LD Resources

Kids’ Hilarious First Reactions to Food Caught on Camera

Had to post this one. Great facial, muscular reactions by little kids. I must admit I had a pretty similar reaction to Vegemite the first (and only) time I tried it.

Enjoy.

Art Competition for People with Learning Disabilities

The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) is calling for paintings, drawings, poems, songs, animations, and more that portray the strengths of children, teens, and adults with LD. Ask yourself: If you were a superhero, what special abilities would you have? If superheroes aren’t your thing, think about your talents (traditional or non-traditional) — what makes you unique? Or, what superpowers do you wish you had? This can be depicted visually, through the written word, song, or any other medium that best suits you.

Six prizes will be awarded. One participant from each age category will be awarded $400, and the first runner-up from each category will be awarded $100 each. Prizes will be awarded for outstanding works in each of the following categories:

Children: 4–12 years old
Teens: 13–17 years old
Adults: 18 and older

To enter, please send NCLD the artwork(s), a photo of the artist, a short paragraph (three to five sentences) written by the artist that explains how the submitted work relates to the “LD Superheroes and Superpowers” theme, and a completed submission and release form. See below for more details on submission requirements and process.

Entries must be received no later than Tuesday, May 28, 2013.

Citizens celebrate ‘Dyslexia Bill’

New Dyslexia Bill signed into law in Arkansas. Good. And somehow, as handfuls of state legislatures have already passed or are considering passage of similar bills to ensure better and earlier screening, the DSM-5 (the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), due to come out soon, is apparently eliminating the term dyslexia. It will instead keep the more generic term “specific learning disability.” Sigh. One step forward, one step back.

The Arkansas bill requires screening for dyslexia and related disorders in public school students in kindergarten through second grade, and then the schools would have intervention and treatment options for those students.

Alan Alda discusses his family experience with dyslexia on WNYC radio today.

Alan Alda’s granddaughter goes to Kildonan School in NY (he discusses this in the interview). There’s still so much misinformation about dyslexia but it’s always good to hear thoughtful discussion and more awareness brought to the subject.

Even this interview is filled with co-incidental issues related to dyslexia but not necessarily because of dyslexia. Nonetheless, good to see and hear these first person accounts (including the call-ins).

Alan Alda also discusses his interests in making science more accessible as well as certain political issues.

Learning disabilities’ movement turns 50

James Baucom, long-time faculty member of Landmark College writes in the Washington Post about a watershed speech given back in 1963, which galvanized support and awareness of the reality of “learning disabilities” instead of minimal brain damage. This eventually led to Public Law 94-142, the civil rights for education law.

A Gifted Student Learns to Thrive with Dyslexia

This is an piece in the Wall Street Journal that highlights a New York teenager’s school life, with its ups and downs, as a student with dyslexia. Apparently she tested in the superior range (in what?) as a pre-school child, but quickly fell behind in Kindergarten in a Manhattan private school that didn’t understand kids with learning differences.

She then spent two early primary years at the Windward School in White Plains, NY, a school that specializes in working with kids with dyslexia.

After returning to mainstream schools, she’s done well and is preparing to enter high school. It’s an upbeat article as it should be, and what strikes me is her healthy-sounding attitude about her dyslexia. She seems to get it that it’s a part of who she is but not who she is. She’s developed good advocacy skills, and doesn’t hide from her spelling struggles and need for more time when reading. On the other hand it doesn’t sound like she overemphasizes them either.

Good for her. The need to categorize her in the title of the article as “gifted” is I suppose to say that she showed lots of cognitive aptitude and potential. Glad it’s not going to waste.

www.psychiatrictimes.com/autism/content/article/10168/2132823

According to some estimates, more than half of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) try complementary and alternative treatments (CATs). When you’re the parent of such a child you can find references to so many alternative treatments that purport to bring relief (online and through word of mouth), that you run the risk of wasting precious time money and energy in pursuit.

This is not to say parents shouldn’t scour reputable sources for new or old treatment options.

Robert Hendren, DO, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Nicholas Lofthouse, PhD, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Ohio State University, are two authors of a review of various CATs.

Lofthouse and colleagues reviewed 13 orally administered (ingestible) and 6 externally administered (noningestible) CATs for ASD. For each, they described its definition, rationale for use/mechanism, current research support (eg, open-label trials or randomized controlled trials), safety issues, limitations, and future directions. They also applied a clinical guideline and evaluated treatments based on whether they are sensible, easy, inexpensive, and safe.

The authors had three categories in which to place a therapy, “recommended”, “acceptable” or “not recommended.”

The authors recommended 3 CATs: melatonin RDI, multivitamin/mineral, and massage therapy.

“There is some good scientific evidence for these, and they also seem sensible, easy, and relatively cheap and safe,” said Lofthouse. Several CATs are worth considering for short, monitored trials, if conventional treatments for ASD and the recommended CATs have been given a reliable trial and have been found ineffective or if patients and parents refused conventional treatments, suggested the authors.

The article elaborates on the other categories as well.

Makes you wonder, is there more effective teaching going on, or are fewer kids being identified due to economic constraints:

Number of Students Classified As Learning Disabled Continues to Drop

[via Education Week]

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Worst victims of Education Sequestration are poor kids and special education students

Goodness knows there’s plenty of waste in large scale budgets, but as I’ve been hearing from teachers and specialists I know, these sequester-mitigated cuts are going to hurt kids with disabilities. Districts will have to do more with less. This has already been the trend over the past handful of years. These new cuts will be felt deeply.

Localities are obligated by law to provide services to special education students, however the law is vague about the quality and amount of services. Special needs kids may receive less speech therapy or be crammed into crowded, unsafe classrooms, as a result of these cuts. These cuts could also have more subtle consequences: School districts could be reluctant to classify kids with less severe disabilities if they foresee cuts for these programs.

Maryland Special Education Bill Would Make it easier for parents to dispute IEPs

If approved, the legislation would change the current system in Maryland, which states that the person bringing a complaint in special education disputes has the “burden of proof,” or responsibility of convincing a hearing officer whether the IEP developed for a particular child is appropriate.

Tape-recording IEP Meetings: What Does the Law Say?

Interesting and useful information about laws and policies regarding a parent’s ability to record an IEP meeting.

Early Childhood Anesthesia Linked to Problems with Language and Memory

A pretty in-depth follow-up to earlier studies on the effects of early anesthesia on learning disabilities.

Previous studies relied on secondary measures of neuropsychological functioning…So…

…Dr. Caleb Ing, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University, and his colleagues took a closer look. They studied 2,868 children born between 1989 and 1992 in western Australia, 321 of whom had had surgical or diagnostic procedures before age 3 and had therefore been exposed to anesthesia. After adjusting for other factors that could contribute to cognitive deficits as measured by standardized tests, the researchers found that children who had received anesthesia early in life were 87% more likely to show language disabilities and nearly 70% more likely to have cognitive problems — assessed using direct neuropsychological tests — at age 10, compared with those who had not been exposed to anesthetic drugs. What’s more, even a single exposure to anesthesia was associated with increased risk.