(Comment on this article)LD? - Two Case StudiesArticle Topics: Dyslexia, Social Skills, Programs/Services, Treatment Effects,
Article types: Editorial, Story,
Submitted By: Ann Thompson View Submitter's Profile (annja) LD? - Two Case Studies
The neighbour's grandson of twelve is an excellent hockey player. (He shoots right in hockey, but bats left in baseball.) He is top scorer for his hockey team for the second year in a row. Heady stuff!
But. There's school. Not good at that. And they even tested him with the WISC and that proved that he doesn't have the innate ability to do well at school. Right?
Well... maybe not.
During our first session I hear all about Blaine's brilliant hockey career and discover that his peripheral vision has been checked in hockey school and found to be excellent. (Why at hockey school and not "regular" school? Doesn't strong peripheral vision hint at difficulty with the sustained frontal binocular focus required for reading? This is a need-to-know skill for every child and parent.)
Blaine's eyes are bright; he has warmed up to me because he knows I like him and respect his considerable talent on ice! He is highly motivated now and wants to show me just how much he really can do with academics. We start with very simple SRA (independent) reading passages.
Blaine has no difficulty with either decoding or tracking lines of print at 2.7 level. At 3.0 level, he tracks across and again decodes well, but repeatedly loses his place when changing lines. Decoding - in context - does not seem to be a major problem even at 4.0 level; changing focus when "jumping" visually right to left to a new line of print, IS a problem. Visual-motor problem?
I take a closer look at the difference between the 2.7 level passage and the 3.0. The print is smaller, more words per line and no wide spaces between the lines. Is the flaw in Blaine or in the nature of the task? (See "Narrow Columns for Dyslexic Readers".)
Handwriting surfaces as another major problem during our second session. His fingers are double-jointed. (See "Dysgraphia, Dyslexia and the Myth of Intelligence") A "fat" pen makes it easier. But Blaine will certainly have difficulties with a schooling system that still assesses children largely by what they can produce on paper.
I suggest keyboarding. Blaine has already worked at that, but, based on his and his mother's reports, he may be one of those children who get so muddled with the keys that penmanship becomes the easier skill to acquire - through much laborious practice. ("Handwriting without Tears" - in small increments.)
Blaine goes back to his home town with short reading passages at many grade levels and a copies of handwriting drills. His mother reports, weeks later, that he continues to be willing to work for ten-minute periods on each of reading and writing - and feels much better about himself since he now knows there may be physical reasons for his inability to perform well academically; that some of these may also be the reason he is such a talented hockey player. At this age he seems willing to "stick with it" at school, do as much as he can, and to be patient with himself. Mother is taking him for specialized visual assessment to begin to find some answers. Her patience with the system that is destroying her son's confidence, is wearing thin.
Backflash to Carley - May of 2006.
Carley just turned 9. She is in a French Immersion class, due to enter grade four in September.
Her teacher reports she has serious difficulty with spelling, reading and speaking French. I am supposed to determine whether she should undergo psycho-educational testing that will find out if she has a learning disabliity or if she's just DUMB. The teacher doesn't think she lacks intelligence; says Carley is creative and has great ideas - orally.
My first session with shy little Carley is spent getting to know her, having her read very simple French and English passages. The problems with reading French are very apparent; she stumbles and stammers, doesn't know what to pronounce, what endings to leave silent. She cannot translate simple phrases from the illustrated story. She seems to have a limited "sense" of the second language.
Flags go up; second language acquisition is a common problem among dyslexics.
Her English reading is better, but hesitant. I have her try my $2 spectacles - one pair is blue; the other is yellow. She tries both and latches on to the blue ones, insisting that they help. Her English reading becomes more fluent. I can't tell if it's because of the glasses or because she is beginning to warm up to me. But, given her strong preference for blue lenses, I know already that I will recommend her for Irlen screening.
The Irlen technique has children read through coloured filters - colours of their own chosing. This is not a new idea; it has been around under the label "scotopic sensitivity" (i.e. sensitivity to light) for at least 20 years. Oxford University has conducted studies in this regard and shown that cheap yellow or blue spectacles can help many - certainly not all - poor readers. They stick with yellow or blue, citing that these are the only colours that can impact eye function at the magno-cellular level.
