Join us for a live webchat with Professor Dorothy Bishop, Tuesday 16 December 1-2pm

[KateHMumsnet]

We've had a few requests for a webchat with Professor Dorothy Bishop on academic research into language disorders, dyslexia and literacy issues - so we're delighted to announce that she will be joining us for a webchat on Tuesday 16 December at 1pm.

Dorothy is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford, where she heads a programme of research into children’s communication impairments. She is also a supernumerary fellow of St John’s College Oxford, as well as a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society. As well as publishing in conventional academic outlets, she writes a popular blog and tweets as @deevybee.

Please join us in welcoming Professor Bishop on Tuesday 16 December from 1-2pm, or post your questions in advance on this thread.

Well, I'm not trying to pass it off as poor teaching. I'm bloody sick of people implying that it is. So I don't think that's the answer.

Very interesting discussion, thanks.

Destinycalls - have you come across Talk Tools, we used it, from our SaLT, for my son with CP and I know other children with Down's Syndrome who have also used it.

It is a series of exercises, straws and whistles to strengthen the mouth muscles and worked very well for us. Entirely stopped his dribbling!

It’s time for me to go and do boring things, but thanks for all your questions. I will post some more material on outcomes when I get a moment.
Meanwhile, for those interested in children’s language problems, our RALLI campaign is a good resource, with brief videos accompanied by additional reading materials. There’s an index here:
ralliindex.blogspot.co.uk/
Live webchat is all a bit frantic, but it’s been very stimulating and made me think of areas where more needs to be done.
Best wishes to all

Dorothy

Thank you very much!

Perhaps it IS poor teaching though. If you define poor teaching as allowing children/young people with dyslexia to be taught by people who are not up to the job of teaching them. It isn't the teachers fault they can't teach and don't have the skills though of course.

Thank you so much for coming Dorothy.

You're a very fast 'typer' too!

Ok, most, perhaps it is poor teaching.

But I am not sure why it's helpful to tell teachers they're bad, and then offer nothing by way of solutions.

I would like to be a better teacher. It seems to me the sensible thing to do is to read up on the academic research and to try to understand what people write about teaching. That is all I am trying to do.

Oh, yes, thank you very much for coming, dorothy!

I appreciated your time spent and will get through more of your blog later on.

'But I am not sure why it's helpful to tell teachers they're bad, and then offer nothing by way of solutions.'

It's the cheapest way of dealing with it I suppose. Successive Governments like to blame all of society's difficulties on teachers, as it saves them actually addressing them themselves.

Yes, I'm sure that's true.

Thank you Dorothy.

As promised, I've compiled some references to long-term outcomes of children with language problems. This makes me think that we need a good review of this field!
Anyhow, I'm afraid this is only bare bones of a few studies, but I hope it will answer some questions.
see figshare.com/articles/Summaries_of_follow_up_studies_of_language_impaired_children/1271918

thank you. Lots of interesting things here to read.

Thank you for your response.

Thank you for the link. I'll be joining zzzzz virtually (if she'll have me) one evening with a bottle of wine and have a read. Pretty much all my reading for fun seems to be on this kind of thing these days but I usually have to spend hours searching, so I'm very grateful for a short cut.

Just home from work. Thank you so much for your answers.

I look forward to checking out all the links.

Really wish I had been home yesterday to read this thread as it happened.

Just reading totoro's question and answer about learning to read and phonics.

We are lucky in that my ds did not start learning to read until the age of 6, which is normal in Belgium. Even so, it is a struggle. He finds it very difficult not only to pronounce the sounds but also to recognise them. To help him with this, his teacher, therapists and I all sat around the table and came up with his very own sign language with a sign for each individual sound - nearly 40 in total. These signs are based on cued articulation and the speech dyspraxia program (which we had been using for a couple of years), and flemish sign language ( totally different to BSL). And some we have made up because they seem to fit

This seems to have worked and ds has shown that he does know the sounds and can recognise them when written.

He only started learning to read and write in september so this term has been a whirlwind and I suspect we will face more challenges.

Thanks for your answer Dorothy in relation to the need or not for an assessment for dd at 15 (in light of many indications of dyslexic tendencies, though mild/coping well).
Lionheart's question was also helpful in that it indicated that it's not unusual for an assessment to be made and extra support put in place where needed even at Uni level. So I guess we'll see how the GCSE's go - looking OK but ATM some time management issues to work on - and then keep an open mind about seeking assessment and support at either A level or Uni.
Thinking looking for a dyslexia friendly Uni too would be a good thing to consider - though hopefully all would have some awareness and support possibilities in place?

kelda that is really interesting. Can I ask, did you have one sign for each sound regardless of how it was spelled? Or a different sign for each version of the sound?