I Speak of Dreams

Why Do Kids Binge Drink?

Psychologist Paul E. Joffe, chair of the suicide prevention team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, contends that at bottom binge-drinking is a quest for authenticity and intensity of experience. It gives young people something all their own to talk about, and sharing stories about the path to passing out is a primary purpose. It's an inverted world in which drinking to oblivion is the way to feel connected and alive.

Wouldn't that be a clue as to effective prevention methods?

Power Flares

I forgot about these when I was Christmas shopping.  Dang. 

Invented by a police officer, the PowerFlare® Safety Light is your best friend in the dark.

The PowerFlare® Safety Light comes in two versions:  the rechargeable version and the new Model PF-200 which features a user-replaceable CR123 lithium battery.

The rechargeable units are designed for daily use (smart charger; no "memory effect"), while the PF-200 model is ideal to keep in the trunk of your car or a first aid kit, etc.  Both are LED powered. 

Depending on the price (the website isn't really consumer friendly), I'd have two in each car: One with the white LED, and one with a red or orange LED.  White for seeing what is up, the color for warning lights.

Call toll free 1-877-256-6907 or 408-323-2370 for information.

Self Concept and the Dyslexic Child

Robert Burden has just published a book in the United States (it has been out for a while in the UK), on how to help dyslexic children to have a positive self-concept.

Synopsis (from Amazon)
This book addresses the important area of dyslexic children's perception of themselves and how this is shaped by people and processes within their early school careers.

It draws upon hitherto neglected psychological concepts such as self-efficacy, locus of control and learned helplessness to explain within a social-interactivist framework the powerful effect of self-perceptions on the social, emotional and academic development of dyslexics.

Techniques for assessing these factors are described and research evidence is provided to demonstrate how a sense of dyslexic pride associated with positive academic outcomes can be achieved. The book is aimed at teachers, teacher-trainers, parents and academics researching developmental aspects of dyslexia, but combines scholarship and research in a manner that makes it accessible to adult dyslexics also.

Stand by for reviews.

Expelled On Suspicion

Two  16-year-old girls attended a small private religious school in Wildomar, California Lutheran High School.  The school year began August 29, 2005.  Some aspect of the friends' behavior caused the administration to suspect that the girls were romantically involved with each other, although their behavior at school was unremarkable. 

The girls were expelled.  On December 12, 2005, they and their parents  filed suit against the school, for  invasion of privacy, discrimination, and unfair business practices. The suit asks for punitive   damages in excess of $25,000..   The attorneys representing the girls and their parents are   Kirk D. Hanson and Christopher Hayes of San Diego.

On December 21, 2005  Riverside Superior Court Judge E. Michael Kaise  ruled Wednesday that privacy rights prevent anyone from releasing the names of the two girls  and their parents, .

Expelled for A Kiss

Update 1/20/06: The Bradley family has dropped the suit.  Scroll to the bottom.
Update 1/10/06: Covenant Christian has responded.  Scroll to the bottom.

In the fall of 2003, Ronald Bradley enrolled his 12 or 13-year-old daughter, Jessica Bradley, in the eighth grade at Covenant Christian Academy in Loganville, Georgia.  In 9th grade (when she was 13 or 14)  Jessica was at a sleep-over with a fellow Covenant Christian Academy student, another girl, and they kissed.   Evidently, the adminstration had heard something more, as

school officials questioned [Jessica]  and other students about her kissing a girl at a sleepover and her relationship with another female student "off-campus and in private."

I wonder if the students' parents were present when the students were questioned about off-campus behavior.  It is one thing for administrators to question students about on-campus events--say, cheating on a test,  a fight in the cafeteria, or a student's state of sobriety at a dance.   It is entirely another thing for the administrators to question multiple students about another student's behavior off-campus.  I'm saying this as a parent of a high-school student.   

According to the claim, four days after the sleepover, school officials pulled Bradley out of class. After more than two hours of questioning her and four other students about her sexual relationships, [Head of School Emmaline] McKinnon expelled Bradley.

It doesn't sound like parents were present.  And the father wants restitution for the damage to his daughter's emotional well-being and privacy:

Bradley is also suing for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. These counts allege that Covenant officials pried into her sex life, spread word about it by questioning other students and led to rumors circulating around the school.

According to the Southern Voice Online:

The expulsion caused the teen to suffer public humiliation and embarrassment at the school and within the community, forcing her father to ask for a job transfer to Pennsylvania where the family now resides.

