Understanding Dyslexia with Elise Cassidy

In this important episode of the All Kids Can Podcast, Kristy Haworth welcomes speech pathologist and dyslexia advocate Elise Cassidy. Elise is the director of Little Voices Speech Pathology and a founding member of Code Read Dyslexia Network. With over 30 years of experience, Elise has worked extensively with children with language and literacy difficulties, both in Australia and the UK.

Together, Kristy and Elise dive deep into the realities of dyslexia—how it’s identified, common myths, the emotional impact on children, and how parents can effectively advocate for support within the school system.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ Elise’s journey into speech pathology and her passion for supporting children with dyslexia.
✔️ How dyslexia is defined and the core difficulties that impact reading and spelling.
✔️ Early signs of dyslexia in preschoolers and young children.
✔️ Common myths about dyslexia (e.g., it’s a vision problem or can’t be diagnosed before age 7).
✔️ Practical strategies for parents to support their children at home with phonological awareness.
✔️ The role of assistive technology and when to introduce it to children - this might surprise you!
✔️ How dyslexia affects self-esteem and mental health—and why early intervention matters.
✔️ Advocacy tips for working with schools and ensuring evidence-based instruction is in place.
✔️ The importance of community support and organisations like Code Read Dyslexia Network.

Links & Resources Mentioned

🔗 Little Voices Speech Pathology – littlevoices.net.au
🔗 Code Read Dyslexia Network – codered.org.au
🔗 All Kids Can Education for Dyslexia Screening – allkidscan.com.au
🔗 Step Into Literacy Course for 6 months of intervention before diagnosis – CLICK HERE

Connect with Us

📸 Instagram: @allkidscaneducation
📩 Email: info@allkidscan.com.au

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with parents who might need this information! 🎧✨

Does you child need literacy support? 

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Enrolments are by application only so that we can make sure that this is the right fit for your family. 💖

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 www.allkidscan.com.au/apply

Transcript

Attendees

Elise Cassidy, Kristy Haworth

Transcript

Kristy Haworth: All Another episode of the All Kids Can podcast. Today I have Elise here who is a speech pathologist with a passion and commitment to empowering children and their families with dyslexia. She believes in holistic expert care that nurtures not just literacy skills but also the child's confidence and She's the director of Little Voices Speech Pathology and a founding member of Code Read Dyslexia Network. I can't wait to hear more about that, Elise.

Kristy Haworth: She's worked with kids and…

Kristy Haworth: their families with dyslexia for over 10 years both here in Australia and over in the UK. so first of all, welcome to the pod, Nice to have you here.

Elise Cassidy: Thank you so much.

Elise Cassidy: Lovely to be here.

Kristy Haworth: Tell us a little bit about you. what's your journey been like to get you to this point besides what I've already read out there? I'm sure there's a lot more to it.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah. So I've been working as a speech pathologist now for gosh it' be close to 30 years I think next and probably for most of that time I've worked with the school age population. So I've been working with kids with language and literacy difficulties for many many years before I even heard much about the term dyslexia because it really wasn't used widely in Australia until probably not 15 years ago probably not even 20.

Elise Cassidy: so I'd always worked with that population of kids and knew lots about funological awareness and what was needed in order to support a child and to teach a child to read but really never knew anything about dyslexia. And it was over 10 years ago now that I first started to investigate and think what is dyslexia?  the term was being used a little bit more and I'm like okay I really need to find out what this is and when I looked into it more realized that the majority of the kids that I've been working with for all these years probably did have dyslexia because the majority of them had funological awareness difficulties and I knew about rapid automatic naming and all the bits and pieces to do with dyslexia but had never realized that that's what dyslexia was so then I did more training in it I did post-graduate studies with

Elise Cassidy: the dyslexia action in the UK and actually lived in the UK for a couple of years which really opened me up to how things were different over there and how much better they were doing things at that point in time. There was just a greater awareness of dyslexia over there. They were using screening procedures in the schools the phonics check and all of that sort of stuff.  So it sort of saw how things could be done and then when I came back to Australia that's when Code Red so I was part of establishing that. and then ever since then have just my practice now is purely working with kids with dyslexia.

Elise Cassidy: I see because I'm in it day in day out whether it be diagnosing or supporting them in the school or tutoring or advocating there's just a massive range of different things that we can do to support kids and their families with dyslexia.

Kristy Haworth: Yes, that's so cool.

Kristy Haworth: I love that you were in the UK and you saw how they were doing it and then it really inspires you to say, "Hey, we're maybe not doing it too well in Australia here." And I can see…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: how it can be done better. let's get on that bandwagon and get things going for our kids. so I'm going to talk a little bit more about code read later…

Kristy Haworth: but first of all how do you define dyslexia that  Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: So dyslexia is a difficulty with the underlying core deficit areas in dyslexia are to do with phonological awareness and…

Elise Cassidy: what that is is an awareness of the speech sound system of our language. So it really is a language difficulty. stems from things like being able to identify individual sounds in spoken words, being able to join the sounds together to create a word, syllable knowledge, all those sort of smaller parts of our language. and really having a strong knowledge and awareness of that part of our language and then being able to connect that to the written art of our language.

