Changing Attitudes to Dyslexia

When I was at school, mid-seventies to mid-eighties, being dyslexic meant you had “special needs” and were sent to the “remedial class” – or, as it was more commonly known, the “numpty class”. In those days there seemed to be a common understanding amongst kids (and many teachers) that dyslexic students were ‘slow’, ‘lazy’ and unlikely to achieve much in life.

Today, thankfully, we have a much better understanding of dyslexia. We know, for example, that dyslexia can cause certain difficulties in processing code-based information such as language. We also know that it can inhibit concentration, memory and recall, leading to the appearance of disorganisation and ‘scattiness’.

We are also more aware of the range of talents displayed by dyslexic people, such as a tendency to be more creative, more innovative and more visually perceptive than their peers. More advanced methods of diagnosing dyslexia has allowed for the development of coping strategies and alternative learning approaches which allow people with dyslexia to achieve their full potential.

Greater awareness also alerts us to a range of dyslexic role models. Some of our most talented individuals are or were dyslexic. Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Thomas Eddison are interesting examples of celebrated dyslexic minds, along with people like Richard Branson and Tom Cruise.

Learning with Dyslexia

My own knowledge of dyslexia has come mainly from my students. When I first began teaching English and Communication in a Scottish College, I knew very little about the positive side of dyslexia. Working with dyslexic students and helping them to find strategies for overcoming their learning difficulties has been an exciting and rewarding eye-opener.

A dyslexic mind can bring a whole new dimension to the learning experience. In fact, a dyslexic student can often offer approaches to learning and teaching that make me look like an amateur! The coping strategies that even the least aware dyslexic develops over the years can often help non-dyslexic students see things from a different perspective and enhance their learning too.

My most successful dyslexic students are those who have spent years hiding their difficulties for fear of ridicule, only to find a new confidence and freedom in understanding their dyslexia and learning how to work to their strengths. And although I am still moved each time I find a perfectly intelligent, capable adult shirking in the corner for fear of being ‘discovered’, I now also experience a thrill in knowing that they will soon be making my job a whole lot easier!

EMMA HAMILTON (MA)

Coping with the symptoms of dyslexia is so much easier when you have a clear diagnosis of your specific difficulties as this enables you to adopt a range of methods for overcoming these.

Do you think you may be dyslexic? Would you like to find out? Click on the links below for your FREE dyslexia checklist and find out today. http://www.onlinedyslexia.com http://www.squidoo.com/dyslexia-test-online

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Schools have a responsibility to provide the best education they can to every child. Part of this duty is the identification of those with learning difficulties and also the gifted and talented. Both groups of children require different support from the school environment, but learning difficulties are often prioritised above helping the gifted. After all, schools want to make sure there are no barriers to education, and the natural inclination is to see a gifted child as one that has no difficulty with accessing education.

Sadly, this can cause problems for the gifted child. If the school does nothing to challenge them, a gifted child can deal with their boredom in a variety of ways. The best case scenario is that they find ways to educationally challenge themselves, or have a family with the time and resources to find activities designed to stretch them. However, the less positive outcome is a gifted child with huge potential to achieve that becomes bored and disillusioned with schooling, and learning in general. Realising that they only need to do the bare minimum to keep up, or sometimes not caring when they fall behind, it can be the beginning of a downward spiral into behavioural problems such as truancy, depression and even petty crime. At this point, the school becomes focused on the behaviour, rather than the problem, and once a child is labelled as a troublesome student, it can take a huge effort to reverse the process.

The definition of a ‘gifted child’

In order to prevent this from happening, the first step is the correct identification of a gifted child – something that all parents and education professionals need to be able to do with confidence. Having been in education for over thirty years, I have come to the conclusion that the word ‘gifted’ is overused, and frequently applied to children who are simply very bright. In the 1930′s, the official indicator for a gifted child was an IQ above 130, but is this sufficient?

In order to illustrate how extraordinary a gifted child can be, I’d like to offer some anecdotes about a French student that myself and tutors in my agency have been working with for the past year.

The parents of the teenaged boy in question got in touch because he had been expelled from a prestigious private school in Beijing. The school simply hadn’t found the right way to engage him, or deal with a group of troublesome students with whom the boy had got involved. The family found themselves in a terrible situation: their child had been expelled from a prestigious private school, he had effectively lost a semester of work, thus damaging his grade point average, and it seemed impossible for him to be able to attend any decent university, let alone the Ivy League school he had his sights upon.

