There is no such thing as dyslexia.

[VioletBaudelaire]

www.theherald.co.uk/display.var.1430434.0.0.php?utag=40859
I've had my say!

I'm talking about how intelligence is perceived. That is literacy-focused.

Xenia, I was talking about how a school allocates its resources. They would be looking at all the children.

BBS - surely is it percieved through use of language, level of unserstanding, ability to interpret facts, compare and contrast with other literature etc but if you can do all that to a high level but can't actually spell your name...where does that leave you?

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing here Noodlestroodle!

There is no such thing as dyslexia in Spain!

Apparently the way the language is constructed it doesn't discriminate against a percentage of the population like English does!

Nooo - I am just giving my thoughts!

Phew...

Deesting - but what about children who transpose numbers, cannot commit multiplication tables to memory, have appalling record with possessions and self-organisation...

See - descriptions like that do make me wonder about ds...

And he is a good reader...

Dunno, - my dad told me that about Spain! He's just beem diagnosed with profound dyslexia age 60!

Friend of mine has recently returned to UK from Spain due to lack of school that support SENs...

but noodlestroodle, why should these children be mixed up with children who can'r read under an umbrella of dyslexia ? - this is the point for me- almost meaningless diagnosis if it is taken to mean all sorts of different problems

Sanae - that is the whole point - dyslexia is a very unspecific umbrella term which takes in a massive range of "problems" - so one child who is an excellent reader can be as dyslexic as the one who can't progress beyond single syllable words to the one who simply does not understand multiplication tables to the one who suffers from all three.

It is a confusing term and one which many ed psychs are not especially happy about but at the moment there is no other label but it is as I understand it generally a good term to apply to a child who has a normal or above IQ who is behind their peers in a specific area of processing and retreiving information and without impediment or unusual external factors

A lot of things come in ranges with varying symptoms too like autism and dyspraxia or ADD. You find the general heading and then work with the individual child. Then you get some children who are just bone idle or badly behaved and some who have problems because they're beaten with sticks at home and shut up in cupboards. So presumably any school ideally will get to teh bottom of every problem as will the parents also be trying to do. If there are short hand ways to check who might have what however then so much the better. I think my brother and his colleagues worked out a very simple test that virtually anyone could apply to diagnose one particular psychiatric condition and those kind of tests are great because you can send them out with people without m any skills and they can check and refer.

But Noodle - the excellent reader isn't really as dyslexic as the person who can't progress beyond single syllables - OK they might both be dyslexic, but I would say that the reading levels you describe would place them in different locations on the dyslexic continuum (assuming that they are of similar age and general intelligence).
And further down the thread the fact that a 'normal' IQ is not necessary for a diagnosis of dyslexia was discussed......

There are lots of different reasons why a person might experience reading difficulties. Dyslexia is one reason; the reading difficulties would then usually form part of a profile of other related difficulties (often spelling, memory problems, speed of processing, phonological awareness etc). I think that the chap causing the furore is suggesting that dyslexics aren't more 'worthy' of help than other types of reading difficulties. At least, I hope that's what he's saying..... If he really is saying the whole thing is made up, then I really would have to take issue with him!

I would have thought precise terms were more useful than ill-defined umbrella terms. To most people dyslexia would mean at very least a difficulty with reading, and therefore to start using the term for people who are excellent readers but who have other differing problems just seems unhelpful to me. If the term is to be used then surely the definition could be tightened up , for example a defined level of reading difficulty not due to other identifiable causes such as glue ear,lack of stimulus at home etc. Other terms could be used for other problems. None of the terms give any explanation about the cause, but it would at least be helpful if they could give an indication of the "treatment" , hence the need to be specific. If there was no problem with resources then it wouldn't matter what we called it, but the unease about use of the term is surely to do with a feeling that certain groups are targetted for help, others aren't. The term has become a sacred cow that you are not allowed to criticise - but some of these critics have very interesting contributions to make to the reading debate. Surely we can't think we've got it right at the moment with our schools producing so many functionally illiterate children. Lets listen and consider even if we don't agree.

Prehaps there needs to be a more precise definition of dyslexia so that everyone knows what we are talking about.

I think that what the professor is saying is that all children with reading problems are deserving. He feel rather than spending lots of money on diagnosis of mild dyslexics we should use to the money to sort out the reading difficulties at an early age. Children with high IQs and low IQs both respond to intervention programmes equally well.

Personally I think that a lot of SEN money does get wasted. For example I know someone who got given a free laptop because he is dyslexic to do teacher training (9 month PGCE course). He has been allowed to keep the laptop even though he has dropped out of the course. Surely he should have been made to return the computer to the LEA so that another student could use it.

My little boy who has a mild hearing impairment gets no extra help whatsoever. He is doing well, but struggles with spelling tests because of the background noise of the classroom. He would benefit if an LSA took him out of the classroom to a quiet place

Just a quick opinion (wine and takeaway await me). I taught in a London FE college for a while and was disgusted by how easily young people were labelled 'dyslexic'. It was obvious, even to my untrained eye, that some people very definitely DID have some form of dyslexia or other specific learning need, whereas the vast majority just didn't have a very good level of English. I think mis-diagnosing people is insulting and damaging on all fronts - to those who are genuinely dyslexic, and to those who are labelled as such but almost certainly aren't.

Give it a little while, and he'll be a 'reknowned' education/child "guru"

Why do the media give people like this the time of day? Honestly....

LA - misdiagnosing a child with dyslexia and them being labelled "stupid" is far more damaging than labelling a child dyslexic when they arent.

Dyslexia comes in many forms. Have you any training in this?

vvv- have you read whole thread, why are you so dismissive of another opinion. I agree with loveangel, misdiagnosis is unhelpful and damaging both ways.

Frances5- agree completely

I havent read everything on here, but this makes me so cross! I have dyslexia, but this wasnt picked up until 3 weeks before my 1st year alevel exams. After lots of tests it showed i had an above average IQ but a reading age of a 10 year old, but as i was so 'clever' i had managed to cover up and cope with it, my main 'tool' for this was my memory and i have an AMAZING memory. Now i am an adult i get so embarased writing in front of people because i make such terrible spelling mistakes, even on things like my name-doing 9's instead of p's is my usual!
I had no support through school, and then a little bit through Uni, so this was definatly never an excuse to be lazy through school, infact quite the opposite, because i had to work extra hard. and i dont use it to make me look clever, because actually i am quite embarassed about it. I never tell employers or have it on my CV.

sarz,
No one has said that dyslexics are thick or lazy on this thread.

Why is it that people get so emotional by the suggestion that the term "dyslexia" has been become meaningless. A word with 180 definitions is not a clear condition.

There are all kinds of things that cause bright people to have reading difficulties from poor teaching to having glue ear at a critical age.

I thinkk one of the main problems with dyslexia is the complexity of it and the broad spectrum of problems it can cause - this means that there is very little educational understanding of it and as each individual can suffer in a different way, this means that the support & funding needed to accomodate each individual would be huge. I strongly think this is one of the reasons why it is ignored my so many schools & LEA's and it is. My mum is heavily dyslexic but still went on to get a uni degree as a mature student. She did this with intelligence but a huge amt of hard work and tenacity as she faced a lot of bias and criticism due to the extra time she got etc. She has problems spelling, writing sentances, handwriting but also with numbers. She can't remember number sequences so has to have a card without a pin. When you spell something out or list out a number you have to do it one at a time otherwise after the second digit she's lost it. Filling in forms is a nightmare as she can't always write them etc. So really this is a disability. It's not good enough to dismiss it as a reading disability as that is just one small area of it. If people actually understood it, they would be less dismissive.