Tag Archive for 'parents'

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Free Current Practice Alerts

Published on 21 April 2009 in Administration, Assessment, News, Policy, Professional development, Research, The press, Treatment and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

It’s sometimes hard to sort through the rhetoric about different methods used in teaching students with Learning Disabilities. However, two groups within the Council for Exceptional Children have made the task considerably easier. In a series of publications now numbering 16, the Division for Learning Disabilities and the Division for Research cut through the bologna to provide quick reviews about the effectiveness of current educational practices. These Current Practice Alerts, which are readily accessible for general readers, cover familiar topics including these:

  • Class-wide Peer Tutoring
  • Co-Teaching
  • Cooperative Learning
  • Direct Instruction
  • Fluency Instruction
  • Formative Evaluation
  • Functional Behavioral Assessment
  • Graphic Organizers
  • High-Stakes Assessment
  • Mnemonic Instruction
  • Phonics Instruction
  • Phonological Awareness
  • Reading Comprehension Instruction
  • Reading Recovery
  • Social Skills Instruction

They are succinct and faithful to the research evidence. They even make explicit recommendations about whether to use the practice. What’s the hitch? Well, they’re free, so see for yourselves.

Link to the Web page listing these resources.

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1st-person dyslexia

Published on 6 February 2009 in Dyslexia, Families, News, Professional development and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

On the “Story Corps” entry airing today on US National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Inez Cortez discussed what it’s like to have to struggle to learn to read and the pleasure of learning how to do. In the “A Daughter’s Struggle With Learning To Read” produced by Katie Simon, Ms. Cortez spoke with her mother, Kim Wargo, in a frank and direct manner.

Because she was highly verbal but struggled with reading, her parents sought help as early as kindergarten.

Wargo says that once she realized that Ida had dyslexia, she was able to concentrate on ways to help her. Ida began working with a learning specialist at her elementary school, as well as an occupational therapist. She worked with these specialists for about two years. By the third grade, she was reading above grade level — something she continues to do.

Some of the best parts of this brief interview are Ms. Cortez’s comments about her view of her dyslexia. It’s worth the few minutes that it takes listen to it.

Link to Ms. Simon’s story. For educators who read this post, the freely available audio probably will be a good addition to prospective teachers’ (and others’) experiences. Sadly, the Story Corps Web site doesn’t make it easy to point to an individual entry in its catalog; for a little while, it will be a the top of the listen now page at that site.

Update: By sending myself a note about the story I was able to obtain the direct address; this should be a bit more persistent than the one I posted earlier today.

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Seattle PI blog

Published on 4 December 2008 in Families, News and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The Seattle (WA, US) Post-Intelligencer maintains a set of blogs about parenting, one of which focuses on Learning Disabilities. The blogs are maintained by people who are from the geographic area but are not otherwise affiliated with the newspaper, and “Mizz Givens,” who is Andrea Givens (in real life or “IRL,” as bloggers in the know say it) maintains the one about LD. As do so many other parents, in her blog she tells the story of her child, her child’s school, and their family.

Ms. Givens has been maintaining the blog for well over a year. Zion, her elementary-aged son is the focus, but there are also notes about Zion’s older sister and other matters, too. You can learn about what it’s like to have a child receive a video-monitored EEG as well as comments about reading with Zion at home, etc.

It’s a good one to track, so I’m adding it to the blogroll here on LD Blog. Link directly from this post and remember that you can get to it via the blogroll.

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Hey, teacher, my child can’t read

Published on 19 July 2008 in Assessment, Causes, Comments, Dyslexia, Families, News and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Dean Geyer, who is a parent of a child who had difficulty learning to read, has launched a blog entitled “Hey, Teacher, My Child Can’t Read.” His daughter’s experience is, in part, a success story; after five years of special education in Delaware (US), he reports that she is on the honor roll and no longer eligible for special education.

In his entries, Mr. Geyer frequently refers to “auditory processing disorder.” Although I am very glad to learn that Mr. Geyer’s daughter is succeeding, I am wary of attributing much to the diagnosis of auditory processing disorder. I’ve been hearing about this disorder for most of my career, but I have as yet not found a satisfactorily rigorous or substantiated account of it.

If someone could point me to a definitive resource on this disorder, we could examine it systematically. I fear, however, that a close examination of the resource will reveal that it is simply hypothesizing some hidden process that can’t be precisely tested and is pretty readily reduced to not having learned some pretty specific skills.

Here are some of the questions one should ask:

  1. How does one distinguish a child with auditory processing disorder from another child who doesn’t have the disorder?
  2. How trustworthy (psychometrically sound) are any instruments used in making the diagnosis of auditory processing disorder?
  3. What specific tasks would a child with auditory processing disorder fail? If the child was taught how to pass those tasks, would she still have auditory processing disorder?

By the way, I think there’s a similar case to be made for “non-verbal learning disability.”

Regardless of the outcomes of an investigation of auditory processing disorder, it’s still quite wonderful to know that Mr. Geyer’s daughter is succeeding. I encourage readers to jump over to Hey, Teacher, My Child Can’t Read and read his posts. I’m adding his site to LD Blog’s blog roll.

Update: It seems this domain name is no longer being maintained. More when I can get in touch with Mr. Geyer. 11 September 2009.

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Welcome Pete and Pam

Published on 9 May 2008 in Administrivia, Families, News and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Pete and Pam Wright recently launched a blog, so let’s welcome them to the neighborhood. Their contributions via the rapidly changing form of blogs promise to be helpful. You can read the blog on the Web or, of course, subscribe to it with your favorite RSS reader.

Flash of the electrons to Christina Samuels of On Special Education for alerting me to this.

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Local parent groups

Published on 4 May 2008 in Administrivia, Families and News. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Parents who are members of the Mashpee (MA, US) Mashpee Special Education Parents’ Advisory Council (SEPAC) have created an extensive Web site with extensive resources at Mashpee SEPAC. Are there other similar sites created by parent groups? Please add links to any that exist by posting them in comments.

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Behavioral optometric training

Published on 3 August 2005 in Dyslexia, Families, News, Research, The press and Treatment. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

On National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Ketzel Levine reported about a family that has opened a company to promote vision therapy. Although the angle for the story is “people reinventing themselves,” there is a pretty strong undertone endorsing vision therapy.

Last time I checked, those who advocated vision therapy as a means of helping people learn to read did not have a strong scientific base. Before I challenge the basis for this story, I have to go to the library and determine whether there is new evidence supporting it and overturning earlier evidence. For example, there is the possibility that the practices used in vision therapy have changed and those who employ these newer methods are, in fact, helping children, youth, and adults learn to read.

Even without formally reviewing the literature, I know that trustworthy sources such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), and American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus have issued policy statements dismissing optometric training for Learning Disabilities and including “Optometric vision training” in a list of “methods [that] have not been proven to work in scientific studies” for ADHD. Also, optometrists such a Russell Worrall have strongly criticized optometric training.

One thing that I’ll bet happens is that advocates will refer to individual cases where they can show success, claiming those successes as evidence. For those of us who say “hooray for the patient,” but are not willing to accept anecdotal evidence as providing a scientific base for a practice, this will be yet another challenge. It is very difficult to get people to put aside personal experience in deference to strong research, a point that—ironically—was made 2 August in an NPR story by Allison Aubrey on dietary supplements.

Links:

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