Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Thinking alike and right

Published on 25 September 2007 in Administration, Comments, News, Professional development and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over on TeachUTeachMe Becky Barr has a post about learning styles that makes me feel good. It’s not simply that she cites a post of mine from Teach Effectively!, but that she helps carry the flag for reasonable preparation of future teachers.

Link to Professor Barr’s article.

Of course, I also like her picture of Buster Brown; I had a Cocker Spaniel as a companion from the time I was 1 month old until I was in my early teens.

By the way, while you’re out surfing about, check Guy Wallace’s recounting of a talk by Sigmund Tobias ‘ take on learning styles.

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Teacher’s LD advocacy recognized

Published on 24 September 2007 in ADHD, News and The press. 0 Comments

An article from the Colorado Springs (CO, US) Gazette describes an award given to a teacher for helping students with Learning Disabilities develop self-advocacy skills. Under the headline “D-12 teacher an ‘American Star’: Award honors creation of program for learning-disabled teens,” Shari Chaney Griffen reported that Alan Pocock, a teacher in a Colorado Springs high school, was recognized for developing a program called “Learning and Educating About Disabilities” (LEAD). LEAD helps high school students with Learning Disabilities and ADHD to prepare for college.

The US Department of Education provides the award that Mr. Pocock received. He is one of 51 recipients of it for this year.

The award program, part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, annually recognizes one teacher from each state and Washington, D.C., for innovative teaching strategies, making a difference in the lives of students and improving academic performance.

“He’s a poster child for that criteria,” said Salle Howes, a parent and past president of Learning and Educating About Disabilities Foundation in Colorado Springs.

Howes nominated Pocock for the award for his work in creating the LEAD program, which helps college-bound students with learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder build on their strengths and overcome weaknesses. Students learn about their rights as students with disabilities and how to advocate for themselves.

Link to Ms. Griffin’s article. Link to the Colorado Learning and Educating About Disabilities Foundation site that had a feature about the award as of this date. Google items about the “American Star of Teaching” award. Link to a US Department of Education data base showing recipients of the American Star of Teaching award.

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Off the mark

Published on 20 September 2007 in Dyslexia, Families, News and The press. 0 Comments

On a couple of those ubiquitous self-help sites on the Web I found the same article about Learning Disabilities. Entitled “Dyslexia: Diagnosing If Your Child Has It,” the article presents an apparently heartfelt view, but the content is questionable on mutliple counts.

  • It promotes the discrepancy approach to identification.
  • It mixes phonemic awareness with phonics.
  • It describes treatment options uncritically.
  • In several places, the syntax is hard to understand (e.g., “When trying to determine whether or not your child has dyslexia or not, there are a few indicators to look for”).

Worse yet, this is one of 50 duplicate articles about Learning Disabilities on each site. Probably this is the work of a well-meaning individual, but it’s disappointing to have such treatments of important topics as readily accessible as very careful and substantive content that one can receive from sites such as those listed in the “LD Links” I list in this blog’s sidebar.

Link to the originals from Solve Your Problems and Info 4 Healthy Living.

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Dore reviewed

Published on 18 September 2007 in ADHD, Dyslexia, Families, News and Research. 1 Comment

Professor Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology found the evidence favoring Dore Achievement Center efficacy to be wanting. Writing in an official journal of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Professor Bishop cautioned physicians and other clinicians not to accept inadequate evidence for the program.

Dore Achievement Centres are springing up world-wide with a mission to cure cerebellar developmental delay, thought to be the cause of dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyspraxia and Asperger’s syndrome. Remarkable success is claimed for an exercise-based treatment that is designed to accelerate cerebellar development. Unfortunately, the published studies are seriously flawed. On measures where control data are available, there is no credible evidence of significant gains in literacy associated with this intervention. There are no published studies on efficacy with the clinical groups for whom the programme is advocated. It is important that family practitioners and paediatricians are aware that the claims made for this expensive treatment are misleading.

On LD Blog I have previously expressed doubt about the Dore program. You can read those entries: Going backwards, Dore dinged, and Dore more (the last includes a comment by Chris Tregenza, who advocates the treatment).

Bishop, D. V. (2007). Curing dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder by training motor co-ordination: Miracle or myth? Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 43, 653-655.

Link to the abstract for Professor Bishop’s article.

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LD in Philippines

Published on 17 September 2007 in News, Policy and The press. 0 Comments

It appears that some governments in the Philippines might be a bit ahead of efforts to help children with Learning Disabilities tha governments elsewhere in the world, including the US. Celso Lobregat, mayor of the city of Zamboanga, is reported to support of early identification, as reported in an article entitled “Zambo City mayor vows support to early detection of kids with disabilities program.”

Citing the rights of a disabled child, Mayor Celso Lobregat yesterday reiterated support to programs geared towards the protection and welfare of differently abled individuals specifically young children.

“We all believe that persons with learning disabilities can be successful at school, at work, in relationships if only they are given the right and proper opportunities”, Lobregat said in an address to participants of a two-day seminar on Early Detection and Intervention of the Children with Disabilities at the Red Cross youth hostel yesterday.

