In a series of pages that provide clearly written information about dyslexia for parents, the Mayo Clinic perpetuates at least three myths about that Learning Disability. The pages report that reversals are a symptom of dyslexia, that an underlying brain malfunction is immutable, and that multi-sensory instruction is required. Let’s take them one at at time.
Reversals of letters (b for d) and a reversal of words (saw for was) are typical among children who have dyslexia. Reversals are common for children age 6 and younger who don’t have dyslexia. But with dyslexia, the reversals persist.
This is a topic that we’ve long ago and only recently addressed, and almost certainly one we shall have to address again. Here’s the problem: Reversals are not an indicator of reading problems. They are a red herring. It is true that children with reading problems make numerically more reversal errors than do their normal reading counterparts, but they do not make proportionally more reversal errors.
2. Now for the brain malfunction argument:
There’s no known way to correct the underlying brain malfunction that causes dyslexia. Treatment is by remedial education.
Although imaging research shows that, when performing reading tasks, the areas of activation in the brains of individuals with reading disabilities are different from the areas of activation in the brains of individuals who read normally, contemporary studies show that effective remedial reading instruction causes the areas of activation in the brains of individuals with reading disabilities to change. After successful remediation, scans show activity in the same areas of the brain for both those who had reading problems and those who read normally. The “underlying brain malfunction” is changed by effective instruction.
3. Now, for the remediation misconception:
Teachers may use techniques involving hearing, vision and touch to improve reading skills. Helping a child use several senses to learn ? for example, by listening to a taped lesson and tracing with a finger the shape of the words spoken ? can help him or her process the information. The most important teaching approach may be frequent instruction by a reading specialist who uses these multisensory methods of teaching.
This is the ever-popular multi-sensory myth. How can one teach reading in a uni-sensory way? Research has revealed very clearly how to teach decoding effectively. Instruction based on that research is what we need to tout for these kids. At least the writer used the weasel word “may.”
It’s terribly disappointing to see a prestigious organization misrepresenting Learning Disabilities. Now we need to see whether the developers of this site will correct the errors. Please write to them. They use a Web form for correspondence and it’s linked here.
Link to the first of the series of Web pages about dyslexia. Link to our recent post about reversals, to an earlier post about reversals, and to a page explaining more about that myth.
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