I've been around a lot of schools in my day, and the rumor mill can be just devastating.  Enrollment at CCA is only 250 for a pre-K through grade 12, according to the Atlanta Constitution Journal.   It's hard to say from this distance, but it appears Loganville (population  5,500), is a suburb of Atlanta.   

Town vs. Gown

Cushing Academy is a 140-year-old co-ed college prep boarding school in the town of Ashburnham, Massachussetts, that has a strong program for students with learning disabilities.

According to the local paper, relations between the town and the school haven't always been smooth, as both the head, Willard "Wink" Lampe, and Board Chair Mark Tuller agree.   Lampe was appointed in the fall of 2000:

"When I came to Cushing, I was aware that the relationships between the town and the school could use some work from the school to the townspeople," he said. "There was an area where I could make something of a difference being new. So, I consciously took that on as one of the tasks of coming in as head of school."

One of the factors that contributed to the disharmony between school and town was a drop in local students. Currently only about 7% of the enrollment is from surrounding towns, but on the other hand, Cushing has been able to maintain its identity as a boarding school.  Only 10% of the student body are day students. 

The local district merged with a neighbor in the late 1990s, forming the Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District, and build a high school. 

"We were obviously more connected back in the day when our citizens were going  there [Cushing Academy] ...for high school," Jonathan Dennehy, the chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said.

Local citizens' complaints seem to center around the services the Academy uses (public safety in particular) while the Academy, being non-profit, does not contribute to the local property-tax tax rolls.

Life-long resident John Deslauriers said he does not care about the donations or the other benefits from the school.  He said the things that the school does is basically "throwing bones" to the town.  "I'd just as soon see a regular tax base," he said. "I think they should give more. They have a lot of tax-free buildings."

Many other residents have a more global view, pointing to the revenues brought into the area by boarding students and faculty.  Others point out that the school shares its athletics resources (fields,  stadium) and has contributed to public safety needs.

Mythbusters Doing Science

I think Mythbusters is one of the best science shows going.  The real scientists agree with me.  There's an interview up at Slashdot with Jaime Hyneman and Adam Savage:

ADAM SAVAGE -- We're constantly surprised by the results of what we're doing.  Every day.  There are countless times when we have what we think is a solid idea of what the outcome of one of our experiments will be, and the result is totally the opposite.  That's probably one of the best parts of the job:  being confounded by one result and coming up with a way to understand it, and to make it understandable within the confines of the show.

Adam Savage's website.
Jamie Hyneman's website

Squoogy told me about the interview.

Kill A Watt

I need the Kill-A-Watt.  Actually I need several.  I've been trying to turn stuff off all the time--unplugging the chargers, pulling the plug on the TV during the day.   Wish I'd seen it before Xmas and I would'a put it on my list.

Saw it first at BoingBoing then at Cool Tools.

Fired for Blogging

A friend of a friend has been fired for  blogging.  She was an instructor at DeVry University in Westminster, Colorado.

DeVry University is a publicly-traded company that isn't a "university" in the traditional sense.   It offers associate (2-year degrees) and batchelor's degrees in  on-line and campus-based degree programs in information technology (IT) and business, plus a smattering of master's programs. It has some limited accreditations for various programs.

The woman who was fired evidently has been blogging for years, on numerous blogs.  She did not blog anonymously, and was aware that:

DeVry does have a policy about employees not putting anything in personal blogs that could hurt their stock prices.

Evidently, other faculty and instructors at that particular DeVry campus had run afoul of the policy, but not been fired:

Here’s what didn’t happen [snip]: - Any warning, disciplinary procedure, discussion, or any other process by which I was notified of the “problem.” This was especially egregious, as previous instances of faculty having “objectionable” postings on their blogs have been treated by discussing it with the faculty member. I was fired outright without any opportunity for discussion at all.

I don't know.  It seems like an invasion of privacy to me.  But....the internet's public, right? 

XTaurus points out:

Of course, the whole idea of “fired for blogging” isn’t exactly true. No one is getting fired for blogging; they’re getting fired for what they say on their blog.

Previous fired-for-blogging on this website:
I Said It
Professor Fired For Blogging Anonymously

Technorati tags: Blog Blogging fired for blogging

Annals of Quackery: Hypnosis and Dyslexia

Note: this post has been edited.  I moved my comment, with further criticism, from the comments section to the body of the post.

