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I have a 9 year old son who amongst many other things is profoundly dyslexic. Even with one to one teaching and specialist working with him daily, he still cannot read more than a handful of words, cannot spell his own name, cannot differentiate between the lettes b and d, r and t. He has been assessed as having a reading age of 6 (bottom of the scale) yet an underlying verbal reason age of 13.
This man is seriously wrong. His view is it's all down to good teachers and bad. That is nonesense. He asserts that there is no evidence that it exists and that it doesn't exist in certain Asian countries. Well it didn't officially exist over here until the 1960's because these children were either considered naughty or lazy or thick. Fortunately there have been huge strides in this area.
I believe that much of the problem manifested as dyslexia is due weakness in the brain in processing information from the eyes and ears and that work like Brain Gym and similar programmes to improve neural pathways is the way to help children with this problem.
I think he's made a serious mistake by taking this position.
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However, what I think this pillock was referring to (albeit in a stupid, insensitive manner, without researching his facts) is the number of people nowadays who simply say 'oh I'm dyslexic' when its pointed out to them that they can't spell. Dyslexia is not the inability to spell or string coherent sentences together, and, as someone who has seen what dyslexia actually is first hand, it sickens me every time I hear some thick c*** try and get away with the fact that they never learned to spell because they were too busy flicking rubber bands at other kids when they should have been paying attention in school.
Agree with you though - the bloek's a complete berk.
:-)
Some people sometimes confuse dyslexia with dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia covers many things but one of the give aways can be a ‘lack of consistant word/spelling co-ordination’, in one form or another.
Of course, dyspraxia is a bit of an umbrella term to cover various co-ordination inconsistant function, both mentally and physically but reading difficulties can be a result also.
I think this is more about trying to cut Government spending as "special needs" children such as dyslexics etc attract greater funding per child than those who do not have special needs.
At least that was the case when I was Parent Governor at a primary school some years back.
The man is a tosser who's children if he is able to have any have obviously not had such issues.
I am letting you in those that read this my lad has dyspraxia a disorder that has many of the dyslexic traits but with its own concerns and other issues.
this man is making me mad the wanker
I hate to take issue with you mate but many, many children slipped through the net in years gone by and couldn't read or write properly or at all.
People like this MP are talking from ignorance. Scientists have learned more about the brain and the way information is or isn't processed by the brain in the last 10 years than mankind had learned in the previous 10 thousand years. They know much of what what affects neural processing. It is true that dyslexia describes a set of symptoms and not a cause, but be in no doubt that children do have this problem. It is also true that they do not yet fully understand precisely why some have this as a problems whilst others don't, but they certainly know it exists.
I personally believe, having read around the subject is that the key to helping people with this condition is exercises which strengthen the neural pathways and in particular the cerebellum which is that part of the brain which deals with automatic and semi-automatic processing of information including eye movements and the storage of visual images specfically linked to lexagraphics.
Our ability to read is determined by using our eyes to focus on words and then our brain to process the words and make sense of them. If the cerebellum is under-developed , it cannot move the eyes automatically to the words and that effects the ability to process them. It's rather like bandwidth. If too much information is being sent down too smaller bandwidth, what happens is the information getting through to our computers slows down. An under-developed cerebellum is like the bandwidth of the brain is too small and everything becomes harder to manage, which slows down the processing of information.
To give an example of how the cerebellum works, think about when you first drove a car. You had to think so hard about every movement you made and it was extemely hard. Now compare and contrast how it is now. The process of driving is semi-automatic and your muscles are moved to operate the controls without really thinking about them, your eyes focus on the road and danger ahead automatically. That is the cerebellum which enables signals to be sent to the various muscles and information to be processed from the eyes and ears without having to use your thinking brain to any degree. So strengthen the cerebellums pathways but exercises specifically designed to force the cerebellum to build more pathways and you will help dyslexic and dyspraxic children.
I've not made all this up, there has been some serious work done in this field in recent years. It is not conclusive proof but I've little doubt there will be very soon.
Meanwhile my son needs the support and this MP's intervention, whether with benign intention doesn't help.
Dyspraxia runs in my family too.
Many "illnesses" didnt exist a few decades ago as science moves on we understand more. People with dyslexia are now being used in experiments re cognetive learning.
as for that guy well he is a ctnu.
I have problems with c /s d/b a/o double writing of same word, puting complete wrong word in that has no connection. It was thanks to a work collegues wife who is a speacial needs teacher who gave me this thing/test to undertake that confirmed it fr me. He showed her an email i had sent withut spell check !!
the school system and the way it is set up to get kids help one to one or with teaching assistants will not be made any easier with this ignorant egotistical shit heads comments.
A certain lifer made my sons week b4 christmas with a favour from a family member on a cold evening and it made my life and the teachers life so much easier for a few days i really cant thank that person enough.
then you get a muggy no mark like this fool and children WILL suffer it is an issue close to my heart and something that i and others have to live with a deal with.
As many as 1 in 10 children can have certain Dyspraxia traits
this man i would love to talk to and try to educate
Noses run in mine.....:o)
Seriously though, I thought that this battle, well with dyslexia anyway was fought and won in the 1960's. My son goes to a school which pioneered the development of teaching techniques for children with this disorder.
