Unbelievable!!

[pookie170]

Hey all- not sure where I should put this, but I was stunned by this MP's archaic opinions!!

 

I do believe that everyone has a right to their opinions, but this guy takes the biscuit!!

I'm sure he's very much in the minority, but whoo boy, has he opened a can of worms!!

 

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/...200901215203083

 

Hope the link works! (I have a feeling most of you will have some choice words on this one!! )

But on a more serious note, it's very sad and a little bit scary that someone in a position of this nature should harbour these thoughts-let alone express them! Wot a chump!!

[JsMum]

 

 

Hi this wont be good for kids like mine, Identified at 6 as having Dyslexia, no extra support, assessed at 7 independantly and confirmed Severe Dyslexic.

 

His support for litracey was 30mins per week, yes, per week, at this time he was three years behind, I pushed for more assessments and was DX with Dyslexia in May last year and added to his statment in October, with increased provisions and extra specified support, as he is now five year behind in litracey.

 

Dyslexia profoundly effects learning but it also has knock on effects with self esteem, emotional health, psychologically impacting the most, without support, recognition and DX children will continue to struggle reading and writing, they will continue to suffer and the system will pay in other ways when these children later on disengage and drop out of school altogher, a high proportion of young offenders who had no education from 14yrs old have since been assessed and DX with Dyslexia is very high, many school leavers enter college undiagnosed only to be routinly screened and then DX as Dyslexic.

 

It is real, believe me I live the consequences when those needs are not met.

 

JsMum

 

[Tally]

The MP said: "If dyslexia really existed then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%. There can be no rational reason why this 'brain disorder' is of epidemic proportions in Britain but does not appear in South Korea or Nicaragua."

 

That is just silly. Dyslexia doesn't actually make you completely illiterate, even without specialist provision. His argument is fundamentally flawed.

 

I won't deny there are probably some people who use dyslexia as an excuse for poor performance, but I believe undiagnosed genuine dyslexics far outnumber them.

[puffin]

He seems to not understand that there is a difference between illiteracy and dyslexia

[coolblue]

There's a comment after this article pointing out that Korea and Nicaragua both use spelling which is far more phonetically regular than English. And he clearly has no idea of the role of vision and hearing in reading. I'd expect an MP to do some homework before going public on this. Bet his inbox will be full in the morning.

 

 

[Canopus]

The MP said: "If dyslexia really existed then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%. There can be no rational reason why this 'brain disorder' is of epidemic proportions in Britain but does not appear in South Korea or Nicaragua."

 

If the government of a country does not believe dyslexia is for real then the statistics will show 0% of the population as having it. I have been quite reliably informed that the communist government of the Soviet Union steadfastly refused to believe dyslexia existed.

 

[baddad]

On what i read of he article, yep - wot a chump as pookie so delicately put it.

That said, I do agree with him on this:

 

To label children as dyslexic because they're confused by poor teaching methods is wicked.

 

and I think there are other social factors too that need to be taken into account.

 

Dyslexia isn't always an appropriate diagnosis for a child with literacy difficulties, but it has (IMO) becoms a convenient and over-used one, and that directly impacts on how those who are correctly diagnosed are perceived; which is part of the reason for "chumps" () like this man.

 

L&P

 

BD

 

 

[pookie170]

Dyslexia isn't always an appropriate diagnosis for a child with literacy difficulties, but it has (IMO) becoms a convenient and over-used one, and that directly impacts on how those who are correctly diagnosed are perceived; which is part of the reason for "chumps" () like this man.

 

L&P

 

BD

 

 

I do agree, Badders, I'm just horrified by the way this bloke has gone about things. I actually had a bit of a row at Taekwondo with another parent who insists her second child must have ADHD and is miffed(to put it lightly) that her doctor won't prescribe Ritalin. She overheard me having a word wth the chief instructor regarding Cal, wherein I used the word Ritalin. She had tried everything, apparently.......but when I enquired as to what techniques she'd employed she flipped at me-

'That's just what the doctor said- what would you know? He's a nightmare, I'm totally fed up with him, he dusnae need all that (I'll say 'poo' here, but I assure you the air was blue at this point!) what he needs is medication!'

 

....or words to that effect.....

Thing is, I don't think she has tried all the above, she seems utterly worn out and depressed and her wee brood keeps growing nonetheless......I have great sympathy for her, atch, but I would put money on her son NOT having ADHD. But I have met so many people who instantly say 'I think he's got ADHD' when they're not willing to own up to their failings or look at different ways of parenting...

