Academic Remediation

Dyscalculia: a first-person account from an English student (Pt 1)

A young woman discusses how she is affected.

Dyscalculia: a first-person account from a college student

A six-minute video from a female college student on how dyscalculia affects her life, in every-day life and in academic study.   (The picture quality isn't very good, but the audio is excellent).  If you have an older child who is struggling or who has been diagnosed with dyscalculia, watching this video and the ones the following two Wednesdays might be reassuring.

 

An experienced teacher discusses her learning about dyscalculia

The teacher is Australian and has taught in three countries. This is an excellent video for parents and other children.

Why crisp correct modeling of letter sounds is important

While this video is narrated by an English woman with a mild accent, the letter sounds are quite clear.  The video is 5 mins.  

You can also find more materials from http://www.phonicbooks.co.uk. I wouldn't recommend USians purchasing the books, though, as the spelling variation might be confusion.

Dyslexia and writing: My strengths come from the same place as my weaknesses...'

Times Higher Education - 'My strengths come from the same place as my weaknesses...'.

 ...and that's why universities should do more to understand, accommodate and value dyslexic graduate students, argues Rebecca Loncraine 

I am dyslexic. I am also a writer with a PhD in English literature. Contrary to popular perception, these things are not incompatible. People are often surprised to hear this. Most assume that all dyslexics are aspiring architects, artists or entrepreneurs, not writers having to deal with the messy business of words as the tools of their trade. 

When I completed my doctorate in English literature at Oxford University in 2002, I was the only dyslexic person to have achieved this as far as I knew. I swung between feeling like a proud pioneer and an isolated freak. I had not encountered other dyslexic graduates during my research, and I had come across some very old-fashioned attitudes towards dyslexia. I had overheard senior figures in the university asserting that there are no dyslexics at Oxford.

Go read the rest, and read it to your students.

Getting the Most out of Working With a Learning Disability - Eli Epstein - The Atlantic

Getting the Most out of Working With a Learning Disability - Eli Epstein - The Atlantic.

Landing a great job directly after college made 22-year-old Columbia graduate Tom Reed ecstatic. It was in the industry he wanted to be in (TV production), in the city he had grown to love (New York), and it came without the hassle of the long and tiresome job search that plagued many of his fellow graduates. Still, despite the tremendous relief of being gainfully employed, Reed was faced with the anxiety attached to one vital question: should he, or should he not, tell his superiors about his learning disability? 

Disclosure meant a number of different things for Reed. If he told his superiors about his affliction, described by Reed as a non-verbal processing disorder which makes sorting fragmented information especially difficult, then his bosses could possibly treat the situation as a positive and find areas where they could maximize Reed's above-average creative faculties and find ways to work around his organizational difficulties.

Attention Research Updates: August 2003

Attention Research Updates: August 2003.

Concerns about Stigma Undermine Adolescents' Treatment for ADHD 

 Because ADHD frequently persists into adolescence, and continues to undermine teens' academic and social functioning, most adolescents continue to need treatment.  However, as issues of self-direction and autonomy become more important for teens, resistance to treatment for ADHD - medication or otherwise - frequently intensifies and many adolescents stop treatment prematurely.  This is a challenge that many parents struggle with. 

It is thus important to understand the factors - particularly adolescents' perspectives on treatment - that affect the receipt of ADHD treatment during this critical developmental period.  Examining this issue was the focus of a study published recently in the Journal of Adolescent Health [Bussing et al (2011). Receiving treatment for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Do the perspectives of adolescents matter.  Journal of Adolescent Health, 49, 7-14.] 

Participants were 168 adolescents - about 50% female - and their parents recruited through a public school system in the US.  These adolescents screened positive for ADHD in elementary school and were contacted 6 years later for a follow-up assessment.  At follow-up, over 60% continued to meet full diagnostic criteria for ADHD and many others still had elevated levels of ADHD symptoms. The researchers were interested in how many adolescents had received ADHD treatment in the past year and the parent and child characteristics that predicted the receipt of treatment.

