Very quickly, I wanted to share this thought with you from Dr Sally
Shaywitz's book, "Overcoming Dyslexia".
"I strongly believe that behind the success of every disabled child is a passionately
committed, intensely engaged and totally empowered parent." Sally
Shaywitz, M.D
Remember, when you have a child with Dyslexia it is usually a long road to
get a positive diagnosis as well as some supporting strategies in place that
not only help your child but fit in with the routine of your family. I know
it's difficult, but rest assured your determination and drive will see you
finally find the right people and the right solutions for your child. You will
be a stronger individual assured by the knowledge that you have done the right
thing to ensure success in your child's educational future. Even though you may
feel as though it is you and your child against the world sometimes, never give
up or lose your sense of humour!
The word Dyslexia means: Dys = difficulty Lexia = words.
Dyslexia is a neurologically-based
disorder. Individuals with dyslexia have difficulty with the sounds (phonemes) and
symbols (morphemes) that make up our language. It is a specific learning
disability that affects 1 in 5 students world wide. It describes what appears
to be an unexpected difficulty with language. This means people with dyslexia
have difficulty reading, writing and remembering written language as well as
making permanent connections between the symbols and sounds in words. The
perplexing thing about dyslexia is that these individuals usually have average
or above average intelligence and excel in other learning disciplines.
Therefore dyslexia is not the
result of low intelligence. Additionally, research has shown that the ratio of
boys to girls with dyslexia is the same – they just tend to hide it in
different ways. If you are still searching for a reason for your child’s
learning difficulty you will also realise that dyslexia is not the result of
vision or hearing problems, behaviour or emotional problems, or any lack of
opportunity or motivation to learn. Perhaps your child has undergone a
multitude of tests and still no diagnosis has been reached or the strategies
that have been suggested to you haven’t worked. Maybe your story sounds a
little bit like this… Mum and Dad are broke because of
all the testing and therapy
that didn’t do anything to help the problem, maybe your child is sporting a
nice pair of glasses and if you’re
like us, they’ve got magnificent coloured lenses that cost you a fortune, but
your child won’t wear because they look different to everyone else. Quite
possibly it’s been suggested to Mum and Dad that their child should repeat a grade or perhaps medicating their child could improve
their concentration because the child has difficulty focussing at school. This
is because the child has possibly developed some great avoidance strategies and are trying to do ANYTHING they can to get
out of sitting in their desk and reading. Avoidance strategies can take the
form of, asking to go to the toilet at inappropriate times, cracking jokes,
sharpening pencils, wiping down the board, cleaning out their desk, tidying the
bookshelves, asking to take notes to the office…etcetera.
In primary school, your child’s
development has been pretty carefully monitored. Usually, they have one teacher
for the majority of the time as well as support staff who have probably helped
a lot. Chances are you’ve been made aware of a problem but nobody can give you
a precise diagnosis or strategies that have made any significant difference. When
your child reaches high school things can become very different. If you’ve made
it as far as year 8 or 9 behaviour
modification has probably been suggested because your child is working
through some serious anger or withdrawal issues. This is because school is
getting very difficult. The amount of reading
increases. There are text books, deadlines and different teachers for every
subject to cope with. If your child has coping
mechanisms in place, chances are they are being stretched to breaking
point. Without the right support and
scaffolding the dyslexic teenager
can become very overwhelmed. That’s what dyslexia looks like
when it’s not diagnosed and attended to properly. So our ratio of 1 dyslexic
pupil to every 5 pupils in an average Australian classroom of 30 students gives
us 6 students that have dyslexia per class. Remember, these are smart kids, who
have worked out that something is not quite right. Unfortunately their
assumption is that they are a failure, when in fact it’s the system that has
failed them. Isn’t it incredible to believe that there is no funding available
for these students in our Australian school system? Fortunately, a number of talented American
researchers have been looking for a scientific explanation for the cause of
dyslexia. Thanks to the research of Drs
Sally and Bennett Shaywitz who head The Yale
Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, we now know thatDyslexia is aneurologically-based disorder. Their
research, took the form of testing, monitoring and observing a large sample of
students from their first year of school (approximately 5 years of age in
Kindergarten) and continuing to study them closely over a twenty year period. They
compared the reading ability and IQ of Dyslexic students and non-dyslexic
students as well as recorded and compared their brain images using Functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (fMRI) whilst reading. For
many years researchers have know that language development occurs in the left
hemisphere of the brain. We also know that for students to be literate they
also need to have three parts of the left hemisphere operating efficiently. These
are indicated on the diagrams below, “Broca’s
Area” in the inferior frontal gyrus (Green), “Wernicke’s Area” located in the parieto-temporal area (Pink) and
the Occipito-temporal area (yellow).
Broca’s
area is where the phonemes (sounds) of language are processed into articulated
speech. It is a very important area for learning sounds and experimenting with
producing sounds. The Wernicke’s area is the place where words are analysed.