Several months later his life has turned around and we are starting to see what this young man is capable of. Recently, he completed one semester of an AP Literature course in ten days – a course that usually takes 16 weeks to complete. He scored more than 92% – his tutor didn’t even have to grade the last three assignments as he had already achieved an A grade. This is an American college level course, but he completed it at this high level in this extraordinary timeframe.

Another illustration is the reaction of a Cambridge professor who kindly agreed to tutor him for three weeks during the summer vacation. The student attended a one-on-one tutorial with the head of maths of Churchill College for three hours everyday, and thrived on it. The professor later told me that he had had reservations about teaching such a young student, but that he had found the experience ‘refreshing’.

Why high IQ should not be the only criterion when identifying gifted children

These anecdotes demonstrate that high IQ is not sufficient to determine whether a child is gifted. An IQ test wouldn’t reveal all of the other traits that are seen in truly gifted children; their tenacity, for example, or their ability to produce exceptional work in exceptional circumstances. The truly gifted child will develop an incredible work ethic when given the right support and stimulation.

Children like the student described are rare, but they have the capabilities to go on and do incredible things for society. A school system that cannot give such children what they need can crush the enthusiasm out of them and also deny society the benefits of their abilities in years to come. Coping with a gifted child can be a challenge – the young man I described has needed ten tutors this year to give him the required breadth and depth of tuition, but the benefits cannot be denied. As education professionals we must encourage and nurture gifted children, otherwise society will suffer in the long term.

Adam Caller has been directly involved in education for the entirety of his career, and has tutored students of all ages. He has received specialist training in dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder and is very sensitive to children’s educational difficulties. As founder of Tutors International, a worldwide organisation providing experienced private tutors to work with children of all ages and nationalities, Adam has turned his expertise to recruiting, training and placing other tutors to help families. Tutors International has extensive experience of tutoring gifted children and ensuring that they can reach their full potential.

Tutors International specializes in providing tutors for a wide variety of situations, from helping students re-take critical exams, helping pupils with the transition of moving between international school systems, and supporting youngsters with AD/HD and dyslexia. They provide a bespoke service to find the right tutor that suits the child’s needs and aspirations, and if a http://www.tutors-international.com full-time live-in tutor is required, Adam personally ensures that the assigned tutor is the right match for the family and fits in the environment.

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While children and teens with learning disabilities are often “diagnosed” in middle school or high school, many disabilities can actually be PREVENTED by intervention at a much earlier age. Experts now know that there are things that parents can do at home to help even the youngest children.

The root of learning

“The root of learning – whether it be reading, math or even writing – is good cognitive skills,” explains Tanya Mitchell, Director of Training for LearningRx, a ‘brain training’ franchise. “Things like auditory and visual processing, memory, processing speed, comprehension, short- and long-term memory, logic and reasoning, and attention are the underlying tools that enable kids to successfully focus, think, prioritize, plan, understand, visualize, remember and create useful associations, and solve problems.”

According to Mitchell, any weak cognitive skill – or a combination of several – can lead to a learning disability. By identifying a weak cognitive skill early, parents can help prevent learning disabilities – even before a child attends kindergarten.

“There are very promising studies that show a 90 percent decrease in reading problems if children are first introduced to sound analysis activities,” she says. “This might include things like rhyming or playing sound games when children learn how to add or omit sounds in a syllable.”

According to Dr. G. Reid Lyon, Chief of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Child Development and Behavior Branch, NICHD-funded research has shown that such services should have a firm foundation in phonological awareness. Before most poor readers can learn to read successfully they need to learn that spoken words can be broken apart into smaller segments called phonemes. Next, they usually require training in phonics -”mapping” phonemes to the printed words on a page. Once children have mastered these steps, they can then receive training to help them read fluently, and to comprehend what they read.

Identifying reading disabilities

While a trained cognitive specialist can help diagnose the specifics of learning and reading disabilities, parents may be the first to identify struggles. Parents may be able to determine learning problems, such as with auditory processing at home by asking the following. Does he/she:

1.    … appear to guess at words?
2.    … ever add or omit sounds in words?
3.    … have difficulty spelling new words, or spelling when writing?
4.    … have difficulty recalling stories and jokes?
5.    …take a long time to complete tasks?
6.    …have difficulty doing two things at once?
7.    …often ask to have things repeated?
8.    …have difficulty organizing activities?
9.    …easily distracted?
10.    …use slow, deliberate speech?

