[Alan]

http://www.telegraph...xportaltop.html


Has anyone read this artical today? It would be good to get peoples views on this.

Regards Alan

[Sam]

Hi Alan,

Yes it's causing quite a stir - unfortunatly I think it is just a very old fashioned way of thinking. Originally you were either clever or stupid becuase you had reading problems but nothing worth worrying about.

I think we haave come on considerably with the realisation you can be clever and not be able to read due to dyslexia.

The BDA released a statement in reply highlighting that there is scientific cognitive proof behind dyslexia...

It's a debate that will probably go on for some time now - but like they say, any press is good press, and it is getting the dyslexia name into more peoples heads!

[Sam]

An education expert has provoked a storm of protest by claiming that dyslexia is not a genuine condition. Writing in today's Times Educational Supplement, Professor Julian Elliott says that diagnosis is often used by children and their "sensitive families" to mask poor reading skills. Prof Elliott, of Durham University, writes "Behind all the rhetoric and reasoning, the anger and the angst, lies the thorny question of intellect and its relationship to literacy". After 30 years in the field he says he has little confidence in his ability to diagnose it. "Attempting to allocate a person to one of two groups - dyslexic sheep or ordinary poor reading goats - is an en deavour I would wish to avoid". Professor Susan Tresman of the British Dyslexia Association, said educational psychologists or trained teachers had no problems spotting the condition. She said "Dyslexia survives as a term because it is a real condition. I know of so many individual cases which completely refute what he is saying". Professor Elliott's views will be further aired in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary next Thursday.
Mail, 2 Sep 2005, p17; Mirror, 2 Sep 2005, p20

[Sam]

Apologies for this massive post - all related to that one article though!Times Educational Supplement. Friday 2 September 2005. p1.

Dyslexia storm brews

Leading professor says diagnosing poor readers as dyslexic does not help.
Warwick Mansell reports.

A row is to break out over dyslexia after a respected educationist said the condition "does not exist in a way that is of any help to anyone".

Writing in today's TES, Julian Elliott, professor of education at Durham university, says dyslexia is a "construct", which has gained currency largely for emotional, rather than scientific, reasons.

Experts have failed to agree what it is, and being diagnosed as dyslexic makes virtually no difference to the treatment that the individual requires, he writes.

Professor Elliott says poor readers want to be called dyslexic because of a widespread, but wrong, perception that dyslexics are generally intellectually bright. After 30 years in the field, he says, he has little confidence in his ability to diagnose it.

Professor Elliott writes: "Contrary to claims of 'miracle cures', there is no sound, widely-accepted body of scientific work that has shown that there exists any particular teaching approach more appropriate for 'dyslexic'
children than for other poor readers."

Professor Elliott is to feature in a Channel 4 documentary on the subject on Thursday, which will highlight an intervention project in Cumbria and north Yorkshire which is making progress with poor readers without labelling them as dyslexic.

The claims, which are to be followed by a conference next month in London entitled "The Death of Dyslexia?", will excite fevered debate. Government figures have estimated that one in 10 Britons is dyslexic. Professor Elliott said his arguments follow an exhaustive review of the research literature. But Professor Susan Tresman, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, said: "The professor's comments seem to ... imagine that one can encompass what dyslexia is within reading, which is unwise."

In reality, she said, it embraced a wide range of conditions, including difficulties with number and sequencing and retrieval of information as well as problems with spelling and reading.

There was no difficulty for educational psychologists or trained teachers in spotting the condition, she said.

"Dyslexia survives as a term because it is a real condition, experienced by six million people in the United Kingdom. I know of so many individual cases which completely refute what he is saying," she said.

Professor Tresman agreed that no link had been established between dyslexia and intelligence.

However, the BDA's website does attempt to link the condition to positive characteristics, listing a number of "possible strengths" including dyslexics might be "innovative thinkers" and "creative in many different ways".

For years, students diagnosed as dyslexic have been given up to 25 per cent extra time in GCSEs, A-levels and vocational assessments. Some 180,000 of the 26 million papers taken in 2003-4, the last year for which figures are available, were awarded extra time.

• warwickmansell@tes.co.uk


Times Educational Supplement. Friday 2 September 2005. p18.

Dyslexia myths and the feel-bad factor.

Julian Elliott. Another Voice.

H unting, immigration, animal testing, dyslexia: some issues are guaranteed to evoke emotional reactions. As I stood in the grounds of Durham university a few months ago, berated by some who had just attended my lecture questioning the scientific, status of dyslexia, all the time my discomfort being filmed by a Channel 4 television crew, I recognised that an appeal to logic or science was insufficient. Dyslexia persists as a construct largely because it serves an emotional, not a scientific, function.

Let's be absolutely clear about the concept of dyslexia from the outset.
First, there is no consensus about how it should be defined or what diagnostic criteria should be used. Forget about letter reversals, clumsiness, inconsistent hand preference and poor memory - these are commonly found in people without reading difficulties, and in poor readers not considered to be dyslexic.

After three decades as an educationist, first as a teacher of children with learning difficulties, then as an educational psychologist and, latterly, as an academic who has reviewed the dyslexia literature, I have little confidence in my (or others') ability to offer a diagnosis of dyslexia.

