The Social-Emotional Side of Dyslexia [Premium]

The Social-Emotional Side of Dyslexia [Premium]

by | Jan 4, 2022 | , , , , , ,

“A lot of the time I take the parts of learning that are still hard for me as rejection — as someone telling me I can’t. I see points taken off for misspelled words on in-class English essays, and I start to see my future crumbling. I see the colleges that my dyslexia could prohibit me from going to. I see the kids with better scores, who don’t need tutors, or extra time, and I feel jealous. I feel worthless.” – Anna Kopelmann   The social emotional journey for dyslexic people can be complex and change over time depending on one’s life contexts, support, and environment. As few as 1 in 4 dyslexic students may be formally identified in public school systems, leaving the majority […]

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Eugene Matusov on Teaching and Motivation [Premium]

Eugene Matusov on Teaching and Motivation [Premium]

by | Nov 9, 2021 | , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently discovered Eugene Matusov’s writings on motivation and agency. He is a professor at the University of Delaware and he is also dyslexic.   I found it interesting that he ended up choosing a career teaching other teachers and yet his early years seem to be fairly traumatic in school. He had some very bad learning experiences, but also good ones, and it’s clear that today, he remembers the good teachers that impacted his life and that the choices he made in his own career were influenced as much by the negative experiences as the positives. One negative experience that was shared involved a writing assignment that many of us are all-too-familiar with – “What I Did Over Summer Vacation.” Listen to Eugene tell […]

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Dyslexia and Motivation [Premium]

Dyslexia and Motivation [Premium]

by | Nov 9, 2021 | , , , , ,

“Self-esteem and motivation are important in a child with dyslexia. It is important that they not feel like a failure just because their mind thinks in a different way. It is important to understand what dyslexia is in order to be able to understand the importance of motivation in a dyslexic child… A personal note – This is a very personal topic for me because I am dyslexic…nobody recognized that I had dyslexia until I was in college… I had gone through school thinking I was dumb…” — Dr. Eugene Matusov   INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION One popular way of looking at motivation is to consider that there are intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. An intrinsic reward tends to be internal – something that is rewarding for […]

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Breaking the Cycle of Shame

Breaking the Cycle of Shame

by | Oct 30, 2021 | , , , , , ,

“How do you not to feel stupid when everyone else is learning something that you can’t grasp at the same pace? The shame of not being able to read out loud without stuttering or misspelling something on the blackboard in front of the class was almost unbearable. The fear of being called on by the teacher was paralyzing and made me act out and have panic attacks. My math teacher berated me because she thought I was being careless when I accidentally reversed numbers. I spent countless hours with frustrated but well-meaning adults who wanted to help me but just thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. All of these experiences sent me the message that I was not good enough.” – Leana Greene   Shame […]

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The Strength Switch [Premium]

The Strength Switch [Premium]

by | Aug 1, 2021 | , , , , ,

Lea Waters is a psychologist and author from Australia who has developed a helpful strategy to reframe and help common childhood challenges. She suggests 5 Questions to overcome a natural tendency to be negative.   Here are the 5 questions. 1. Is It Strength Overuse? 2. Is It Strength Underuse? 3. Is it the Flipside of a Strength? 4. Could It Be a Blocked Strength? 5. Could It Be Forced Overuse of a Weakness or a Learned Behavior?   #1. Is It Strength Overuse? Lea gives the example of her husband’s playfulness and humor. He could make his classmates laugh, but his playfulness and humor could also get him in trouble with teachers and other authority figures. From Lea: “A strength-based parent taking a child […]

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Dyslexia and Perfectionism [Premium]

Dyslexia and Perfectionism [Premium]

by | Jun 6, 2021 | , , , , , , , ,

For many, college is a “perfect storm” for personal stress. Reading and writing workloads may be astronomical, student and family expectations are high, and many students for the first time may be without personal and academic supports that allowed them to enter college in the first place. College is the time when students could find their organizational and time management abilities stretched beyond their ability to cope. There are surprisingly few studies looking at coping strategies for dyslexic students in college or universities. Recently, in the United Kingdom, researchers discovered that unhealthy patterns of perfectionism may negatively impact students’ well-being and the likelihood to reach out for help. Perfectionism is now thought to be a common personality disposition characterized by the making of high personal […]

