News, commentary, and resources about Learning Disabilities
Pete and Pam Wright recently launched a blog, so let’s welcome them to the neighborhood. Their contributions via the rapidly changing form of blogs promise to be helpful. You can read the blog on the Web or, of course, subscribe to it with your favorite RSS reader.
Flash of the electrons to Christina Samuels of On Special Education for alerting me to this.
Parents who are members of the Mashpee (MA, US) Mashpee Special Education Parents’ Advisory Council (SEPAC) have created an extensive Web site with extensive resources at Mashpee SEPAC. Are there other similar sites created by parent groups? Please add links to any that exist by posting them in comments.
Here’s an interesting research project: Equip a house with a host of highly sensitive audio-video recording devices that pipe the data into cluster of high-powered computers which have an array of very capacious storage devices. Using this system, document the language environment in which a child is raised and record the child’s language development. Pretty nifty, hunh? A petabyte of developmental data!
This is, in fact, what a couple of parents—Deb Roy (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA, US) and Rupal Patel (Northwestern; Boston, MA, US)—have been doing for the past few years.
The high-powered academic couple—he directs of the Cognitive Machines Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, and she directs the Communication Analysis and Design Laboratory at Northeastern University—scrambled to convert their suburban Boston home into a state-of-the-art research center that would host the most ambitious study ever conducted on how children acquire language. They named the linguistic data-mining odyssey the Human Speechome Project (HSP), a marriage between “Speech” and “Home.”
Why’s this relevant for LD Blog? Well, other research (especially Hart and Risley’s excellent work as summarized in Meaningful Differences, but note that there are many related studies in the research literature) has shown that differences in language environments have substantial effects on children’s language (e.g., vocabulary). Many Learning Disabilities are associated with problems in language (e.g., low phonological awareness, atypical syntax, problems in morphology, poor pragmatics). Understanding the language environment in which children develop their language skills might help explain some of the problems we see among children with Learning Disabilities.
Am I blaming parents? Nope. Language experiences that some children have may actually have protective effects. But, some experiences apparently are predictive of later outcomes. It would be good to know.
Am I saying that Learning Disabilities are environmental, that they have no biological components? Nope. I’m not saying that they do or do not have biological features. But, imagine that there are biological predispositions and that some language environments prevent or mitigate the manifestation of disability. That would be worth knowing, I’d say.
To complete a project examining the contribution of language environments to Learning Disabilities would require a prospective longitudinal study of substantial size. Supposing that Learning Disabilities appear in 5% of the population, then to get a enough children with Learning Disabilities to make the study reasonably sensitive, one would need 2000 families; at 5 per 100, that would yield about 100 children with Learning Disabilities. Now, if one were clever, she would look for families where there were siblings so that one could also examine the shared and non-shared environments, and start to factor in the contribution of genetic factors.
Imagine the financial cost of such a study….
If you could have a switch that would stop the recording at any time, would you agree to have such a system record your interactions with your newborn all the way through toddlerhood?
Meanwhile, to learn more about the Human Speechome Project, check these resources:
Dr. M. Romanos and colleagues examined the genetic make-up of several families and found that there are common elements that appear to be associated with ADHD. Although these findings point toward a genetic contribution to ADHD, it is important to note the caveat implied by the final sentence of the abstract: So many factors contribute to ADHD, that these results should not be construed as identifying the precise cause of the disorder. In the full article, the authors are circumspect about this: “The identification [in this study] of several novel linkage regions as well as replication of previously reported loci provides further evidence for the highly heterogeneous genetic etiology of ADHD.”
