” - but it’s preset to see them as the same! Reversals go away developmentally, but can later sneak in when fatigued, stressed, processing too much at once, etc. Cursive often helps, because all letters start at the same point, and directionality is easier.

get in touch

contact

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Contact Patient Form

Please click the link above, save the file to your computer, fill in the form with your information and upload it.

To make an appointment, please call the Fundamental Learning Center (the FLC) at (316) 684-7323 to schedule/confirm an appointment with Brian Stone.