Professor Julian Elliott – co-author of 'The Dyslexia Debate' - argues that labelling children as ‘dyslexic’ is not the most effective way to help those with reading difficulties. Many parents, on the other hand, believe that though the system is by no means perfect, it's currently the best way for children to get the help they need.
Following much discussion on the threads, Professor Elliot and MN blogger Lisa Kendrick - whose partner and son are both dyslexic - go head to head on the issue in this guest debate.
Read their posts, and do let us know on the thread what you think.
Professor Julian Elliott
Co-author of 'The Dyslexia Debate'
“Challenging the use of the dyslexia label was always going to be controversial. The discussion around the book I have written with Elena Grigorenko, The Dyslexia Debate - in which we argue that ‘dyslexia’ is a label that holds us back in helping children with reading difficulties - has, understandably, been emotionally charged.
As a former teacher and local authority educational psychologist, I've worked with children with special educational needs and their families for almost four decades, and often, a dyslexia diagnosis is welcome news. It gives the family a quasi-medical diagnosis for a problem that can cause immense distress. The child often finds the diagnosis lifts a weight off their mind - “I always thought that I was stupid, but now I realise that I'm not”. In our imperfect education system, it is a gateway to ensuring that the child receives the assistance, accommodations and resources they need. For parents who are too often unfairly blamed for their child’s learning difficulty, the diagnosis is everything that one could want.
But there's a problem. It’s estimated that between 4 and 20% of people have dyslexia. The huge difference between these two figures alone shows that not everyone can be talking about the same thing. I would urge parents to be objective – tough as it is when it comes to their child’s educational needs – is it really helpful for us to rely on a label that has no agreed meaning? Shouldn't we be looking at alternative ways to help children struggling with literacy?
The term ‘dyslexia’ is used to describe an increasingly vast array of problems and symptoms – rather than its original use for a tiny proportion of people with a severe difficulty in decoding text. Unlike a medical diagnosis (two patients may have the same symptoms – a cough perhaps – but with very different causes and so different treatments), when you’re diagnosed with dyslexia no information on particular forms of treatment is offered. While there are many, often expensive, treatments advertised by commercial providers, the only approach that has strong scientific support is that which focuses upon structured reading tuition.
At the moment, approaches often involve a ‘wait and fail’ element – waiting until problems with reading or writing become so severe that they can be assessed by a specialist with the promise of an eventual diagnosis of dyslexia.
But this delays intervention and leads to gaps in provision for many children who fall through the net. To experience severe difficulty with reading in school is typically to encounter many years of hurt and humiliation. Every lesson is a struggle. Your peers tease and torment you. Some teachers seem to believe that you are stupid. The struggle can be so huge that making any effort at all feels pointless, so you ease off on your studies. To avoid being seen as stupid, you reduce your effort in deliberately visible ways. Then, when you don’t do well, as you obviously won't, others will put this down to a lack of effort, rather than underlying ability.
This strategy is one that I have seen countless times in my work. And it produces a highly negative cycle, as reduced effort can result in charges that the child is lazy. This is a description that has a strong pejorative ring, and one which I don’t think should ever be applied to any child with learning difficulties.
Given this scenario, it is understandable that parents and child are usually relieved to receive a diagnosis of dyslexia. However, in our book, we recommend an approach, supported by research, which involves the provision of help to all children who need support for reading difficulties, as soon as these first emerge. Such an approach rules out any need for a dyslexia diagnosis with all its conceptual and operational inconsistencies.
We need to tackle the incorrect belief that those who struggle to learn to read are stupid. The reality is that there is no relationship between IQ and decoding ability. Some poor readers are very intelligent, and other poor readers are not. Using dyslexia as a means to get around this misunderstanding dooms those without the label to false accusations of stupidity, and in the long-run, obscures the real lesson: that we should keep decoding and intelligence as two separate, largely unrelated, aspects of a child's functioning.
Ultimately, we must consider the impact that earlier detection and a tailored response - rather than a 'one-size fits all' label with no specific treatment options – could have on our children.”
Lisa Kendrick
Mum and wife of dyslexics, who blogs at Blessed Are The Cheesebrains
“We knew our daughter was dyslexic by the time she was 5. We couldn't get the school to take our concerns seriously (because she wasn't working below average and because they don’t like to ‘label’ children) - but we didn't want to get to the point where she was behind and had been permanently put off education. We had her tested as soon as we possibly could, first for Irlen Syndrome (a related condition also known as Visual Stress), and then dyslexia.
This happened when she was 7. Already she'd labelled herself as ‘stupid’, had low self-esteem, and couldn't understand why she found some things difficult that others found easy. At school, she was being labelled by teachers as ‘immature’, ‘demanding’, ‘spoilt’, ‘over-emotional’, and ‘not engaged in her own learning’. This was very different from the mature, quick-witted, confident child we saw at home.
She was clearly struggling with school, and was permanently tired and ill. Her attendance fell to around 80% - the level at which alarm bells start to ring at school – and yet still they didn't consider that there might be an educational problem.
After the diagnosis, everything changed. Now aged 10, and preparing for SATS and High School, she enjoys school. She’s a confident learner and excels in most areas. She understands that her brain is structured differently to most other people, and that that means she learns in a different way. She knows that along with the 'difficulties', she has huge advantages in some areas.
Professor Elliott is right when he says that a diagnosis doesn't necessarily lead to the best treatment for children – but that’s a flaw in how schools understand and deal with learning differences, rather than in than in the diagnosis. What the diagnosis did was allow us to work together to find the best ways for her to learn, and support her as and when she needs it. We know that her key areas of difficulty are with concentration, short-term memory, and auditory processing, so when she says she can’t remember - she really can’t. And we know when to step in at school when she’s unfairly punished for these and things like ‘not doing well enough’ in times tables tests. We also know when to just shrug it off and have a laugh about it.
Thirty years earlier, my husband was thrown out of school at the age of 7. The teachers said that he was ‘retarded’ and that they couldn't teach him. His mum fought long and hard to have him tested and diagnosed with dyslexia, even though at the time, his local authority didn't recognise the condition. He left school with a reading and writing age of 6. However after getting coloured glasses at 18 (for Irlen Syndrome, rather than dyslexia) and completely by accident discovering that he had a natural affinity for and understanding of computers, he went on to get a First at university. He is now a successful entrepreneur and businessman, and is one of the cleverest people I've ever met.
That's why, this week, I signed a petition calling for the Government to allow testing for dyslexia on the NHS - it's the only 'additional need' that isn't. I do agree with Professor Elliott that, to a certain extent, dyslexia isn't the right term to use. Anyone who knows a dyslexic can see that trouble with reading and writing are just a symptom, rather than the defining characteristic of the ‘learning difference’. And the current testing isn't particularly scientific, either. But ultimately, it’s all we've got at the moment.
I welcome the debate, and have no doubt that in the next few years our understanding will evolve - and so will testing, and how we define dyslexia and other brain differences. And I would very much welcome a new way of defining dyslexia as a positive rather than a negative - in the same way that paralympians are now defined by what they can do, not what they can't.”
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Guest debate: Is the term 'dyslexia' actually useful?
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 04/04/2014 13:03
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