[Premium] Sorting Out the Differences Between Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD

[Premium] Sorting Out the Differences Between Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD

by | Sep 20, 2016 | , , , , , , , , ,

On one level, Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD would seem quite different, but in reality, we are only at the beginning of our understanding of how the two might overlap and be different. Both Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD were initially characterized by their negatives – Dyslexia by difficulty learning to read, and ADD / ADHD by difficulty paying attention. Today we know that for both, positive qualities like higher levels of creativity and ability can be associated as well as negatives, and researchers are only now beginning to take a more careful look at what these two designations imply. For those who don’t know, as a group, children with ADD / ADHD score lower on many tests of phonology and reading comprehension, theoretically because of their […]

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Q & A: Can Someone Be Both Dyslexic and Autistic ? [Premium]

Q & A: Can Someone Be Both Dyslexic and Autistic ? [Premium]

by | Sep 6, 2016 | , , , , , , , , ,

QUESTION: Is it Possible to Have Both Dyslexia and Autism? The short answer is yes, but it’s likely not very common and in general many of the features of dyslexia and autism are opposite. By strict criteria, low IQ and autism are excluded from the diagnosis of dyslexia. However, it is not difficult to speculate that a child with family dyslexia could also have autism either through inheritance or through some environmental factor. The main thing to consider is that it may be much more common that a child with dyslexia has social factors unrelated to autism or a child with autism has reading and writing problems unrelated to dyslexia. In fact, typically dyslexic and autistic children have different cognitive, memory, and perceptual patterns although they […]

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Why It’s Hard to Proofread and Read Fluently [Premium]

Why It’s Hard to Proofread and Read Fluently [Premium]

by | Sep 5, 2016 | , , , , , , , ,

It can be maddening. You look and look you just don’t see it. Later you pass your work along, you see all the thing you hadn’t seen the first time round. What’s going on ?  You’ve experienced a ‘trick’ of perception. In our clinic, when trying to explain the phenomenon to children, we often use the analogy of optical illusions…when you see something that’s not there or you miss something – that later you can’t believe you could see at the start. These tricks of perception are what adds to the time needed for many dyslexic students on classroom and standardized exams. It accounts for why some teachers may be flabbergasted by a student’s need for extended time, when they seem so quick with problem solving […]

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[Premium] Math Journal Club: Strategic Instruction for Fractions

[Premium] Math Journal Club: Strategic Instruction for Fractions

by | Aug 30, 2016 | , , , , , , ,

This past week, researchers published an interesting study that suggested that students should receive explicit instructions about why certain approaches are chosen for certain types of math programs. As it turns out, studies of  strategic math instruction seems to especially benefit students with “learning disabilities.” This approach should be valuable to students with dyslexia because rather than having to memorize multiple steps of math problem solving, they learn to recognize the different categories of problems that are presented giving them the opportunity to choose the approach that is best for them. Rather than presenting with a large quantity of math problems that they are left to solve on their own, students are first divided into groups depending on how they initially choose to solve a problem. Rather […]

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Understanding Processing Speed and Dyslexia [Premium]

Understanding Processing Speed and Dyslexia [Premium]

by | Aug 25, 2016 | , , , , , , , , , ,

When families come together to discuss test scores, no group of scores surprises them as much as “Processing Speed.” Processing Speed scores on psychometric exams might mean Coding and Symbol Search scores on the WISC intelligence exams or Visual Matching and Paired Cancellation on the Woodcock Johnson. Processing Speed scores on these subtests are typically lower for dyslexic students, but on other tasks like Decision Making and in real life, these students may be quite quick and even quicker than their peers at various tasks such as insight-based problem solving or situational awareness (helpful for athletics, for instance). Understanding the true significance of Processing Speed Difference in Dyslexia, then is important not only for recognizing when accommodations may be appropriate school, but also for identifying […]

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Harvard Genetics Professor George Church on Dyslexia and Failing [Premium]

Harvard Genetics Professor George Church on Dyslexia and Failing [Premium]

by | Jul 28, 2016 | , , , ,

“If you’re not failing, You’re probably not trying as hard as you could be.” – Dyslexic Harvard Genetics Professor George Church From Harvard’s Gazette: Church had an erratic path through higher education like many dyslexic students, but his path shows a lot of ingenuity, passion, and dogged persistence in spite of not learning to read well. As a young person: “I was using books — even though I had a lot of trouble reading. By using the index and using photographs, I could figure out just about anything. So that kind of set me on a course of independent study. I was not particularly well adapted socially. I had dyslexia, narcolepsy, OCD, ADD — all these things were very mild, but made me feel different.” […]

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Dyslexia Journal Club – Spelling Strategies – What Does Research Say? [Premium]

Dyslexia Journal Club – Spelling Strategies – What Does Research Say? [Premium]

by | Jul 18, 2016 | , , , , , ,

In a recent paper from Montreal, research tested dyslexic students ages 9-11 to see which spelling strategies were more effective. The most common strategy children use to spell is phonological, whether they are  or aren’t dyslexic. The other common strategies children use for spelling are visuol-orthographic, analogy, and backup. The phonological strategy used phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Analogy was based on the use of known words to spell that share orthographic similarities . Visuo-orthographic strategy involved visual and specific properties of words. A backup strategy was defined as using a personal mnemonic device for one specific word. In this research study, students were tested in tests that included spelling to dictation, and written narrative (summary) after being read a story. Spelling words were classified on the basis […]

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Dyslexia and Multisensory Learning [Premium]

Dyslexia and Multisensory Learning [Premium]

by | Jun 1, 2016 | ,

“I myself am a very poor visualizer, and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall have any distinctness at all. – William James “Father of Psychology   Most dyslexia experts know that multisensory structured language instruction is the gold standard for teaching students with dyslexia, but most people don’t know exactly why. Many attribute the concept to Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham, but actually the idea was recognized at least 30 years earlier by William James and Francis Galton, both of whom may have been dyslexic. From James’ classic book, The Principles […]

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Latest Research – Your Brain on Audiobooks [Premium]

Latest Research – Your Brain on Audiobooks [Premium]

by | May 23, 2016 | , ,

 This is pretty cool research. When we listen to stories, we maybe transported to a different place and time, living in the heads of characters, and immersing ourselves in another world. What does that look like in our brains? We have a clearer answer now from brain researchers in the Netherlands, and besides seeing how different areas “light up” or don’t, it now appears that there are often strong individual preferences among individuals as to whether they are “mentalizers” or “sensory-motor” listeners. In this research paper, mentalizers were defined as those who preferentially active ‘Theory of Mind’ areas associated with thinking about other peoples’ thoughts and beliefs, whereas motor listeners were most reactive to action descriptions. From previous studies, researchers learned that if you read the work […]

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New Research: Brain Scans Predict Cognitive Performance [Premium]

New Research: Brain Scans Predict Cognitive Performance [Premium]

by | May 13, 2016 | , , , ,

“This suggests that individual differences in many cognitive tasks are a stable trait marker.”   There’s a new Oxford research study circulating through scientific communities and around the world. From Science (Task-free MRI predicts individual differences in brain activity during task performance), Tavor and collegues applied machine-learning principles to test subjects in a “resting state” to see how they could predict their performances on various cognitive tasks. What was the result? They could predict subject’s responses in 46 out of 47 tasks (and maybe there’s a reason why the 47th one didn’t work…it involved more subcortical activity). Tasks included responses to mental math, sentence and story processing, but also higher order problem solving, social perception, and working memory. The data have a lot of ramifications in […]

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