Introducing Handwriting Without Tears

This three-minute video from Ireland introduces how Handwriting Without Tears and some multi-sensory ideas to introduce pre-school children to handwriting

 

 

Dyscalculia A short introduction

Another very short video introducing dyscalculia

 

And another short clip on the symptoms of dyscalculia

AThe causes

And then some of the things parents can do to help their struggling children

One of the speakers on the panel mentioned a particular curriculum, Jump Math. It is available here: http://jumpmath1.org/

Attention Research Updates: Daily Distress in Mothers of ADHD

Attention Research Updates: 

Daily Distress in Moms of Children with ADHD 

Parents of children with ADHD have been found to experience elevated levels of parenting stress and distress in multiple studies.  This is not surprising given the greater challenges associated with raising a child who consistently exhibits high levels of ADHD symptoms.  

 Studies of child ADHD and parenting stress have typically relied on global and static measures of both children's behavioral problems, e.g., having parents complete rating scales and parents' reports of stress/distress.  Correlating these reports provides useful information on how children's ADHD symptoms relate to parents' average distress level, but say little about the moment-to-moment fluctuations in parents' stress that may occur in response to fluctuations in their child's behavior. This dynamic aspect of the parent child relationship can only be captured by relating parents' stress to children's behavior as it occurs in real time.

Visual Attention, Reading, and Dyslexia

This is a long (1 hour 20 minute) presentation and Q & A by neuroscientist and clinician Laurie Cesnick on the reading process, dyslexia, and visual attention.   This is fairly technical, but may be of interest.

Typing versus Writing...

This is on an Australian blog marketing a particular kind of dyslexia remediation that I don't endorse.  I am going to have to find out if this claim has any merit.

06-10-2012 - Typing versus Writing....

The reason for this is... 

Typing on a computer only uses 8 neural pathways while writing uses over 10,000 neural pathways.

Overcome Dyslexia With The Proper Help | www.BlogWithMom.com

Overcome Dyslexia With The Proper Help | www.BlogWithMom.com.

Dyslexia is inherited through genetics.  Most of the time a dyslexic child will also have a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle that is also dyslexic.  Dyslexia can be very hard to overcome, but with the proper teaching, anyone with dyslexia can “shine.”  Traditional classroom teaching just isn’t enough for those with dyslexia.  They need additional help in order to master their reading and writing skills. 

I use to teach fifth grade and had 25 students in my class.  It was a full time job guiding my 25 students through the day to day lessons.  I would not have been able to offer the necessary attention and time to a student with dyslexia while teaching the rest of my 25 students.  Once a child is diagnosed with dyslexia, it is definitely in the child’s best interest for the parent’s to find additional help for their child.  As a parent, many thoughts will run through your mind that may hinder you from finding immediate help, but the quicker you get help for your child, the quicker your child can stop feeling “lost” while at school.  Dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of,  it just requires a different type of learning in order to overcome.  Don’t give Dyslexia a chance to affect your child’s life in the future, make sure you find the proper help and stand behind your child 100% of the way.

Attention Research Updates: August 2003

The author is David Rabiner.  If you or a loved one are affected by attentional difficulties, diagnosed or not, you should sign up for his newsletter, Attention Research Update.

Attention Research Updates: August 2003.

New Review of Neurofeedback Treatment for ADHD - Current State of the Science Neurofeedback - also known as EEG Biofeedback - is an approach for treating ADHD in which individuals are provided real-time feedback on their brainwave activity and taught to alter their typical EEG pattern to one that is consistent with a focused and attentive state.  According to neurofeedback proponents, this often results in improved attention and reduced hyperactive/impulsive behavior. Several years ago I summarized the scientific support for neurofeedback treatment - see http://www.helpforadd.com/2007/september.htm - and noted that although positive findings had been reported in multiple published studies, limitations of these studies led many researchers to regard neurofeedback as a promising, but unproven treatment.

Oral language in the early years of schooling

The author, Jasmine Dwyer, teaches in a remote part of Australia.  I find her posts to be inspiring or thought provoking.

Crocodiles, iPads & Buffalo Wranglers ………………………. Diary of an Oral Language Coach - Oral language in the early years of schooling.

