Archive for June 17th, 2006

AACAP

Published by JohnL on 17 June 2006 in Comments, Families, News and Not LD. 0 Comments

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is a highly regarded organization, but its Web site has a weak treatment of Learning Disabilities. In addition to publishing the very influential Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, it provides Facts for Families© as a public service to promote understanding and treatment of various disorders. One of the documents in that series for families addresses Learning Disabilities. Sadly, it contains uneven and inaccurate, information. Here are two examples:

  • “Learning disabilities affect at least 1 in 10 schoolchildren.” I guess the AACAP is using different diagnostic criteria than those used by the US public schools. A little more than 5% of students in US public schools have been identified as having Learning Disabilities. (Some of my colleagues in special education consider that percentage to be too high.) I know of no reputable epidemiologic study showing a 10% prevalence.
  • The page lists signs of Learning Disablities, one of which occurs when a child “has difficulty distinguishing right from left; difficulty identifying words or a tendency to reverse letters, words, or numbers; (for example, confusing 25 with 52, ‘b’ with ‘d,’ or ‘on’ with ‘no’).” As we’ve noted repeatedly, reversals are not an indicator of Learning Disabilities.

Link to the AACAP page.

Another false negative

Published by JohnL on 17 June 2006 in Families and News. 0 Comments

I want to assemble a corpus of stories such as this so that the next time someone raises a ruckus about over-identification of Learning Disabilities I can give her or him a sheaf of examples of under-identification. In this case, a mother in Blackpool (UK) has withdrawn her son from school after learning that he had Learning Disabilities that the school had left untreated.

[Sue Jackson] claims 11-year-old Jordan was sent out of lessons and made to do jobs for the headteacher because staff at Manor Beach Primary School in Cleveleys thought he was badly behaved when in fact Mrs Jackson says he is dyslexic.
Her complaints sparked an investigation by education chiefs from Lancashire County Council, which concluded there had been “a failure in the special educational needs systems in the school and not all statutory requirements have been met”.

Here’s hoping that someone will teach Jordan effectively and quickly. Link to the story.

Make schools safe

Published by JohnL on 17 June 2006 in Comments and News. 0 Comments

A Philadelphia (PA, US) high school student who receives special education, perhaps because of Learning Disabilities, allegedly was sexually assaulted in school, according to a story carried by television station.

The 10th grade student was in the lunchroom when she was told to go to the auditorium balcony where other boys were waiting to take part in sexually assaulting her. Her mother said that her disability makes her easy prey.

If this allegation is true, there should be some serious consequences for the students who committed the assault. There should also be some serious reworking of the procedures employed by the school for ensuring the safety of students.

Link to the WVPI story; use side links to view video (streamed poorly for me). I was unable to find references to the story in other Philadelphia news sources.