Posted in Discussion Topics, Education Issues and Ideas on Apr 18th, 2013 4 Comments »
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 [...]
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News on Apr 15th, 2013 2 Comments »
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.
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News on Mar 27th, 2013 8 Comments »
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 [...]
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News on Mar 26th, 2013 No Comments »
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] .
Posted in Discussion Topics, Education Issues and Ideas, News on Mar 21st, 2013 No Comments »
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 [...]
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, Legal Resources on Mar 21st, 2013 No Comments »
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.
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News, Reading, Writing, and Math on Mar 15th, 2013 No Comments »
Bill aims to help dyslexic children This time it’s Arkansas. A list of state laws pertaining to dyslexia.
Posted in Discussion Topics, Education Issues and Ideas, News on Mar 8th, 2013 No Comments »
From Good.is Mobile Think Tank for Cognitive Science Cool concept to bring cognitive science (science of the mind and brain) into a collaborative and mobile arena for schools and the public. The Think Tank will: Drive to elementary and high schools where mobile researchers will teach students about cognitive science by having them plan their [...]
Posted in Discussion Topics, Education Issues and Ideas, Social Issues and Ideas on Mar 5th, 2013 14 Comments »
I want to weigh in on the on-going and often heated debate on effective treatments for dyslexia and related learning differences. There is a kind of intellectual territorialism within the field of experts who diagnose and treat, as well as parents and others with a vested interest. This territorialism that I refer to sometimes borders [...]
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News on Mar 4th, 2013 No Comments »
New findings published in Pediatrics by the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism and Related Disorders reveal that 70 percent of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who have a history of severe language delay, achieved phrase or fluent speech by age eight. This suggests that more children presenting with ASD and severe language delay [...]
Posted in Education Issues and Ideas, News on Feb 27th, 2013 No Comments »
Researchers Find a Biological Marker For Dyslexia In Kids Another piece of evidence proving that for many people, the difficulties with fluent reading and accurate spelling is related to how their brain processes speech sounds. The brains of the more adept readers encoded the sounds, or processed the speech into brain waves, in a more [...]
Posted in Discussion Topics, Education Issues and Ideas on Feb 26th, 2013 No Comments »
Education Reform Starts With Community Reform Great article on the pitfalls of linking student achievement scores to an array of social functions, without considering community values. In fact, connecting these social functions to achievement test data corrupts what the tests are measuring. In statistics this is called Campbell’s Law. In other words, what does a [...]