Rewired (Ms. Collins' Blog)

They've Walked a Mile in Your Shoes

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:30:24 EST

March is Strike Out Stigmonth at Eye to Eye, which makes it a perfect time to celebrate Kildonan's Eye to Eye chapter, which is now in its third year. In June, 2010, our graduation speaker, David Flink told former Headmaster Ben Powers that Kildonan had to start an Eye to Eye chapter and that he would make sure it happened. At that time, only a few members of our community were aware of the important work that was being conducted by the organization that Flink and his Brown University classmate Jonathan Mooney had begun in 1997, but Kildonan quickly recognized the program could be invaluable to our community.

Eye to Eye's mission is to improve the lives of each person with a learning disability, and they accomplish that mission by supporting and developing a national network of mentoring programs that are run by and for individuals with learning differences. The program matches college and high school students with LD/ADHD with younger students who are similarly labeled in pursuit of three major goals: building self-esteem; improving advocacy; and developing metacognitive skills. Mentors use an art based curriculum; mentors and mentees work on art projects together that are designed to help them recognize and develop their strengths, understand their weaknesses, develop realistic expectations for the future, and build self-esteem. Removing the barriers of each child's learning challenges provides a forum for exploration where there are no right or wrong answers. Students are encouraged to explore a variety of ways to solve problems, and they learn to recognize and value their strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses.

Kildonan's chapter of Eye to Eye began in the fall of 2010. Since then, it has been coordinated by August and Evan, who are currently seniors; this year, they were joined by 11th grader, Sophie, who they are mentoring to coordinate the chapter next year. In addition to the coordinators, Kildonan has 12 mentors who work with 11 mentees. Each week, the group travels to Dover Elementary School to work with fifth and sixth graders who have learning challenges.

The mentees in the program spend one-on-one time with positive role models who allow them to see a different face of learning differences. They see high school students who are successful in a way they want to be themselves; they have something to aspire to. They begin to think about the future in positive ways and develop better self-esteem as they learn to embrace their own learning styles. Eye to Eye also reports improved self-advocacy and academic empowerment among students who are mentored through the Eye to Eye program (http://eyetoeyenational.org/programs/our_outcomes.html).

Eye to Eye mentors also gain a great deal from the program (http://eyetoeyenational.org/programs/our_outcomes.html). August talks often about how his experiences with the mentoring program have helped him to "own" his dyslexia; not only did it help him become more comfortable with his unique learning style, but Eye to Eye helped him to be proud of his dyslexia for the first time. Mentors become better advocates for themselves and others. Tenth grade student Mary said "It's important to show who you are and to be true to yourself because you could be the example to the rest of the L.D. world." Eye to Eye mentors learn to think metacognitively about their own skills and challenges. For many mentors, Eye to Eye is their first involvement in a community of differently abled learners, and that experience promotes self-confidence, self-esteem, and empowerment.

That empowerment, the sense that that what they have to share with the world is valuable, has quickly become a core element of our Kildonan community. Whereas we always had a handful of leaders, our student body is brimming with them now, in the classrooms, on the sports fields, and in the residence halls. They advocate for themselves and others. They support each other. They organize activities They take academic risks. They try new things. They step outside their comfort zones. They achieve. Most importantly, they believe. They believe in themselves, in their classmates, and in everyone else who lives with the strengths and weaknesses, the challenges and successes, that come with a brain that is differently wired...differently abled. With every action they take, they strike out stigma.

To learn more about Eye to Eye, visit their website at http://eyetoeyenational.org/index-new.html and share this informational fact sheet http://eyetoeyenational.org/media/E2EOnesheet_8_12.pdf.

Photo Credit: Nicole M.

Story Contribution: August H.