Oral language plays a vital role in the learning and lives of all students, but particularly early childhood students. These students learn to adjust their home language in order to use and understand the language of schooling. Michael Halliday lists seven functions of oral language which relate to the different ways young children use language to achieve particular purposes within particular contexts. These functions are: 

• Instrumental – I want 

• Regulatory – Do as I tell you 

• Interactional – Me and you 

• Personal- Here I come

• Heuristic – Tell me why 

• Imaginative – Let’s pretend 

• Representational – I’ve got something to tell you

Bay Area Parents: Journey Into Dyslexia Screenings in October

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month.  The Northern California Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (NCBIDA) is hosting two free showings of the documentary, Journey Into Dyslexia, followed by a short panel discussion with additional information and Q&A. The events are free and open to the public.

Journey into Dyslexia presents profiles of students and adults with dyslexia who share their experiences of struggling in school and then succeeding in life. Academy-Award winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond examine the complexities of this differently structured brain and debunk the myths and misperceptions about dyslexia. Journey into Dyslexia originally aired on HBO2 on May 11, 2011.

Showings:

Oakland Public Library
Saturday, October 6, 10:30 am-12:30 pm
125 14th St.
Oakland, CA 94612


San Jose Martin Luther King Library
Saturday, October 20, 10:00 am-12:00 pm
150 E. San Fernando St.

Cost is FREE, no RSVP necessary

For more information: www.dyslexia-ncbida.org. More information below the fold.

Dyscalculia or math disability: 10 minutes with Brian Butterworth

Brian Butterworth is based at University College London, and is one of the leading researchers into the cause and remediation of dyscalculia. 

The video is 11 minutes long, and discusses symptoms and causes and a bit of remediation.

Recommended.

 

Dyslexia caused by faulty signal processing in brain; Finding offers clues to potential treatments

Dyslexia caused by faulty signal processing in brain; Finding offers clues to potential treatments.

The scientists have discovered an important neural mechanism underlying dyslexia and shown that many difficulties associated with dyslexia can potentially be traced back to a malfunction of the medial geniculate body in the thalamus. The results provide an important basis for developing potential treatments.

People who suffer from dyslexia have difficulties with identifying speech sounds in spoken language. For example, while most children are able to recognise whether two words rhyme even before they go to school, dyslexic children often cannot do this until late primary school age. Those affected suffer from dyslexia their whole lives. However, there are also always cases where people can compensate for their dyslexia. "This suggests that dyslexia can be treated. We are therefore trying to find the neural causes of this learning disability in order to create a basis for improved treatment options," says Díaz.

Adult with reading issues? Never too late to remediate.

How To Correct Childhood Conditions - Adult Treatment For Childhood Conditions - Good Housekeeping.

Reading Issues

Up to one in five Americans have dyslexia, making it challenging for them to get through a best seller — or even a menu. If they weren't diagnosed in school, many may incorrectly assume they're simply slow readers — "or even stupid," says Sally Shaywitz, M.D., codirector of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. But dyslexia is neurological: Disruptions in key brain circuits affect the ability to retrieve or correctly order the basic sounds of language, explains Dr. Shaywitz. Telltale clues — beyond reading in a way that feels plodding and deliberate — include exceptionally poor spelling and knowing a word but being unable to utter it correctly.

Although the process is time- consuming, you can overcome dyslexia. It requires relearning the basics of reading, all the way back to learning how to sound out words. Group classes for adults typically meet at libraries, adult education centers, or offices of nonprofit literacy organizations several times a week for a year or longer. You can also have private lessons with a tutor.

Rule of thumb: at least two hours of tutoring a week; more is better. Estimate a minimum of 100 hours of skilled remediation to become more fluent in reading.

A spelling technique for the dyslexic student

This 10 minute video demonstrates a technique for helping the younger student learn and retain the weekly spelling words.    Thanks to dyslexiamom to making a clear, understandable video.  You might try this technique with your struggling reader.

 

Disambiguating phonologic awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics

This is a short (10 min 34 sec) made for young teachers that defines the three different terms and some examples for how to teach each element.

This information is important for parents for struggling readers as well, because things go awry in reading in all three domains.

 

 

This video shares basic information about some terminology surrounding the teaching of emergent and beginning reading. It focuses on the definitions and distinctions between phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics.

In a nutshell:

Phonological awareness is the broader awareness of sound and is auditory. 

Phonemic awareness is the awareness of the smallest units of sound in a word and the ability to segment, blend, isolate, and manipulate those smallest individual units of sound. It is auditory.

Phonics is the relationship between phonemes and graphemes. It is learning the rules and patterns of the letter-sound relationship.