One Marilyn Redmond is promising "new hope for dyslexia":

Marilyn Redmond, Clinical Hypnotist and Registered Counselor, in Edgewood, Washington is combining hypnosis with other complimentary health methods to improve the process with children and adults. When she heard the latest scientific release that Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev has scientifically proven that affirmations along with meditation/ hypnosis (another term for meditation) will raise consciousness, well-being, and even change DNA, she became interested in helping students with Dyslexia.

What a load of hogwash.

This is the material I added:

As justification for offering hypnosis for dyslexia, your press release reads in part:

"There is a new use for therapeutic hypnosis and holistic counseling. Harold B. Crasilneck, Ph.D., and James A. Hall, M.D. of Dallas Texas states that relatively little use of hypnosis is used in treating dyslexia. However, they report that “three-fourths of the dyslexic children treated through hypnosis demonstrated moderate to marked improvement.” "

I went looking for scientific evidence of this claim. 

1. Crasilneck and Hall as joint authors have published six articles, according to PubMed. None deal with dyslexia, reading, or learning disabilities.

2. The statement above implies that Crasilneck and Hall have recently announced the effectiveness of hypnosis for dyslexia. The most recent of their articles was published twenty-eight years ago.  This is hardly cutting-edge research,especially in light of the great increase in the roots of dyslexia revealed by brain-imaging studies by Shaywitz, Eden, Beringer and Aylward, among others.  The claim that  “three-fourths of the dyslexic children treated through hypnosis demonstrated moderate to marked improvement.” seems to be drawn from Crasilneck and Hall's 1985 handbook,  Clinical hypnosis: principles and applications, 2nd Ed, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 

3. Again according to a PubMed search, there are absolutely no controlled studies indicating that hypnosis is an effective approach to remediating dyslexia.

4.  The press release also claims that hypnosis is a valid treatment for dyslexia based on  a "scientific release"  from a  Russian  scientist, biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev, with the following claims

scientifically proven that affirmations along with meditation/ hypnosis (another term for meditation) will raise consciousness, well-being, and even change DNA

Garjajev has no citations in Pubmed.   The claim for DNA modulation seems to come from the article entitled, "The Biological Chip in our Cells", by Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf, published on their website, "German Magazine KonteXt reports on current developments within the ranges of border science and spirituality."   There are a number of claims made, but no data to back up the claims.  Remember, "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof".  We can reject the Fosar-Bludorf claims for lacking evidence.

5. The press release also states "Frustrated parents and schools have not found ways to improve or resolve this malady [dyslexia] for successful school careers." That is also not true, on two counts.

a. Dyslexia is not a "malady" in the sense of disease, ailment, or unwholesome condition.  It is a neurological variation in how the brain processes the relation between symbol and sound.

b. "not found ways to improve" --this is just a flat misstatement of truth.  Multi-sensory, structured, intensive, instruction in synthetic phonics will allow most children to learn to read.    Anne Alexander and Anne-Marie Slinger Constant's article "Current Status of Treatments for Dyslexia: Critical Review"  (J Child Neurol.  2004; 19 (10): 744-758.) is perhaps the most comprehensive  current review:

treatment studies have shown that the majority of children respond to evidence-based treatment interventions

Yes, there are children who continue to struggle despite being in comprehensive programs, and there is certainly room for improvment in  both diagnosis and treatment options.  Alexander and Constant suggest a checklist:

• An evidence-based program to remediate dyslexia and the phonological system weakness
• Evaluate child's ability to focus/pay attention (remediate as necessary)
• Evaluate the child's  working memory function (remediate as necessary)
• Evaluate the child's executive function,(remediate as necessary)
• Evaluate the child's sensorimotor capacity (the ability for fine and gross motor control. Deficits in this area can lead to dysgraphia.  (remediate as necessary)
• Evaluate the child's psychological status (ADHD and dyslexia have a high degree of co-incidence; anxiety disorders also seem to be associated with specific language disorders)

I do not see the utility for a primary, secondary, or even tertiary role for hypnosis in the checklist above. 

Parents, if your child has difficulty learning to read, do not waste your child's precious brain, or your money,  on twaddle such as hypnosis.  (Or colored lenses, or balance training, or optometric interventions like vision therapy,  or  seasickness drugs or movement therapies.)

Back to the original post:

What should parents of poor readers do?  Here's what works: multisensory, methodical  instruction in phonemic awareness, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, and further training in the structure of the English language.

If there isn't a Masonic Children's Learning Center near you,  an independent  Orton-Gillingham-based remedial program (see list below),  or you can't find other help, go to Susan Barton's website and learn to tutor your child.

A list of  good solid programs follows.  Here's a description of effective teaching.