[NIFL-LD:3777] Clif Willard's Letter

From: clifwillard (clifwillard@home.com)
Date: Fri Nov 16 2001 - 01:29:29 EST


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Subject: [NIFL-LD:3777] Clif Willard's Letter
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Art,

I apologize for such a delayed reply. I upgraded my PC and things went down 
instead of up. I think things are working now.

You point out the necessity of those of us who work with people with 
disabilities to know why they preform in one way or another. As you so 
aptly pointed out the difficulty these people were having him that the 
reading were not the result of a lack of phonetic awareness but were the 
result of emotional traumas. The the difficulty in that was clearly a 
symptom of the underlying emotional difficulty. Once the emotional basis 
had been exposed and resolve and remediation and that would certainly 
proved to be very effective. This would not be the case if the problem was 
Discalcula. My experience has been met most people with these disabilities 
experience of emotional stress to specifically to their lack of 
understanding of the disability itself. For example: every child in the 
first and second grade believe that every other child is a clone of them. 
They begin to recognize very early that they are not able to do what most 
of the other students do and take for granted. They believe that the other 
students perceive the same way they do. They then begin to ask themselves 
what is wrong with many? How, they can do it and I can't? They're unable to 
answer that question but the question is still there. When they read or 
perform aloud in class and make mistakes the other children being children, 
10 to laugh and they begin to feel humiliated among their peers. This then 
reinforces the there something wrong with them because they cannot perform 
at the level of their peers. Yet in other situations they experience 
performing at the same level or in some cases above. This becomes very 
confusing. They still ask themselves how come they can read and I can't? 
Sooner or later they come to the conclusion that it is because they just 
not smart enough to do it. The conclusion is most often is, "I must be 
stupid." This leads to pour self-image. The problem really is not that they 
feel stupid and that they don't know but they're afraid they stupid to use 
their word. Later often they become afraid to find out whether or not they 
really are. This underlying fear is caused by lack of understanding of the 
disability not necessarily a dramatic event although feel humiliated among 
their peers can be quite dramatic. A lot of the behavior of young people 
with these disabilities is to protect themselves from that kind of humiliation.

I applaud your determination and recovery from your receptive language of 
aphasia. I make a clear distinction however between acquired disabilities 
which generally result from some brain injury and a genetic form of the 
disability. The name distinguishing characteristics are that if the 
disability is genetically based the symptoms tend to be dynamic. Somebody 
with a reading disability that is genetically based will add sometimes read 
much better than that most other times. They experience this erratically 
and is not the result of anything other than timing. If someone has 
acquired a language disability experience tends through be constant without 
this dynamic nature of good days vs. bad days sundaes you can read really 
well and other days you can get your cat. Remediation and relearning can be 
extremely effective in acquired disabilities. My wife is a physical 
therapist and has worked for over 30 years in Rehab. Her specialty is head 
trauma and stroke. We have discussed this many times and a dynamic nature 
of the symptoms does not occur when someone has in acquired disability. 
Remediation do is far more effective when the disability has been acquired.

The reason that people can do to movie theater and experience a movie in 3D 
the is because the glasses that you must wear modify the timing in the 
perception of the information received by the retina. It is to be altering 
of this timing that the major looks as if it were in 3D. Dr. Talull's 
research at Rutgers University has also pointed out timing errors. Dr. 
Margaret Livingston at Harvard also found timing problems. The type of 
timing and I'm referring to when I say that it is a perceptual disability 
caused by a timing error in one of the processes I'm referring to this more 
subtle type of timing problem. I believe that the processes are cyclical 
and one of the more to among our out of sync with the others. Eventually 
however unbroken clock will tell the correct time twice a day. So every 
once in a while all the processes are in sync and the person with the 
disability seems asymptomatic. A short time later however the symptoms are 
all back again. When this happens is very confusing for not only the person 
with the disability but also the person who's trying to help him. You think 
yourself lovely god inanimate later they can do it and your scratching your 
head thinking you did it a minute ago. But this experience gives 
credibility to the individual with the disability but they're just not 
trying hard enough.

Up one of the major problems with our society is that if you have a 
disability you are presumed to be less competent. This is true regardless 
of the disability. If to people apply for a job and one person is slightly 
more qualified and the other hand that person is also on amputated, the job 
will be given to the other person because the assumption is that you have 
an amputation you're not as competent as somebody who does not. Incredible 
as this may be it is directly addressed in the Americans with Disability 
Act. A person who does not have a disability but is believed to have a 
disability is covered under the act.

