LD Resources

Image: Courtesy of Christian Boer

I’ve heard of this before and can’t quite make up my mind about it. This article in Scientific American describes a typographic font created by a graphic designer from the Netherlands, that supposedly makes reading print easier for some people with dyslexia. I suppose if it’s helpful to some then more power to it. I’ve tried it on a few kids I work with and they don’t see or feel any impact yet.

I’d love to hear from others, particularly if you have dyslexia.

After reading this article in the NY Times online, two themes emerged in my head: 1. Create curriculum for entrepreneurship at the high school level and, 2. the Cass Business School study that identified upwards of 35% of successful serial entrepreneurs in the US self-identified as having dyslexia and/or ADHD.

I’m a big fan of a college education, but not always as the only route nor necessarily the immediate route after high school. It’s time to rethink.

I’ve recently begun working with a 10 year old boy who has dyslexia. That’s not unusual for me. It’s an important part of what I do in my educational consulting practice, and I’ve been doing it for years.

What’s new is that the young boy and his family live about four and a half hours away by car. So, on our respective Macintosh Computers, we have our language-training intensive tutorial sessions, four days per week, via Apple’s FaceTime, their video calling software. And so far, it’s working great.

I know this isn’t necessarily breakthrough stuff; Skype’s been around for awhile for example. But, for me, and for this particular family, it’s a thing of beauty. FaceTime gives them access to me, a trained dyslexia specialist, without leaving their somewhat rural home. It allows me to stay connected to a wonderful kid and his family.

One of the things I wondered about was whether the screen/virtual connection would somehow miss too much of the intuitive, non-verbal aspects of communication that I depend on. In my work, I’m not simply transmitting information. There’s an exchange that goes well beyond that. Pleasantly, I’ve found that I can be nearly or exactly as perceptive to subtle cues and input from my student as I can in person. The fact that we began our relationship in person and that we have that as a base of knowing one another, is, I imagine, very helpful.

There is an aspect of any therapeutic relationship that happens right-brain to right-brain, intuitive self to intuitive self, and I wasn’t sure how that would translate in a computer environment. It’s working very very well.

Another aspect of a teaching/remedial/mentoring relationship that I wondered about concerns motivation and attention. Would the video-phone environment diminish my ability to capture and hold his attention? Would he be able to sustain his attention? Let’s face it, even in the same room, teaching someone who’s dyslexic all about spelling patterns for example, generating and holding attention is important and not a foregone conclusion (smile).

As it’s turned out thus far, he’s had a higher level of concentration because of the technology and novelty of the interface. Because of the demands of computer-computer interface, we’re working more than ever with word processing, and besides improving his reading and spelling, he’s also having to learn how to cut and paste, how to use links, how to get more out of his browser, and how to select and use extensions. He’s loving it!

So, expanding our concepts even for elementary-aged students, of what the teaching environment, interface, and delivery should look like, is good thing.

Having the right tools helps. On my end I’m working on a brand new iMac with a large enough screen and a fast enough processor, and high speed internet connection, that I think helps FaceTime works like a charm. FaceTime software on a large enough screen allows my student to hold up his paper and work to show me, and unlike previous versions of Photo Booth for example, the letters and words appear correctly and not in mirror image.

There’s nothing in what I’m using, that is “adaptive” or “assistive technology.” This is simply the basics of what’s out there for anyone.

Next, I’m trying to figure out how I can screen share easily through new and improved features inherent in Lion OS 10.7.2

“The American Academy of Pediatrics this week issued new guidelines urging doctors to begin looking for signs of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – ADHD – in children as young as four years old. Before, the guidelines had set the minimum age at 6 years old.”

These new guidelines, discussed here on NPR’s On Point Radio Show, are designed to signal parents and professionals that signs consistent with ADHD can appear in children as young as four. As part of early identification, there’s a lot of good that can come out of this. Not surprisingly however, this has begun to generate a firestorm of discussion.

There are pieces to these new guidelines that’s entirely good and fundamentally sound. I have a couple of issues however: Especially with young children, doing a thorough and differential evaluation (which means to look at other or overlapping possibilities that explain the presenting behaviors), one needs to include a complete history and observation of the child in different settings in addition to the office. Evaluation of ADHD or other conditions has to be deep and authentic, and should not rely solely on parent or even teacher rating scales or comments. For this reason, the idea of a general practitioner or family pediatrician being able to diagnose ADHD in a 15-20 minute office visit is nonsensical. However, the idea of a pediatrician alerting or confirming to parents there’s a need to do a more extensive follow-up investigation, is a good thing.

