News, commentary, and resources about Learning Disabilities
I’m asking readers (both of you—teehee, there really are about 3 or 4 of you, but please invite your friends and colleagues) to tell me what you consider the three (or two or four) most important research questions about Learning Disabilities interventions. These need to be BIG IDEA questions. What do teachers and parents need to know about how to help students with LD?
Examples (in no order; I’m just hoping to provoke discussion):
Continue reading ‘What do we need to know’
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.
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.”
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’
Sheri 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’
Although 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.
In “Groups Assail Vision Therapy as Remedy for Learning Disabilities,” Crystal Phend of MedPage Today reported that the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Ophthalmology jointly issued a statement calling the use of well-known vision therapies unfounded and ineffective.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 27 — Behavioral vision therapy, eye exercises, and colored lenses have no role in treatment of dyslexia and other learning disabilities, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The academy came down hard on these “scientifically unsupported” alternative treatments in a joint statement with the American Academy of Ophthalmology and other vision organizations.
The AAP, which has published many valuable statements about Learning Disabilities in the past, made unequivocal statements about the problems with these therapies. In the accompanying audio clip, Dr. Walter Frierson provides good explanation of the rationale for the recommendations.
Learning disabilities, including reading disabilities, are commonly diagnosed in children. Their etiologies are multifactorial, reflecting genetic influences and dysfunction of brain systems. Learning disabilities are complex problems that require complex solutions. Early recognition and referral to qualified educational professionals for evidence-based evaluations and treatments seem necessary to achieve the best possible outcome. Most experts believe that dyslexia is a language-based disorder. Vision problems can interfere with the process of learning; however, vision problems are not the cause of primary dyslexia or learning disabilities. Scientific evidence does not support the efficacy of eye exercises, behavioral vision therapy, or special tinted filters or lenses for improving the long-term educational performance in these complex pediatric neurocognitive conditions. Diagnostic and treatment approaches that lack scientific evidence of efficacy, including eye exercises, behavioral vision therapy, or special tinted filters or lenses, are not endorsed and should not be recommended.
Pediatrics 2009;124:837–844
Faithful readers of LD Blog will remember that there have been perhaps a half-dozen posts here on the mistaken (at best) therapies promoted to families of individuals with Learning Disabilities. It is valuable to have prestigious organizations such as the AAP and AAO issue statements that support the observations presented here.
Teachers, psychologists, and school administrators: Please advise the parents of your students with reading problems not to waste time and money on colored lenses, eye tracking and eye teaming, and other similar therapies.
Read Ms. Phend’s report. Download the full statement by the AAP. Visit the AAP Web site, especially its section on Learning Disabilities.
Over on Twitter, friend of LD Blog Liz Ditz retweeted this:
RT @Includekidswdis: Stop, Think, Do a program by Lindy Petersen http://is.gd/1FQ0h which can really help children with #ADHD
I took a quick look and immediately remembered the work of Bonnie Camp and her colleagues (especially Mary Ann Bash) during the previous millennium. Dr. Camp and her group developed, researched, and refined methods for teaching children with learning and behavior problems, including attention deficit disorders, to manage their behavior. The Think Aloud program was at the forefront of the cog-mod mania that swept through child clinical psychology and special education in the 70s and 80s.
THINK ALOUD is a psychoeducational training progtam designed to enhance social and cognitive problem solving skills for increasing prosocial behavior and decreasing impulsivity. Much of the program content was chosen to correct cognitive deficits displayed by young aggressive boys. (1,2) Research on verbal mediation indicated that before internal controls could be established, many children needed first to establish effective control by verbalizing aloud then fading to a silent level. The Think Aloud Program was designed to teach children a problem solving process (including problem identificaton, generation of alternative solutions, predicting consequences and evaluating outcomes), how to verbalize aloud, how to apply this process in both cognitive and social situations, then move to silent direction and control of behavior. The original research with the program was conducted in two controlled trials and one refresher program with pairs of 6-8 year old boys rated as hyperaggressive by their teachers. (3,4,7,8,9,12) The manual for this program, along with details of research findings, is presented in Think Aloud: Small Group Program (11).
The numerals in the quote are footnotes (not surprisingly). They refer to only a few of the dozens of sources Dr. Camp provides.
Although it is a bit rough as a Web site, Dr. Camp has created an Internet site for Think Aloud. It features citations for those sources as well as some of the original materials. In addition, she has made some new materials for the program available as downloads.
Link to the Think Aloud site.
Whoever writes the section of About on Learning Disabilities provides support for Irlen Syndrome. Although there are two sentences expressing reservation and it doesn’t flatly commend the idea, there are 100s of words describing it and making fact-like statements such as “It often runs in families and typically goes mis-diagnosed as a learning disability or dyslexia.”
Here are the two disclaiming statements:
At least there are those two sentence. Still, why report all the other stuff uncritically? But, perhaps I’m misreading the entry or over-reacting. I invite readers to check it (link to the entry) and then vote in this poll.
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Additional weak evidence about chiropractic treatment
In “Developmental Delay Syndromes: Psychometric Testing Before and After Chiropractic Treatment of 157 Children,” Scott Cuthbert and Michel Barras present the results of an analysis of pretest-posttest scores for children who received chiropractic treatment at a clinic in Lausanne (CH). They reported that the children had higher scores after treatment, leading them to conclude that “This report suggests that a multimodal chiropractic method that assesses and treats motor dysfunction reduced symptoms and enhanced the cognitive performance in this group of children.”
Here is the abstract for this report. After it, I’ll explain why I find this study provides uncompelling evidence in support of chiropractic treatment for Learning Disabilities.
Continue reading ‘Additional weak evidence about chiropractic treatment’