Elise Cassidy: There's aspects underlying core deficit areas with spoken memory as well and an area known as rapid automatic naming which is when you see something on a page that should be really familiar and common such as letters or numbers how quickly can they say those? So it's something that when you think about reading as successful readers it's one of the most automatic things that we do. you can't stop yourself from reading, but people with dyslexia, it takes just that much longer for a word to go into their long-term memory for automatic recognition.

00:05:00

Kristy Haworth: Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And that's the automaticity part of it as well. So, they're the underlying core deficit areas, but they impact then on numerous areas of reading and spelling, particularly with decoding.

Elise Cassidy: So, when someone is coming across a word that they haven't seen before or it's not in their long-term memory for automatic recognition, they have the strategies to be able to figure that word out? So, that's decoding. and then if they are putting all of their energy into figuring out the words, they don't have any space left then to actually be understanding what they're read. So, a lot of the time reading comprehension can be impacted as well.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: Because there's the lack of fluency which is the flow of reading and then if we don't have that flow of reading and we're not decoding effectively then we can't understand what we're reading.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: So it's that really foundational baseline skill that we need to then develop the fluency to then develop that comprehension which is the whole goal of why we read right to understand what we're reading. Yes. And so, I think a really important part to understand about what you've said there is that processing speed, too, because with dyslexia or people with dyslexia, do have that slower processing. And so, I know my son, in particular, my youngest, we've worked I think I've said this before on the pod, but we've worked with his phonological and phonemic awareness since before he could speak.

Kristy Haworth: that he has all of those markers for dyslexia,…

Kristy Haworth: but because we've been wiring his brain from day dot, he could never ever go and get a dyslexia diagnosis because we've strengthened those core deficits, as you put it, to the point where they're not deficits anymore.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: However, he still has slower processing. We could never, that game the second rule. Yeah. We tried to play that. and then that was a big eyeopener for me to be careful of what games I suggest as a family…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: because that requires kids or people to think of things really quickly off the top of their heads.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: And we know that people with dyslexia have also difficulty with naming things really quickly. and so I thought that was a really interesting point because even though we can remediate that phonological processing, kids are still going to have that slower processing and…

Kristy Haworth: and other, indicators as well. Speaking of indicators, Elise, tell us some of the early indicators that you, tell parents about to look out for.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And so some of the early indicators before a child's even started at schools so in preschool would be difficulty learning nursery rhymes.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Diff difficulty learning more abstract concepts like colors and if a parent is trying to teach their child letters and numbers before they start school.

Elise Cassidy: Some do learning those difficulty playing games like a lot of kids in kinder sort of preschool age can play some games like I spy or…

Elise Cassidy: something like that and they don't have that awareness of what sounds words begin with and

Kristy Haworth: Hey, can I say something while you're in here…

Kristy Haworth: because it's a really good story. So, when we were playing Ice Spy again with my youngest, we said because we were doing sounds instead of colors or letter names. So I spy something starting with I it might have been I can't remember which one and so my son was looking around it was always very difficult for him to think of names of things but I knew that's something we needed to strengthen particularly with that sound correspondence and then he said rock and…

Elise Cassidy: Right. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: today we still will never forget that it was so gorgeous but it was also a very strong indicator that he didn't have that phonological awareness to understand that they're two separate words.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: And so that's just a little example I wanted with I spy. Continue. Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And that is one of, the early ones is not knowing what an actual word is. a lot when children are just immersed in language, they tend to sort of pick up those kinds of concepts that a rock are two different words, but children with dyslexia may sort of not realize…

00:10:00

Elise Cassidy: where the word boundaries are in the sentence and things like that. but yeah, nursery rhymes is a big one. Learning vocabulary as well, so naming and just, speech sound difficulties as well in the early stages.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: So they may be substituting speech sounds like tar for car and that sort of thing. So those early speech sounds are also a bit of an indicator as well.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing I found was spatial awareness too. So the front and the back …

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: which one's the lounge room, which one's the kitchen or what's Yes.

Elise Cassidy: And time as Time concept.

Kristy Haworth: Yes. And Yes.

Elise Cassidy: Days of the week, yesterday, tomorrow, those sorts of things.