People who are getting frantic already about these new guidelines are jumping to a conclusion that they will quickly lead to getting young kids on medications. This is not the intent of early identification. I’m not unconcerned about over medication, but overall, we applaud early identification measures for physical diseases or developmental disorders (Autism), so why not for other neurological and brain-based conditions?

[via Richard Wanderman]

Too often we as educators and parents, get hyper-focused on the things our/your kids can’t do or struggle with. Even with the best of intentions, adults lose perspective. We run the risk of trying so hard, too hard, to squeeze children with learning disabilities into the mold of what we want for our kids in the future. And in the meantime, you miss moments of opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in the business of educating and problem-solving for kids and families with learning and behavioral struggles. I believe very much in early identification of risks and struggle and for planning for the future.

But when we’re too future-focused, we lose sight of the forest for the trees. In the case of kids, that means missing the beauty of their wondrous perfection, imperfections and all. In case you think I’m being too sappy and sentimental, read this article in the NY Times called “Notes from a Dragon Mom”. The author, a professor of writing at a Sante Fe university, has an 18 month old child who will die for sure, because of a rare genetic disorder. It’s powerful piece, and she reminds us all of the importance of loving your child in the present moment. In her case there is no future to hold onto so there isn’t the usual focus on parenting “in the right way.”

Pretty amazing to see just how wrong an attempt at incentivizing success in student performance can go.

From Good.is A couple of Orange County California schools came up with a poorly thought out concept to reward students who performed better on high stakes tests.

“High-performing students received black cards, the ones in the middle got gold ones, and the lowest-scoring group got white IDs. The schools then awarded discounts and perks around campus to the students with the black and gold cards.

According to The Orange County Register, black cardholders got into home athletic events for free and received “discounts to school dances and at local businesses.” Students with gold card were offered more limited discounts. As for white cardholders, they were forced to pay full price for everything and had to stand in a separate, slower lunch line in the cafeteria.”

And this coming from folks who are probably dead set against performance and merit pay for teachers.

The foolhardiness of this idea in my opinion centers around:
1. Rewarding performance on the standardized tests rather than on more holistic criteria including authentic work samples. This continues to encourage “teaching to the test.” Poor priorities.

2. Think what this potentially does to students with various learning disabilities who don’t usually demonstrate their knowledge through standardized tests.

I’m all for rewarding effort and performance and attitudes, but not in this way.

[via Richard Wanderman]

An interesting and pretty thorough article from US News and World Report, Colleges Step Up to Meet Dyslexia Challenge, which addresses a recent meeting at Stanford University, of 45 college admission deans on the different aspects of the admissions process and levels of support once in college, for students with documented learning disabilities.

Interestingly, given the discussion at this site on the relationship between IQ and dyslexia; this is pretty much geared to high academic achieving kids who have LD.

Also there’s a link in the article that the reporter titles: [Read how learning disabilities may offer an edge in college admissions.] While there are ways in which disclosure of your learning disability during the admission’s process can somewhat level a skewed playing field, I’d say it’s a bit of an unnecessary spin to characterize having a learning disability as something that gives you an advantage.

There’s plenty of posts and testimonials about Steve Jobs, as there should be. I wanted to say here how much he truly did for the worldwide community of people with various disabilities and learning differences. Apple’s ease of use and its features that help all of us, but particularly help people with disabilities was never really touted that much but made a huge impact. Just like the brilliance of much of Apple’s technology, the power of it’s “disability features” went further and further into the background, and so became easier and more powerful.

If you watch the video of the new iPhone personal assistant Siri, you may barely notice that the woman listening to her message (instead of reading it) and then replying (and Siri putting and sending her spoken words into text) via text message, is blind (she’s reading braille).

Steve and Apple have done so much for me, and for my students who learn differently. We wish the family well.

I get angry when I read headlines that either intentionally mislead and inflame people about anything, and in this case dyslexia, or do so out of some form of laziness.

There’s been a recent study released that should lead to more kids getting more resources and services and hope. Unfortunately there are some headlines that insinuate the opposite, that dyslexia isn’t real.

Here’s the reality. In a recent study from Stanford University, scientists have zeroed in on the brain activation patterns of poor readers. They have found that such brain activation maps are similar in those with higher and lower IQs.

