Dyslexia 'is just a middle-class way to hide stupidity'

Drudge ^ | 5/29/07 | REBECCA CAMBER

[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.

[MarkL]

Regarding dyslexia, if it really were just an excuse for "stupidity," then teaching techniques to overcome it simply wouldn't work. In order to improve the grades of students with dyslexia, the tutoring would need to teach the subject that the student is failing, rather than different techniques of reading and comprehending.

Mark

[BuffaloJack]

I was brought up in the late 50s and early 60s. What are phonics and whole-word methods? It sounds like something a socialist would make up to explain something simple in a manner incomprehensible to outsiders.

[Larry Lucido]

Dyselxics have more nuf.

[Larry Lucido]

So when you got to the south pole, did you wonder where everyone was?

[ladyjane]

Many universities give students who claim to have dyslexia time-and-a-half or double time on their exams. Some demand open book exams.

[ClaireSolt]

I was tutoring a young woman who wanted to be a vet. Unfortunately, she had been diagnosed dyslexic and was in special ed through the 9th grade. They neglected to teach her how to spell. She fought her way out of the special ed, but she was hampered by her inadequate education. I see schools devising too many excuses for not teaching children. Some are suing for the right to not test or count them under NCLB.

[Poser]

I’m reasonably certain that dyslexia exists.

I’m 100% certain that most of the people who claim dyslexia have no such disorder.

The same is true for ADD and ADHD. Every kid who doesn’t sit quietly in his 1st grade classroom is coded with a brain disorder. The people who diagnose the kids as ADD and ADHD make their living on the kids who have that diagnosis. The schools get more money based on the number of kids coded.

It’s a self propagating industry.

[em2vn]

Just another professor trying to carve out a place in the history of American’s miseducation of its youth.
Why should we believe this professor? Is it because his supposed findings fit into a belief that melds with a personal bias.
I once heard a medical doctor state that Post Tramatic Stress Disorder didn’t exist and that vets with the condition were fakers.
Some people will say anything to get attention.

[Charlespg]

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.

Dyslexia is real and the the professor is a idiot

[HEY4QDEMS]

I do believe that Dyslexia is a real condition.

The real problem IMO is that the standards for diagnosis are such that it is grossly over diagnosed.

PS
What does DAM stand for?
Answer: Mothers Against Dyslexia

[neocon1984]

IMO,

ADHD is a recent phenomenon that is way over-diagnosed in young boys who get bored in the classroom. Good thing I am not a kid today. I was terribly bored in public school and often got in trouble for not paying attention. Today I would have been prescribed Ritalin. Then, I was awarded a scholarship to a private school that was much more challenging. Problem solved.

[pabianice]

Dyslexia is real. I have it. In the 7th grade I was placed in the retarded division. Only with great hard work and two great parents helping did I overcome it. To this day, any unfamiliar word I see is scrambled. Math and chemistry were almost impossible. Try doing either when the symbols keep switching places. And let's not even get into learning Hebrew.

I deeply resent using faux dyslexia as an excuse for laziness, but dyslexia is real.

[Maceman]

STAMP OUT DAILYSEX!!

Oops. I mean:

STAMP OUT DYSLEXIA!!

[badpacifist]

tahw?

[HEY4QDEMS]

[april15Bendovr]

“I second that. I have dyslexia as well, but I got past it the same way Patton did. If it’s been twice as hard for me to get by, then I simply worked three times as hard to make up the difference.

Great men are not great because of the things that are easy for them, but for the things which are hard for them that they do anyway.”

Ditto

I attended eye training for three years as a child. Its not only about working hard but its also about no excuses. I had a great family that understood the illness and they would have no part in enabling me.

I started off school as a D student. My senior year in High School I made the honor role twice.

[P-40]

IF this is true, then one would assume that dyslexia could be corrected through special teaching methods.

There are successful programs for this. Austin has the Dyslexic Learning Center that has helped a lot of kids over the years.

[Betty Jane]

Phonics is the teaching of the sounds letters or letter combinations make, such as th or sh. Phonics teaches one to sound out the word. For example, in the word man a student would sound out each letter, until he said the word. In whole language, the student is told to learn that this word is "man" Whole language works until a kid is given a book that has words the kid hasn't learned, like tan. The phonics kid, on the other hand, can use the knowledge of letter sounds he has learned to figure it out.

Phonics doesn't work for everything, but it does give a good foundation to build on. Whole language, only works to the amount the teacher has taught and the kid has memorized.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

“Functional MRI Studies View Dyslexia in Action”:

http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1031002333.html

[OldBlondBabe]

My niece was diagnosed with dyslexia. She needed additional instruction to learn to read as did my sister, who aided in her instruction at home. She graduates from college this year a very bright young woman and a gifted musician.