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 j27F20C18871; Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:02:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:02:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <BE51C88F.5B5B%varshna@grandecom.net> 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: Varshna Narumanchi-Jackson <varshna@grandecom.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:4594] Re: Dyslexia Research X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 2769 Lines: 54 I can't tell you how many parents I have encountered in the first four years of my oldest child's education who have been told their child has ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, emotional disturbance, etc because they don't fit the model student stereotype. It's heart-wrenching to see these young children cope with the depression and angst the educational system creates in them. It's even harder to tell their parents to fight the good fight and challenge educators to do better than throw out labels for behaviors that are poorly understood and thus lack credibility. I hope that current research allows us all a moment of epiphany that 'normal' human behavior is much more broadly defined than we currently allow. In evolutionary time, written language and 'classroom' behavior are new pressures on the brain to adapt or create responses that allow the individual to succeed in a competitive environment. What I think we are witnessing is not science's newfound ability to locate 'disorders' through gene mapping, but a shift in the kinds of factors that influence evolution that are no longer directly tied to survival. Our institutions of education, however, are slow to recognize that human behavior (and the underlying genes that catalogue those behaviors) is as diverse as the human experience on this planet. Why else, for example, do we need 6000 languages in order to talk to each other? Finally, academic potential and achievement are so narrowly defined, it is no surprise that our institutions are failing to 'educate' the majority of learners who fall outside of those norms. Many peoples have based their transmission of history and culture on oral language (e.g., through epic poetry, song, story-telling). I wonder, are we just assigning a diagnosis of dyslexia to learners (among other dis-abilities) that are well-adapted to oral language as the medium for learning, but not to written language, in order to further a societal preference? Varshna Narumanchi-Jackson Austin, TX on 3/6/05 11:05 PM, Woods at woods@ncia.net wrote: > I can see where one day we might know more about how the genes express > themselves. Knowing that would be infinitely more useful than just knowing > the name of a gene involved in dyslexia or some other condition. Such > knowledge might give us insight on targeting specific kinds of remediation > and not waste time on ineffective approaches. For instance, if Mary has the > 'sees things upside down' gene, we might then know to not to give her books > right side up, and we wouldn't make her spend her life working on word > attack and using color overlays. > > Tom Woods > >> The writer asks an interesting question. What implications could this >> have >> for our work with adults that have dyslexia? > >
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