Genome-wide linkage analysis of ADHD using high-density SNP arrays: Novel loci at 5q13.1 and 14q12
M Romanos, C. Freitag, C. Jacob, D. W Craig, A. Dempfle, T. T. Nguyen, R. Halperin, S. Walitza, T. J Renner, C. Seitz, J. Romanos, H. Palmason, A. Reif, M. Heine, C. Windemuth-Kieselbach, C. Vogler, J. Sigmund, A. Warnke, H. Schäfer, J. Meyer, D. A. Stephan, & K. P. Lesch
Molecular Psychiatry (2008) 13, 522–530; doi:10.1038/mp.2008.12; published online 26 February 2008
Abstract
Previous genome-wide linkage studies applied the affected sib-pair design; one investigated extended pedigrees of a. genetic isolate. Here, results of a. genome-wide high-density linkage scan of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using an array-based genotyping of approx ~50 K. single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) markers are presented. We investigated eight extended pedigrees of German origin that were non-related, not part of a. genetic isolate and ascertained on the basis of clinical referral. Two parametric analyses maximizing LOD scores (MOD) and a. non-parametric analysis for both a. broad and a. narrow phenotype approach were conducted. Novel linkage loci across all families were detected at 2q35, 5q13.1, 6q22-23 and 14q12, within individual families at 18q11.2-12.3. Further linkage regions at 7q21.11, 9q22 and 16q24.1 in all families, and at 1q25.1, 1q25.3, 9q31.1-33.1, 9q33, 12p13.33, 15q11.2-13.3 and 16p12.3-12.2 in individual families replicate previous findings. High-resolution linkage mapping points to several novel candidate genes characterized by dense expression in the brain and potential impact on disorder-relevant synaptic transmission. Our study provides further evidence for common gene effects throughout different populations despite the complex multifactorial etiology of ADHD.
Helmer R. Myklebust, one of the pioneering figures in Learning Disabilities, died 26 February 2008. Predicated on his work on differentiating among speech disorders, Professor Myklebust emphasized the language-based aspects of Learning Disabilities. He theorized that there were different types of Learning Disabilities and that these types required different treatments. Throughout his career, Professor Myklebust promoted empirical study of language disorders and Learning Disabilities.
Professor Myklebust came to the study of Learning Disabilities after extensive work in hearing and speech disorders. In the 1940s he studied deafness and in the 1950s he focused on aphasia. In 1967, with his collaborator Doris Johnson, Professor Myklebust published one of the first books focused on Learning Disabilities: Learning Disabilities: Educational Principles and Remedial Approaches and later he edited a series of volumes presenting research and theory about Learning Disabilities under the title Progress in Learning Disabilities.
Professor Myklebust sought to differentiate among different variants of Learning Disabilities. He thought that Learning Disabilities could be separated into disorders of auditory language (generalized auditory disorders, auditory receptive disorders, and auditory expressive disorders), disorders of written language (auditory dyslexia, visual dyslexia, and written expression), disorders of arithmetic, and disorders of a non-verbal type. Professor Myklebust proposed that the problems children experienced were a consequence of difficulties in “interneurosensory learning.”
Professor Myklebust, who was born 2 august 1910 in Lester (IA, US), was among a small group of educators and psychologists who generally credited with founding the study of Learning Disabilities. Along with Samuel Kirk, William Cruickshank, Marianne Frostig, Newell Kephart, and perhaps a few others, Myklebust pursued the recognition of the difficulties experienced by these children and their families.
He received a bachelors degree from Augustana College, a masters degrees from Gallaudet College and Temple University, and a doctoral degree from Rutgers University. He taught and conducted research at several institutions, including Northern Illinois University; Northwestern University, where he spent most of his career and where he founded the Children’s Hearing and Aphasia Clinic; University of Illinois, Chicago. Memorial services were held 8 March.
Johnson, D. J., & Myklebust, H. (1967). Learning disabilities: Educational principles and remedial approaches. NY: Grune & Stratton.
Myklebust, H. (1954). Auditory disorders in children: A manual for differential diagnosis. NY: Grune & Stratton.
Myklebust, H. (Ed.). (1968-1975). Progress in learning disabilities (vols. 1-5). NY: Grune & Stratton.
I am late in publishing this note; thanks to Hal McGrady for alerting me to the death of this giant figure in the history or LD.
A little history
I was lucky enough to be on a panel with some folks who have had significant influence on the study of Learning Disabilities. This was a special session for the Division for Learning Disabilities at the 2008 convention of the Council for Exceptional Children. Here are two photos.
In the first photo, left to right: Hal McGrady, Shari Vaughn, Jean Lokerson, Don Deshler, Dan Hallahan, and Jean Schumaker.
In the second photo: Charlie Hughes, Naomi Zigmond, Susan Osborne, and me!
(Why am I the only one who looks worried? It’s not because I’m talking with Karen Rooney, who masterminded the assemblage of presenters for this session.)