Dyslexia is NOT a disease. It is an excuse for bad teachers.

[Fisher1]

"This is as pointless a discussion as whether schizophrenia, depression or many other disorders are diseases and the subject of many an A level psychology essay."

 

Actually Lady Raincorn, as one of the people being slagged off in the first post on this thread, I found it entirely to the point to reply with a different point of view. I also tried to explain some of the issues in lay terms.

 

As a teacher I dont think it is ever pointless to discuss issues if we can expand our own knowledge by doing so.

 

I don't understand the connection to A level essays?

 

I found the rest of your post really interesting.

[Fisher1]

'There are those worse off that have real life delibitating physical health issues'

 

What are mental health issues then? non-real life? non-debilitating? Some people are stronger than others, some work it out by themselves, you had OCD and conquered it - lucky you.

 

Everyone is different, labelling is sometimes excessive and we need good teachers. Agreed. Sometimes though, a label can help. The most important thing we can do as intelligent adults is to avoid generalising.

[Quoll]

Quoll I agree with what you're saying but the kids in my class all had their sight and hearing checked at school during their first year -

is this not the practice everywhere?

Screening is reasonably common practice but it goes beyond what they can address in a simple screening test hence recommendation for behavioural optometrist. It's not universal though unfortunately as costs have been cut in lots of areas they shouldn't have been.

[caramac]

Everybody wants a 'diagnosis' that's the trouble. Can't just accept that theres a wide spectrum of ability and behavious that is 'normal'. We all have to conform dont we...makes peoples lives easier...keep some in work

 

 

I'm not sure everyone does want a diagnosis, but it's the only way of accessing the specialised teaching some children need. It's one of the problems I have with the education system - the 'one size fits all' approach. I completely agree with you - it's just a 'normal' variant.

I personally know at least four children/young people with a dyslexia diagnosis and they all have different problems. Only one of them had any problem learning to read and that was resolved with a blue screen which stopped the words jumping around on the page for her.

One was only diagnosed much later (as he was taking GCSEs). He never had a problem with reading, but his writing often didn't make sense because, although he can think clearly, when he has to write the words down the get in a jumble between his brain and his pen. He was able to use a laptop or a scribe for his exams which really helped. He's far from 'thick' (horrible term, but I would expect no better from Peter Hitchens) - he simply can't get the words down in the right order. He's just finished one degree at Durham and is off to Barcelona this year to take a maths degree. He also has difficulty finding his way around places, even the city he's lived in all his life, but he has developed strategies to cope with it. The helped he received to do all this wouldn't have been available without the dyslexia label, sadly.

Another friend's daughter is bright, very focused and very determined. I remember her in junior school constantly getting Bs for all her work. She once just said to me, 'it doesn't matter. One of these days these Bs will add up to an A'. She's had appropriate help at school and works really hard. She's just won a scholarship to a selective sixth form and I'm so pleased for her. It's an incredible achievement for her.

We can't label children as 'thick' simply because their brains learn and work in a different way from what we consider 'normal'. What a waste of talent that would be.

I think the problem is that no one really knows how to define dyslexia - it seems to cover such a lot in terms of literacy problems and processing disorders, but that doesn't mean that a group of symptoms and difficulties don't exist and we have a responsibility to enable every child access to an appropriate education.

It'll be a cold day in hell when I take anything Peter Hitchens spouts seriously.

[Sammy1]

I'm not sure everyone does want a diagnosis, but it's the only way of accessing the specialised teaching some children need. It's one of the problems I have with the education system - the 'one size fits all' approach. I completely agree with you - it's just a 'normal' variant.

I personally know at least four children/young people with a dyslexia diagnosis and they all have different problems. Only one of them had any problem learning to read and that was resolved with a blue screen which stopped the words jumping around on the page for her.

One was only diagnosed much later (as he was taking GCSEs). He never had a problem with reading, but his writing often didn't make sense because, although he can think clearly, when he has to write the words down the get in a jumble between his brain and his pen. He was able to use a laptop or a scribe for his exams which really helped. He's far from 'thick' (horrible term, but I would expect no better from Peter Hitchens) - he simply can't get the words down in the right order. He's just finished one degree at Durham and is off to Barcelona this year to take a maths degree. He also has difficulty finding his way around places, even the city he's lived in all his life, but he has developed strategies to cope with it. The helped he received to do all this wouldn't have been available without the dyslexia label, sadly.

Another friend's daughter is bright, very focused and very determined. I remember her in junior school constantly getting Bs for all her work. She once just said to me, 'it doesn't matter. One of these days these Bs will add up to an A'. She's had appropriate help at school and works really hard. She's just won a scholarship to a selective sixth form and I'm so pleased for her. It's an incredible achievement for her.

We can't label children as 'thick' simply because their brains learn and work in a different way from what we consider 'normal'. What a waste of talent that would be.

I think the problem is that no one really knows how to define dyslexia - it seems to cover such a lot in terms of literacy problems and processing disorders, but that doesn't mean that a group of symptoms and difficulties don't exist and we have a responsibility to enable every child has access to an appropriate education.

It'll be a cold day in hell when I take anything Peter Hitchens spouts seriously.

 

Beautifully written, thank you so much for this.

 

I agree with your sentiment regarding the 'writer' of the article.

[gee13]

I never mentioned anywhere that mental health issues are NOT real life and non delibitating. Please RE-READ my post

 

.."Ensuring my CDs and Vinyl have no fingerprints on them are not life threatening.. There are those worse off that have real life delibitating physical health issues"

My issue with labels is that they have negative connotations - especially for most kids. If labelling can help thats fine, got no issue.

 

But consider what happens when kids learn that they have a label placed on them.

[newjez]

Dyslexia is like irritable bowel syndrome. It isn't a thing in itself, but it is a label for a problem, or rather a variety of problems.

I can't spell. Never have, never will. Just doesn't work for me. My eldest is the same. Pointless trying to teach him.

 

My eldest also struggled with reading. I got the Sussex special needs coordinator (retired) and she made a world of difference. Not cheap but very effective.

 

She said he wasn't dyslexic, but he had issues, but didn't know what they were. He has trouble with simple tasks, spelling, mental math (I've never had issues with math). But he has no trouble with the much more complex aspects. I've encouraged him to show all his workings, because he often gets answers wrong due to simple miscalculation, whereas the overall strategy is correct. In the world of spell checkers and calculators, he does okay.

 

Part of the problem is the govt likes to turn things into factories. Schools, hospitals, everything. It's more efficient to do things this way. But a certain % get left behind. It's great if you can afford to help them catch up,with either time or money. But if you can't, they get lost in the system.

 

Actually my wife has introduced a fast track system for the struggling kids to bring them up to speed. It is working well. But the powers are trying to sabotage it for some reason. Don't know why. Maybe because it wasn't their idea.

[caramac]

Or because it'll cost money...

[Rallyman]

I had problems when I was in school with spelling, just couldn't work it out, maths was no problem , I can remember being in many English lessons where the teacher would pick on people to read out to the rest of the class I could do this fine but at times the whole page would just look like a blank piece of paper ,I never told anybody as I didn't want to be labeled ,as I got older things got better still struggle with some spelling, but I often find myself typing a word backwards , spell check to me is a big help.