Monthly Archive for June, 2006

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Even in the UK

Published on 16 June 2006 in Not LD and The press. 0 Comments

In the UK, “Learning Disability” refers to what would be identified as “Mental Retardation” in the US, so there is reason for some slack for UK writers who misuse (by my standards) “Learning Disabilities” as a generic for “disability.” But, in this case, it appears that the confusion of terms is even beyond the limit of that play or give I’m willing to provide. From an article in the Evening Times of Scotland, I extracted this quote:

An estimated 20% of Scots have a learning disability, such as dyslexia, autism, dispraxia or Aspergers syndrome.

Link to the full story.

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LD screening

Published on 15 June 2006 in Dyslexia and News. 4 Comments

The state legislature of Mississippi (US) is considering a state-wide screening of first graders for dyslexia, according to an article entitled “Proposal aims to test schoolkids for learning disabilities” by Laura Hipp of the Clarion-Ledger. Ms. Hipp notes that representatives Brian Aldridge (R-Tupelo) and Alyce Clarke (D-Jackson) in her story. This is a laudable idea. I hope Reps. Aldridge and Clarke can achieve it.

The proposal is one of several that may surface in the 2007 legislative session aimed at identifying dyslexia and other learning disabilities. State officials estimate the dropout rate at about 40 percent.

“Not being able to read is causing a lot of our children to get in trouble and go to prison,” said state Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson. “We’ve got a problem.”

The representatives apparently conducted a meeting about dyslexia on 13 June 2006. Ms. Hipp has multiple quotes from other participants in her story. Link to Ms. Hipp’s story.

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False positive!

Published on 14 June 2006 in News. 0 Comments

I found one! I found a false positive identification of Learning Disabilities!

Well, O.K., it’s not really one. It’s just that a student was mistakenly assigned to special education services because the school misspelled his name.

Read Sarah Carr’s story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.

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Liz lights the way

Published on 14 June 2006 in News. 0 Comments

Over on I Speak of Dreams, Liz has been busy the last couple of days. She’s got a whole flock of good posts:

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Response and recognition

Published on 13 June 2006 in News. 0 Comments

Response and Recognition, an early intervening project conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Center and funded by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, has released a document describing its recommendations for preventing Learning Disabilities.

SOME YOUNG CHILDREN show signs that they may not be learning in an expected manner, even before they begin kindergarten. These children may exhibit problems in areas such as language development, phonological awareness, perceptual-motor abilities, and attention, which have been considered precursors of learning disabilities in older children. However, under current state and federal guidelines, these children are nlikely to meet eligibility criteria for having a learning disability.

Download the report or jump to the Web site.

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IDEA for parents

Published on 13 June 2006 in Families, News and Policy. 0 Comments

Liz Ditz has a note about a new book entitled IDEA 2004: Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act: A Parent Handbook for School Age Children with Learning Disabilities by Shelley Smith, who is a school psychologist and parent advocate. Read Liz’s post to learn more.

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Perpetuating lazy myth

Published on 9 June 2006 in Comments and News. 1 Comment

I hesitate to report on this, as I’ve previously pointed out the concerns I have about the recommendations from the special education correspondent for about.com here and here, but I can’t restrain myself.

Learning disabled students have potential – lots of potential. Convince them of their confidence and you’re apt to see success. Hang tight to these tips and steps to support learning disabled students in your classroom.

Two problems: (a) Although complete teaching requires us to incorporate motivational aspects in lessons, simply convincing students of their confidence isn’t likely to produce benefits; these kids’ problems are not because they’re unmotivated or lazy. (b) If one follows the link embedded in the tease for the entry, one finds vapid recommendations.

Children with Learning Disabilities often exhibit a wide range of symptoms and will require additional support to ensure that the potential to learn is in place. Ask yourself the following questions to determine if the activity promotes worthwhile learning or not:

  1. Copying text from chart paper, the board or a book
  2. Practice writing words from a spelling list
  3. Reading the same material repeatedly
  4. Cutting and pasting items without an established goal
  5. Tracing over numbers or letters
  6. Listening to tape recorded stories while following along with the text version
  7. Brainstorming all the words that have a silent vowel
  8. Engaging in a computer application that promotes literacy or numeracy

It’s pretty easy to spot the activites that have minimal learning benefits.

I’m struggling here. What question should I ask? There must be something missing, but I can understand as I know no writer can claim to have made no syntactic mistakes. It must be that the reader is to ask whether each activity promotes worthwhile learning.

Anyway, I’d guess that, from Ms. Watson’s perspective, the first five are bad and the last three are good.

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Post-graduation story

Published on 8 June 2006 in ADHD, News and The press. 1 Comment

Among the annual burst of human interest stories about the triumphs of students with Learning Disabilities, I found one about Zane Vogel, a young man who a graduated early from high school at least a year ago and is now “taking a break” from college. The story, by Lynn Taylor Rick in the Rapid City Journal (SD, US), is chockful of connections for LD Blog. Because there many of them, I’ll forego embedding an extended quote and list a few here.

  • Mr. Vogel “didn’t realize that the way he reversed letters or the way he equated words with pictures was typical of a dyslexic.”—Ooopsie! Too bad that someone passed the reversals myth along to Mr. Vogel and too bad that Ms. Rick perpetuated it here.
  • Mr. Vogel’s mother “suspected dyslexia. But when she asked her son’s various teachers, they dismissed the idea.”—I continue to be distressed by the way educators too often dismiss Learning Disabilities; I cannot, of course, say what actually happened between Mr. Vogel’s mother and teachers, but I’ve heard lots of stories like this. We educators have to understand that students with these problems do not simply outgrow them, parents’ concerns are worthy of careful consideration, and inaction is mistake.
  • “Finally having a name for his struggles and some help meant Vogel began seeing a future for himself. ‘To see accomplished people with it (dyslexia) got me excited about school again,’ he said”—Labeling isn’t so terrible, and here is the good side of celebrity LD, a topic we’ve covered off and on here.
  • “Although Vogel has come out on top in his struggle with a learning disability, he still deals with it daily.”—Learning Disabilities do not go away when formal schooling ends.

Link to Ms. Rick’s article. Take a couple of minutes to read it.

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Virginia College Quest

Published on 8 June 2006 in News. 0 Comments

The Commonwealth of Virginia is providing a guide to college for students with disabilities, including those with Learning Disabilities, Virginia College Quest. It’s a rich Web site that students with Learning Disabilities and their families are likely to find worthwhile.

Are there comparable resources available elsewhere in the US or other countries? Please let us know via comments.

Using grant funds from the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities, Virginia College Quest is a project of the Virginia Department of Education Training and Technical Assistance Center at George Mason University and The Advocacy Institute. Flash of the Electrons to Candace Coretiella’s Advocacy Institute for alerting me to this product.

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Reading canon

Published on 7 June 2006 in Bookshelf and News. 2 Comments

Liz Ditz took the initiative and launched a wiki where people can contribute to the development of a canon on reading. This is predicated on earlier posts here on Teach Effectively (here and here) and Liz’s I Speak of Dreams (here).

The wiki will make an interesting experiment in Internet-mediated interactions. Check it here.

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