Recognizing risk factors at any age

If your child is too young to discern if the above general symptoms apply, look for the following age-related risk factors:

Pre-K or Kindergarten: Difficulty…

o Recognizing rhymes
o Remembering names of friends, peers, etc.
o With normal language development
o Recognizing some letter shapes
End of 1st Grade: Difficulty…
o Learning the alphabet and corresponding letter sounds
o Applying “phonics” to reading and spelling
o Spelling common sight words
o Retelling stores in sequence and making predictions
o Reading aloud with some fluency and comprehension
End of 2nd Grade: – Difficulty…
o Recalling facts and details
o Using phonics to sound out words including multi-syllable words
o Correctly spelling previously studied and commonly seen words

How to help at home

Parents don’t have to spend a lot of money to help improve children’s cognitive skills at home. In fact, many simple word- or sound-related games can even be played in the car while you’re driving. LearningRx shared a few ideas that its trainers recommend for helping younger children get on the right track early to become strong learners.

Auditory: Sound segmenting games: Say a two-sound word, like bee or tie, and have them tell you which sounds are in the word (“b” and “ee” for “bee” and “t” and “i” for “tie”). Then start to increase to three-sound words like cat, (“c” “a” and “t”) and tree (“t” “r” and “ee”). This builds auditory segmenting which is necessary for spelling when children get older.

Phonetics using building blocks: Help develop analysis skills by using blocks to make up nonsense words starting with two to three blocks. Create a nonsense word, then have the child remove one of the blocks and add a new one while verbally trying to figure out what the new nonsense word sounds like. (If they can’t read, just say the sounds for them, and ask them to try to figure out from hearing the sounds what the new word would sound like when they switch the blocks.)
Rhyming games: Say a word and then take turns with your child trying to come up with a new word that rhymes. This develops auditory analysis, which is important for reading and spelling as well as processing auditory instruction.

Visual: “The Make a Movie In Your Head Game”: Start with a subject like a puppy and then have your child help create what the puppy looks like; his size, if he is sitting or running around, his color, etc. Then have your child talk about where the puppy is; next to a doghouse, in the forest, etc. Gradually have your child add other subjects, the weather, what the dog is saying, etc. By developing pictures with color, size, perception, sound, background, etc, kids learn how to develop a more complete picture, which will lead to better comprehension. If they have difficulty creating a new picture, parents can start by having the child describe what is in their room.

Memory: Ask your child to give directions to either your home, the post office, the grocery store or a friends’ house. Also, ask them to tell five things about their day, three being something new they learned. This helps build memory.

Parents can also teach mnemonics. Think of a fact – like remembering their phone number – and have your child create a funny story that they can use. For instance: 487-9376. “The number 4 ate(8) seven(7) fine(9) trees(3) and seven(7) sticks(6).” (This example uses rhyming and memory.)

For a complete evaluation of cognitive learning abilities, contact the nearest cognitive skills training center.

Wendy Burt is a full-time freelance writer and editor with more than 1,000 published pieces. She is also the author of two books for McGraw-Hill. WendyBurt-Thomas.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?Identifying-an-Early-Learning-Disability—And-How-to-Help-at-Home&id=1282592 

Many parents are surprised to learn that their child’s IQ score can actually be increased. After all, we were raised to believe that IQ was stagnant – that is, you are born with the IQ you’ll have throughout life. But in the 1990s, brain researchers discovered that the brain is actually capable of changing and regrowing the connections between brain cells. It’s these connections, or synapses, not the cells themselves, that actually increase the brain’s powers by increasing the number of viable paths for information.

More paths also means faster routes for information to travel. This is good news for everyone – but especially for children with learning disabilities like ADD, Asperger’s, and dyslexia – because scientists have used special brain imaging technology to prove that better learners use more direct routes from point A to B when processing information. But how does a child learn to use the shorter, faster route? With “brain training.”

While “brain training” is a relatively generic term, it can be differentiated from tutoring, which focuses on a specific academic subjects, such as math, English or history. While tutoring has its place (such as when a child falls behind in a particular subject due to an illness, injury or school transfer), it does not serve to increase the brain’s ability to learn in general. Brain training, on the other hand, works to improve a child’s cognitive skills.

