In a puzzling case of a student who appears to have had problems throughout the primary grades and did not get help until fourth grade, Liz Ditz asks the question, How Often Does This Happen? Teacher accused of testing fraud to avoid special education referral for her student. Not until the parents had pushed for years were the child’s problems recognized. Was this a well-meaning, but misguided teacher? Has anti-LD sentiment become so strong that folks cheat to keep kids from having the label?
Sphere: Related ContentArchive for the 'Dyscalculia' Category
In the prestigious journal Science, Professors Brian Butterworth, Sashank Varma, and Diana Laurillard published a review article discussing dyscalculia, the Learning Disability that makes arithmetic and mathematics an especially- miserable muddle for some students. In their review they explain why mathematical problems are important to individuals and society, what dyscalculia is, what neuroscientists know about mathematics and dyscalculia, and what they see as the outlook for dyscalculia.
Continue reading ‘Dyscalculia gets good ink’
Sandy Hausman, Charlottesville (VA, US) reporter for WVTF (one of the local public radio stations available in my listening area), carried a story about LearningRx and Learning Disabilities this morning. Unlike the credible coverage provided by many reporters for popular-but-unproven therapies for LD and other disorders, Ms. Hausman provided a sensible and balanced story about LearningRx. Here’s the blurb from WVTF’s Web site
Americans spend millions of dollars keeping our bodies in shape. Now a Charlottesville man is offering a workout for the brain. His center–part of a nationwide franchise–promises to help children and adults improve their concentration, memory, reasoning, and other mental skills. Sandy Hausman has the story.
Unlike many reporters who too-often fall for pop-psych and pop-ed theories (as regularly noted in other posts here on LD Blog), Ms. Hausman gets many facts right (e.g., prevalence of LD), phrases her report carefully (describes LearningRx reports as “internal studies”), includes appropriate caveats along with personal-interest angles, and even incorporates alternative explanations from the experts she interviews.
This is an example of journalism done better. Listen to an MP3 of Ms. Hausman’s report and explore WVTF.org.
Sphere: Related ContentAlthough registration continues for the Division for Learning Disabilities conference, “Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice,” some of the sessions are reaching their limits and will be closed. As a part of its emphasis on creating workshop settings where participants learn how to implement evidence-based practices, DLD caps the number of participants in sessions.
Linda Siegel has put together a very impressive line-up of presenters and topics. As one can see here, the agenda for the meeting in San Diego 23 & 24 October 2009 is chocked full of good sessions by internationally renowned presenters.
| Presenter |
Title |
| David F. Bateman | How to Prepare for and Survive a Due Process Hearing |
| Jenny Sue Flannagan & Lucinda S. Spaulding | Best Practices for Inclusive Science Instruction |
| Steve Graham & Sharlene Kiuhara | Writing Problems and Writing Solutions |
| Paige C. Pullen | Phonological Awareness Assessment and Instruction: A Sound Beginning |
| Karen R. Harris, Karin Sandmel, & Mary Brindle, | “The Magna Carta Provided That No Free Man Should be Hanged Twice for the Same Offense”: Self-Regulated Strategy Development for Writing |
| Charles A. Hughes | Two Recent SIM Writing Strategies: The Essay Test-Taking Strategy and the Editing Strategy |
| Erica Lembke & Todd Busch | Using Curriculum-Based Measurement for Data-Based Decision Making within a Response to Intervention System |
| Maureen W. Lovett | Multiple Component Intervention to Improve the Outcomes of Struggling Readers: Remediating Reading Skill Deficits and Misguided Beliefs About Effort and Achievement at the Same Time |
| Marjorie Montague | Improving Mathematical Problem Solving of Middle School Students with LD |
| Brian Bottge | Teaching Mathematics to Adolescents with LD in Rich Problem-Solving Contexts |
| Rosemary Tannock | Understanding and Engaging Children’s Wandering Minds |
| Karen J. Rooney | Adolescent Literacy: Putting Research into Practice to Develop the Literacy Skills of Older Students |
| Deborah C. Simmons | Integrating Vocabulary Strategies into Social Studies Instruction |
| David Scanlon | The ORDER Routine: For Comprehending Content-Area Concepts |
| José Luis Alvarado & Anne Graves | RTI for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners: Supporting Teachers to Implement Tier I and Tier II Literacy Instruction for Older Struggling |
| Susan P. Miller | Building a Strong Numbers and Operations Foundation to Enhance Mathematics Success |
| Nicole Ofiesh | “Got Accommodations?” Implications for Planning Instruction and Transition from Secondary to Postsecondary Settings |
| Rollanda E. O’Connor | Successful Tier 2 Interventions in Reading: Grades K-4 |
| Kimberly Bright & Paul Riccomini | I THINK: A Real-Life Problem-solving Strategy for secondary students with Learning Disabilities |
Link to the conference page at TeachingLD.org to register.