New Biological Marker of Dyslexia: More Than Meets the Eye

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:36:19 EST

New research published in February points to a new biological marker of dyslexia that plays an important role in the reading process. Nina Kraus and Jane Hornickel from Northwestern University found a "systematic relationship between reading ability and the consistency with which the brain encodes sounds" ("Researchers Discover a Biological Marker of Dyslexia"). They recorded the brain wave responses of 100 school-age children to speech sounds and found that the best readers encoded sounds most consistently while the poorest readers encoded inconsistently; however, when the sound-to-symbol relationship is firmly established, the brain's response to sound stabilizes. In previous research, Kraus and her colleagues found that the encoding inconsistencies characteristic of poor readers can be remediated through training. According to Kraus, "Our results suggest that good readers profit from a stable neural representation of sound, and that children with inconsistent neural responses are likely at a disadvantage when learning to read. The good news is that response consistency can be improved with auditory training." One of the underlying difficulties in dyslexia, therefore, is in the auditory pathway, but that difficulty can be remediated and reading improved.

The study's authors and other individuals I have encountered on the web have suggested that purifying speech sounds and getting them into the brain with the least amount of interference can promote the development of reading skills by strengthening the sound-to-symbol connections that underlie the reading process. I have seen discussion about the use of Bluetooth devices and devices like the Toobaloo to magnify the voice when children speak into them, allowing the children to hear sounds more distinctly. While those kinds of tools might be effective in streamlining the auditory input to allow children to make better sound-to-symbol connections, Kraus and Hornickel's research has even greater implications for reading instruction, implications that Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham supported over 50 years ago. It serves as further evidence that multisensory reading instruction that focuses on systematic instruction in decoding and encoding can strengthen sound-to-symbol connections and ultimately improve the reading skills of individuals with dyslexia.

Encoding refers to the process of translating spoken language into printed symbols; lay people know it as spelling. Decoding, which is the basis for reading, refers to the process of translating written symbols into spoken language. In Orton-Gillingham, spelling is taught concurrently with reading. Lessons include sound-to-symbol and symbol-to-sound associations as well as dictation of phonetic words, phrases, and sentences with the goal not just to improve spelling but also to support reading (Gillingham and Stillman). Spelling instruction is not a means to an end in Orton-Gillingham. It is a pathway that is used to support reading: "Each phonetic unit and sequence in spoken and/or graphic form is learned through hearing, speaking, seeing, and writing; these skills are learned and practiced simultaneously and in coordination with one another. Auditory, visual, and kinesthetic patterns reinforce each other for optimal learning, and provide flexibility for accommodating individual learning differences" (AOGPE Overview).

What I enjoy most about working in the field of dyslexia education is the overlap of education, neuroscience, and the simultaneous challenge and reward of a language that is rich in history. The language has remained relatively unchanged over the years, except that it has grown and adapted to meet our needs. Our understanding of the brain and how it works has expanded exponentially, and with it our knowledge of the best educational practices to meet the needs of the dyslexic learner. Nevertheless, the approach to remedial language instruction developed by Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham in the 1940's and 1950's continues to be validated by what we learn about dyslexia, the brain, and language processing.

Kraus and Hornickel's study "Unstable Representation of Sound: A Biological Marker of Dyslexia," will appear in the Feb. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Works Cited:

Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators: An Overview. 2007. Amenia, NY: Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. Print.

Gillingham, Anna & Stillman, Bessie. 1997 (8th edition). Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service. Print.

"Researchers Discover a Biological Marker of Dyslexia: Ability to Consistently Encode Sound Undergirds the Reading Process." EurekAlert. AAAS, 19 February 2013. Web. 19 February 2013.

Sheffield, Betty. "The Structured Flexibility of Orton-Gillingham." Annals of Dyslexia 41 (1991) : 41-53. Print.

Rivers

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:05:14 EST

There is never a boring day with a dyslexic "in the house." This week, I was chatting with one of my students about reading strategies. Previously, she had been taught to swoop each word in a text as she reads. Suspecting the practice was actually slowing her reading, I asked her about it. I thought perhaps teaching her to swoop in more meaningful phrases, rather than word-by-word, would improve her prosody, rate, and, likely, comprehension.

"Why do you feel this works for you?" I asked. "It helps me with the rivers," she replied. "The rivers?" I asked quizzically. "Well, I call them that; other kids have different names for them." She went on to explain that her eyes essentially catch the current of the white space between the text on a page and beach themselves far away from where she left off. The rivers. It makes complete sense. Swooping keeps her eyes anchored on the line so that they don't go down the rivers. At Kildonan, we use a variety of methods for tracking, such as an index card held above the line one is reading or tapping each word with a pencil; those methods help students keep their places and move toward the next word, and I had always visualized the progression from one word to the next and the next and the next until the eye needs to make the critical sweep from the end of one of line of text to the beginning of the next, where it is all-too-easy for the reader to go awry. I had never considered the world of figure-ground perception in which the white space behind the text takes on its own shape and movement.

