Sometimes here on LD Blog I’ve posted notes about myths about Learning Disabilities. For example, “LD does not stand for lazy and dumb.” I’m glad to note that an organization called “Specific Learning Disabilities Association of Queensland” has a list of similar myths. Although some of its sibling organizations perpetuate myths (e.g., reversals), it’s nice to see that others are publishing sensible information such as this. Link to the page.
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I received a note from folks associated with the Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) reminding me about the pending end of the opportunity to vote on priorities for research about disability and rehabilitation. Public voting on the importance of the priorities ends tomorrow (15 May 2009).
The federally mandated Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) utilized a Web-based approach to collect online disability research comments to assist in developing a federal disability and rehabilitation 2010 research agenda. The comments were submitted from March 27th until April 17th. Additionally, registered participants were invited to review all research related comments submitted and to vote on their top 10 concerns in each topic area from April 22nd through April 29th.
As we indicated previously, the voting was suspended on April 23 to modify the database application due to the overwhelming number of recommendations. If you voted previously, it will be necessary to recast your votes during the new one-week timeframe: May 8-15, 2009. We apologize for this inconvenience and encourage you to return to the site to vote for your research priorities. For more information, please visit www.icdr.us/stakeholders.
Similar content also appears on EBD Blog. Please share the word.
Sphere: Related ContentOver on Atlanta Cures Dyslexia Bill Allen has a page headed “Rich and Famous Dyslexics: Dyslexic Talents Unleashed!” that I suspect he hopes will inspire people to work hard and achieve great things.
What talented dyslexic – your child? — is next in line for life success? Once overcome, dyslexia can be a creative gift. The dyslexic is predominantly a 3-dimensional thinker, “seeing” or, more accurately, “perceiving” a whole picture when processing the input of many senses. Called “Big Picture Thinking” by The Learning to Read Program, this ability makes the dyslexic a very creative person when working with three-dimensional objects or physical events.
Look who’s dyslexic!
This is followed by a two overlapping lists of at least 70 names. Most of them are celebrities of one sort or another (entertainment, sports) or historically important figures. People who are familiar with other sites that identify individuals who putatively have Learning Disabilities will recognize many of these names.
There were some new ones for me, though. I do not remember previously reading assertions that Loretta Young, Michael Faraday, Gustave Flaubert, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, John F. Kennedy, or Robert Kennedy had dyslexia. Does anyone know where I learn about these individuals’ Learning Disabilities?
Sigh. Probably not.
I understand that people hope lists such as this one will prove inspiring to children and even adults who struggle with learning. But, do the lists serve that function? And, are they accurate? Who completed the diagnosis of, for example, Michael Faraday? In addition, what about all the people who definitely have dyslexia and have accomplished a lot, but who are not famous? And what about all the individuals who have dyslexia and are managing to make it without fame and fortune?
Link to Mr. Allen’s page. There’s also a reading program available there; that’s a post for another day.
Sphere: Related ContentI’m talking about speech, but not about speaking indistinctly and running one’s words together. I’m talking about speech that insults.
Over on One Special Place, Renee Beauregard has a post deriding the use of “retard” and its variants (‘tard, ‘tarded, etc.) in common speech.
Do you have any idea how many times people with developmental disabilities are called the “R” word – in a way that is meant to be derogatory? And now, this word has become an adjective used as much as any other negative word to describe a person.
The history of disabilities is replete with terms that were once used clinically as well as insultingly: imbecile, idiot, moron, and others. Now that groups such as the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD; formerly American Association for Mental Retardation or AAMR) have changed their names, maybe the term “retard” as a slur can take its place on the slag heap of misbegotten insults.
Ms. Beauregard notes some examples of people taking offense at this use of the term. Link to her post. There are other resources available, too. Check Alex Santoso’s post from Neatorama for notes about the usage of some of these terms. Meanwhile, have a little consideration, please.
Sphere: Related ContentI was fiddling around with a new feature of Google and thought I’d test its use on a task. Having just read the only entry in the proposed canon for LD (please add to it, folks), I thought I’d search for instances of the perpetuation of the myth that S. A. Kirk coined the term Learning Disability in 1963 in a speech to the group that would become the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities (and, ultimately, the the Learning Disabilities Association of America, and of many other countries, too).
“But, everybody says that’s when he coined it, don’t they?” Not really. Some folks know that Professor Kirk and Barbara Bateman had already used the term “Learning Disabilities” in a paper published a half year earlier (and, given the delay between submission and publication of an article, they’d likely used the term at least a year before the famous meeting).
This analysis does not take anything away from the importance of the meeting in Chicago; that was a signal event, an illustration of the political clout of parents who rally around a common theme in the service of their children. That meeting was the beginning of what one might call the Learning Disabilities movement in the US and now the world. In fact, the LDA site doesn’t make the mistake about the birth of the term; it simply recounts the momentuous events that occured there and then.
Professor Bateman explained it correctly (and she should know) in her 2005 paper “The Play’s the Thing”: “The definition of LD, now controversial, was not an issue when the term learning disabilities was first introduced by Kirk in 1962.”
Anyway, I started a list of places where writers have perpetuated the myth that the term “Learning Disabilities” was introduced in 1963 at the Chicago meeting. Here are a few.
- “Dr. Kirk’s most influential pronouncement was a speech he delivered to an education conference in 1963, when he coined and defined the term ‘learning disabilities.’”