 

Signs of Dyslexia

This is an excellent short (2 min 58 sec) video produced in the UK.  The voice appears to be synthesized with a British accent.  Don't let that throw you: the signs given are all accurate.

You have to teach correct pencil grip! Here's how

A 49 second video that teaches you how to teach your child the correct pencil grip and grip firmness.  This is were a lot of students begin to go wrong.  

 

When I start working with a student on handwriting remediation, correcting grip is usually the first few lessons, and we keep returning to it as necessary.

Have your child correct the grip, and then do nothing more than tally marks ||||  for a number of repetitions.   Depending on the child, you can have the child make 5 tally marks, do the pencil-flip trick, and do 5 more, working up to 100 repetitions a day.

Often kids' hands get sore from this new (correct) form of grip, so monitor the child's comfort.

You can also mix things up with either repeated  letter forms: c c c c c c or o o o o o.  

Lines too close together: one source of handwriting problems & sources for ruled paper

Sometimes, the child struggling with handwriting needs wider-ruled paper than the standard wide-ruled paper. According to Wikipedia, the US standards for ruled paper are

• Wide ruled (or Legal ruled) paper has 11/32 in (8.7 mm) spacing between horizontal lines, with a vertical margin drawn about 1-1/4 in (31.75 mm) from the left-hand edge of the page. It is commonly used by American children in grade school, as well as by those with larger handwriting.
• Medium ruled (or College ruled) paper has 9/32 in (7.1 mm) spacing between horizontal lines, with a vertical margin drawn about 1-1/4 in (31.75 mm) from the left-hand edge of the page. Its use is very common in the United States.
• Narrow ruled paper has 1/4 in (6.35 mm) spacing between ruling lines, and is used by those with smaller handwriting or to fit more lines per page.

I have used the following source for printable paper with various rulings.

 

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Understanding Dyscalculia

This short (2 minute) video is an interview with Daniel Ansari, a professor at Western.

 

10 things parents should unlearn… « What Ed Said

I agree with this list.  Caught via Dana Sweir Huff's Facebook feed.

10 things parents should unlearn… « What Ed Said.

10 things I think (some) parents should unlearn… 

1.  Learning is best measured by a letter or a number.  
2. Product is more important than process and progress.  
3. Children need to be protected from any kind of failure.  
4. The internet  is dangerous for children.  
5.  Parents and teachers should discuss students without the learner present.
6. Homework is an essential part of learning.  
7. The school is responsible for the child’s entire education.  
8. Your child’s perspective is the only one.  
9. Learning looks the same as when you went to school.  
10. Focus on (and fix) your child’s shortcomings, rather than their successes. 

I won’t elaborate at the moment, as I’d rather have your input. As a teacher and/or a parent, which ones do you agree with? Disagree? Challenge? Question?

Dyslexia: A Hidden Disability

This short video is an infomercial for the Westmark School, but it is excellently done, and I recommend it to parents and middle-school and above dyslexic students.

Westmark School inspires students with language-based learning differences who possess academic potential and personal promise to build on their strengths and prepare for a successful college experience.

"Dyslexia: A Hidden Disability," produced by the Kennedy/Marshall Company, is an excellent documentary on adults and children who have dyslexia and the doctors and educators who are working to make a difference in their lives. It features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Charles Schwab, Whoopi Goldberg, Sally Shaywitz, and Craig Watkinson.

 

A short video on improving handwriting after the cursive stage

Kate Gladstone offers a service called "Handwriting Repair".  This video has  some of her suggestions  for improving legibility and speed.  (Warning: you may wish to turn the sound down, or off.  I found the music to be too loud for my tastes.)

 

If you would like to see more of Kate's suggestions, please go to http://handwritingrepair.info/

Sally Shaywitz on dyslexia and assistive technology

Once upon a time, there was the organization called Recording for the Blind.  Later, they added dyslexia, and became Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD). 

A few years ago, their leadership realized that the name didn't really describe what the organization does.  The leadership selected "Learning Ally" as the 21st century title.

Learning Ally's National Board member Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D. is a co-founder of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, and has devoted her career to better understanding and helping children and adults who are dyslexic. In this brief video interview, she shares insights on the power of assistive technology, audiobooks and accommodations for people with dyslexia.