I believe that it is essential to understand what is causing a symptom of 
difficulty in reading, difficulty in writing, difficulty in that, and so on 
in order to determine what the best intervention might be. There are some 
who have difficulties in these areas because they have not have an 
opportunity to learn. There are others who may haven't difficulty due to 
dramatic emotional experiences. There are others who may haven't difficulty 
because they did not learn or do not understand how the phonemes are 
associated the letters of the alphabet. And they are those who have a 
perceptual deficit disability that is not caused by a learning problem of 
any kind and therefore cannot be remediated. Many people have said that 
this may be true in only a few cases did not in the vast majority of cases. 
I disagree with this and my disagreement is supported by the research.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Journal of the American Academy 
of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, August 1997.

"OUTCOME IN ADOLESCENCE AND YOUNG ADULTHOOD

Well designed follow up studies have repeatedly shown that reading 
disabilities persist into late adolescence and young adulthood (Maughan, 
1995) . Comprehension skills may improve, but the progress of poor readers 
is often slower than that of their normal reading peers. General 
intelligence and initial severity of reading disorder are the most 
consistent predictors of early adult reading levels. Reading comprehension 
and word recognition skills can continue to improve well into adulthood, 
but this seems dependent on experience and practice with literacy 
materials. The most consistent finding across studies, however, is that 
adults who received the diagnosis of reading disability as children 
continue to have problems with phonological coding when reading or 
performing phonemic awareness tasks (Bruck, 1985, 1992, Pennington et al., 
1990) These difficulties are particularly evident when spelling (Adelman 
and Vogel, 1991; Denckla, 1993) and reading nonwords or unfamiliar words 
(Elbro et al., 1994; Pennington et al., 1987; Scarborough, 1984). In 
addition, a slower reading rate is typical of adults identified as 
reading-disabled in childhood (Denckla, 1993; Johnson, 1987). With adequate 
supports, children with reading problems can make good educational 
progress, although they take longer to achieve a given level of competence 
compared with nondisabled controls (Maughan, 1995)."

This does support the idea that phonetic awareness is not the major cause 
of the difficulty in reading. I do think that a major problem is that there 
are so many different definitions of these disabilities and the label is 
such a catch all for everything that it becomes difficult to communicate. 
It might be quite a contribution to the field for this list to develop a 
definition of terms that is more specific and descriptive in determining 
appropriate interventions. Personally I feel that a multi-strategic 
approach leading to the educational success of the individual is most 
important.

Something to think about.


Sorry this was so long.