I admit freely that I got things wrong, still get them wrong and will continue to get some things wrong as long as I'm a parent.....nobody's perfect. Already, some people assume that the ADHD diagnosis isn't worth much, due to people 'jumping on the bandwagon'....it really does have a negative impact kids like my boy, not just on funding issues, but on how they perceive themselves....

 

I've never heard it opined before that Dyslexia is sharing a similar perception.......

How do all these kids get their unneccessary labels though? It's quite evident from this forum that getting a DX of anything is a long, drawn out and stressful process.......

 

 

[shaz71]

I do agree, Badders, I'm just horrified by the way this bloke has gone about things. I actually had a bit of a row at Taekwondo with another parent who insists her second child must have ADHD and is miffed(to put it lightly) that her doctor won't prescribe Ritalin. She overheard me having a word wth the chief instructor regarding Cal, wherein I used the word Ritalin. She had tried everything, apparently.......but when I enquired as to what techniques she'd employed she flipped at me-

'That's just what the doctor said- what would you know? He's a nightmare, I'm totally fed up with him, he dusnae need all that (I'll say 'poo' here, but I assure you the air was blue at this point!) what he needs is medication!'

 

....or words to that effect.....

Thing is, I don't think she has tried all the above, she seems utterly worn out and depressed and her wee brood keeps growing nonetheless......I have great sympathy for her, atch, but I would put money on her son NOT having ADHD. But I have met so many people who instantly say 'I think he's got ADHD' when they're not willing to own up to their failings or look at different ways of parenting...

I admit freely that I got things wrong, still get them wrong and will continue to get some things wrong as long as I'm a parent.....nobody's perfect. Already, some people assume that the ADHD diagnosis isn't worth much, due to people 'jumping on the bandwagon'....it really does have a negative impact kids like my boy, not just on funding issues, but on how they perceive themselves....

 

I've never heard it opined before that Dyslexia is sharing a similar perception.......

How do all these kids get their unneccessary labels though? It's quite evident from this forum that getting a DX of anything is a long, drawn out and stressful process.......

Hi i am new to all this but i have just read it and can't believe it, obviously nothing like that as ever happened to his family and if it did he has the money behind him to sort it out, that is kind of him but what about the unfortunate ones, yes i read with my daughter teach her spellings play board games and even go to a school club with her, but to no avail, she may not have dyslexia it may be something else but she is struggling and has done even from early days with speech and still has some speech slips, so what are they going to do get rid of dyslexia and brush the poor struggling kids under the carpet like the other countries probably do. Sharon x

 

[ian stuart-hamilton]

I've never heard it opined before that Dyslexia is sharing a similar perception.......

 

 

Actually, there have been, on a few occasions.

 

(1) You occasionally get people saying dyslexia doesn't exist because their definition disagrees with the one used by the professional doing the diagnosis. Dyslexia literally means some problems with reading (being completely unable to read is called alexia). In other words, strictly speaking, the term applies to anyone who has problems regardless of their other abilities. However, the term is used by many experts purely to denote people whose reading abilities are significantly behind their intellectual abilities. The difference between these two approaches is best explained with an example.

 

Let's suppose you have a 10 yr old child who has a mental age of 6 and a reading age of 6 (in other words, although they're ten, they think and read pretty much like a 6 yr old). Those who use the term literally will say that this child has dyslexia, whilst those who use the more selective definition will say the child doesn't have dyslexia - the child certainly has educational needs, but they're not purely connected with reading, so they're not dyslexic. On the other hand, if you had a 10 yr old child who had a mental age of 10 and a reading age of 6, then both groups of experts would say the child has dyslexia.

 

(2) Another bone of contention is whether dyslexia is a discrete condition or the end of a continuum. Put in plain English, is it the case that someone with dyslexia is really fundamentally different from someone who doesn't, or do they possess the same basic reading skills as everyone else, but they're less good at using them?

 

(3) There is also the argument that different cultures have different levels of dyslexia because of the different writing systems used. This is a VERY complex topic, but basically, English is held to be one of the hardest languages in the world to spell. Other languages that use an alphabet of letters to form words generally have far more 'regular' spellings - specific letters or groups of letters almost always are pronounced the same (Welsh is a good example). In languages where words are spelt using symbols using letters (e.g. traditional Chinese and the commoner used words in Japanese), dyslexia of the type we encounter in the UK is practically unknown. However, it's a myth that dyslexia is non-existent in those languages - there will almost certainly be some people who are unusually poor at reading (though probably not as many as amongst English readers).

 

But none of these deny the existence of dyslexia - the argument is over how we define it. This has important practical implications, but I've bored you good folks enough!