Kristy Haworth: And even so far as what's a barber,…

Kristy Haworth: what's the difference between a barber and a butcher and which I found was really interesting as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And yeah,…

Kristy Haworth: 

Elise Cassidy: grouping those things together they know that they're jobs but not knowing which ones, and it's the same within a lot of categories like they might mix up apple and pear and those sorts of things.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah. So, if we're seeing those sorts of things with our preschoolers,…

Kristy Haworth: I mean, I know what I would do, but what would you It's about phonological and phonemic awareness, isn't it? which is those games that we can play. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Yes, absolutely.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah. So, there's lots and lots of different games you can play with kids. You don't need to bring letters into it whatsoever in the early stages. It's really about word games and sound games. So, one of my favorites that I do with kids to help them really distinguish the particularly initial sounds in words, is to have two of their soft toys. they might have Peter puppy and Ben Bunny. And so, we do a lot of that alliteration kind of stuff. So, Peter puppy and we use a bit of signs and cute artic as well.

Elise Cassidy: and really hear those sounds at the start and can you match words? Let's go around the house and find different items around the house that start with the same sound as Peter Puppy that we're going to give to him because they're all his favorite words and…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: Ben Bunny's got the ones that be No, I actually wouldn't do but they're very similar sounding. I was thinking of animals there, but maybe Yes.

Kristy Haworth: 

Kristy Haworth: Keep them different to make it easier. We want to create as much success at that beginning stages as possible.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah, So maybe something like candy cow.

Kristy Haworth: That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: Have two very different sounds. yeah. So it's really about can they not necessarily identify exactly what the sound is, but can they hear when words begin with the same sound? So sorts of games around that, lots of nursery rhymes are really good for that sort of thing.

Elise Cassidy: and it alliterative stories. There's lots of wonderful children's books that have got alliteration in them. talking and really emphasizing the sounds when you've got words that all begin with the same sound. you can play I spy in a way in different ways as well. Like you can say I spy a b and you say the sounds and then you slowly join them together. And that sort of helps the child to see that when you join sounds together like that, that forms a word.

Elise Cassidy: So those early exposure to it, just lots of playing around with sounds in words. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: I actually feel a little bit jealous of parents that now have that opportunity to do with their kids because I think I've also said this on the pod before. It was one of my favorite things to do with my kids when they were little is play around with sounds…

Kristy Haworth: because I was at home with my kids and so it's stuff that you can just do whenever just at the top of the hat just in kind of inject it into your day wherever and…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: it doesn't have to be like a sit down now we're going to do it. You could do it in the car.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kristy Haworth: 

Kristy Haworth: You could do it anywhere and it's so fun. It's such a good way to bond with your child as well as developing those pre-reading and spelling skills.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Definitely. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: All So, if we've talked about the preschoolers, let's quickly touch on those. quickly or not. I know we've got a lot to get through, so I feel like we could talk forever at least. but those kids that are struggling.  I know particularly for me, we get a lot of kids in that are eight years old, like grade three, when that focus goes from decoding at school or learning to read with inverted commas, because that's and then to the point where they are expected now to comprehend, but they're not at the stage of comprehending for reasons that we talked about at the start.

Kristy Haworth: So, the lack of decoding and the lack of fluency, which are those pre-skills to comprehension. if we're finding that our kids are struggling with reading and spelling at school, what's your advice for parents to do first thing perhaps?

00:15:00

Elise Cassidy: assessment and where are the specific difficulties in terms of a child…

Kristy Haworth: Yep. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: who is going into grade three and as you said in grade three they move from reading to learn and once they move to that where there's less support around teaching of decoding and the focus is on comprehension that's…

Kristy Haworth: Really obvious. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: where we really see those kids if they're not given the right support that gap becomes significantly greater and so what else yeah and so what I'd say for families and teachers at that point in time is in order to make sure that that gap doesn't widen. We need to continue to focus on developing their reading skills, their decoding skills, their spelling skills, but we can't be doing that within the classroom curriculum content, but we still want them to have access to that because that's how They're going to be learning new words through that. They're going to be learning new concepts.

Elise Cassidy: And so they still need to have access to that curriculum which they won't be able to do if it's presented to them in written form. So that's when we need to start talking about things like assisted technology. text to speech kind of things and there's so many more programs and companies out there that are doing some great assistive technology. So I would say at grade three that's really a lot of the time it isn't introduced until the upper years. What we find, and there's a lot of research to show this as well, if it's introduced in the upper years,…

Elise Cassidy: their grade five or six, and then many times not until secondary school, those kids are so aware of their differences and they don't want to have something different that stands out for them.

Kristy Haworth: Yep. Mhm.

Elise Cassidy: But if it's introduced in grade three, they're far more willing to take that on board as a support system for them.

Elise Cassidy: and that the stigma isn't there as much where if it's introduced…

Elise Cassidy: if it's waited until year seven that stigma of having that assist of technology as a support can be far greater then Yes, exactly.

