LD Resources

Great school.

Riverview School Open House

Riverview School is hosting informational sessions April 5th and July 26th from 9:00 am to 11:30 am. Families and professionals will be provided an overview of the programs offered, typical student profile, and a tour of campus.

Contact Monica Lindo at 508-888-0489 ext. 206 to register
(Parents and professionals only)

Bill aims to help dyslexic children

This time it’s Arkansas.

A list of state laws pertaining to dyslexia.

Neurologists Warn Against ADHD Drugs To Help Kids Study

Makes me quite nervous that there are kids who fabricate symptoms of ADHD in order to get medications. For physicians to do a collaborative and differential diagnosis of ADHD apparently takes too much time for some.

Using Adderal as a “neuro-enhancer” is another iteration of, or smokescreen for, taking speed to stay up late and cram for finals.

Atlanta School For Learning Disabilities Hosts Open House on Sunday, March 24, 2013

Judge Rules a High School Student with Disabilities Will Not Get Expelled

Fascinating story and case of a high school student who was charged with selling drugs (marijuana) to an undercover deputy. The judge in the case has ruled that the school must readmit the boy because his social thinking weaknesses (autism spectrum) and mental health diagnoses (anxiety and bi-polar disorder ) resulted in undue pressure (on the part of the undercover deputy), and said that “the parents had “overwhelmingly demonstrated” that the teen’s behavior with the deputy was significantly influenced by his disability.

IDEA law requires that school discipline must factor disability into it’s response to misbehaviors and consequences.

Hmm.

New Voices For The Voiceless: Synthetic Speech Gets An Upgrade

Great possibilities.

Rupal Patel, a speech scientist at Northeastern University has been taking utterances from kids with speech disorders, and creating a synthetic voice that captures melodic elements of the affected person.

From NPR

Headquartered near Aspen, Colorado, WonderWorx is a creative enterprise for design entrepreneur, Robert Tobias. His previous venture, which was an Aspen landmark and destination for decades, was a gallery called Waterfall Hope that marketed avant-garde, creative works from the world of arts and crafts.

WonderWorx® products may be utilized as unique, effective, powerful, therapeutic devices for addressing autism, sensory processing disorder, and other childhood neurological disorders. Combining the effective, simultaneous stimulation of the auditory, visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive senses with play on WonderWorx inventions offers unique, therapeutic benefits

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 own experiments, and carry them out aboard the vehicle.
Invite citizens aboard to participate in actual studies and teach them how cognitive science can improve their lives.
Collaborate with world-renowned psychologists and neuroscientists to deliver sidewalk talks, taking the public on their explorations into human thought and behavior.

There is a new wave of process-promoting educators who realize this. Perception researcher, Beau Lotto, recently guided a classroom of 10-year-olds from brainstorming, to experimenting, and finally to an overwhelmingly student-driven publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Proposals for experiential science education have made New York Times headlines. My STEM initiative, a lab-on-wheels dubbed ‘The Think Tank,’ will join this new wave by delivering experiential education through a science we all have a stake in: the science of the mind.

Informative site with research on print disabilities and speech/language

Founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut since 1970, Haskins Laboratories is a private, non-profit research institute with a primary focus on speech, language and reading, and their biological basis. Support for our work comes mostly from federally funded, competitive research grants. This is supplemented by private foundation support and individual donations.

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 on a kind of black and white and rigid thinking that is usually associated wth certain developmental disabilities (Asperger’s Syndrome) or Congress, and the political blogosphere.

All one has to do is to search the internet for spirited discussions and articles addressing the possibility that visually-based therapies , such as developmental optometry or “Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome” for example, (and the use of Irlen Lenses), and you will start to drift deeper and deeper into a black hole of anecdotes, studies cited, and an intensity of name-calling.

Now, to be clear, I have from time to time drifted there myself. People care passionately about their work with children, professionally and personally. I’ve been in the field of learning disabilities and behavioral health for more than twenty-five years. As a parent who raised a child with LD, an Orton-Gillingham trained educator, an LD school director and more, I’ve been lucky enough to see and be part of advances in clinical practice, research, and brain-imaging techniques that have deepened our understanding of the intricacies of reading and spelling disabilities. I know on a very deep level the importance of attending to the phonological and linguistic aspect of print disabilities. For many people who struggle with printed words and dense language, an Orton-based approach for instruction, for example, can be a life-saver and a huge piece of the puzzle and key to unlocking the world of reading and writing.

I also know the critical nature of mindset and developing a work ethic/resilience in the face of repeated frustration.

I must say I have also witnessed many many people who describe a visual aspect to their struggle with reading.

So, here’s the thing, or the point that I’m getting to (hang in there): Even though the preponderance of the scientific evidence points to the primacy of phonological weaknesses as a root cause of dyslexia and reading disabilities, there is a need for a crack to open in our collective expert phonological minds. Just open enough in order to allow that there may just be very important visual processing aspects to success in reading for some folks.

The problem that leads us to a steadfast denial of the above’s validity, is the amount of overselling from “the other side.” There has been an irresponsible overstating of how conditions can be “cured” with all sorts of gimmicks and lenses, etc. What gets lost in all the hyperbole, is an open-mindedness to consider the degree to which our brains and sensory systems are indeed impacted, negatively and positively, by light, color, shape and size.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of professional time and energy defending the primacy of language-based and phonological issues in literacy development, and caution people all the time about needlessly investing time and money in unproven methods. However, in the interests of kids and research, I believe we need to think more holistically at times. As much as I pin my profession on evidence-based approaches, double-blind studies, although rightfully the perceived pinnacle of evidence standards, are not the be all and end all. Absence of evidence is not proof that something doesn’t exist.

To all of the Orton-based and similarly founded experts, myself included: We sometimes need to get off our high horses long enough to dig around in the weeds. Sometimes those weeds include asking kids themselves what they are experiencing. Sometimes we might learn something from people we disagree with, because even though they may overstate and over-promise and over generalize, we might at times throw out the baby for the bathwater. I find no compelling evidence for example, that the Open Dyslexia font, which among other attributes, “weights” the bottoms of certain confusable letters (i.e. “b”s), works for lots of people. However I’ve had a few kids tell me they feel that it’s helpful to them. Hmm.

Let’s not use Congress, and the trolls in online comment sections, as our role models for educational and psychological solutions.

Please.

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 at age four can be expected to make notable language gains than was previously thought. Abnormalities in communication and language are a defining feature of ASD, yet prior research into the factors predicting the age and quality of speech attainment has been limited.

Autistic children with severe language delay achieve phrase or fluent speech by age eight.

This study, the largest of its type to date, examined which factors led to the development of “phrase utterance,” and which helped predict the rate of improvement (at what age). In general, Non-Verbal intelligence factors were the greatest predictor of this language development, and “social interest and engagement were as robust, if not greater, when predicting the age that children attained phrase speech and fluent speech,” said Ericka L. Wodka, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist in Kennedy Krieger.

Teens with Learning Disabilities Benefit from Closer Relationships

Teenagers with LD tend to have less secure relationships with their parents and teachers, furthering their risks of struggling with depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

The study, found in the journal of Journal of Youth and Adolescence, suggests the absence of close and supportive relationships can harm a teens’ social and emotional functioning. In turn, this void can contribute to behavioral problems including isolation, depression, and aggression.