In other words, dyslexia doesn’t mean your dumb. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that just because you’re dyslexic, you’re automatically brilliant. The article’s title is even,”Brain imaging study shows physiological basis of dyslexia.”

According to Stanford’s School of Medicine, “…in the wake of recent behavioral studies showing that phonological deficits — that is, difficulties in processing the sound system of language, which often leads to difficulties in connecting the sounds of language to letters — are similar in poor readers regardless of IQ.”

This is further evidence that, as Sally Shaywitz has argued previously, IQ and reading skills are not as coupled as many previously thought. While on the one hand this means that if you struggle with reading and spelling due to core phonological deficits in decoding and recoding of phonemics, it doesn’t reflect your capacity to be smart and successful, it also means that people who test out in the below average range of IQ can also be dyslexic. As some responsible folks have noted (including those from MIT and Stanford), these findings should lead to the opening up of resources for a broader range of students.

Instead, and here’s where I get angry, there are articles with the following headlines, “Doubts raised over dyslexia diagnoses” with the subheading: “Dyslexia could be just a label, according to scientists, after a study of brain scans found there is little difference between the way children with the condition think while trying to read and those who simply have a low IQ.”

Again, direct from Stanford (who did the study):

“Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have used an imaging technique to show that the brain activation patterns in children with poor reading skills and a low IQ are similar to those in poor readers with a typical IQ. The work provides more definitive evidence about poor readers having similar kinds of difficulties regardless of their general cognitive ability.”

Is it just me, or does this upset anyone else?

Photo by Alessandra Sanguinetti / Magnum

It appears that the risk for having a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) when you already have a child with ASD is quite a bit higher than previously thought.

In this article from Journal Watch, a physician edited site, a large size study (664 infants) is discussed.

Apparently previous studies have indicated that if a family has an older child with ASD, the chances of a subsequent child having Autism of some type were thought to be between 3 and 10%.

This new study shows that the number is 19%. I don’t like being an alarmist, but that is a big difference. The difference is because of the larger sample size and the fact that it’s been done over a longer period of time.

From Good.is This is a tantalizingly exciting teaser article and video (TED.com) about a radical reshaping of what we used to consider vocational schools, in England. It’s spreading there quite rapidly and I for one, can’t wait to hear and see more.

The founding group has attempted to wrestle with and address two fundamental problems in education and society: 1. Many teens are bored and tuned out from school. They’re failing and disinterested and they don’t see any relation between school and the real world. Further, they’re disenfranchised because they don’t see jobs at the end of their school story. 2. The second problem is that employers feel too many kids come looking for work with a lack of skills, including their attitudes towards work and fitting into a team.

Studio schools operate by having 80% of the schooling take place out from behind desks. The idea of a studio is a place where learning and real work happen together and gets integrated. Working on real projects on small teams in areas such as engineering, creative and media industry, tourism and health care are some of the examples they cite.

From the sounds of it, they’re getting great results.

We need something different.

“Living to Our Complete Potential”
March 26 & 27, 2012

Hawaii Convention Center

1801 Kalakaua Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96815-1513

The 28th Annual Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability & Diversity (Pac Rim) will bring together a diverse international gathering of academics, community leaders, self-advocates, specialists and officials to Honolulu, Hawaii on March 26-27, 2012. The conference aims to inspire, educate and illuminate – with over 18 topic areas, 200 presentations and several institutes, the programs is fertile ground for dialogue and exchange while ‘pushing the envelope’ to ensure all human beings can live to their complete potential. Each year the conference hews to its traditional areas which have bread much of the interdisciplinary research and educational advances of the last three decades. But each year new topics are introduced to foment discussion and change. The intent is to harness the tremendous synergy as generated by the intermingling of these diverse perspectives, thus, creating a powerful program which impacts each individual participant in his or her own unique way. We invite you to visit our website and find out more about the topic areas, registration and the call for proposals at www.pacrim.hawaii.edu
This event is hosted by the Center on Disability Studies (CDS), at the University of Hawaii.

The Pacific Rim International Forum on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

March 24 & 25, 2012

Hilton Hawaiian Village
Honolulu, HI

Charmaine Crockett
Center on Disability Studies
1776 University Ave UA 4-6
Honolulu, HI 96822
www.pacrim.hawaii.edu
prinfo@hawaii.edu