Reporter Valle Dwight quotes LD Blog pal Liz Ditz extensively in “Searching for the miracle: Parents, in a desperate quest to fix what they’ve been told is broken in their children, are willing to try (or pay) anything to help their kids” available on Great Schools. Check on it. The article is worth a read. It fits right in with the emphasis on evidence-based treatments here on LD Blog.
Sphere: Related ContentMonthly Archive for December, 2009
Over on I Speak of Dreams, Liz Ditz posted an entry showing that the Canadian Pediatric Association understands the appropriate use of chiropractic procedures with children and youths. Jump to Liz’s post, read her entry, and follow her link to the statement: “Canadian Pediatric Society Position Statement: Chiropractic care for children: Controversies and issues.”
Sphere: Related ContentSeventh grader Samantha Ravelli, of Ocean City (NJ, US), is probably one of the youngest lobbyists who ever tasted success. According to Diane D’Amico of the Press of Atlantic City, Sammie (and her team, including her mother and sister) convinced their legislature to form the New Jersey Reading Disabilities Task Force.
Sammie has substantial reading problems, and her contacts with legislators inspired them to draft legislation creating the task force. Assemblymen Nelson Albano and Matt Milam and state Senator Jeff Van Drew collaborated to get it passed. It cleared the assembly in February and the senate in December 2009.
As a part of their efforts to promote awareness of dyslexia and to encourage legislators to create the task force, the Ravellis created Sammie’s Mission. Visit it and also read Ms. D’Amico’s blog post How Sammies’s dyslexia inspired a law and her news story, State Senate approves bill to form reading disabilities task force, about the events. Finally, snag a pdf of “An Act establishing the New Jersey Reading Disabilities Task Force.”
Sphere: Related ContentOn the US National Public Radio (NPR) this morning, reporter Joe Palca reports about tagging along to the ceremonies attended by Carol Greider, who was honored with a Nobel Prize with Jack Szostak and Elizabeth Blackburn for their groundbreaking work about telomeres (during Professor Greider’s graduate studies!). For those who are not familiar with Professor Greider’s history, it includes the difficulites that accompany having dyslexia. Professor Greider, who is a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University and one of only 10 women who have received the prestigious award, seems to have a great time in Mr. Palca’s story.
Continue reading ‘Carol Greider at the Nobel ceremonies’
Writing in the journal Neuron, Timothy Keller and Marcel Just reported that they have found changes in children’s neural anatomy that appear to be a consequence of improved reading performance. Whereas previous studies, many of which I’ve mentioned in these posts, have shown changes in the blood flow in children’s brains as a consequence of reading instruction, the findings from Keller and Marcel showed that there are changes in the physical tissue in the brain following remedial reading instruction.
Continue reading ‘Remediation changes brain structures’
Sphere: Related ContentSheri Berkeley and colleagues reported the results of a meta-analysis of research on reading comprehension interventions for students with Learning Disabilities in a forthcoming issue of Remedial and Special Education. Although their results echo findings from earlier meta-analyses and narrative reviews, they were able to add refinements to educators’ understanding of ways to promote students’ understanding of what they read. They propose that the common element in successful interventions was “teach[ing] students to attend more carefully or to think more systematically about text as it was being read.”
Continue reading ‘Promoting reading comprehension’
Over on LD Experience, Kathryn Burke posted an editorial recounting some of her experiences as a parent of children with Learning Disabilities who must weigh placement alternatives. She describes an encounter with another parent who disagreed with her decision to place her elder son in a specialized school.
A parent from my son’s school, who had not heard about the lecture from me, came to greet me and ask if I could put her name on the “special education distribution list.” Another woman overheard our discussion and asked about the list, how it had started, and if she could join. I told her that I had assembled the email list from the names of individuals who had been present at events organized by the Parent Council at my son’s school, of which I was a member of the executive. I explained that the school was a specialized site within the public system for students with learning disabilities. Upon hearing this, the woman looked at me with a level of disgust as if I had grown horns, and loudly said, “I will have absolutely nothing to do with people who believe that children with disabilities should be segregated!”
Continue reading ‘Is inclusion right for your child?’
Sphere: Related ContentYesterday was the anniversary of I Speak of Dreams, the blog that Liz Ditz maintains. Liz has used it to many sensible and helpful posts for parents, teachers, and others. She’s dug through mountains of information (including mis- and dysinformation) to make sense of issues and then reported about them clearly and thoroughly.
Liz, sorry I’m a day late, but Happy Blogiversary!
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New syndrome: Audible delays?
Does anybody know what is meant by “audible delays?”
According to a newspaper report by Bethany Hart who writes for the Washington Court House (OH, US) Record-Hearald, a woman named Tanya Cottrell noticed her child “was learning things in school a bit slower than the other children. He was diagnosed [with] having audible delays which is considered a learning disability.”
Sphere: Related ContentContinue reading ‘New syndrome: Audible delays?’