Liz Ditz, about whose blog we’ve commented previously, posted about misrepresentations of dyslexia 29 August. Ms. Ditz expressed well-founded concern about a San Fransisco journalist who fell for fascile characterizations of dyslexia.
Nanette Asimov, the Chronicle education writer (who otherwise has good chops–she investigated Scientology’s worming its way into the SF school district) made two serious errors in a recent news article on special education:
In 2001, Juleus Chapman was a Fremont 8th-grader with “scotopic sensitivity syndrome” — a condition that makes words seem to swim across the page — and dyslexia, which causes letters to appear in reverse order.
In other words,
- She accepted a quack definition. “Scotopic sensitivity syndrome” exists only in the mind of the people who provide an expensive and useless fix
- She perpetuated two destructive myths about dyslexia: that it has to do with visual perception, and it has something to do with reversal of letters.
Ms. Ditz has got it right here. Learning Disabilities such as dyslexia are too often characterized in ways that are probably well-intentioned but are simply wrong. Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS), reversals, learning styles, and many other misrepresentations of LD are perpetuated by journalists and even educators. Peggy and I opined about a whole host of them in a recent editorial for TeachingLD.org.
I’m very glad Ms. Ditz devoted time to refuting these misrepresentations. Getting the general public and even some professionals concerned with individuals with LD to a attend to and employ effective practices is complicated by the perpetuation of myths such as SSS (and Irlen lenses, colored overlays, etc.) and strephosymbolia (reversals). I’m sending Ms. Ditz a note of thanks for her work.
Link to Ms. Ditz’s entry aptly entitled “Educating Education Writers,” a self-referential link to our previous post about Ms. Ditz’s blog, a link to our editorial on TLD, and a link to a page developed by some students in my class on characteristics of LD in the mid 1990s.
Published by JohnL on 29 August 2005
in News.
Here’s an entry from another widget for OS X. This one’s called “RapidMetaBlog,” and it’s from Nigel Kirsten. Like the others, it’s pretty straightforward.
Kirsten’s widget is at this link.
Published by JohnL on 29 August 2005
in News.
As many parents know, the search for appropriate Learning Disability services can be arduous. Donecia Pea documents one mother’s search in a story in The Shreveport (LA, US) Times. Ms. Pea describes Linda Boyd’s efforts to to find help for her daughter Bailey:
For nearly five years, Linda Boyd of Haughton has worked tirelessly to find the best help for her youngest child.
She remembers when she first realized Bailey was struggling in class.
“She was having trouble in kindergarten and we questioned it, but not a whole lot because she wasn’t having that much trouble. Then, when she went to the first grade, they kept saying ‘She’s immature, she’s immature’ and we finally got her tested in the first grade and they said she needed speech therapy, which was a big problem,” Boyd said.
Later, Bailey was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability that affects a person’s ability to process words and letters.
Ms. Pea’s coverage includes a sidebar of “facts” and interviews with both some local private providers and school officials. Although there are minor misrepresentations and such, it’s good to get coverage that’s mostly accurate.
The beginning of the school year often brings coverage of disabilities by news sources. I remember appearing on a radio segment about disabilities at this time of year over a decade ago. What’s appeared in other papers, radio, or TV sources? If you’ve seen or heard a story, add a comment.
Link for Ms. Pea’s story.
This is from another of those Mac Widgets (tiny programs that permit easy switching from one function to another). This is DashBlog from June Tate and it predates WordPressDash by a few months, but development appears to be dormant at this time.
I work from Macs and LDBlog is served from one, too. I’m testing a new Widget that allows posting via a different interface. It’s “WordPressDash” from http://www.paniris.com/wordpressdash/.
What’s been happ’nin’
I’ve been busy with other duties of late and, thus, not much of a contributor. Yes, the semester’s started, and I’ve also moved my physical office (not quite complete). I hope to return soon to scouring various sources for news and information about Learning Disabilities so that I can provide content here.
As soon as I get the chance, I’ll be making selected materials for U.Va.’s course—Characteristics of Individuals with Learning Disabilities—available to the public. Link for those materials.