Kristy Haworth: That's such a good point…

Kristy Haworth: because when kids are in those upper grades, everything is quite overwhelming for kids, particularly those that have struggled with literacy. So just adding another thing that they have to learn on top of that probably isn't the best time to do it, is it?  So, great idea introducing that a little bit earlier and getting them familiar with it and getting them comfortable with it so that it can see them through. I love that. Yeah, good point. okay, cool.

Kristy Haworth: And then obviously getting that, intervention as well, getting them to learn how to, h read using the letter to sound correspondence because, taking a wild guess, it's probably that they, also haven't been exposed to explicit structured literacy and they've only been taught through what we call the balanced literacy approach. So, they've been madly trying to memorize and guess and do all of those things. So that obviously in those primary school years when those struggles are flagged,…

Kristy Haworth: it's really important to get in and help kids learn really how to read, right?

Elise Cassidy: Yes, exactly.

Elise Cassidy: And in the last five years particularly, more and more schools, it's certainly not the case everywhere, but in my specific area here in Melbourne, there are more and more and more schools all the time that are starting to teach using explicit and structured phonics, which is fantastic. So now we're not needing to say, one of the criteria for diagnosis of dyslexia is that a child has had six months of teaching using an evidence-based approach. And so in the past when I was starting out working with kids with dyslexia, they needed to have gone outside of school to seek that extra support.

Elise Cassidy: But more and more and more more schools are not only using that explicit and structured phonics within their intervention programs, they're also starting to bring it into their early years as well in the classroom teaching, which is absolutely fantastic. we're still seeing many schools that are not, but it's changing and that's amazing. So, …

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: yeah, it means now that, if they're taught at the school using explicit instruction phonics in the classroom,…

Kristy Haworth: Is that what? Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: they can get a diagnosis straight away because they've been taught using an evidence-based approach from the beginning of their schooling. So, they don't have to go outside the school, which for so many parents was just not an option, for financial reasons or waiting lists or whatever it might be.

Elise Cassidy: The frustration for parents to have to seek support outside of school just so they can get a dyslexia diagnosis was very frustrating. It still is for me.

Kristy Haworth: Yes, I mean I originally am also from Melbourne and I did some work with Sarah at Bentley West and of course she was a catalyst for the boom of structured literacy in that area and…

00:20:00

Elise Cassidy: That's Yes.

Kristy Haworth: it just has rippled throughout those suburbs of Melbourne.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Right. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: But now being in Queensland in Brisbane, I feel like I'm back at the start again because I do see changes here but not as I mean Victoria has been doing it for a longer amount of time whereas Queensland is definitely behind and I'm not quite sure about the other states. and you're right that 6 months of intervention is a financial investment. so that is why we created step into literacy because it's an evidence-based course for parents to be able to help their kids with reading.

Kristy Haworth: and that can be counted as the six months of intervention because they're getting that exposure to the code. so yeah, there are other ways of, accessing that six months. and I'm actually a little bit envious of Melbourne and…

Kristy Haworth: and all the amazing things that you're doing there because I would love to see that happening soon all over Australia. But it has to start somewhere, doesn't it? Yes.

Elise Cassidy: Yeah, it does.

Elise Cassidy: And dyslexia support groups we've got a fantastic Facebook support group here, dyslexia victoria support, and I've been involved with them since the very beginning as well. And we've done lots and lots of campaigning and trying to get these changes happening, which is fantastic. So yeah, we have a lot of strong advocates in Victoria And they were all part of founding code red as well.

Kristy Haworth: Because did you say code red or code red?

Elise Cassidy: It's code red. Yes. So it's a play on words.

Kristy Haworth: Okay. Sorry.

Elise Cassidy: So it's code red meaning past tense of read…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Right.

Elise Cassidy: but also meaning emergency situation.

Elise Cassidy: And then it's also that play on words to show how complex the English language can actually be a million.

Kristy Haworth: I love that. Thanks for tidying that up for me. And then all right. So a past parent of ours at All Kids Can. Amelia is one of my now friends as I know that …

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: because her and yourself are both part of code read. for the listeners tell us a little bit about Code Red.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. So regret,…

Kristy Haworth: My gosh, I'm so sorry.

Elise Cassidy: it's going to be hard for you to change that, isn't it? So yeah, so I'm going back now to probably about 2015 and a whole lot of very passionate moms on Facebook had formed a support group to just talk about, how are we going to make these changes in Australia in terms of dyslexia awareness, understanding, advocacy, getting changes in the schools, all of those sorts of things.

