The Cost of Untreated Dyslexia to the State

I have a new hero:

William H. Hilgers, Senior Counsel with the Austin office of Brown McCarroll, L.L.P., has led the effort to create the Dyslexia Research Foundation of Texas, an organization formed to direct a pioneering research effort that determines the economic impact of dyslexia on children, schools, and prisons in Texas and offers a continuing evaluation of enhancement options.

The Dyslexia Research Foundation is associated with the Scottish Rite Learning Center of Austin, Texas .  It has support from The RGK Foundation.

(It appears that the Dyslexia Research Foundation does not have a web presence. )

Now, if we can just repeat the Texas study in the rest of the 49 states, and get the money to train teachers to teach reading, maybe we'd be making some progress.

(More at Children of the Code:  teachers are not now prepared to teach reading effectively;  the politics of the reading wars;  the emotional effect of reading failure
)

 

Biz Journal article.

"This report confirms that reading disabilities are prevalent in criminal justice populations, and these disabilities present a great obstacle for the successful rehabilitation of adults and juvenile offenders," the report states, calling for additional research to pinpoint causes and strategies to address the problem.

At a time when prisoner rehabilitation and re-entry programs in Texas and across the country are finding new favor among the public and policymakers, the report is expected to generate new support for a growing list of alternative-to-prison initiatives, as a way to cut crime, save taxpayer money and avert building more prisons in coming years.

It could also provide a blueprint, prisoner advocates suggest, for new rehabilitation programs that will work better.

Other findings in the study:

* Of the approximately 800,000 adults and youths who are in jail, in prison or on probation or parole in Texas, a disproportionately high percentage have learning disabilities and reading disorders.

* Every 1,000 nonreaders released from prison will cost taxpayers $12 million in future prison costs, because their rate of recidivism is higher, compared with $7.2 million for those who can read.

* For every 100 youth offenders released with a second-grade reading level, the costs to taxpayers for future incarceration will be almost $2.6 million more than those with an 11th-grade reading level. The difference: a recidivism rate that is 62 percent, instead of 36 percent.

"The individual findings are significant because it tells us a lot more about the root causes for why people don't succeed," said Tony Fabelo, a national criminal justice consultant and study author who for years headed the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council that charted prison trends. "There is a basic issue here: If people can't read, their chances of making it on the outside are considerably diminished."

William Hilgers, president of the dyslexia foundation, hailed the study findings as a first step toward better understanding the problem of dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

"Our hypothesis is that undetected and untreated dyslexia affects a great proportion of inmates in Texas prisons and juvenile offenders, creating an enormous, long-term burden on society," he said. "Because little is known about the prevalence of dyslexia in correctional populations, it is clear that we do not fully understand the effectiveness of the remediation strategies used to teach offenders with dyslexia and that more research is necessary if we want to improve the success of rehabilitation efforts."

Grits for Breakfast  has a post on the cost to Texas of untreated dyslexia.

The fiscal comptroller of Texas, Carol Keenan Strayhorn reported in May 2005 on the Dyslexia Research Foundation:

The price of inaction

"What we are doing is letting policy makers understand what it is costing not to address this problem, not only in money, but in lives," Hilgers said.

The Austin-based foundation's first challenge is to determine exactly what the disorder costs the Texas economy. The numbers could be staggering, since a disproportionate number of people with dyslexia wind up incarcerated or on welfare, according to an April 2004 report by JFA Institute of Washington D.C. and Austin.

Hilgers said the incidence level is 10 percent or higher in Texas schools and about 30 percent or higher in prisons. The students either fall behind or get put in special education classes, Hilgers said.

"They drop out or get into other problems," he said. "Some end up in the criminal justice system. It creates a psychological problem. They feel stupid because they can't read. It's psychologically deadening--children and parents are very affected by that."

McCreary said it's better if dyslexia is diagnosed early, though some students with the disorder aren't identified until after third grade.

Comments

[Ruth Lature]

Wake up other states and heed what Texas is finding. Texas was the first state to have a law, mandating that students be screened early and dyslexics had to be taught the way they can learn. When are colleges and universities going to teach teachers about identification of dyslexics and successful remediation approaches? As an educator, I have been advocating for dyslexics for more than 35 years. We have far to go, for I see the wasted potential of dyslexics daily.