Irlen, however, is a huge business enterprise that screens with multiple colours and charges $700 for a pair of highly specialised spectacles. Their technology is linked to sophisticated military technology in vision, so who can argue... They just fail to mention that the $2 pair may make just enough difference to avoid the major expense. Renfrew County now provides Irlen screening. Plastic overlays are free but impractical for written work. Parents pick up the tab for glasses.
My second session with Carley is for spelling. She starts to write the date. It is the 15th. Her pencil grip is awkward and looks uncomfortable, but she insists this is how she needs to do it. Who am I to judge? (Will recommend a "fat" gel-pen to parents.) Her printing is very slow and controlled. When she comes to the 5, she hesitates, makes a vertical start, stops again, erases.
"I always forget which way it goes," she says as she copies the one I have written for her.
She stalls again for the for the "s" in "yes" and for the "b" in "better". With the letter "f" there is no hesitancy - she just does them all backwards without realising.
From my reading, Irlen specialists make no claim about being able to correct reversals and directionality issues.
By age 8 most children have conquered reversal problems.
I have my suspicions about Carley's lateral dominance profile, but let it go until the next session.
As it happens, she pops by that same afternoon to pick up the pencils she had forgotten. She is relaxed with me now, positively bubbly. So the time is right.
"Carley," I ask, "which hand you you write with?" I know the answer and expect a quick response.
Instead, Carley stalls. She looks at me with a confused expression.
"If I use a pencil I'll know," she says. I provide a piece of paper and she signs her name in cursive form - slow and methodical. "This one!" she announces holding up her right hand.
"Did you write with the other one when you were in Kindregarten?" I ask.
"I don't know," she responds, "but I can." She proceeds to sign her name with her left - a little shakey, but at almost the same speed as with the right, and with a product far superior to what I could produce with a simple name like Ann.
Then we try the telescope, the throwing, the batting, and kicking, and listening with an ear to the door. She is right eye dominant, throws equally well with both hands, but bats left, kicks right and uses either ear to the door. Laterality anomalies.
I decide to go for broke.
"Oh, just before you go, Carley... Can you twist your fingers in weird ways?"
"No" she replies. She shows me that her fingers can bend to about 60 degrees backward. Not all that exceptional. Then she abruptly plants her right hand on my desk.
"But I can do this!" and she swings her elbow inward and around so that it is pointing outward.
All I can say is "Wow!"
But I know I have found that hyper-mobility link again - and in her writing arm.
During our last session we do math. Same slow, methodical approach. She reads clocks by writing the 5s pattern around the perimeter of the clock, - beginning intitially to count in the wrong direction, catches herself, has to stop and erase. When it comes to three digit addition she starts with the hundreds column and then doesn't know what to do with the final column when she has to carry. Is this a concept problem or a problem with directionality again? (Can you imagine the difficulties this child will encounter in geometry when she is asked to slide, rotate and flip triangles?)
She just manages an average score on this loosely- timed test.
But the speed of written paperwork is a major area of concern. Her teacher - rather apologetically - starts to say that the child is "lazy" (she seems aware of my aversion to this word). Carley often does not complete written assignments, doesn't bring in homework. Carley's paper production is poor.
Well, I have the profile the Board wants: Spelling score, Reading score, Math score. Maybe, just maybe, I'll include a note on her difficulty with the mechanics of writing. (This is usually not considered even though speed and fluency in writing become critical from grade 3 up.)
Luckily Carley's overall profile is NOT low enough to subject her to the WISC test - the one that assumes we are all wired on that ancient Warnicke-Brocca model of 150 years ago. Very current MRI studies indicate that many of us have wiring that throws even the more recent left-brain/right-brain theories right out the window! Because the WISC assumes standard wiring in all, it is permitted to declare that, if we struggle with its components, we are simply stupid.
Here's the rub - the Board and Ministry are looking for disabilities and stupidity; I can find only neuro-physiological anomalies related to laterality, hyper-mobility, and visual development.
Next week I meet Carley's parents. What do I tell them? |
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