Elise Cassidy: So we in 2015 began the first ever light at red for dyslexia and that was when landmarks all across Australia in October a lit up red for dyslexia and that was huge and we got a great following from that. We had some wonderful events going on. It got a good amount of publicity and then in 2016 we all decided to meet because we hadn't all met in person.  So we all decided to meet to discuss okay what are we going to do we've got a lot of advocacy behind us a lot of very passionate people and we need to do something with this so we decided to form a charity and it was probably two years in the making in discussions it was while I was in the UK so I wasn't actually a big part of all of the initial discussions but then it

Elise Cassidy: Yeah, it was launched in 2018, so we've been around coming up to seven years now. And the light at Red for dyslexia has continued ever since then in October and it's just grown. and really what we're all about is support for all people who are imp impacted by dyslexia, whether it be, children in the early stages of schooling or adults in the workplace. and we're all about just helping the community to better understand dyslexia to really what we want to do is take away the stigma. …

Kristy Haworth: What?

Elise Cassidy: there really is still in Australia unfortunately such a stigma around dyslexia and that's because of the lack of knowledge about it.

Elise Cassidy: in the UK there's really very little stigma around it at all because they're identified very early in their schooling and it's just part of the normal schooling. 10% of the population have dyslexia and they know that in the UK and then you have people who really sort of and that's why in the UK they've got a strength based approach to it in the UK which it doesn't take well here and I think it doesn't take well here because of the stigma around it.

00:25:00

Elise Cassidy: But they have so many people famous people come out and talk openly about their dyslexia and here in Australia we tried to find ambassadors and people to come forward and talk about their dyslexia in the same way that people in the UK do and we didn't have a lot of success with that and there's a number of reasons for that it's partly because dyslexia wasn't identified so a lot of people who have literacy difficulties as an adult may not actually know that they have dyslexia. so the lack of understanding and the lack of awareness around it, but yeah, also the stigma. Maybe they do have dyslexia, but they're not as open to talking about it as people in the UK are.

Kristy Haworth: Did you hook anyone in that or was it Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: We have a couple of people.

Elise Cassidy: We have Jackie French who wrote Diary of War the other people of Vincent Van Van so I'm sorry I haven't pronounced his surname properly. He's an artist. yeah, so we've had a few people come forward but in the UK. There's so many people who have dyslexia. So there'd be way more famous people in Australia who do have dyslexia.

Kristy Haworth: And we see it a lot on social media, don't we? And now that I think about it,…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Richard Branson. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: they're all English, aren't they? you've got Jamie Oliver, Kira Nightly. I can't Yeah. Yes, of course. Okay. So that's still a work in progress I guess but the amazing work that you're doing at Code Red is absolutely phenomenal and I take my hat off and I think that throughout this journey of my own through dyslexia and…

Kristy Haworth: through special education I've always thought that it's so cool how everyone has their own jobs on this mission. there's people that get into the politics of it. There's people that get into that parent advocacy and…

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: the awareness and there's people that focus on the grassroots and helping parents help their kids and then the one to one and I feel like we're all like these working ants doing our bit and…

Elise Cassidy: Yep. Absolutely.

Kristy Haworth: and all working towards that same goal of helping people with dyslexia and particularly catching it nice and early with those kids so that they can live up to their fullest potential. Show. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And that's the biggest message. Catch it early.

Elise Cassidy: And the other thing is that getting a diagnosis actually isn't vital. Just knowing what the difficulties are and the schools addressing those is the biggest.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah, that's a good point. So, there are at least a lot of myths around dyslexia. There's fair bit of snake oil going around.

Elise Cassidy: Absolutely. Yes.

Kristy Haworth: There's a lot of stuff we have to sit through as parents that if it's new to us.

Kristy Haworth: There's a lot that we have to kind of bat off and figure out. Okay, where's the evidence? so let's just go through some of the common sort of myths that parents might run into at the start of their journey and let's bust a couple.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: So, some of the common myths that are around is that it's a visual difficulty. So, it actually has nothing to do with vision whatsoever.

Elise Cassidy: We don't tend to see it as much anymore, but it's often people would think of it as the words being blurry and jumping around on a page or reading words backwards or, all those visual myths. so it's got nothing to do with vision. However, some people with dyslexia do sometimes see the words jump around on the page, but that's only because of the amount of stress and…

Kristy Haworth: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: and the effort that they're putting into trying to read the words on the page that the stress that they're putting their eyes under to just, let me think of It can mean that the words start to seem blurry, but that's just a symptom of their difficulties with reading. It's not caused by that. I have a really good example of a situation of a myth this morning which is heartbreaking and we just see it way too often.