 

As regards the MP's remarks on phonics teaching being wonderful, I've got to say that I like phonics teaching (I'm not trying to show off, but my PhD was on how children acquire phonological skills and how they relate to reading and spelling), but I don't think that teaching by the opposing method is necessarily wrong in all cases, and I certainly severely doubt whether it would 'solve' the problem of dyslexia, since I can recall no studies that show a 100% success rate.

 

And dyslexia is no way the same as illiteracy. Illiteracy is a failure to read, regardless of cause. In reality, unless someone has suffered very severe brain damage, they can read at least a few words, so generally we think of literacy in terms of functional literacy - in other words, what's the most advanced text a person can read? I've not looked at the precise figures for a couple of years, but last time I checked, about 20% of adults in the UK were at or below the base level of functional literacy - in other words, they were able at best to read a text that should be easily read by an average 8 year old child. This is one of the reasons why our more popular tabloid newspapers are written in such a basic style. These people are not 'stupid' nor are they all dyslexic. A lot of people never read after they leave school, simple as that. And if you don't practise a skill, it will almost inevitably get worse.

[coolblue]

As regards the MP's remarks on phonics teaching being wonderful, I've got to say that I like phonics teaching (I'm not trying to show off, but my PhD was on how children acquire phonological skills and how they relate to reading and spelling), but I don't think that teaching by the opposing method is necessarily wrong in all cases, and I certainly severely doubt whether it would 'solve' the problem of dyslexia, since I can recall no studies that show a 100% success rate.

 

Not at all boring Ian. I've been a bit concerned at what seems to be a trend to see dyslexia as the result of audiological rather than visual processing problems - as far as I can tell it can be caused by either, or both, depending on the individual child. Did your PhD shed any light on this?

[chris54]

At the age of 11 I had virtually no reading ability despite attempts by various people to teach me. I had good handwriting being able to copy but had no idea of what I was writing.

 

I then went to a special school where there were small classes about 15 to 20 as opposed to 47, I know it was 47 as the teacher use to get us to call out out number at registration time.

 

Here they used phonics, as I now know them to be called and after about 18month my reading was considered sufficiently improved to go back to ordinary "Mainstream" as now called, school. This would have been about 1966.

 

Even today I find reading hard work, I have to stop at each word, work out what it is then move on to the next. This means that my reading is much slower that average. If I am reading something long, three or four sentences , I will often have to go over it 2 or 3 time to get a true sense of what is being said.

I spell phonetically and so find it much easier now using a word processor to then correct my spelling.

 

In the old days I would write some thing down, then get my spelling book out and work out how each word should be spelt then rewrite it 2 or 3 time until it was right.

 

I have been told that what I have is dyslexia, but I don't know as I have never had any sort of test, but it is a useful label to use as it gets across to most people that you have a reading problem and its not that you are stupid.

 

My father and brother have some problems with reading but not to the same degree as my.

 

My older sister can sight read, not sure that is the right term but when at school she never needed to do any work as at test time she would read the text book from cover to cover the day before and be able to almost recall it word for word to do the exam. In them days it was all on the test, not sure how she would get on now.

[pookie170]

(3) There is also the argument that different cultures have different levels of dyslexia because of the different writing systems used. This is a VERY complex topic, but basically, English is held to be one of the hardest languages in the world to spell. Other languages that use an alphabet of letters to form words generally have far more 'regular' spellings - specific letters or groups of letters almost always are pronounced the same (Welsh is a good example). In languages where words are spelt using symbols using letters (e.g. traditional Chinese and the commoner used words in Japanese), dyslexia of the type we encounter in the UK is practically unknown. However, it's a myth that dyslexia is non-existent in those languages - there will almost certainly be some people who are unusually poor at reading (though probably not as many as amongst English readers).

 

The thing is, though, that China still has a comparatively large section of its population who do not have the opportunity to go to school, as far as I understand it- in rural areas and suchlike. This has to affect statistics like those above, surely?

I am not knocking your contribution though, Ian. On the contrary, I found what you had to say rather interesting- would I be right in taking it, then, that it's not just the spellings of written English but the shape of the letters as well, that shift the balance with regards to dyslexia?

[coolblue]

Just a comment on pictographic languages. Because Chinese is written in pictographs (a symbol represents a whole word) there isn't the same issue of decoding as there is in alphabetically written languages. So any reading difficulties are of a completely different nature. In other words 'dyslexia' can't exist in the same way as it does in alphabetically written languaes.

 

My daughter is learning Japanese, and says that the main problems Japanese children have with learning kanji (the Japanese pictograph system - they have syllabic systems as well) are distinguishing between similar symbols, and the number of symbols they can remember. Literacy levels in China are a completely different issue - there are a lot of people who don't read - but when they do learn, they are not dylexic!

Edited January 15, 2009 by coolblue