Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id fAGEfQ003846; Fri, 16 Nov 2001 09:41:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 09:41:27 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3BF5257A.D05C0D8E@ellijay.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Art LaChance <arthur@ellijay.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:3779] Re: Clif Willard's Letter X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) Status: O Content-Length: 7150 Lines: 114 Clif, One of the more important (to me) aspects of Dr Tallal's initial study was that a good majority of the participants indicated significant improvements when reeducated via an intense self directed computer based phonics/reading program. True that there are situations of genetic inconsistencies in the structure of the human brain that could provide the 'timing' problems that you suggest, although my impression is that this group is rather small in comparision to the size of the overall group being "diagnosed" as having a disability. As a point here, pick up a DSM-IV, open it to any page, and try to not find yourself there. Chances are you will read about mental processing symptoms that you exhibit. So the question for me becomes who did the diagnosis, and do they know what they're looking at? How 'out of control' are the behaviors and did they examine all of the myriad of contributing factors in the behaviors? "Diagnosis" itself reminds me sharply of the parlor game where people all sit in a circle and whisper a short story to the next person and by the time it gets back to the originator it hardly resembles the original. Very much like teaching a group of 6 year olds the alphabet in a day and not being able to follow up to ensure they understand the entire concept before we move on to use those skills in higher levels of processing. Who did the 'teaching', a teacher or an aide? Maybe a volunteer parent did the repetetion phase and not everybody grasped it? Maybe one or more children in that class was preoccupied for a few days with the feel-bads connected to the death of a pet, or family member. As a society we've come to abhor "TESTS", primarily because they point out "failures" within a peer group, and make kids feel bad, so we've moved away from concrete skill testing and provide soft feed-back, which gives the child and family an inaccurate picture of the child's capability and the teaching efficiency. As an example, yesterday I had an opportunity to participate in an official review of a young 1st graders school participation and lack of attendance which in itself leads to poor skill acquisition. The number grades in language, reading, and math were in the upper 80's while the fine print stated clearly that the child was NOT meeting academic expectations for the grade level.????? I find the situation rather common that a distinct disparity may exist between number based 'testing' results and actual capabilities. And all the while the teacher knows the child is not grasping the material for whatever reason, and is unable to do anything about it for lack of time or personnel or expertise, and the requirements of a rigid curriculum. Many of the indicators for learning dysfunction used in diagnosis leave me wondering. If the child reads words backwards, writes numbers upside down, pronounces F's as S's, etc, and we use that as criteria for a diagnosis, what this tells me is that the child can learn to read backwards but the diagnostician (and the teacher because that's where it begins) believes the child is incapable of learning to read frontwards? For me this basically invalidates the diagnosis process. Additionally, most of the "testing" instruments I've used and seen depend on and assume perfect exposure to the reading, language, and math issues they look at and use as evaluation criteria. The only test I rely on for examining a childs capability for 'learning' is the McCarron-Dial Perceptual Memory Task, affectionately refered to as the PMT. If a child is internally distracted (most normal children do that periodically especially in 'dry' or non-participatory class-work) and doesn't grasp some of the salient points involved in the formation of basic skills, and the understanding of those points are never tested, or are ignored, how can we expect the child to formulate an accurate evaluation system for language? Or for any subject. Once the window of opportunity for skill assessment and correction is passed, it's passed, and until corrected whatever is in place is the reference system utilized from that point on. Lets say a child changes schools several times during the early years of primary skill buildup, and each change places them in a different time in the sequence of acquisition for basic letter sounds, or sequential sound processing, or word compilation, or simple written word association? The end result is that the individual skills might be remembered but not be able to be integrated into the 'reading' concept because there is no associative links instilled, or checked, or confirmed, and the lack thereof may very well go unnoticed or ignored for other reasons. Lets say that a parent reads to her/his children from a book daily from a childs' book, with pictures and all. The children all sit around the parent while they read the story. The youngest one sits in front of the parent such that they face the parent and therefore see the book upside down while the parent follows the words in the book with a finger (just as the teacher recommended). What patterns of "reading a book" are established in the young child's neural pathways? How do they see "words". How do they see and remember the large letters? How do they remember the concepts associated between pictures and words? (discovered this several times in a family literacy program). What happens when two years later that child enters the classroom and begins to "learn to read"? Yes, then, we enter into the era of feel-bad because we can't keep up. Then we feel bad because we have to reenter that world of failure each and every day and feel bad the entire time because our emotional system responds accordingly. And nobody notices, and we can't explain it because we don't know that we don't know. All we know is that we're not the same and the others laugh at our failure. Enter the 'fight or flight' response, might be real early in the school history, might have been generated before school history began due to abuse in the home. Unable to physically avoid going into that exceptionally painful environment, the only option left may be self-directed distraction which emanates from a subconscious level. Welcome to the world of ADD. Extreme forms may be ADHD. Extreme forms of that may very well be BD. Is the above possible? You bet. But where is the "disability"? When each of the above situations were addressed according to the 'need' involved for skill refinement, and the child realized success in skill building, the 'symptoms' abated. Skill remediation / symptom abatement is being realized in many environments that are designed to help those who are defined as "disabled" (Sylvan Learning Centers, community literacy programs, etc). It's just not all black and white Clif. And yes we need desperately to develop a multi-strategic approach. Further we need to provide intense training in all aspects of "learning" for all early education teachers and confirm expertise via performance testing of those teachers, because it gets worse from here if we don't. Art Art LaChance Gilmer Learning Center Ellijay,GA
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Jan 18 2002 - 11:28:05 EST