Isabel Santa, who is affiliated with the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (Hispanic CREO) in Washington (DC, US), recounted a discouraging story under the title “Lack of communciation, lack of education” in the Orlando (FL; US) Sentinal. She expresses outrage about the failure of Florida educators to communicate appropriately to parents who do not speak English. She has a list of failures, but she describes the one that precipitated her statement in this way:
Recently, I received a phone call from a confused and caring Arcadia Hispanic parent who didn’t understand an English letter she received from the DeSoto school district. About a month ago, her 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a learning disability. Never did this mother imagine her daughter needed special education nor did she imagine that a letter regarding better opportunities for her child would be sent to her in a foreign language. In her best English, she read the letter to me over the phone; it stated that her daughter may be eligible for the McKay Scholarship. The McKay Scholarship offers parents of special-needs children who are dissatisfied with their current school an opportunity to transfer to another public or private school.
Link to Ms. Santa’s article.
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 In this case, a mother in Blackpool (UK) has withdrawn her son from school after learning that he had Learning Disabilities that the school had left untreated.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.
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.
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.
AACAP
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:
Link to the AACAP page.