New York Times obituary for Professor Kirk. - “The phrase ‘learning disability’ was coined here in Chicago in 1963 by Kirk”
Psychpage - “The term learning disabilities was first coined in 1963 by Samuel Kirk”
2005 Newsletter of the Oregon chapter of Learning Disabilities Assocation of America. - “The term learning disabilities was first coined in 1963 in Chicago, Illinois, by Samuel Kirk,”
Doris Johnson’s abstract for a plenary session at the University of Pennsylvania. - “The term learning disability was first coined in a speech that Samuel Kirk delivered in 1963 at the Chicago Conference on Children with Perceptual Handicaps.”
S. W. Lee in The Encyclopedia of School Psychology (p. 290).
But, I really ought to give credit to those who got it right, who didn’t repeat the misinformation. Ahhh, but that’s another entry.
Bateman, B. (2005). The play’s the thing. Learning Disability Quarterly, 28, 93-99.
Sphere: Related ContentAnthony DiSilvo reminded me that the Sprout Film Festival will be in my neighborhood. Although it’s not expressly about Learning Disabilities, it’s relevant to LD Blog for other reasons (e.g., achievements of individuals with disabilities).
SPROUT FILM FESTIVAL “Making the Invisible Visible”
Two Shows! 10:30 am – 12:00 pm (Free Admission)
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm ($10 suggested donation) at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.Tickets are general admission and available at the door.
People with developmental disabilities as subjects and performers remain marginalized in the media. The Sprout Film Festival aims to raise their profile by showcasing works of all genres featuring this population.
By presenting films of artistry and intellect, the festival hopes to reinforce accurate portrayals of people with developmental disabilities and expose the general public to important issues facing this population. The goal is an enjoyable and enlightening experience that will help breakdown stereotypes, promoting a greater acceptance of differences and awareness of similarities.
The local event is sponsored by the Piedmont Regional Education Program. Here’s a link to the flyer for the event and here’s a link directly to the PREP Web site. I’ve run notices about SFF in New York City over on Teach Effectively or SpedPro in the past. One about this year’s festival will appear on SpedPro pretty soon. Here’s a link to the NYC event.
Sphere: Related ContentIn “Teen graduates from San Diego State: O’Callaghan overcomes learning disorder to excel in academics,” Gary Warth of the North County Times (Escondido, CA, US) reports that Sean O’Callaghan graduated at 19 years of age from San Diego State University 29 January and will now pursue doctoral studies. Mr. Warth notes that Mr. O’Callaghan’s achievements are even more impressive because he has a Learning Disability.
An Eagle Scout at 14. A top-ranking Sea Cadet at 16. And now a college graduate at 19 headed into a doctoral program in England.
It would be tempting to believe that success comes easily to Sean O’Callaghan of Rancho Penasquitos, but he wouldn’t necessarily agree.
Mr. O’Callaghan attributes his success to hard work, not native ability. It’s hard to know whether his self-assessment is accurate. He could be really smart. But, smarts are irrelevant in the face of substantial achievement. I’m glad to see he’s making it.
Unfortunately, this story identifies “auditory process disorder” as a Learning Disability. Despite having worked on the topic of Learning Disabilities for the better part of 40 years and having head it many times, I’ve not yet come to grips with what that phrase means. Nevertheless, I applaud Mr. O’Callaghan’s accomplishements and hope that he is as successful in his future endeavors as he has been previously.
Link to Mr. Ware’s story.
Sphere: Related ContentDespite getting virtually no recommendations about future content (3 votes!), I’m starting to post some new content. The new content is, in my obviously biased view (else, why would I post it?), pretty important stuff. It’s about research, practice, knowledge, and all that sort of stuff as it connects to Learning Disabilities. In this page, I discuss big-idea concepts that recur in Learning Disabilities. These are the themes that one sees when one reads a diverse array of literature on the topic of LD.
I recommend it. What’s more, you won’t have to find this post each time you want to refer to the page; it will always be directly accessible under the “special content” link in the top navigation bar.
Sphere: Related ContentSome students with Learning Disabilities have substantial problems with the pragmatic aspects of language. Pragmatics is one of the main aspects of language (others are phonemics, morphology, semantics, and syntax), and it refers to the social aspects of using language (e.g., taking turns; adapting vocabulary, sentence structure, and etc. according to listeners’ language skills; and so forth). The problems of some students with LD were famously described in the title of a study by Tanis Bryan and colleagues; they took their title from something that one one of their students with LD said when talking with other children: “‘Come on dummy’: An observational study of children’s communication.”
As one might guess, deficits in pragmatics are associated with social-behavioral problems. Students with LD who have problems with pragmatics—do not know how to take turns, how to adjust their talk to fit different social situations, how to interpret subtle implications, etc.—may quickly become social outcasts, for example. Sadly, I fear that this aspect of LD is too rarely examined in thoughtful and parsimonious way.
However, over on Language Fix, Paul Morris had a commentary on the topic that I recommend to both of you folks who routinely read LD Blog. Mr. Morris provides a starting place for thinking about assessing and teaching pragmatics in a very, well, pragmatic way.
Continue reading ‘Simple pragmatics’
Is it The Answer?
It’s Open Comments Day! Consider this list of connections for a therapy that helps children with ADHD, dyslexia, Autism, Aspergers, Tourette, Learning Disability, processsing disorders:
Would the descriptors make you rush to the Internet to learn where you could reserve access to the therapy? Would it, instead, make your skepticals rise? What would you think?
Drop a comment. Tell your view. What do you think of this therapy? Do you recommend it?
Check back tomorrow. I’ll explain everything (excluding the meaning of life) then.
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