LD Blog

On the morning drive show for Richmond (VA, US) radio station WRVA, listeners were saddled with the burden of listening to me miss chances to restate the “Not Lazy and Dumb” message. Thanks to Jimmy Barrett, the morning host for WRVA, and his staff, I was invited to comment on whether dyslexia was a “fig leaf” for “stupid” in an interview about Professor Julian Elliott’s recent comments pushing that message.

Alert or well-informed readers will recognize Professor Elliott as the individual whose comments raised a bit of an uproar in the fall of 2005. Julian (Joe) Elliott is a member of the education faculty at Durham University; he taught in mainstream and special education prior and practiced an LEA educational psychologist before going into higher education. LD Blog covered the flap over his earlier comments here and here.

In some recent comments, he has reiterated his earlier position. Here’s a snippet from a story in the London (UK) Daily Mail:

Dyslexia is a social fig leaf used by middle-class parents who fear their children will be labeled as low achievers, a professor has claimed.

Julian Elliott, a leading educational psychologist at Durham University, says he has found no evidence to identify dyslexia as a medical condition after more than 30 years of research.

I probably sliced my answers too thinly. I found myself focusing mostly on diagnostic clarity. But you can listen to what I said by following links at the end of this entry.

Toward the end of the 10-min session, Mr. Barrett also asked about ADHD and other issues. I muddled.

Links:
Mr. Barrett’s page at WRVA.
WRVA’s podcast catalog where one can listen to the interview or download an MP3 of it. (I’m not sure how long the WRVA site maintains those resources; if the go 404, let me know and I’ll see if I may link to a local copy of the MP3.)
London (UK) Daily Mail article about Professor Elliott’s more recent comments.