(Here, she drew the rivers over her own paragraph so that I could visualize what she was talking about. Text has been inelegantly blurred by me in iPhoto.)

I don't know if she can break the swooping habit; changing the swoop would be more difficult than giving it up, she says; maybe, she will transition to tapping with a pencil or tracking with her finger. In the meantime, she completes her independent reading on a Kindle, and I suggested she try changing the settings to white text on a black background in the hope that the eye will fall into the nothingness of the black and be jarred back to the shores of text rather than white water rafting through the background. Each individual's experience with dyslexia is unique in its challenges but also its beauty, and I will never look at a text again without thinking of the rivers.

We "Get" Your Child

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:14:51 EST

"Am I a bad kid?" my son asked on our way home from preschool. He was 3, and my heart shattered into a million pieces. From the time he moved from the toddler room to the preschool room, he had struggled with behavioral problems at daycare. We dreaded picking him up each day because we were greeted with that day's (mis)behavior report. I told the director I had been doing a lot of research on AD/HD because I had a hunch that my son suffered from attentional problems; she suggested I research Asperger's; when I did, I was even more convinced that my child had AD/HD.

At that moment in the car, I knew we would have to find another placement for him because he could not continue in an environment that was chipping away at his self-esteem. Furthermore, that director did not "get" my child. To her credit, she tried. She took him outside with her to fill the bird feeders, gave him special office tasks, and provided as much one-on-one time as she could, but she didn't understand how his processing system became completely overwhelmed in a large group of children engaged in loosely organized activities. Activities like music class, Spanish class, and center time that provided enrichment for other children challenged my son with sensory overload, a loosening of structure, and struggle to communicate with his peers.

The person who DID "get" our son was Charles, my son's favorite preschool teacher. He did NOT greet me with a daily laundry list of behavioral problems. He greeted me with the news that my son was bright, loved science, was intellectually curious, enjoyed playing outside, had an abundance of energy, and was just like Charles when he was that age. Charles had AD/HD, and he knew that we were concerned about our son's unique processing style. He sensed that our child, in the right environment for him, would thrive. And he did thrive. In his new daycare environment, which offered a smaller class size, fewer activities, and more structure, our son's behavior was never a concern.

While we searched for another preschool placement for our son, Charles was a great support. He understood my child's struggles but also celebrated his strengths. In fact, when so many people around me were quick to dismiss my concern about my child's attentional problems, adults with AD/HD reassured me that if we could get a handle on this at a young age, it might save my son years of struggle. We started the process of establishing a history, collected paper work, and got our pediatrician on board with "keeping an eye" on our son's attentional challenges. About a year ago, our son was diagnosed with AD/HD. We have an effective treatment protocol in place and have been lucky with his kindergarten and first grade teachers. We're working hard to educate ourselves to address the remaining challenges. We know the story doesn't end here, but the community we have built with the friends and professionals who understand our son will give us strength as we face new obstacles.

On October 4, 2012, my colleague Dawn Nieman and I were invited to a nearby Special Education PTA meeting to share our dyslexia expertise with parents who were struggling to help their children. We spoke about the neurological underpinnings of dyslexia, its effects, language remediation, and accommodations. Interested and engaged, the audience offered thoughtful questions and observations. But what really struck me afterward, when dozens of parents came to ask us questions, was their overwhelming need for someone to "get" their children. It was a relief to them that we understood their children's struggles, but also their strengths. They didn't have to fight with us, argue with us, or prove a point to us; we began at a place of common understanding. It was eye-opening for me to realize how powerful it is for a parent to find someone who understands and appreciates the whole child - from a parent's perspective, a teacher's perspective, and an administrator's perspective. It was such a simple gift to be able to leave with that group of parents and one that I am committed to sharing with others.