Words are literally pulled apart and put back together in order to make meaning
of them. It’s where the phonemes from the Broca’s area are put into place to
form words and are assigned a meaning. The Occipito-temporal area is where
whole words and chunks of words are recognized automatically. RichardGentry states that this is the place where we store our images for
perfectly spelt words. Without the Occipito-temporal area we would have no
fluency and every time we encountered a word, we would need to sound it out
again.
What Drs Sally and Bennett Shaywitz found through fMRI research is that students with Dyslexia
are not using all three of these parts of their brains when reading. They are
only using the Broca’s area where initial sounds are being processed. They
proved without any doubt that students with dyslexia present with a large
discrepancy between reading ability and IQ.
Now that Dyslexia has been identified as a neurologically-based disorder it is important to
keep in mind that the brain is able to grow and develop new neural pathways. Banished
is the thinking of years gone by that suggested if you have a problem with the
brain it was irreversible. New studies looking at “Neuroplasticity” are
providing new break throughs in science which are now being applied in the area
of education. Barbara Arrowsmith-Young has been a pioneer in this area, and I
urge you to take a look at her book, “The woman who changed her brain”. This
book was actually recommended to me by a dyslexic student, so highly
recommended!
One of the things I love about working with Dyslexic
students is that generally they are animated, creative and likable individuals
who are usually hard working, intelligent people. It is no surprise that some
of the greatest creative minds in history have been right-brain dominated
dyslexics. It is very clear to see why they have so much to offer our society. There
are some wonderful people working on developing programs and strategies to help
stimulate the left hemispheres of the brain to help students with dyslexia
learn to read. I’ll write more about these in an up coming blog to give you
some strategies to use at home and in the classroom to help your dyslexic
students with reading. Until then, take a look through the following websites,
they are really worthwhile and very interesting reading. I’ve also added Dr
Sally Shaywitz’s book, “Overcoming Dyslexia” to the suggested reading list as
well as Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, “The woman who changed her brain”.
Take a look at this fantastic youtube video featuring Dr
Sally Shaywitz and some very successful Dyslexics.
This is a very short and sweet post today. I just want to thank everyone for your positive feedback re my first post. Thank you! I am diligently working on the next. I've had a lot of electronic conversations with concerned parents of students with dyslexia and I am working these Q and A sessions into readable posts for you all. In the meantime I'm more than happy to answer any questions that come my way. Thank you again and the next post won't be too far away.
Welcome to this first post at "Targeting Dyslexia". It is my aim as a teacher and a mother of a child with dyslexia that I may be able to provide on this site some practical advice for parents, teachers and students with dyslexia. I'll try and keep things short and sweet as more and more people are time poor these days. I'll post some links to sites where you can find more helpful information, as well as listing some great... BOOKS. I love books, and I love great literature, and I believe the two go hand in hand with combating dyslexia.
I'll keep you up to date with what's happening at a government level, so as parents and students you can be aware of what developments are taking place in this country that influence your child's right (or your right) to an education. As a teacher, it is an exciting time to be working with students who have dyslexia. Many great people are currently working tirelessly at a government level to raise awareness for the financial support desperately needed by primary and secondary schools in Australia to support dyslexic learners.
Well, enough chit chat, let's get started...I recently spent three days in Brisbane listening to and being inspired by Neil Mackay. Neil is an educational consultant and trainer with 26 years teaching experience who created the concept of dyslexia friendly schools in the UK. Neil ran three workshops aimed at improving outcomes for struggling students. These were developed for teachers, allied professionals and parents of students with attentional disorders such as ADHD, those with pervasive development disorders, such as Asperger's Syndrome, and those with academic skill disorders, such as dyslexia and dysgraphia.
I found Neil to be a dynamic presenter who engages his audience from the moment the applause dies down. I felt empowered after listening to his practical techniques. Straight after the parent workshop, Neil was ushered out the door by the lovely Lynda Werner of SPELD Qld to speak with the Queensland Department of Education, Employment and Training.
The outcome of this meeting was that Queensland’s new Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has now pledged
to assist dyslexic children in Queensland schools. This was recently reported on the ABC News, click here to take a look. It's estimated that 10% of the student population worldwide have dyslexia. Sadly, Australia is one of the few English speaking countries that does not recognise Dyslexia as a funded learning disability. As a result there is no funding to correctly identify these learners or implement programs to support these students within Australian schools. Which is the source of much frustration. Parents are frustrated because they are struggling to get a correct diagnosis for their children, teachers are frustrated because they do not have the resources to help these learners (they're just guessing because there is no diagnosis unless the parents can afford the expensive fees), and consequently students are failing.
If you are a Queensland resident and wish to move this pledge into action, please
contact your local State Member of Parliament and let them know your support for
this to go ahead. Let's be part of history!
For more indepth helpful information, please take a look at:
Remember, when you have a child with Dyslexia it is usually a long road to
get a positive diagnosis as well as some supporting strategies in place that
not only help your child but fit in with the routine of your family. I know
it's difficult, but rest assured your determination and drive will see you
finally find the right people and the right solutions for your child. You will
be a stronger individual assured by the knowledge that you have done the right
thing to ensure success in your child's educational future. Even though you may
feel as though it is you and your child against the world sometimes, never give
up or lose your sense of humour!