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Sneaky Ways to Help with the Dyslexia-Related Long Word Challenges [Premium]

Sneaky Ways to Help with the Dyslexia-Related Long Word Challenges [Premium]

by | Apr 23, 2020 | , , , , ,

It’s not your imagination – it’s much harder for most children and adults with dyslexia to learn long words – and it has nothing to do with intelligence. The sneaky reason is that for most dyslexic people, learning a random sequence of sounds puts more demands on those phonological processing pathways in the brain that once made it hard to learn to read. It’s good to be aware of this difficulty and also know that it has no relationship to things like creative insight or problem solving ability, which might be sky high. It does mean that for certain subjects – like science vocabulary, geography place names, long people and place names in literature, and foreign languages, extra care and time may be necessary to […]

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Breaking Research : Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults [Premium]

Breaking Research : Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults [Premium]

by | Jul 29, 2019 | , , , , , , , , , , , ,

An important paper was published this month from the University of Washington, entitled “Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Assessment for Dyslexia in Adolescents and Young Adults.” The paper is especially important guiding testing professionals who assess teens and adults for dyslexia or see gifted or twice-exceptional students. This paper also takes a more systematic look at the roles of individual factors like working memory and executive function on dyslexia and reading and spelling performance. The data will be helpful in targeting educational interventions and can also guide requests for testing accommodations. There are interesting observations too in that paper that will help with characterizing the strengths that occur among adolescent and adult dyslexics, with implications for twice-exceptional or gifted students with dyslexia. In several areas, adolescent / adult […]

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Response to Intervention RTI Hurts Students with Dyslexia

Response to Intervention RTI Hurts Students with Dyslexia

by | Apr 10, 2019 | , , , , , , , ,

RTI or Response To Intervention is currently the dominant approach to reading instruction in public schools across the United States (over 70% of school districts), but in a just-released progress report funded by the Department of Education from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), there’s a big problem…it doesn’t work. RTI was supported by vocal groups of educators and professionals who by and large rejected discrepancy criteria for identifying children with a Specific Learning Disability – this despite a wealth of scientific studies identifying brain-based differences in information processes based on discrepancy criteria (e.g. Temple et al, 2003; Richards and Berninger, 2007; + virtually all fMRI imaging studies on dyslexia). From the report, “Critics asserted that waiting until students’ achievement fell substantially below their ability […]

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Q: What Are the Best Tests for Dyscalculia? What About the Feifer Test?

Q: What Are the Best Tests for Dyscalculia? What About the Feifer Test?

by | Apr 5, 2019 | , , ,

Dyscalculia, or a math learning disability is important to identify because formal identification can qualify a student for accommodations both in the classroom and for high stakes tests. It can co-occur with dyslexia and it is under-recognized. We previously reviewed tests that can be used to identify dyscalculia HERE. In our clinic, we liked to use the Math tests on the WIAT-III because that test separately looks at speed of math facts retrieval, math reasoning (through orally presented word problems), and what the test called ‘Numerical Operations’ – an untimed test that presents math problems that start at Arithmetic and end at a little Calculus. What the latter test is good at is allowing a tester to look for math-gifted dyscalculics (not as uncommon as […]

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How to Become More Resilient

How to Become More Resilient

by | Feb 22, 2019 | ,

“Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow?…” Resilience is a topic that’s one of our favorites because although people may temperamentally vary in how much they have of it, science shows that it is trainable, it helps people through difficult life challenges, and generally helps everyone lead more fulfilled lives. Recently The New Yorker published How People Learn to Become Resilient (also see below): “What was it that set the resilient children apart? Because the individuals in her sample had been followed and tested consistently for three decades, Werner had a trove of data at her disposal. She found that several elements predicted resilience. Some elements had to do with luck: a resilient child might have a strong […]

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