This short video talk (3 min 44 secs) by Sally Shaywitz discusses the value of recorded books, especially for young learners, and the organization's value.

Interview with Sally Shaywitz on Dyslexia, New Treatments

In this short interview (8 min 13 sec) Dr. Shaywitz discusses what dyslexia is, some famous contemporary  dyslexics and  how spoken language is affected in dyslexia.

Visualizing the Dyslexic Brain

This short video (1 min 46 seconds) from New Zealand is one of the most informative ones I've seen.

The video segment was posted by the artist who created the 3-D images.

Pat Smith: Don't punish the kids because they can't read | The Columbus Dispatch

This article covers the way that teachers, school districts, and parents who are failing to service the 1/3 of students who need more structured, direct instruction to become fluent readers.  Ohio evidently has a new policy of retaining 3rd graders who are not reading at grade level.

Pat Smith: Don't punish the kids because they can't read | The Columbus Dispatch.

To improve the teaching of reading, we’re now going to flunk third-graders that districts haven’t taught to read. Somehow, this latest magic bullet seems aimed more at the victims than the culprits. Why not target instead:

Best Font For Dyslexia?

The "san serif is better" seems to be an item of faith in the UK. I'm not aware of similar biases in the US.

Best Font For Dyslexia.

Many dyslexic and non-dyslexic people find that the readability of a piece of text varies depending upon the font (type face or type style) used. Sans-serif fonts are generally preferred by dyslexic people because Serif fonts, with their ‘ticks’ and ‘tails’ at the end of most strokes tend to obscure the shapes of letters e.g.Times New Roman.

Dealing with Dyslexia: An Interview with Susan Barton

HSLDA | Dealing with Dyslexia: An Interview with Susan Barton.

Susan Barton: Yes there are, because the warning signs of dyslexia start showing up as early as age 1. Watch for children who do not speak on schedule, who are not saying 5–10 simple one-syllable words by about 12 months old. Listen for children who, when they start to say the longer, multi-syllable words, get the sounds out of sequence and say things like: aminal, bisketti, hangabird, heckalopter, hopspital, and can’t say certain words like cinnamon. Look for the children who have repeated ear infections, over and over and over, and may have had tubes put in, or multiple tubes put in; the children who are constantly confused between words like left and right, before and after, yesterday and tomorrow, the directionality words; children who have not established a dominant hand by the time they’re 4 years old; children who have difficulty learning to tie their shoes, have trouble memorizing things like the letters in their name, their address, their phone number, and most importantly, children who cannot create words that rhyme, or tell which words rhyme or do not rhyme by the time they are 4 years old.

Dyscalculator

I have not fooled around or played with this app, so I don't know if it is worth anything, but I thought I'd leave a note here.

Dyscalculator | SHAPE ApS. — apps in perfect shape.

5% of the world’s population suffer from dyscalculia. Dyscalculator is a tool we developed to help those people so they can get better at math and understand numbers. The app features standard calculator operations, but also has a wide range of tools to help people with math disability.

Developmental Dyslexia: Differences in the Pre-Reading Brain

Developmental Dyslexia: Differences in the Pre-Reading Brain.

While much progress on such interventions has occurred in the area of helping individuals with developmental dyslexia once they have been diagnosed, other research is delving into identifying the neurological and physiological differences between brains that develop the condition and those that do not. 

To find out if there are identifiable predictors of developmental dyslexia, Raschle, Zuk and Gaab examined the functional brain networks during phonologic processing in 36 pre-reading children with an average age of 5.5 years. That is they were looking for brain differences even before any of the children had learned to read since previous brain studies of dyslexia have been conducted on individuals after they have begun to read, albeit poorly. All of the subjects were of a similar socioeconomic status; most came from homes with relatively high SES and strong language skills.  These are the type of home environments that typically result in the development of good language and reading skills. 

The only substantive difference between the groups in this study was that half of the subjects had a family history of developmental dyslexia, while the other half did not. 

Interestingly, the 18 children with a family history of dyslexia scored significantly lower than those who had no family history on a number of standardized assessments, including:

Study: 'Daily Report Cards' Improve Behavior of Students With ADHD - On Special Education - Education Week

Study: 'Daily Report Cards' Improve Behavior of Students With ADHD - On Special Education - Education Week.

Getting report cards once every six, eight, or 10 weeks is probably too often for some students. How about every day? 