Sphere: Related ContentProfessor Orly Rubinsten and colleagues found that methylphenidate affects the arithmetic performance of children in different ways, but its effects are not only on children with ADHD. When they received methylphenidate, the active ingredient in Ritalin, children had higher correct responding on problems requiring them to follow a series of steps than when they didn’t receive the drug; in contrast, there were no differences between drug and no-drug conditions on simpler tasks. The effects occurred for children with dyscalculia, less math problems, or no math problems.
Methylphenidate has Differential Effects on Numerical Abilities in ADHD Children with and without Co-Morbid Mathematical Difficulties
Authors: Orly Rubinsten, Anne-Claude Bedard, Rosemary Tannock
doi: 10.2174/1874350100801010011Abstract:
Objective. To investigate effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on numerical performance in children with Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with and without concurrent math difficulties. Method. Data were analyzed from three groups of children with ADHD, who varied in arithmetic abilities. Groups were matched for IQ and reading abilities and classification was based on ICD-10 criteria, using scores on a standardized arithmetic achievement test. Thus, we identified one group with severe difficulties in arithmetic (ADHD+Developmental Dyscalculia; DD), second group with more general and less severe difficulties in arithmetic (ADHD+Mathematical Disabilities; MD), and a third group with good arithmetic abilities (ADHD). All children completed a 10-minute arithmetic task involving subtraction problems, during an acute, randomized, placebo-controlled cross-over trial with three dose levels of methylphenidate (10mg, 15mg, 20mg). Results. (1) Both ADHD+MD and ADHD+DD were impaired in using strategies that implicate working memory (i.e., borrowing). However, only the ADHD+DD were impaired in using implicit knowledge of quantities (i.e., doing simple subtractions). (2) MPH improved all children’s performance of arithmetic procedures (borrowing) that involves working memory, but had no effect on basic numerical skills that involves understanding of quantities. Conclusions. We show clear dissociation of MPH functions: it improves working memory functions but does not improve specific cognitive functions such as quantity manipulation. Moreover, MPH shows decreased efficacy for arithmetic performance in ADHD+DD, highlighting the need for additional intervention in this subgroup.Keywords: Methylphenidate, developmental dyscalculia, ADHD
Affiliation: Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Program, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The study appeared in The Open Psychology Journal and the entire article is available for free via the Open Journal initiative.
Sphere: Related ContentWheeeheee! Over on the Skeptic’s Dictionary, Robert T. Carroll has a take-down and pin of Brain Gym. The contemporary incarnation of some ideas that were thoroughly discredited in Learning Disabilities in the 1970s, Brain Gym is making something of a splash. Shoot, it even appeared in one of my Curry School colleague’s classes for a while, as I understand.
Professor Carroll’s indictment of Brain Gym presents a good opportunity to make an important point. The problem with Brain Gym and many of its siblings is not that the activities might not be worthwhile, it’s that the advocates over-reach so substantially. Shoot, I’m glad to advocate that we teach kids who might fit the clumsy category how to walk, move, dance, play basketball, and etc. I just don’t want people to be sold a bill of goods about how doing so will improve those children’s reading, etc.
Read Professor Carroll’s analysis. Need info on the research about the benefits of perceptual-motor training? Here’s a link to a meta-analysis.
Sphere: Related ContentLiz Ditz has a post noting today’s status as “International Dyscalculia Awareness Day, Today.” Read it here.