I think, if I'm being charitable, that he thinks he's helping by trying to de-label children. I have heard this argument used about ADHD, where some people, often teachers I am afraid to say, deny it's existance and claim that it's just an excuse for bad behaviour, bad parenting, etc. It's not helped by programmes like Super-Nanny where she goes in and sorts out some kids who are behaving badly. They never show her failures. She never gets the children with the real difficulties. If you got a child with these kind of conditions you will know that they are real.
GH, its great that it hasn't held you back and it's very true that the brain compensates. Many people who are dyslexic are also seriously bright. It's right to focus on ensuring that kids are not held back with dyslexia and dyspraxia, that surely is the way forward, not the approach from this idiot to deny the existance.
I spose your right Bing with him trying to remove labels from children as that is as important that children are not pigeon holed in to one band or another and treated individually
Getting my son a dog has made a huge diffrence to him his schooling and to us as a family, it was mentioned and researched to have more positives than negatives i just hope the bond between them grows and little JJ the staffie helps little Joe
We are a dyslexia friendly school and we have been looking at this issue closely recently as we have new screening aids to "diagnose" or identify this difficulty. The umbrella of dyslexia has widened widely over the last few years and the current thinking suggests that we are all dyslexic to a greater or lesser degree.
Having worked a few years ago with a profoundly dyslexic adult I can assure anyone that the condition exists - the problem is it is often quite tricky to confirm a young child is dyslexic and our new screening has already highlighted that several children thought by some staff to be dyslexic are not if this new test is reliable.
It is an interesting area this bloke's views are not backed by recent research. Of course there are people who want a label for their child as an excuse or whatever but it is not a made up or pretend condition.
It is also worth pointing out that parents of children with genuine difficulties or disabilities often have huge struggles to get the support their children need. It can be a hard and painful road for these parents and they are often to be greatly admired
I've had this issue with my son. The teachers at his school said that he was dyslexic. Something I was not going except their word alone on. So we paid to have him tested by a teacher who specializes in this field. He wasn’t dyslexic, just badly taught, missing the basics and like most boys, lazy. One year of tuition after school once a week sorted him out.
I wished my parents had done the same for me. I cannot spell even if my life depended on it. I’m not dyslexic but maybe borderline thick. But as I work in higher education I guess it hasn’t held me back.
Policies and educational decisions driven by political agendas of course remain as always.
EDIT
Rothko tells me there is, as dyslexia is a failing of short term memory.
(sorry, couldn't resist!)
This is a great post because I'm sure people like your son is probably what the MP was talking about but hes gone off half cock.
Clearly there are some children who just need the right teacher/teaching methods. There are other children like my son who's as bright as a brain pie but he has a clear problems with processing words, both sounding them and reading/writing them.
My son is a fantastic mimic, and has a great singing voice and he got an almost photographic memory. Since we moved him to a school that can actually help him, he's been picked for the school choir and he learns every song by ear. His teacher tells me he knows the words better than those who can read.
Irlen Syndrome sufferers have a problem in the brain whereby the white balance within their vision takes over everything else and therefore for example, they cannot distinguish the black writing on a white page. But also this extends to colours and details in everyday life as sufferers face problems with daylight in the same way. It is managed by coloured lenses or overlays. Each sufferers balance issue is different and therefore each require different colours.
The countries Mr Stringer refers to have both invested heavily in education. South Korea as an ongoing project as education is a major part of their culture and Nicaragua since the change of regime with the help of Unesco and other international organisations. Perhaps such conditions exist in these countries but it is recognised and managed at an early stage to the point where it need not be labelled.
Perhaps therefore if succesive British governments actually got their collective fingers out of their ignorant arses, then the very organisation that helps those that genuinly suffer from Dyslexia wouldn't have to be a registered charity and instead the issue would be government funded so that the thing could be dealt with so that no child or adult with this very real problem, would be labelled as an idiot ever again.
Unlike this stringer pratt!!!!
However, if this MP had have said what a lot of us think, in that a lot of thick and lazy parents and kids 'claim' to be dyslexic, he might have found a degree of agreement.I say this because I do think that it's a bit of a 'catch all' comment coveniently used nowadays for quite a few folk (and their teachers), who are simply a bit thick and are unable to read or write as a result. I of course have every sympathy with folk who have 'genuine' difficulties in this aspect of their life as some of you have outlayed above....it seems my young nephew might be going to have problems in this department.
My spelling and puncuation isn't that great I know but that's down to pure impatience on my part as a youngster in not concentrating enough...and nothing to do with dyslexia.
I was one of the first half dozen or so in my year at school to actually learn to read....however for some strange reason writing and spelling took a fair bit longer and it's never been up to the standard I'd like.
I think the problem is partly to do with the word dyslexia which describes the problem but not the cause.
Whilst I understand the point that I suspect he was getting at, namely the labelling of children, it is completely ignorant to say that there is no such thing. Also if there are children who are lazy and just need better teachers and methods to motivate them to learn, then focussing on helping these children to learn to read better is surely a good thing?