At Kildonan, we "get" your child; we understand the way s/he learns, we know to keep our eyes pealed for road blocks, and we know how to look for and nurture the many talents that often accompany dyslexia. We respect the opportunity to be part of your support system, and we are honored to undertake the awesome responsibility of understanding your child.

Signs of Dyslexia from a Parent's View

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:29 EST

The importance of early intervention is well known in the field of learning differences; getting help early can make all the difference in the success of children who have learning challenges. Some of the most common phone calls I receive are from anxious parents who are concerned about their child's language development and wonder whether their child might be suffering from dyslexia. Estimates of dyslexia in the general population range from 10 – 20% so it is especially important for parents and early educators to be familiar with the common signs of dyslexia in children.

Dyslexia and Family History

The most important early indicator of dyslexia is a family history. Dyslexia runs in families. It is neurological in origin, and its symptoms arise from differences in the structure of the brain and the ways it processes language. Those differences, which occur during prenatal development, are genetic. With estimates of heritability, or the "inheritedness" of dyslexia ranging between 40 and 70%, parents who are dyslexic themselves or have dyslexic relatives should be on the lookout for difficulties in language development as their children enter preschool and kindergarten.

Language Development Variations in Children

It is important to keep in mind that there is great developmental variation among children. Any one of these signs in itself may not be cause for concern. If a child has several of these signs, especially if there is a family history of learning differences, it would be good for the child to be screened for possible dyslexia or other learning differences.

Signs of Dyslexia - Preschool Years:

• Speech delay (may speak later than other children) and/or stuttering; difficulty pronouncing certain sounds (e.g., r and l, m and n)

• Difficulty pronouncing words (e.g., says pisketti for spaghetti)

• Delay in learning new vocabulary

• Trouble learning nursery rhymes and lack of appreciation for rhymes

• Difficulty learning the alphabet and letter names as well as days of week, months, etc.

• Difficulty telling a story in the correct sequence

• Difficulty coming up with the "right word"

• Difficulty learning to write his/her name

• Delay in developing fine motor skills, such as holding a pencil

• May have difficulty establishing handedness (doesn't seem to prefer right or left hand over the other)

• Numerous ear infections

As children enter kindergarten and first grade, the main expectation is beginning to read. For children with dyslexia, that goal may lead to increasing frustration.

Signs of Dyslexia - Kindergarten and First Grade:

• Continued difficulties from Preschool

• Difficulty associating letters with their sounds

• Lack of phonemic awareness (difficulty understanding that letters represent speech sounds, breaking up words into their component sounds)

• Difficulty making or recognizing rhymes

• Difficulty spelling words phonetically

• Difficulty recognizing common sight words or common words, such as family names

• Difficulty learning to tie shoes

• Confusion of words and concepts related to direction (e.g., left/right, before/after, over/under)

• Complaints about reading avoidance of reading

• Development of frustration in school, possibly accompanied by health or behavior problems, emotional difficulties, or school avoidance

For more information about early signs of dyslexia, visit one of the many excellent websites devoted to dyslexia, learning differences, and early reading development. Among others, The International Dyslexia Association, Learning Disabilities Association, LD Online, and Reading Rockets provide valuable resources.

Dyslexia Symptoms in Children – First Steps

Parents are the experts on their children. Almost 100% of the time, a conversation that begins with a parent telling me "I think my child has dyslexia" ends with my agreement that "I think it's very possible that your child has dyslexia." The next step is to seek help. One of the most effective, time-honored interventions for dyslexia is Orton-Gillingham tutoring with a qualified professional. Orton-Gillingham is a multisensory, structured, phonics based approach to teaching language skills. Though designed for language remediation, it is a valuable approach to teaching reading that could be used with most children. An early reading screening can provide information about whether the child is, in fact, struggling with reading. Parents should consider an occupational therapist or speech and language pathologist to address problems such as fine and gross motor skills or speech development. They should also schedule a trip to the pediatrician to rule out vision or hearing problems. If language/reading problems persist, parents should seek out a comprehensive evaluation to identify the source of the problem, help to plan an appropriate intervention, and begin the process of documenting the student's learning difference for later use in determining eligibility for special services or accommodations.