What I can explore includes an individual's strengths and weaknesses in reading and spelling, which strategies he or she typically employs, any visual or phonological problems, whether working memory is problematic, and the extent to which anxiety or learned helplessness affect performance. I can offer an assessment of an individual's circumstances and offer guidance for intervention, but attempting to allocate a person to one of two groups
- dyslexic sheep or ordinary poor reading goats - is an endeavour I would wish to avoid. Advances in genetics and brain studies may one day help us to make meaningful distinctions, but we're still a long way away.

There is, however, an equally damning failing of the dyslexia "industry" - that is, the spurious link between diagnosis and intervention. In medicine, a diagnosis is typically undertaken in the belief that this will indicate the most appropriate form of treatment. Similarly, many believe that a diagnosis of dyslexia will signpost appropriate intervention and, ultimately, a clear path to "recovery". One frequently hears, "I was not diagnosed dyslexic until the age of 'x'. If only this had happened earlier, my problems could have been prevented."

Yet a diagnosis of dyslexia tells us virtually nothing about how best the individual can be helped to become a better reader.

Contrary to claims of miracle cures, there is no sound, widely accepted, body of scientific work that has shown that there exists any particular teaching approach which is more appropriate for "dyslexic" children than for other poor readers.

There are, as will be suggested on a Channel 4 programme next week, approaches which have great promise. Yet these appear to help all youngsters, not merely a subgroup of so-called dyslexics.

Let's not beat about the bush, though; let's get the key issue out into the open. Behind all the rhetoric and reasoning, the anger and the angst, lies the thorny question of intellect and its relationship to literacy.
Anxieties abound in this area, embodied in the words of a mother of a child who I was assessing: "Our Darren can't read very well but he's not stupid.
Not like his father - he went to the daft school!"

Public perceptions often link reading difficulties with intelligence and, in our culture, an attribution of low intelligence often results in feelings of shame and humiliation.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the widespread, yet wholly erroneous, belief that dyslexics are intellectually bright but poor readers would create a strong, sometimes impassioned demand to be accorded a dyslexic label. The fact that decoding text is, in reality, a low-level cognitive activity that can sometimes be accomplished by those with severe intellectual difficulties often passes unnoticed.

Yes, of course teachers should not make assumptions about a child's cognitive ability primarily based upon existing levels of literacy. Yes, of course we need to provide detailed assessments. Yes, of course, some children will require special resources and dispensations, but we certainly don't need spurious diagnoses of dyslexia to achieve such ends.

Julian Elliott is professor of education at Durham university.

The Dyslexia Myth will be shown on Channel 4 on September 8 at 9pm. A follow-up conference will be held in London on October 21. For details,
email: KalvinderDhillon@cem.dur.ac.uk

[Alan]

Anyone interested in contacting professor Julian Elliott, here is his details

Alan

Professor Julian (Joe) Elliott
Joined Durham in 2004 from the University of Sunderland where he was Acting Dean of the School of Education and Lifelong Learning.Taught in mainstream and special education prior to practising as an LEA educational psychologist. Research and teaching interests include achievement motivation, SEN, behaviour management, study support, cognitive education and psychological assessment. Currently President of the International Association for Cognitive Education. Visiting Research Fellow at Yale University, 2004. Member of the The Times Educational Forum and columnist of TES Extra: Special Needs.
Telephone : 0191 334 8412
e-mail : joe.elliott@durham.ac.uk

[Sam]

Extremely good letter Chris... if it's ok I'd like to quote a few sentences from time to time (with reference of course).

I am pleasently suprised about all of the hyp this issue has created - although not pleasently about the actual topic concerned in the light that it is.

I wish I could get my brain round the massive body of text to write an adequate reply - but at present I'm still trying to arrange it all into a sensible structure!

[Joseph]

You're always welcome to stay here. We're always readly to help.

[powervalve]

IQ scores are meaningless unless you know what the test is for example Mensa uses Cattell which has a standard deviation of 24 whereas WAIS and WISC use a standard deviation of 15. So an IQ of 130 on the WAIS test equates to 148 on the Cattell test. I believe a better way of comparing IQ, if that's what people want to do is to use their percentile rating.

IQ tests can only measure attributes of intelligence which are measurable, and cannot grade things like intuition, reading people, and 3 dimensional situations, creativity etc. But what do they do measure they do well. By that I mean if they are conducted one-on-one by a psychologist, then they are very accurate with little margin for error. Most so called IQ tests are really there to flatter one ego, and make money for the testers/Mensa.

What is more important with the IQ test (real ones) is the accompanying report, as the overall IQ is averages of averages. The subsets paint a clearer picture and present and multi-dimensional profile. Another problem with IQ is that they are designed for the general population. WAIS for example is only accurate for IQ between 70 and 130 which covers about 97% of the population. Any online tests should be treated non too seriously, as geuine ones have been exhaustively tested to standardised norms.

I could go on and on, but that would get too boring.....................

[powervalve]

Spellboy, on Sep 8 2005, 12:21 PM, said:

I dont agree with, IQ tests, full stop.I dont see a point to them.

Spellboy

just because you don't see the point in them, doesn't mean they have no validity. Used correctly, they are a very good tool. And most psychologists have spent a long time training and applying their results which can be scientifically substantiated.