Dyslexia/Reading & Learning Disabilities

Story I

So, second grader, Nicole,  was writing  some things to her mom in class. She started a poem to her mother, “Rosis ar red vilits ar blae, but nan is as swet as you.” 

She went on to tell her mom that she was having “fune at skal I mise you.”

Certainly, Nicole would score high sweetness points, but the writing  suggested some “red flag” indicators of concern. 

Here’s what the teacher said:

“Nicole does not always stay on task.  She is quiet and does not tend to raise her hand often in class.  I think it really just comes down to confidence.  I think Nicole can be a very successful student in the classroom.”

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I really want to scream.)

Skills are Nicole’s primary issue, not confidence.  Nicole needs to have her skills targeted.  Then confidence will follow.

Story II

When assessing vocabulary on the cognitive portion of the assessment, the child looks at the word and the examiner asks the child to tell the word’s meaning.   “Ancient” is a word in the mid-levels of the test that most kids have a pretty good idea as to its meaning.  They usually start talking about the pyramids or something like that as a way of explaining the word 'ancient.'

Thirteen year old Ivan  was tested recently.  (I will try and transcribe our interaction.)

Me:  “What does the word ‘ancient’ mean?” (As I show it to him in print.)

Ivan:  “Ancient??? I thought that said ‘accident.”

Me: “No.  Ancient.  What does the word ‘ancient’ mean.”

Ivan:  “Oh, yeah!  I know that…like a spy?”

Me:  “What do you mean like a spy?  I said “ancient.”

Ivan: (Looking at me like he was talking to a lower order human who just didn’t get him.)  Yeah, a spy, like I said…like a secret agent.”

Me:  "Oh, I get it…my bad."

Hmmm…do I need to say more? 

Story III

As part of the Coffee Klatch Network  on my monthly radio show I had the good fortune of interviewing James Redford, film director and producer of the movie “The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia.”

The movie tells the story of his son Dylan’s struggles with his learning disability (dyslexia) and the journey that took Dylan from a “functionally illiterate” fourth grader to a successful college student.  The movie also highlights a number of very well known “celebrity” dyslexics including Richard Branson, Charles Schwab and others.

Within the interview, Redford made many great points.  One that struck me was the value of the label.

As he stated, “My wife and I felt that it wasn’t until the whole thing (the dyslexia) could be contained and understood under a label that we could say, ‘oh this is what it is. This is something that is diagnosable. This is something that you could do something about. This is a challenge, but it’s not an academic death sentence…. The label of dyslexia was actually a positive thing to us, which is strange, because so often labels are destructive. You have to make sure, though, that what comes with a label is true understanding. Because if you just use the label ‘dyslexia’ as it is currently used there is a lot of misunderstanding."

(Here’s the link to the Redford interview and others that have been completed on “School Struggles:”  http://thecoffeeklatch.com/school-struggles-with-dr-richard-selznick/

This is the link to all of the interviews that are a part of The Coffee Klatch team: http://thecoffeeklatch.com/the-coffee-klatch-team/

Enjoy.

***Note:  (This blog was published some time ago, but due to a problem with the website it needed to be reposted.  It has been revised.)

I had the good fortune to recently take part on a panel during a symposium on dyslexia sponsored by the grassroots parenting group, Decoding Dyslexia: NJ.  Dr. Sally Shaywitz, the author of “Overcoming Dyslexia” was the keynote speaker.  While talking about assessing dyslexia, Dr. Shaywitz said something that really struck me.  She noted, “Dyslexia is not a score.”     

That statement is right on the money.

Scores are certainly involved in the assessment of dyslexia.   Tests such as the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, the Tests of Word Reading Efficiency and the Comprehensive Tests of Phonological Processing, among other standardized measures yield reliable and valid standard scores, grade equivalents and percentiles.  These scores can be helpful markers.  However, the scores often don’t tell the whole story. 

Here’s one example:

Jacob, a fifth grader, is in the 80^th%ile of verbal intelligence and his nonverbal score is in the 65% percentile, meaning Jacob’s a pretty bright kid.  Jacob’s word identification standard score on the Woodcock was a 94 placing him solidly in the average range, with similar word attack and passage comprehensions scores.  Effectively, both of the scores (Word Identification and Word Attack), placed Jacob just below the 50th percentile, but solidly in the average range.

Jacob’s scores would not have gotten the school too excited.  Yet, here’s what I told the mom.

“There’s a lot of evidence in Jacob’s assessment that suggests that he is dyslexic.  Even though his scores are fundamentally average, he was observed to be very inefficient in the way that he read.  For example, while Jacob read words like “institute,” and “mechanic” correctly, he did so with a great deal of effort.  It was hard for Jacob to figure out the words.  For those who are not dyslexic, word reading is smooth and effortless.  Those words would be a piece of cake for non-dyslexic fifth graders.  They were not for Jacob.”

“Even more to the point, was the way that Jacob read passages out loud.  Listening to Jacob read was almost painful.  Every time he came upon a large word that was not all that common (such as, hysterical, pedestrian, departure) he hesitated a number of seconds and either stumbled on the right word or substituted a nonsense word.  An example was substituting the word “ostrich” for “orchestra.”  The substitution completely changed the meaning.