“Cognitive skills are the essential, but often overlooked fundamental tools of effective learning,” explains Dr. Ken Gibson, author of “Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart in Your Child.” “Learning isn’t about how much you know, but how effectively you process or handle the information you receive. Cognitive skills are the mental mechanisms that process incoming information.”

More specifically, cognitive skills enable children to successfully:

o Focus
o Think
o Prioritize
o Plan
o Understand
o Visualize
o Remember
o Create useful associations
o Solve problems

Using intensive, one-on-one training, children of all learning levels can raise their IQ scores by improving their cognitive skill set. These include auditory processing, visual processing, short and long-term memory, comprehension, logic and reasoning, and attention skills. Each of these can also be divided into identifiable sub-skills. For example, attention is made up of sub-skills such as sustained attention (staying on task), selective attention (ignoring distractions) and divided attention (handling more than one task at a time). Each of these skills and sub-skills play a specific and necessary role, and must work in concert before an individual can learn effectively.

Here are some specific examples of studies that have proven that children’s IQ scores can be raised:

o Researchers at the University of Southampton studied a group of autistic toddlers who were given Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI). Over the two-year program, the researchers found that the children who received the EIBI had higher IQs, more advanced language and better daily living skills than those who did not. The results? In two-thirds of the children, IQ increased, and in more than one-quarter, IQ increased “very substantially.” This included one child whose IQ went from 30 to 70, and another who went from 72 to 115. (SOURCE: ScienceDaily, May 7, 2007)

o Brain training company LearningRx showed an average gain of 28 points for children with an IQ lower than 100 using a nonverbal IQ test. The national company trains subskills of IQ like memory, processing speed, visual and auditory processing, and logic. (SOURCE: LearningRx)

o A University of California study reinforced Rauscher’s original theory, “The Mozart Effect” (which theorizes that listening to Mozart’s music can raise your IQ). The more recent study sited that listening to Mozart’s sonata for two pianos K448 can increase one’s spatial-temporal IQ scores by nine points. (SOURCE: Smart-Kit)

“Changing a child’s learning skills makes a huge impact on all aspects of their life,” says Tanya Mitchell, Director of Training for LearningRx. “When children go through our programs they get their homework done faster, plays sports better, make more friends, and just find many things easier that they used to struggle with.”

IQ doesn’t have to be a stagnant number. Raising your child’s IQ is simply a matter of increasing their cognitive skills. Talk to a cognitive skills trainer to find out your options.

Wendy Burt is a full-time freelance writer and editor with more than 1,000 published pieces. She is also the author of two books for McGraw-Hill. WendyBurt-Thomas.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?Raising-Your-Childs-IQ&id=1282688

As children are growing up they are developing thinking, as well as behavioral, patterns. Using these 6 brain exercises for children is one way to help them develop these skills for better functioning and mental abilities for life.

Word Searches/Crosswords

They make many books for kids that contain word searches and crosswords. These are great activities for children to exercise their brains by using the focus and thinking that they require. Crossword puzzles are also a great family activity, where one person can read off the clue and tell how many letters are involved and everyone else can guess.

Memory Exercises

Working with memory exercises can be one of the easiest brain exercises for children, since it can be done in the car while driving or almost anywhere else. Starting when they are young we naturally do these exercises by teaching them how to spell their names, and what their phone numbers and addresses are. We can expand on this by having them work on remembering poems, songs, and the names from family trees.

Memorizing helps children use their brain to focus and retain the information. It also is a very useful skill since a lot of education is based on memorizing, such as learning the number facts for math or learning a list of spelling words.

Obstacle Courses For The Brain

We all have heard of obstacle courses that require physical exercises, but we can also set up ones that include brain exercises for children. An obstacle course for the brain can combine both physical and brain exercises, or focus exclusively on the latter. You can make stations along a physical obstacle course where they can only proceed to the next station after they complete a mental task, such as a short crossword puzzle or word problem. You can also set is up where they have stations throughout the house where they have to complete a series of mental tasks all lined up along the floor or a table.

Write Or Draw Left-Handed (Or Right-Handed)

A great way to exercise the brain is to use the non-dominant hand for writing or drawing. This can be fun to see who can tell what was written or drawn afterwards. Another option is to draw a picture where one-half is done with the dominant hand and then afterwards it is copied onto the other half by the non-dominant hand. These are brain exercises for children that encourage both sides of their brain to work together.

While brain exercises for children can be simple and fun the payoffs can be huge. By using these brain exercises the children are learning to exercise an important part of the body.

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