Posted on 05/29/2007 3:55:31 AM PDT by mek1959
Dyslexia is a social fig leaf used by middle-class parents who fear their children will be labelled as low achievers, a professor has claimed.
Julian Elliott, a leading educational psychologist at Durham University, says he has found no evidence to identify dyslexia as a medical condition after more than 30 years of research.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Did Patton or Churchill ever claim to have dyslexia or any disability?
The Churchill Centre says:
“In his autobiography he played up his low grades at Harrow, undoubtedly to convince readers, and possibly himself, how much he had overcome; but in this he exaggerated.”
Everyone wants to believe that he has overcome great odds!
My son gets special, tax payer paid education for this impairmant. Thanks for your contribution.
When I was in kindergarten I had to go to a school tutor because I sometimes would read or write the letters of words in the wrong sequence. For example Was would become saw. It was never a big deal. Of course that was before they had a fancy name for my problem and realized they could milk federal dollars for it. Lots of federal dollars every exceptional student means an increase in the money allocated for FTE.
Nice compassion. Sorry to burst your superiority bubble, but such neurological symptoms as dyslexia have been tied to underlying chronic Lyme disease, and go away when the Lyme is treated.
“It’s about time someone takes on the numerous “victimization” titles like ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia and on and on and on so commonly used today.”
Wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard some parent decry, “He’s got ADD!”. Everytime the kid gets in trouble or fails, that’s the excuse these days. Sad, really.
Poor parent, front and center, right here.
My DH, SIL and FIL are dyslexic. So is my oldest kid. This was not a casual label that we slapped on my kid to get her special treatment in school. She had that tendency; her kindegarten and first grade teachers were inexperienced; and the school uses a hashed up method of teaching reading. She struggled until 3rd grade until her teacher — an older lady who used a different teaching method — tried to pick up the pieces. DD is now in the top reading group in her class and over the school year came in 3rd out of her whole grade for readign achievement.
The emotional fall-out of being considered “learning disabled” or “special ed” for an intelligent child is not worth any little breaks she might get.
She wants to be an astronaut and be one of the first settlers on the noom or sraM
Some may game the system as victims. However, dyslexia is real. While in law school, I clerked for a brilliant attorney who was dyslexic. He had an assistant who read to him and proofread what he wrote. In the courtroom, he usually won.
For legitimate treatment of dyslexia and related disorders, check out the work done by the Scottish Rite. The largest provider of services to dyslexics in the U.S., the Scottish Rite does so whether or not a family can afford to pay. A very worthwhile cause.
Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic with insommnia?
He stayed up all night wondering about the existence of dog.
Having said that, however, my husband, we think (who is now in his 50's and wasn't tested for this back when) struggled with dyslexia in school, but he's far from stupid. He's creative, resourceful, can figure out how to do almost anything.
The older I get the more dyslexic I get.
Must have been Dyslexic.
When he died and they were schlepping his body out of the “lady”s’ room, his shoes were on the wrong feet.
Smile on his face was real, I guess.
I cannot speak to ADD or ADHD, but I do have some experience with the condition of dyslexia. I have a daughter who was eventually diagnosed as having dyslexia, but she is most certainly not stupid, and she never tried to play the victim or use it as an excuse. On the contrary, she seemed to be rather embarrassed by the diagnosis, and did not even want to talk about it.
She is fluent in the Dutch language (in which she studies) and also in English. Both languages are spoken at home and she learned them growing up. As long as she was dealing in one of these languages she was able to compensate for the dyslexia. It was when she starting studying French and German that her coping strategies gave out. It was her French teacher who observed that she was making mistakes that were consistent with dyslexia and on her recommendation she was extensively tested for the condition.
We never got a dime of subsidies for her dyslexia. For a couple of years she was allowed a little extra time to complete written exams, but I don’t believe she ever used the allowance. As long as she did not have to deal with a new foreign language she was fine. She has never played the victim, and never used dyslexia as an excuse for poor performance.
In the Dutch system she was never considered to be “university” material (they are much more selective about the type of person suited for that track) and she has embarked on a more vocational track, studying computer assisted media development and arts. She’s doing fine, and we’re all happy that she is satisfied with what she is doing.
I would have no patience with anyone who tried to fake the condition for their own advantage, and no patience with anyone who used it for endless excuses for poor performance. That simply stigmatizes those who have the condition but who deal with it responsibly.
I never know where North, South, East or West is and I get lost in parking lots and everywhere else. I cannot follow a set of verbal instructions and have to have it written down. I once got out of my car to open a gate at night and as I approached my car, I couldn't for a moment remember where the driver's side was.
I think my problem is some kind of dyslexia, but I have never demanded any special privileges for it. I have learned to compensate and work around it.
I feel truly sorry for those who really suffer from it. It is a shame that it has become the excuse du'jour for those who don't want to do some things.
From one of the Naked Gun movies: “Dyslexia, cure for found!”
The numerous victimization titles you refer to are a constant source of additional federal monies for the schools branding people with them. ‘Special’ students lead to ‘special’ programs which brings in ‘special’ money, on a body count basis.
A dyslexic walks into a bra...
If these diagnoses had existed in the 1950s when I was in grade school, I'd have sure qualified for one or more of them. But they didn't, the way they treated them was by noting "does not pay attention in class" on your report card.
So it wasn't so much a condition to be studied as a character flaw that it was up to me to correct.
Over the years I've had to develop ways around my naturally scatterbrained approach to life, just to make sure I didn't overlook anything too important.
I don't think drugging me as a child would have allowed me to develop the coping skills necessary to grow up to be a functioning adult, and I'm afraid that this will be the fate of many of the kids getting daily doses of Ritalin to keep their enthusiasm in check.
Did you see that the illiteracy rate in DC is 36% now? Let’s turn over the health care system to the wizards that produced that result.
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