"Finally, the two other areas of concern involved the way that Jacob wrote, as well as his spelling.  While Jacob could memorize for the spelling test, his spelling and his open ended-writing were very weak.  The amount of effort that Jacob put into writing a small informal paragraph was considerable.  There also wasn’t one sentence that was complete.”

“Even though Jacob is unlikely to be classified in special education, I think he has a learning disability that matches the definition of dyslexia as it is known clinically (see  International Dyslexia Association website:  www.ida.org ).  The scores simply do not tell the story."

"Dyslexia is not a score."

Takeaway Point:

 You need to look under the hood to see what’s going on with the engine.  With dyslexia, you can't just look at the scores and make a conclusion.

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So much of a child’s world can be framed in an ongoing series of different skills.  For example, some kids have the “skill of” saying hello and greeting someone for the first time.  Others may have the “skill of” manners in social interactions by saying “please” and “thank you” – things like that.   The skills of greeting someone or using social manners do not happen naturally.  They are learned and practiced over countless repetitions,

What happens when we shut off the ability to practice these skills? Then there are lost opportunities and the skills simply do not develop.

Marnie, a five year, old came to my office accompanying her mother who wanted to talk to me about her older sister, Jocelyn.  When I went out to greet the mom, Marnie was on some type of head set connected to a small screen device.  Marnie never looked up, never said hello. The opportunity was lost for that small social pleasantry and interaction of putting out my hand to greet Marnie and ask her a couple of questions about her world. 

Marnie continued to spend the whole time quietly with her head set on, swiping her fingers across the screen.  I did not exist as a human being.   There was lost opportunity (for both of us) to practice the “skill of” social interaction.

Later in the day I went to “Salad Works” for lunch.  A 20-something was in front of me on line.  As she placed her order, “I’ll have spinach.  I’ll have olives…turkey….banana peppers…” I was struck by the fact that there was no “please” or “thank you” mixed in that salad.  The person behind the counter dutifully filling up the woman’s salad bowl did not exist to her.  There was no real human or polite social interaction.

Maybe the 20- something was just an older Marnie, someone who never had the opportunity to practice essential skills.

There are continual opportunities to practice the skill of ___________  (fill in the blank).  Out of expedience parents may be cutting off these opportunities. It certainly is easier having Marnie completely quiet and transfixed on a screen then deal with the usual four year old behaviors.  

It just seems that something is off, though,

Takeaway Point

There is balance between having your child connected to their screens and making sure they don’t continually lose the opportunity to practice interacting with humans.  They risk losing skill opportunities that can’t be recovered.

When I listen to kids and parents talk about things that go on, there are times when I find myself feeling   a bit cranky about what I am told.

Here’s one story told me lately that increased my cranky meter.

A kid in high school kid told me about an assignment he was resisting completing.  As he explained, the assignment had to do with The Crucible, which just happened to be one of my favorite plays.  What made me cranky was not his resistance,  which I understood, it was the fact that there was no reading of the play in English class.  From what he described there was no dissecting of the script and little class discussion.  No, the class spent probably about a week watching the movie, followed by the drawing a picture about it.  It doesn’t seem very meaty to me.

The same child had just spent a week or so in a history class watching a movie, “The Patriot,” on the Revolutionary War.  Again, no reading –  just watch the movie and answer a few questions about it.  So, if you add it up, the class movie watching activities probably represented about two weeks of class time.

Is that teaching?  

I get multimedia, but It strikes me as missed opportunity for real analysis and thought provoking discussion, not to mention a missed opportunity for giving the  kids the experience of reading, something they don’t do very often on their own.

As schools limp to the finish line in middle June , I understand watching movies in class (sort of), but in October not even done the first quarter, it seems a bit premature for this type of thing, no?

What’s your view?

In about three weeks from now my new book, “School Struggles” is scheduled for release.  Over the next few essays, I will try and highlight some of the main points of the book.   One overriding theme of the book is looking to the smooth road vs. the rough road, an image that I continually return to with parents.

Probably about 50% of the population travels down a relatively smooth road.  For example, in preschool they share nicely and seem to be well liked by the teachers and other kids.  Reading development unfolds on time.  Homework is managed.  As school progresses the smooth road children take increasing responsibility with little adult involvement.

Then there’s everyone else.

For these children there are more potholes in the road.  These potholes can be there for a whole host of reasons.  There are social, reading, mathematics, behavioral, and attention potholes among the more common faced by children.  Some of the potholes can be very large, others barely visible.  The really big ones often lead to a child being classified in special education, but so often the potholes are viewed as just part of the road – kind of “average” potholes to just be ignored.

If your child is one on the rougher side of the road it can feel very overwhelming as a parent. 

What can you do?

One thing that can be helpful is to have a trusted a professional who you are comfortable with who you can talk to who knows the landscape and can help you prioritize.

Should you focus on the reading pothole?  If so, what’s the target? Decoding? Comprehension?

Perhaps reading isn’t the issue and you want to try and help the child get along better with others, to not be as pushy or demanding or to learn how to share better.

One takeaway point is to think of the “potholes” as skills not neurological deficiencies.  Most of these potholes are skill deficits that can be practiced with sensible approaches.  The first step is identifying which one you want to target.

You may not completely make the road a smooth one, but you certainly can fill in a couple of the holes.