Elise Cassidy: We had a family come to the clinic with a dyslexia diagnosis but for the last two years they've been going to an Erland center and the Erland dyslexia center and there's many of them around and they don't work on evidence-based approaches to the teaching of reading and this family had spent two years and made no progress whatsoe spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and it just breaks my heart because they're doing what they believe is the best thing to do for their child and if you just do a Google search there's so much misinformation on the internet and it's just very very difficult for parents to know what to look for where to go what is evidence-based and what isn't and…

00:30:00

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: I think that's the most difficult thing for parents when they've got no access to anyone

Elise Cassidy: who actually knows the right thing to do. my belief is there should be dyslexia specialists in every single school in Australia, just one person in every school in Australia who has the knowledge to know what to tell these parents in terms of where to go to get information to know what the myths are and know what's real. The other myth that is really unfortunate is that dyslexia can't be diagnosed before the age of seven or eight.  And that's another one we see all the time. And that's one that teachers will often say to me and say, the term dyslexia was mentioned when they were in prep or grade one, but we didn't think we could do anything about it then because you can't identify it until they're seven or eight." And that's just not true because a child can be even as I was mentioning earlier, you can see the indicators for dyslexia in the preschool years.

Elise Cassidy: So if you've got a child who has those indicators in the preschool years, to monitor them and you know that they may be a little bit slower to pick up reading and spelling in the in their foundation year at school and what you need to be doing to support them in that foundation year. And then a formal diagnosis can be made after six months of formal teaching. So a formal diagnosis can be made is in their foundation year of primary school.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah,…

Kristy Haworth: that's a great point. and I thought about with the earl with the letters jumping around on the page or what I kind of thought, that's sort of sometimes what happens to me when I'm really tired and reading in bed.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And it's a symptom of the fatigue that people with dyslexia are going through…

Elise Cassidy: because they have to just put so much more effort into the actual physical act of reading. It's far more tiring. It's a huge amount of effort and so their eyes do get tired. And that's really…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: what it's about.

Kristy Haworth: And if parents do follow that those breadcrumbs d in the direction of a visual difficulty it's really important too to see an ophthalmologist rather than a behavioral optometrist as well.

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: That's another one of the myths and something that I know I'd say in the early 2000s was a very common initial referral was to a behavioral optometrist and…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: and they don't work in reading difficulties whatsoever and…

Kristy Haworth: And then kids and…

Elise Cassidy: they say that themselves. They've released a statement to say we don't work in reading difficulties.

Kristy Haworth: then kids end up with glasses a majority of the time when perhaps they don't actually need them and…

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Kristy Haworth: then they're stuck with them. The eyes weaken and yeah, it's a really important point, isn't it, for parents to know that that is bit of a myth and to not follow that track. all right. So let's have a little bit of a think about advocating for our kids then within the school system. advocating it's a requirement to have knowledge to advocate isn't it?

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yeah,…

Kristy Haworth: So, I'd love to have a little bit of a discussion about the knowledge that parents need to be able to advocate effectively to create change within their school or perhaps to know when it's not working and they need a plan B. and we also need to touch perhaps on the legal obligations as well of the school because that is also something that comes up a lot when parents ask about what rights do I have?

Elise Cassidy: exactly. Yeah. So, touching on the legal rights, dyslexia does come under the disability discrimination act. So, schools are legally obliged to carry out the recommendations from a legal diagnostic report.

Elise Cassidy: but as I said before, not all families can actually access a formal diagnosis and get that legal diagnostic report due to financial reasons or access to the services in their area or whatever it might be. so that's one way that the school has legal obligations through the disability discrimination act, but that's only if they've had a diagnosis. the other legal obligation is and it differs state by state but in terms of having an individual education plan and the school actually following their education department's procedures and policies for literacy difficulties.

00:35:00

Elise Cassidy: So that would be things like does your child have an individual IEP an individual education plan or an ILP some are calling it and what sort of goals are they setting for those is it a very basic general goal or are they actually following the sort of smart goal style of setting goals which is really what you want them to be doing.  So I guess it comes back to how well does the teacher actually know what the child's specific difficulties are and sometimes in some places that can only be determined by a diagnostic report but often screening can give that information as well.

Kristy Haworth: What? Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: So, for a parent in terms of how do they advocate for their child, I would say first of all, get a screening assessment and the screening will tell you where your child is sitting, what their specific difficulties are in terms of why they're struggling with reading and spelling. A good screening will also give you some further information about what you can be doing to support your child.  If you can afford and can have access to a diagnosis, I would recommend getting the full assessment. There are benefits to that. That's a bit of a contentious issue in terms of, some people say we shouldn't need a diagnosis in order to get the support. And I 100% agree with that. You shouldn't need a diagnosis to get the support, but a diagnosis does help to get the support.

Elise Cassidy: I'm not sure whether I addressed everything you asked there.

Kristy Haworth: That's good. I think that that is a really great place to start. because I mean yeah isn't it that the education department is supposed to provide support for all kids whether they have a diagnosis or not? Would you agree that the education department's doing that?

Elise Cassidy: Yes. No. And there's no legal act to say that they need to do that,…

Kristy Haworth: No. Right.

Elise Cassidy: which is what the difficulty is, I think, is if they've got a diagnosis,…

Elise Cassidy: you've actually got the Disability Discrimination Act to fall back on.