So-called "daily report cards" appear to improve the behavior of students with ADHD, a new What Works Clearinghouse review of a study concludes. 

Teachers create daily report cards that are lists of target behaviors and behavior goals for students that are aligned with their special education plans. Teachers in this 2010 study used them to provide students with constant feedback, and they were sent home to parents every day. Parents had to reward or punish students based on the results of the daily report card. 

The study, involving 63 elementary school students, found there were statistically significant positive differences between students whose teachers used the daily report cards and another group of students, at least when it came to students' behavior. That included improvements in their productivity and violating fewer classroom rules. The report cards didn't have a statistically significant effect on students' achievement in reading or math.

The Importance of Assessing Students Reading Ability Individually

The Importance of Assessing Students Reading Ability Individually.

A vast majority of elementary schools have administered computer-based screening tools to their students. Many even have a team of Reading Specialists that assess students in beginning, middle and end of the year benchmarks. Some elementary teachers are thankful that assistants and volunteers offer to administer both formal and informal assessments. This assistance results in teachers breathing a sigh of relief because it seems as though part of their heavy work load has become lighter. However, there is a possibility that teachers are in turn doing themselves a disservice and in turn struggle to understand why their students are indeed below grade level.

What a Zero Really Says | Teaching on Purpose

What a Zero Really Says | Teaching on Purpose.

 My response comes in four stages.  If you think this is a simple issue, it’s not.  It’s very complex.  And it’s about far more than giving a 0.  I wrote a blog post back in February about Lates, Deductions, and 0′s but I obviously need to elaborate in my response to this difficult issue.

Education Week: Scientists Find Learning Is Not 'Hard-Wired'

Education Week: Scientists Find Learning Is Not 'Hard-Wired'.

Neuroscience exploded into the education conversation more than 20 years ago, in step with the evolution of personal computers and the rise of the Internet, and policymakers hoped medical discoveries could likewise help doctors and teachers understand the "hard wiring" of the brain. 

That conception of how the brain works, exacerbated by the difficulty in translating research from lab to classroom, spawned a generation of neuro-myths and snake-oil pitches—from programs to improve cross-hemisphere brain communication to teaching practices aimed at "auditory" or "visual" learners.

Audiobooks: The Right Voice Makes a Difference

The Voice - NYTimes.com.

But if somebody’s going to spend 10 or 20 hours in my ears, turning me into a local jogging spectacle, I’d better enjoy the experience. That means, of course, picking the right books to listen to. It also means listening to the right reader.

The UK's Specific Language Disability Awareness Campaign

Professor Dorothy Bishop, a founding member of RALLI, explains why we're launching this campaign and why more has to be done to identify Specific Language Impairment (SLI). We also hear from young people about how language difficulties affect their lives and about their hopes for the channel.

 

Watch the videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh0pEex81Gw&list=UU5J2oZIiKfB4VG0Zq_xabUA&index=0&feature=plcp

Using Mobile Screens To Make Reading Easier For Dyslexics | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

Using Mobile Screens To Make Reading Easier For Dyslexics | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.

When Dr. Matthew Schneps needs to read, he turns to his iPhone 4S. The handset’s 3.5-inch screen squeezes text into one skinny column, which is helpful because the Harvard astrophysicist has dyslexia. Schneps finds the repackaged text easier to focus on, allowing him to better absorb everything from news articles to books to technical papers.

Before Schneps discovered this tactic, he had given up reading books and struggled to parse the scientific proposals and papers he encountered as an academic. Reading felt "overwhelming," he says. Now Schneps is bringing his method to a broader audience. Backed by the National Science Foundation and a Youth Access Grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he and several other researchers from the Laboratory for Visual Learning at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are investigating whether people with dyslexia benefit from reading on handheld devices with small screens.

OnMedica - News - Dyslexia still a blight for kids, despite treatment advances

OnMedica - News - Dyslexia still a blight for kids, despite treatment advances.

Most children are only diagnosed with dyslexia after they have experienced serious difficulties in school, at a time when it is much harder for them to master new skills, and this could be thwarting their ability to fully realise their potential, say the authors. 

“Professionals should not wait until children are formally diagnosed with dyslexia or experience repeated failures before implementation of reading treatment, because remediation is less effective than early intervention”, explain Robin Peterson and Bruce Pennington from the University of Denver in Colorado, USA. 