Clif








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Art,<br><br>
I apologize for such a delayed reply. I upgraded my PC and things went
down instead of up. I think things are working now. <br><br>
You point out the necessity of those of us who work with people with
disabilities to know why they preform in one way or another. As you so
aptly pointed out the difficulty these people were having him that the
reading were not the result of a lack of phonetic awareness but were the
result of emotional traumas. The the difficulty in that was clearly a
symptom of the underlying emotional difficulty. Once the emotional basis
had been exposed and resolve and remediation and that would certainly
proved to be very effective. This would not be the case if the problem
was Discalcula. My experience has been met most people with these
disabilities experience of emotional stress to specifically to their lack
of understanding of the disability itself. For example: every child in
the first and second grade believe that every other child is a clone of
them. They begin to recognize very early that they are not able to do
what most of the other students do and take for granted. They believe
that the other students perceive the same way they do. They then begin to
ask themselves what is wrong with many? How, they can do it and I can't?
They're unable to answer that question but the question is still there.
When they read or perform aloud in class and make mistakes the other
children being children, 10 to laugh and they begin to feel humiliated
among their peers. This then reinforces the there something wrong with
them because they cannot perform at the level of their peers. Yet in
other situations they experience performing at the same level or in some
cases above. This becomes very confusing. They still ask themselves how
come they can read and I can't? Sooner or later they come to the
conclusion that it is because they just not smart enough to do it. The
conclusion is most often is, &quot;I must be stupid.&quot; This leads to
pour self-image. The problem really is not that they feel stupid and that
they don't know but they're afraid they stupid to use their word. Later
often they become afraid to find out whether or not they really are. This
underlying fear is caused by lack of understanding of the disability not
necessarily a dramatic event although feel humiliated among their peers
can be quite dramatic. A lot of the behavior of young people with these
disabilities is to protect themselves from that kind of
humiliation.<br><br>
I applaud your determination and recovery from your receptive language of
aphasia. I make a clear distinction however between acquired disabilities
which generally result from some brain injury and a genetic form of the
disability. The name distinguishing characteristics are that if the
disability is genetically based the symptoms tend to be dynamic. Somebody
with a reading disability that is genetically based will add sometimes
read much better than that most other times. They experience this
erratically and is not the result of anything other than timing. If
someone has acquired a language disability experience tends through be
constant without this dynamic nature of good days vs. bad days sundaes
you can read really well and other days you can get your cat. Remediation
and relearning can be extremely effective in acquired disabilities. My
wife is a physical therapist and has worked for over 30 years in Rehab.
Her specialty is head trauma and stroke. We have discussed this many
times and a dynamic nature of the symptoms does not occur when someone
has in acquired disability. Remediation do is far more effective when the
disability has been acquired.<br><br>
The reason that people can do to movie theater and experience a movie in
3D the is because the glasses that you must wear modify the timing in the
perception of the information received by the retina. It is to be
altering of this timing that the major looks as if it were in 3D. Dr.
Talull's research at Rutgers University has also pointed out timing
errors. Dr. Margaret Livingston at Harvard also found timing problems.
The type of timing and I'm referring to when I say that it is a
perceptual disability caused by a timing error in one of the processes
I'm referring to this more subtle type of timing problem. I believe that
the processes are cyclical and one of the more to among our out of sync
with the others. Eventually however unbroken clock will tell the correct
time twice a day. So every once in a while all the processes are in sync
and the person with the disability seems asymptomatic. A short time later
however the symptoms are all back again. When this happens is very
confusing for not only the person with the disability but also the person
who's trying to help him. You think yourself lovely god inanimate later
they can do it and your scratching your head thinking you did it a minute
ago. But this experience gives credibility to the individual with the
disability but they're just not trying hard enough.<br><br>
Up one of the major problems with our society is that if you have a
disability you are presumed to be less competent. This is true regardless
of the disability. If to people apply for a job and one person is
slightly more qualified and the other hand that person is also on
amputated, the job will be given to the other person because the
assumption is that you have an amputation you're not as competent as
somebody who does not. Incredible as this may be it is directly addressed
in the Americans with Disability Act. A person who does not have a
disability but is believed to have a disability is covered under the
act.<br><br>
I believe that it is essential to understand what is causing a symptom of
difficulty in reading, difficulty in writing, difficulty in that, and so
on in order to determine what the best intervention might be. There are
some who have difficulties in these areas because they have not have an
opportunity to learn. There are others who may haven't difficulty due to
dramatic emotional experiences. There are others who may haven't
difficulty because they did not learn or do not understand how the
phonemes are associated the letters of the alphabet. And they are those
who have a perceptual deficit disability that is not caused by a learning
problem of any kind and therefore cannot be remediated. Many people have
said that this may be true in only a few cases did not in the vast
majority of cases. I disagree with this and my disagreement is supported
by the research.<br><br>
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Journal of the American Academy
of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, August 1997.<br><br>
&quot;OUTCOME IN ADOLESCENCE AND YOUNG ADULTHOOD<br><br>
Well designed follow up studies have repeatedly shown that reading
disabilities persist into late adolescence and young adulthood (Maughan,
1995) <font size=3D2>. </font>Comprehension skills may improve, but the
progress of poor readers is often slower than that of their normal
reading peers. General intelligence and initial severity of reading
disorder are the most consistent predictors of early adult reading
levels. Reading comprehension and word recognition skills can continue to
improve well into adulthood, but this seems dependent on experience and
practice with literacy materials. The most consistent finding across
studies, however, is that adults who received the diagnosis of reading
disability as children continue to have problems with phonological coding
when reading or performing phonemic awareness tasks (Bruck, 1985, 1992,
Pennington et al., 1990) These difficulties are particularly evident when
spelling (Adelman and Vogel, 1991; Denckla, 1993) and reading nonwords or
unfamiliar words (Elbro et al., 1994; Pennington et al., 1987;
Scarborough, 1984). In addition, a slower reading rate is typical of
adults identified as reading-disabled in childhood (Denckla, 1993;
Johnson, 1987). With adequate supports, children with reading problems
can make good educational progress, although they take longer to achieve
a given level of competence compared with nondisabled controls (Maughan,
1995).&quot;<br><br>
This does support the idea that phonetic awareness is not the major cause
of the difficulty in reading. I do think that a major problem is that
there are so many different definitions of these disabilities and the
label is such a catch all for everything that it becomes difficult to
communicate. It might be quite a contribution to the field for this list
to develop a definition of terms that is more specific and descriptive in
determining appropriate interventions. Personally I feel that a
multi-strategic approach leading to the educational success of the
individual is most important.<br><br>
Something to think about.<br><br>
<br>
Sorry this was so long.<br><br>
Clif<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
</html>

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