Kristy Haworth: Right. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Whereas, if they don't have a diagnosis, there's not as much push, I guess. but absolutely, regardless of whether they've got a diagnosis or not, schools should be providing evidence-based teaching.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: they should be providing the intervention for anyone who's not the response to intervention model. So really regularly monitoring the child's progress if they are not keeping up with what's going on in the classroom have access to intervention outside of the classroom and intervention should be exactly what's going on in the classroom just more of the same thing and more intensive. so schools absolutely 100% should be providing that but yes not many of them are yes exactly yeah

Kristy Haworth: and allowing those accommodations and adjustments as well to level the playing field for those kids to be able to access the curriculum. Yeah. Yeah. let's talk a little bit about the mental health of our little kiddos that do end up perhaps generally I mean I'm going to say around about eight they start to compare themselves to other kids to siblings to cousins to and I can't read yet and everyone else can. So the conclusion that kids draw is that they're dumb and…

Kristy Haworth: 

Elise Cassidy: Yes. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: their self-worth takes a hit. we see kids either externalizing their behaviors, don't we? So behavioral playing up in the classroom, lots of aggression, like things like that, or we see kids internalizing them, don't we? So let's talk a little bit about that. Mhm.

Elise Cassidy: So, yeah, it comes out in so many different ways. So, I particularly see it when kids have gone through the majority of their primary school years and they're not identified with any specific difficulty until the upper primary school years. I had one little boy who I started to work with who had been given se deficit diagnosis. And so, that was the label that was put on him. He's just naughty.

Elise Cassidy: And when I assessed him, he had the most severe dyslexia I've ever seen. He had ability to read anything past early prep level.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: He didn't even know all these letters and sounds. And for them to just say and they just ignored that and just went with the behavior. And he said to me, I started working with him and it took a long time to get those walls down because they come in with these walls up saying, "What are you going to do that's any different from what everyone else has done? I'm just dumb. I'm just stupid. You can't make a difference to that." And they come in angry and aggressive and just like, "There's no point to this. You're not going to make a difference. No one has. I've failed everything that everyone's ever tried with me."

00:40:00

Elise Cassidy: and you can't blame them for feeling that way because that's what's happened. But after some time of sort of just talking with him about it, talking with his mom who also had experienced the same difficulties because dyslexia is highly genetic. So a lot of the time the parents had the same difficulties and I spoke with her initially about…

Elise Cassidy: what was your experience at school and he just then listened and sort of felt like I didn't realize mom went through the same thing as I did and…

Kristy Haworth: Yep.

Elise Cassidy: we spoke about that quite a lot so a lot of talking in the early days and then once those walls had come down and he said yeah I do want to learn how to read and he said to me I choose to be naughty I would much rather sit in the principal's office for being naughty

Elise Cassidy: than for my classmates to realize I can't read. So he chose that…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Wow.

Elise Cassidy: because he didn't want them to make fun of him. And that's just Absolutely heartbreaking. And it's quite common, and you were saying internalizing. A lot of the time they don't see it at school as much. But as soon as that child goes home and they've had a full day of trying to hide it or trying to mask it or avoid, whatever their strategy is at school,…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: they're so exhausted by the time they get home that the meltdowns happen at home in their safe space. And so the parents are often saying, "I'm seeing this at home, but the school's not seeing this."

Elise Cassidy: And it's because the child doesn't want to show their true feelings and sort of let it all out in an environment where they don't feel safe.

Kristy Haworth: 

Kristy Haworth: I love that you were able to sit with that family and just kind of peel back the layers to figure out what's actually going on when helping them understand that and then getting that buy in from him and…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: he completely opened up to so whereabouts is he now? Is he

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah. So, he's making progress. So, that was probably early last year. we'd be coming up to 12 months, probably end of term one. And yeah, he took maybe two or three months to break down those walls. Lots of talking. And that's what I do with There's no point jumping in to intervention with a child who's got the walls up. You're not going to be making any progress with them.

Elise Cassidy: And so it's just gradually, talking to them about it and let, really helping them to see that you understand where they're coming from. how frustrated they are,…

Kristy Haworth: What?

Elise Cassidy: how much anxiety they have around reading in any sense. And sort of just being there as their support person, just, I've got your back. I know. And I think just them understanding that and really starting to realize that, okay, you do get where I'm coming from. It then helps them and they say, "Okay, let's try just a little something. See how you go with it." And of course, it's something that's achievable for them initially and then just build that up. And now I got to the point He's choosing to come. There was one time that I'd cancelled because I had a meeting and I heard them turn up in the waiting room and the receptionist said, " you don't have a session with Elise today." And he's like, "What? Oh no."