About 7% of the population are dyslexic, and boys are about twice as likely to have dyslexia as girls. Mounting evidence suggests that the underlying problem involves difficulty with how sounds in language are heard and mapped onto letters — phonological impairment.

Advice from the OT Part 4 – Teach Your Students the Right Way to Write

This is must reading for all parents, but especially parents of preschoolers and kindergarteners.

Advice from the OT Part 4 – Teach Your Students the Right Way to Write.

In New York City, where I practice, children are expected to be able to write at the age of four. In my clinical opinion, this is two full years before they are developmentally ready, and does more harm than good.  If a child does not yet have the internal strength and stability to perform such a high level task, in order to comply with the grownups demands, he is going to have to manufacture it by straining and contorting his body in a very unnatural way.  This sets him up for a lifetime of poor posture and bad habits.

Accelerated Reader: Undermining literacy while plundering library budgets « The Life That Chose Me

Accelerated Reader: Undermining literacy while plundering library budgets « The Life That Chose Me.

Here is a great article by Gary Stager on the shortcomings of AR and how it drains schools of scarce resources while creating and exacerbating a problem that it is claiming to address.  What I want to add to the conversation is first-hand experience with how AR, and its implementation has had a detrimental effect on reading in our household.

Emotional issues may follow motor problems in kids

Emotional issues may follow motor problems in kids.

Coordination issues -- sometimes diagnosed as developmental coordination disorder (DCD) -- prevent people from accomplishing everyday tasks, such as using scissors or buttoning their shirts. The disorder can lead to frustration at school, at home and on the playground. 

"Traditionally it was believed that children would outgrow any motor problems but there is now much evidence that these difficulties may continue into adolescence and beyond," wrote Daniela Rigoli, the study's lead author and a researcher at Curtin University in Western Australia, in an email. 

For the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, Rigoli and her colleagues decided to see if, and how, the link between coordination and emotional issues like anxiety and depression is influenced by the way children with DCD see themselves.

Why Colleges Need Dyslexic Students

Successful dyslexics share their differences and why they flourished in higher education and later in their careers. This short video is the highlights from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity-sponsored conference for college admissions professionals.

Ellen Galinsky: Executive Function Skills Are Essential to America's Present and Future

Ellen Galinsky: Executive Function Skills Are Essential to America's Present and Future.

Just what are executive functions skills? Executive function skills take place in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and other areas of the brain working in concert with it. We use these skills to manage our attention, our emotions, our intellect, and our behavior to reach our goals. They include: 

• Focus -- being able to pay attention; Working memory -- being able to keep information in mind in order to use it; Cognitive flexibility -- being able to adjust to shifting needs and demands; and Inhibitory control -- being able to resist the temptation to go on automatic and do what we need to do to achieve our goals. As children grow older, these skills include reflecting, analyzing, planning and evaluating. Executive function skills are always goal-driven.  
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Reading Disability in Grades 3 - 8: Neurocognitive Fact | Kennedy Krieger Institute

Reading Disability in Grades 3 - 8: Neurocognitive Fact | Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Reading Disability in Grades 3 - 8: Neurocognitive Fact Principal Investigator: Martha Denckla The overarching goal of this Research Center is to examine the reading disabilities (RDs) present in children grades 3-8, including classification, identification, treatment, prevalence, neurocognitive characteristics, as well as the influence of comorbidities (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; ADHD) on reading. While much is known about early reading development and disorders, there has been much less examination of reading and RDs past the early elementary grades. Therefore, there is a critical gap in knowledge about what it takes for a reader to be able to effectively glean information - or learn - from text, even though this is arguably the most important skill needed to achieve academic success after the 3rd grade. Our Research Center seeks to fill this critical gap in knowledge by bringing together a diverse and talented set of researchers and institutions (Kennedy Krieger Institute, Haskins Laboratories, Educational Testing Services (ETS), and University of Maryland) to conduct inter-related projects, the findings from which will allow us to gain a deep understanding of the neurobiological and behavioral processes that influence reading achievement past the early elementary grades. Our overarching hypothesis is that RDs past the early elementary years are heterogeneous in nature, caused by both "bottom up" and "top down" processes. Within this context, we propose projects that