The Positive Side of Dyslexia

Parents should be aware that the same unique brain differences that make language difficult for people with dyslexia also give rise to tremendous strengths. As educators of children with dyslexia, we see strengths in three dimensional processing, in curiosity and imagination, often in social skills, in balance sports, oral vocabulary, and in understanding stories read aloud to them. After all, examples of successful adults with dyslexia abound: Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Cher, Orlando Bloom, John Irving, Ann Rice, Richard Branson, and Ansel Adams are examples of the success that is possible in fields such as science, engineering, entertainment, literature, business, and art. Brock and Fernette Eide's recent book, The Dyslexic Advantage, does an excellent job of describing four types of processing styles that explain not just the struggles that arise from dyslexia but also the areas of strength. Students with dyslexia need to have their strengths and talents recognized and fostered.

Educating a Child Who Learns Differently

Margaret Byrd Rawson and Roger Saunders, pioneers in the field, are credited with saying of dyslexia:

1. The differences are personal.

2. The diagnosis is clinical.

3. The treatment is educational.

4. The understanding is scientific.

Current scientific research is expanding our understanding of dyslexia at a rapid pace. Scientists know a lot about how a dyslexic brain functions and how dyslexia is transmitted genetically. Teachers working in the field know that multisensory structured language approaches are ideal for teaching students with dyslexia, and neurologists have shown that we can retrain the dyslexic brain to process language more efficiently. Nevertheless, ensuring the success of those children relies on our identifying their learning needs and providing an appropriate educational. Parents and early educators are the first line of defense, and knowing what to look for is one of the most important parts of the process of educating a child who learns differently.

"I'm Going to College!"

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:07:16 EST

Congratulations to my senior tutoring student, Taylor, who received his first college acceptance yesterday! I love this time of year, not just for the holidays, but for the beginning of college acceptances. It is so exciting to see the looks on the faces of these young men and women, who never quite believed they would go to college, when they find out they have been accepted. C.W. Post is not Taylor's first choice, but it is a choice. As he said this morning, "I'm going to college. I don't know what college, but I'm going!" In some ways, the second acceptance is even more fun because then they have choices. When you weren't sure you would get into college, and then you have choices, that's empowering.

Vanished

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:01:40 EST

Today, one of my students opened his reading book to a page he had marked the night before. "Does this say vanished?" he asked. "Yes it does," I affirmed. "Yes!" he exclaimed, "I read that all by myself!"

Some days the victories are smaller than others. Maybe last week it was an A on a science exam. Today it was the subtle recognition that all the hard work is paying off in improved reading skills. Literacy is built from moments like these; self-esteem is built from moments like these; a future is built from moments like these.

Every day I have a new reason to love my job.

Rewired for Reading

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:27:54 EST

The human brain is not hard wired for reading; that is, unlike many other activities we do during a given day, there are no specific parts of the brain we can point to as being responsible for reading. As a species, we have not been alive long enough for evolution to have made reading part of our hardware. That we have been reading and writing for about 5,000 years is a mystery that can only be attributed to the brain's remarkable plasticity. It has reused other circuits of the brain to make reading happen. Neuroscientists have been a little vague about which circuits we have refashioned to fit our needs, but new research from neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene has begun to unravel just what our brains are doing to read, and what we may have lost in the process.

Dehaene scanned the brains of 31 people who learned to read in childhood, 22 who learned in adulthood, and 10 who were illiterate. The individuals who COULD read showed greater activity to written words in parts of the brain that process what we see. Individuals who were illiterate showed little brain response to the visual image of words words. Dehaene previously argued that part of the brain where the left occipital and temporal lobes join is an important area for reading. In literate people, looking at words triggered brain activity in parts of the left temporal lobe that respond to what we see. In addition, Dehaene's research suggests that reading uses brain circuits that we already use for spoken language. Interestingly, researchers also found that in people who learned to read early in life, a smaller area of the left occipital-temporal cortex responded to images of faces than in the illiterate group. Is it possible that reduced recognition of faces is our payoff for the ability to read? Maybe, but we'll have to wait for Dehaene's results to find out.

Read a summary of Dehaene's research.

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