Elise Cassidy: he was really disappointed and I was like, " that just, really shows that and he's now saying he wants to try to learn to read, he's practicing at home. so it can take some time and I would say every single child who comes to me in the later years of primary school has some element of that lack of self-belief, lack of self-efficacy, anxiety, frustration, whatever it might be in whatever form, there is some of it in every child that I work with in the upper primary and above.

Elise Cassidy: And it's really important to acknowledge that because I don't think you can make a huge amount of difference unless you acknowledge that, unless you sort of support them through what you're going to be doing differently and why this is going to be something different than they've tried before.

Kristy Haworth: be This is what it is. It's got nothing to do with your intelligence. Got nothing to do. You're not dumb. Just haven't been taught properly.

Elise Cassidy: Exactly. Yep.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Yep. Yeah,…

Kristy Haworth: At least those sorts of stories, and also in my own practice are really why we do what we do, Because we need to catch it to help these kids and so that they can move on with a really healthy, positive life.  Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: And no one should have to go through that. It is avoidable. And I think that's what the most frustrating part of our job is that these kids shouldn't be identified that late.

Elise Cassidy: We know how to screen for dyslexia. We know that it can be identified early. We know that even if you don't have a dyslexia diagnosis,…

00:45:00

Elise Cassidy: the support should still be put in place exactly the same. And there's so much evidence out there that the fact that it's taking so long to filter into so many schools is so frustrating because I don't think a lot of the schools actually realize the mental health impact that them not taking on board these changes has to these young people.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: It's not just their ability to learn to read.

Elise Cassidy: There's much more that goes along with it if they're not taught how to read.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. it's a whole myriad of issues that start to develop around that main core issue, isn't it? So, it's so important to go in and…

Elise Cassidy: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy Haworth: address that. Alise, it's been such a pleasure talking to you today. can you leave us with your best two tips for parents that have kids that are struggling right now?

Elise Cassidy: So I would say first tip is to do a screening. Just find out specifically what your child is struggling with because once you know what the underlying areas are that they're struggling with then specifically what kind of support they need.

Elise Cassidy: And secondly, I would say just always pushing for evidence-based teaching. If it's not happening at the school, there's be an advocate for that change to happen in your school.

Kristy Haworth: the best.

Elise Cassidy: Keep pushing and I've witnessed it here in Victoria where the more passionate, angry parents can go in and…

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yes.

Elise Cassidy: just push the message, change can happen that way. So, I've seen it happen.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Cassidy: Sorry. Yep.

Kristy Haworth: That's the most powerful way that I have seen it happen too. that's where we have gotten the change is by parents grouping together and going to leadership in that really it's a positive way, isn't it? They work with the leadership to create that awareness within their school because this is what's happening to my child, but they're responding to this. How can we kind of work together to get this going because there's so many other kids that are in the same boat. Yeah. Love it.

Elise Cassidy: Yep. 100%. Yeah. So, they're my two big tips. I've got many tips restricted to two. I'll give you those two.

Kristy Haworth: And so what's next for you, ise? What are you doing in this world right now?

Elise Cassidy: So, I am currently in the process of building an online course for parents. So, my clinic is running really well now. We've got lots of speech pathologists working there one-on-one with the families and things.

Elise Cassidy: and really, every time I come across a family where I know they could have been helped a lot earlier and we could have prevented the frustrations that they've been through. And so my thoughts were how do I address that? not just my individual little local area here, but how do we get it to the wider community? And so my course is going to be looking at from the very beginnings of what is dyslexia and how do we identify dyslexia all the way through to the…

Elise Cassidy: what is an evidence-based approach to teaching. What do you look for if you need outside school support?

Elise Cassidy: what makes a good phonics program all the way through to advocacy and going to those meetings being that person there for you in those really difficult school meetings and the impact of mental health assisted technology it's going into all of those aspects and networking as So how do you find if you're the only family in one school of that has dyslexia how do you network with other families to give you that level of support. It covers all of those. So, I'll be launching that at the end of Feb. yeah. So, only a few weeks off.

Kristy Haworth: What? Yeah,…

Kristy Haworth: that's really exciting, That's so good. And if people want to go in and learn more about you and find where you are and follow along, where's the best place to go?

Elise Cassidy: My website which is littlevoices.net.au and…

Elise Cassidy: that's got information about the course as well called navigating dyslexia.

Kristy Haworth: I love it.

Elise Cassidy: And I'd also recommend to everyone to look at the code red website as well. There's a wealth of information on there.

Kristy Haworth: And call it code red, not code red.

Elise Cassidy: Code red hearts t of read.

Kristy Haworth: Yeah. I love it.

Elise Cassidy: Yes, absolutely would be wonderful.

Kristy Haworth: Thank you so much for your time, It's been a pleasure and I'd love to have you on again. Let's have another chat another time.

Elise Cassidy: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Kristy Haworth: Pleasure. Thanks, Okay,…

Elise Cassidy: Thank you.