Archive for July, 2005

Judge helps people with LD

Published by JohnL on 31 July 2005 in News. 0 Comments

His son’s Learning Disability prompted Judge David Admire to provide help for individuals with disabilities in the justice system. Chris Winter reported in the King County Journal that an experience with his son changed Judge Admire’s approach to people in his court.

Admire recalls preparing to go on a trip somewhere, and he told his son to go to his room, put on his coat and come back. His son went to his room and didn’t come out.

Admire repeated the direction with the same result, and was about to admonish his son, but first he asked the youngster what it was he had just been asked to do. His son replied matter-of-factly that he had been told to go to his room.

“A light went on,” Admire said. “How many times does this happen in a courtroom? My personal life and professional life just went crashing together.”

The revelation prompted him to seek out a way to help convicts with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder. A partnership with the Learning Disabilities Association of Washington led to obtaining federal money to provide services to those in need.

Mr. Winter’s characterization of the son’s Learning Disability (”a sequencing disorder: His son couldn’t focus on more than one thing at a time”) may give authorities on LD pause, the story is worth reading. Congratulations to Judge Admire for his contributions.

Link to the story. Alternative link to Seattle Times version of Judge Admire’s retirement.

Individual Advocacy

Published by JohnL on 27 July 2005 in News. 0 Comments

In an entry in her journal, a blogger identified as Liadra argues that there ought to be a system of advocates for children and youth with Learning Disabilities. Writing about her neice who dropped out of school before completing 9th grade (Canada), she wrote (typos in original):

There wasn’t anyone who advocated for this child. I didn’t know she’d been assessed for these things. I couldn’t offer advice. I suspect it was while she was with FC&S, but even so, they obviously didn’t advocate fully as no plan was put into place attending to all her needs. Her mother, who she is now living with, isn’t in any position to advocate for her daughter (even if she is the best damn manipulator I’ve ever known in my life), so this kid accepted the diagnosis, the failure, and left school.

I want to know why there aren’t any third party agencies mandated to help with this. Acgencies with no other agenda than to make certain you know and understand your rights.

In the comments following the post, there are suggestions about how an agency could have served this purpose and how parents are the best advocates for children. The idea raises a host of interesting questions (e.g., Under what conditions would an advocate be appointed?) that the participants discuss.

Link to the original entry and the discussion.

Bummer

Published by JohnL on 4 July 2005 in News and The Press. 1 Comment

Sadly, Felicity, at the educationzone blog, threw a link to an entry on Sue Watson’s Web site about assessing children’s pre-literacy readiness. “Wondering where your readers should be at 5-7 years? Here’s a checklist to determine if the student is at level or has the potential to be dyslexic or learning disabled.” Now, the chances of people finding Watson’s site and it’s misinformation increase.

By discussing it here, I hope to provide users of the Internet with a counter-balancing assessment of the information promoted at that site.

The original checklist to which Felicity refers is composed of 10 items, each of which is s simple statement. Some are typical of pre-literacy assessments (e.g., “The child pretends to read by holding the book correctly, turns the pages and makes reference to the story from memory and from the pictures”). Some are just inferences about motivation (e.g., “The child enjoys participating in songs, chimes, chants, poems and storybook times”). But, there is no clear criterion for evaluation, just a general statement about interpreting the results (e.g., “If you’ve checked most of the boxes, there’s nothing to worry about”).

The only reference to anything related to phonological awareness is presented with squish. Item 9 reads, “Some children will have sound-symbol correspondence, they’ll know that the ‘B’ is what the word ball begins with.” How do you check or not check this one? Recommendations should be based on better information than what’s presented in this site. There are good assessments of pre-literacy.

Ms. Watson doesn’t have to provide formal psychometric data about her checklist, but she ought to note that she’s just made up these items and their meaning. Perhaps she could just label the site, “I do not purport to provide scientfic or trustworthy information about reading, special education, disabilities, or anything else. These pages just represent my opinions.”

Link to the coverage of the checklist and the original checklist.

College calculus pedagogy

Published by JohnL on 1 July 2005 in News. 0 Comments

There are several blogs that appear to be sustaining some overlapping discussions (debate?) about the benefits of different instructional practices for students with Learning Disabilities in college calculus classes. There are advocates of putative “constructivist” and “direct instruction” approaches. It makes for pretty interesting reading, though sorting through the redundancy and superfluous content was a tad daunting. Here are some of the sources:

  • “KtchenTableMath” is an interactive site maintained by Carolyn Johnston and Catherine Johnson whose purpose is “to have fun, to share ways of teaching kids math, and to support people who want to help kids learn math.” They became interested in instruction because of their children’s needs for help with arithmetic and mathematics. Here’s a link to the entry in their twiki.
  • Another source is maintained by Kimberly Swygert, who is a statistician for a private testing company that makes high-stakes tests. Here’s the link to the entry in her blog, “Number 2 Pencil.”
  • Robert Talbert, who teaches math and computing at Franklin College, has a blog called “BrightMystery.” His contributions to the multi-site discussion are available via this link (perhaps the starting point) and this link.