Breaking Research : Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults [Premium]

Breaking Research : Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults [Premium]

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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[PREMIUM] Latest Research: Dyslexia, Sequential Memory, and Seeing the Big Picture

[PREMIUM] Latest Research: Dyslexia, Sequential Memory, and Seeing the Big Picture

“My mind doesn’t work like a train track. It’s more like a web page with lots of hyperlinks.” – dyslexic honors college student. It’s refreshing to see that more researchers take an interest on dyslexia beyond reading. In this recent paper from Belgium and Missouri, the challenges of remembering sequential information  for dyslexics and non-dyslexics was reviewed. Both working memory and sequencing were examined. Working memory is a type of short-term memory necessary for keeping information ‘in mind.’ Sequencing is remembering the order that things are said. It’s activities such as this that that can make something like following classroom instructions or remembering computer passwords easy or hard. Several interesting observations were made from their review of the research literature: – Dyslexic children and adults tend […]

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Question: Does Note-Taking with Spellcheck Help or Hinder Students with Dyslexia ?  [Premium]

Question: Does Note-Taking with Spellcheck Help or Hinder Students with Dyslexia ? [Premium]

 It’s a question that arises commonly – does spellchecking for students help or hinder when it comes to students and spelling? The concern is that allowing students to use spellcheck on a regular basis in the long run may prevent them learning correct spellings. Should age matter or the presence of dyslexia? What about working memory overload or ADD/ ADHD? The issue is not a trivial one especially because of recent efforts to The issue is not a trivial one especially because of recent efforts to put laptops away in college during lectures  based on computer-based vs. traditional note-taking by hand (N.B. this study did not specifically assess dyslexic students – see the NPR story also below). A recent paper by Hiscox and colleagues (see below) […]

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

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

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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Understanding Processing Speed and Dyslexia [Premium]

Understanding Processing Speed and Dyslexia [Premium]

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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Divide and Conquer: Working Memory Hacks [Premium]

Divide and Conquer: Working Memory Hacks [Premium]

“Divida et Impera.” – Julius Caesar There’s an old military strategy of Divide and Conquer that’s been in operation even before Julius Caesar’s Divida et Impera (Divide and Rule), and it turns out divide and conquer can be helpful if you’re dyslexic too. Recently, we were asked  by a professional colleague about the most common cognitive pattern we see in dyslexic individuals. Verbal reasoning and not uncommonly spatial reasoning are high, but working memory and processing speed are slow. How could it be, she asked that fund of knowledge and reasoning ability are so high though working memory is much lower or even quite low? The reason there is no tight connection between these cognitive groups is that working memory is not an index of total memory (for […]

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