Two bad examples of over-egged puddings on the Today programme this morning on the subject of dyslexia.
First misleading words. We were told that ‘the majority of children who fail [to achieve expected targets] in SATS tests in junior school have dyslexia.’ What percentage does that suggest? It was actually 55% – technically a majority, but not what’s usually meant when someone says ‘the majority of people do this or that’.
Secondly a representative of a dyslexia charity Xtraordiary People showed a strange naiveity. She sounded offended when the presenter suggested that some people consider that dyslexia is sometimes used as an excuse label for someone who is either lazy or not particularly academic.
I’m sorry, such offence is entirely unrealistic. Talk to any teacher and they will tell you that a good number of pushy middle class parents whose children under-achieve insist their children have dyslexia – even if they are in the above 45%. This isn’t saying dyslexia doesn’t exist or isn’t an important problem, but it’s silly to pretend this doesn’t happen, because it does.
Taking this line doesn’t help gain support for dyslexia – it’s much better to be honest.
This reminds me of a cartoon I saw long ago, probably in Punch. A headmaster is berating a pupil. “If you were middle-class, you’d be dyslexic. But as you’re working class, you’re just thick.”
You’ve been reading Futures again, haven’t you? (This week’s).
What I find sad is the way that parents who really want to emphasize that their dyslexic child is special try too hard.
I’m currently reading Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf – a very interesting book on the brain and reading. Yet she too falls into this trap, as a mother of a dyslexic child. She says that ‘It is no longer reducible to coincidence that so many inventors, artists [etc]... have a childhood history of dyslexia.’
As evidence of this she lists two inventors, a couple of entrepreneurs, two artists (one of which is Leonardo da Vinci, for whom the diagnosis must be at least speculative) and one Nobel Prize winning scientist, Baruj Benacerraf.
‘What is it,’ she asks, ‘about the dyslexic brain that seems linked in some people to unparalleled creativity?’
In a science book, this seems a bizarre leap to unproved causality. What about all those thousands of other brilliants inventors, artists, scientists etc. that she doesn’t list? Should I turn it round and say that it seems their lack of dyslexia ‘seems linked to unparalleled creativity’?
With all due respect to Baruj Benacerraf, I think most of us could name one or two other Nobel Prize winning scientists who probably had even more unparalleled creativity.
As a final case of the dangers of highlighting ‘exceptional’ individuals linked with dyslexia, I was unnerved to see Tom Cruise highlighted on the Xtraordinary People website. Hmm. For anyone who has seen Mr Cruise’s video on Scientology, while there’s no doubt he’s an extraordinary person (sorry, an xtraordinary person), he’s certainly not someone I’d like as a role model for my children…
I have a feeling that the tendency to categorize and label children is less about medical diagnosis than about the more precise rationing of finite resources, and the decreasing ability of teachers to teach. If a child with ‘special needs’ is to get extra help at school, it has to have what’s called a ‘statement of special educational needs’, which, if given, unlocks local-authority funds for special-needs provision. As you can imagine, getting a statement is rather hard, and the process inevitably makes children who might be at the fringe of the normal range into qualitatively different special cases with ‘disorders’ that require ‘diagnosis’. Dyslexia is a prime example of this, and so are all sorts of things we never had when we were kids, such as Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD and so on. My elder daughter, who has a strange and wonderful mind, has been diagnosed with Asperger’s but I fought this for years. To me, my daughter is just my daughter, and the problem is more in the minds of everyone else—especially narrow-minded, over-stretched and poorly trained teachers whose inability is reflected in their overly narrow definition of what constitutes normal – outside of which they claim they cannot ‘cope’. So whose problem is that? And why should children be medicalized, victimized—even demonized—as a consequence of the ineptitude of the so-called teaching profession in England nowadays?
The first school that I went to had a philosophy that a child should be allowed between 3 and 5 years to complete the “traditional first 3 years”. Children who were held back (for any number of reasons) were not “labeled” or “special” – perhaps they went to a few separate lessons with a remedial teacher – but there was definitely no stigma or struggling-against-the-wind-sense attached to it.
I think that this is a very creative way of dealing with late-developers or people with mild learning problems, as it makes it so that they are less likely to have to constantly struggle through the rest of their schooling (and resort to finding excuses for disappointing results).
It was certainly effective for me – apart from that brief early period of sorting out the direction in which the writing needed to go (and that hiding under the table every time I got it wrong was not the solution!), school and university did not present any significant problems.
On a lighter note, I once heard that dyslexia is/was (?) the most vandalised article in user-edited Wikipedia, requiring repeated correction for spelling/ readability.
Nice one, Lee. Mind you it’s slightly reminscent of ‘did you know there’s no such word as “gullible” in the dictionary’ as a statement.
Yeah. Pity the gullible dyslexic.
I was diagnosed dyslexic in the 4th grade. I was tested and found to have a “borderline genius IQ” however my 4th grade curriculum, spelling & math scores were not up to par. I was capable of understanding & solving college level algebra & geometry in elementary school! I was NOT lazy. I tried harder than you could imagine but i continuously reversed the Greater than Less than symbols and switched from addition to subtraction mid problem. I also had extreem difficulty reading and comprehending what I read because the lines of text overlapped or the word I was reading reversed in my mind. For example the sentance may have read, ” Katie saw a dog.” I would read, “Katie was a dog.” you can understand how this could get confusing. Thus, I would have to stop reading and re-read the same sentance to get the correct meaning. This process could be extreemly frustrating. As a result my eyes would become strained and I would subsiquently get unbearable migraine headaches. i have since learned to cope and compensate for my weaknesses and accentuate my strengths.
I agree that many of todays children are diagnosed as dyslexic, ADD, ADHD, and so on as a cop out and a way for the school system to collect thier extra funding. in my research, i have discovered that many school systems recieve extra funding per “learning disabled student”. the more students they can lump into this catagory, the more cash they recive! My parents had the fore thought to pull me out of the public school system and put me in private school and specialized tutoring but not all parents can afford these options! I am currently working on a book that will relay my theories about dyslexia as well as reflect a wealth of real medical knowledge and treatment options. I also plan on helping those affected and effected by dyslexia cope with thier emotions stemming from diagnosis. i have set the bar high for myself. I was hoping that some of you may have some words of wisdom or info you’d be willing to share. Thanks for any help you can offer!
Thanks for your comments, Tori. I would stress I wasn’t saying that all or even most children labelled dyslexic by their parents or the school were lazy, merely that it was wrong to get offended at the suggestion that this is sometimes the case.
I think it’s unlikely that you’ll get many words of wisdom at this point as this quite an old post, so there might not be many readers notice it.