The activity, spearheaded by the Philippine Association for Citizens with Developmental Learning Disabilities (PACDLD) is part of an attempt to establish a community-based rehabilitation program for children with disabilities. Barangay health workers and representatives from the Federation of Differently Abled sector in the city participated in the seminar held from Sept. 12-13.

Link to the article.

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Teaching changes minds

Published on 16 September 2007 in Dyslexia, News and Research. 0 Comments

The University of Washington group studying dyslexia reported results from yet another study indicating that instruction reprograms neural activity.

Using new software developed to investigate how the brains of dyslexic children are organized, University of Washington researchers have found that key areas for language and working memory involved in reading are connected differently in dyslexics than in children who are good readers and spellers.

However, once the children with dyslexia received a three-week instructional program, their patterns of functional brain connectivity normalized and were similar to those of good readers when deciding if sounds went with groups of letters in words.

“Some brain regions are too strongly connected functionally in children with dyslexia when they are deciding which sounds go with which letters,” said Todd Richards, a UW neuroimaging scientist and lead author of a study published in the current issue of the Journal of Neurolinguistics. “We had hints in previous studies that the ability to decode novel words improves when a specific brain region in the right hemisphere decreases in activation. This study suggests that the deactivation may result in a disconnection in time from the comparable region in the left hemisphere, which in turn leads to improved reading. Reading requires sequential as well as simultaneous processes.”

Richards and co-author Virginia Berninger, a neuropsychologist, said temporal connectivity, or the ability of different parts of the brain to “talk” with each other at the same time or in sequence, is a key in overcoming dyslexia.

Berninger, who directs the UW’s Learning Disabilities Center, compared dyslexia to an orchestra playing with an ineffective conductor who does not keep all the musicians playing in synchrony with each other.

“You have all of the correct instruments but, if the conductor is not doing his or her job of coordination, the right instruments are playing at the wrong time,” she said. “This all goes away once the conductor finds a way to signal to the musicians to play at the proper times.”

Link to the press release from which I quoted. Links to some earlier entries about other similar research findings reported here on LD Blog: Brain Follows Behavior, More Brain Effects, Still More Brain Effects

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DLD dissertation award

Published on 13 September 2007 in News and Research. 0 Comments

Over on Spedpro, Margo Mastropieri announced the annual competition for an award recognizing research on Learning Disabilities conducted by a doctoral student. Here’s a snippet:

The Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) within the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) announces its annual competition for outstanding doctoral-level research in the field of learning disabilities. The purposes of the award are to encourage excellence in doctoral level research and to recognize quality research that contributes to the field of learning disabilities. Refer to TeachingLD.org for additional information.

Link

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LD Worldwide

Published on 12 September 2007 in Administration, Comments and The press. 0 Comments

Learning Disabilities Worldwide is an international organization that serves parents, individuals with Learning Disabilities, educators, clinicians, and researchers. Here are its goals:

  • Promote early intervention to prevent unnecessary failure and frustration.
  • Awareness of environmental issues that impact childhood development
  • Eliminate cultural bias and stereotypes
  • Advancement of learning disabilities (LD) knowledge utilizing the Internet
  • Educational conferences and multilingual media publications
  • Promote and support legislation advocacy and education
  • Stimulate a global atmosphere through ready access to state-of-the-art research and information worldwide.

Here’s a link to the Web site for the organization. Note that I added it to the blogroll, so one doesn’t have to go back to this post to find a link to it.

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Schwab guide

Published on 11 September 2007 in Assessment, Families and News. 0 Comments

In a move that it hopes will encourage early assessment and identification where appropriate (a hope I share), Schwab Learning announced the availability of a new interactive tool for parents who suspect their child may have a learning problem. The Web site, which is supported by the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, focuses on helping families of children with learning and attention problems. The unique guide, “When Your Child Struggles with Learning: A Step-by-Step Guide for Getting Help,” covers content relevant for each of the myriad steps in assessment and identification of Learning Disabilities.

If your child struggles with learning, you may have more questions than answers, such as:

Where do I start?
Where can I get help?
What’s my next step?

Our interactive guide will help you navigate this often complicated journey. We’ll lead you through the process by providing tips, strategies, and essential resources to answer your questions at every step along the way.

Link to the Schwab Learning page where one can launch the guide.

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More services in OZ

Published on 10 September 2007 in Administration, News and The press. 0 Comments

ABC.net—the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—reported that local politicians are discussing the need for additional specialists to help students with Learning Disabilities.

The Opposition’s education spokeswoman, Sue Napier, is calling on the State Government to fund more specialist staff to help school students with learning disabilities.

Ms Napier says a lack of specialists such as speech pathologists in schools means many children with disabilities such as dyslexia are failing to achieve basic literacy.

She says more than 10% of Tasmanian children suffer from some form of learning disability.

The full story is pretty brief, but here’s the link.

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