Under the title “Famous Dyscalculics!” on YouTube, readers can find a video composed of images of famous people who are said to have dyscalculia. There’s lots of repetitive music and text bubbles to help explain the pictures. Here’s the link. That’s one of several on YouTube; the others are called “Dyscalculia” and “Dyscalculia – Not Only Troubles with Math.”
Flash of the electrons to long-time blogger Maria Angala of Special Education Teacher in Washington DC for tipping me to the video.
Sphere: Related ContentSome reports of research showing ultrasound’s effects on neurological development of mice fetuses are generating interest in the popular press. Working in the lab of Pasko Rakic, Eugenius Ang and colleagues found that a “small but statistically significant number of neurons fail to acquire thier proper position” within the cerebral cortex among fetal mice exposed to 30 or more minutes of ultrasound waves during the period of time when these neurons develop.
News reports such as one by Randolph E. Schmid (Associated Press science writer) include a quotation from Dr. Rakic (Yale University) mentioning a possible connection to dyslexia and other disorders.
Rakic’s paper said that while the effects of ultrasound in human brain development are not yet known, there are disorders thought to be the result of misplacement of brain cells during their development.
“These disorders range from mental retardation and childhood epilepsy to developmental dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia,” the researchers said.
The reasons for caution in extrapolating to human fetal development are many. Mr. Schmid also interviewed Joshua Copel, president-elect of the American Institute of Ultrasound Medicine and another professor at the Yale Medical School, getting additional interpretation of the findings.
Copel… did point out that there are large differences between scanning mice and scanning people.
For example, because of their size, the distance between the scanner and the fetus is larger in people than mice, which reduces the intensity of the ultrasound. In addition, he said, the density of the cranial bones in a human baby is more than that of a tiny mouse, which further reduces exposure to the scan.
The paper noted that the developmental period of these brain cells is much longer in humans than in mice, so that exposure would be a smaller percentage of their developmental period.
However, it also pointed out that brain cell development in people is more complex and there are more cells developing, which could increase the chances of some going astray.
Furthermore, previous research directly testing the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to ultrasound increases the risk of dyslexia has provided mixed-but-mostly-null results. According to the abstract of one study, Stark and colleagues found “no biologically significant differences between exposed and unexposed children,” however, some folks (e.g., here and here) say that there was a significant correlation between exposure and dyslexia; I have requested the original article so that I can review it and shall report on it once I’ve read it. Salvesen and colleagues found (1992) “that those [children] whose mothers received diagnostic ultrasound screening while pregnant did just as well on reading, spelling and arithmetic tests as those whose mothers had not” but they reported (1993) that “the odds of non-right handedness were higher among children who had been screened in utero than among control children…. No clear differences were found between the groups with regard to deficits in attention, motor control, and perception or neurological development during the first year of life” but cautioned that the findings were inconsistent.
Link to the abstract of the article by the Rakic team; there are additional links on this page from which one can see supporting material and download a PDF of the full article. Link to Mr. Schmid’s story, as carried by LiveScience. Link to an HTML page for Dr. Rakic’s lab.
- Ang, E. S. B. C Jr., Gluncic, V., Duque, A., Schafer, M. E., & Rakic, P. (2006). Prenatal exposure to ultrasound waves impacts neuronal migration in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2006 Aug 10 [Epub ahead of print]. Retrieved 14 August 2006 from http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0605294103.
- Stark, C. R., Orleans, M., Haverkamp, A. D., & Murphy, J. (1984). Short- and long-term risks after exposure to diagnostic ultrasound in utero. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 63, 194-200.
- K. A. Salvesen, K. A., Bakketeig, L. S., Eik-nes, S. H., Undheim, J. O., & Okland, O. (1992). Routine ultrasonography in utero and school performance at age 8-9 years. The Lancet, 339(8785), 85(5).
- Salvesen K. A., Vatten L. J., Eik-Nes S. H., Hugdahl K., & Bakketeig, L. S. (1993). Routine ultrasonography in utero and subsequent handedness and neurological development. British Medical Journal, 307(6897), 159-
Sigh–new content
Despite 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.
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