Article from today's paper

>However, the Education Department does not want to let all special education students and their teachers off the hook, said Ronald Tomalis, acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education.

“There have been low expectations for some of these children all along,” he said. “And that’s not because of mental abilities, but because of poor instruction received in the early grades. We need to challenge schools that these children can achieve. Sure, they will need an intensive program, but they can be brought up to grade level.”

It’s nice to know how much the Ed. Dept knows about special ed to be able to make laws about it! Seems that they think the majority of kids are there due to low expectations. Yes there are those kids— they are called “high risk”. (In some cases, in some cases high risk refers to other kids).
Now they are no doubt dumping ld, ed, mild mr, ohi, mildly autistic, etc into that category!!

Of course there are ways of teaching ld kids, but the schools aren’t doing a very good job of it (present company excepted). So what about the school which may be trying harder but isn’t even using any known method of teaching dyslexics, say.

>For more seriously disabled children, he said, a proposed change to the law would let 1 percent of all children in a district skip the grade-level exams and instead take a test tailored to their abilities. If they scored well on that alternative, it could be counted in their school’s favor.

I’d like to see them give a test to some of the severely multiply handicapped kids I have taught. What flipping test???

—des

Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.[/quote]

kids who struggle will be labled ld. Low expectations for them while they do busy work all day long.

When their tests scores don’t count they won’t count. The expectations will fall.

I see this at my son’s school. There are very high expectations for regular kids and very low expectations for ld kids. There is just no middle ground.

My son is in a regular class and actually does better with the higher expectations. He did much worse in the ld class. He was miserable with the level of work because as he did worse they kept on lowering the bar which is an awful thing to do to a bright kid.

Before everyone was telling him he can’t, “Here is some rainbow spelling just work on that.”

Now he is proud because he can do decimals and algebra in 4th. It took tons of therapy but it was worth it.

>kids who struggle will be labled ld. Low expectations for them while they do busy work all day long.

Or not. LD kids may not be excluded because they aren’t considered severe enough.

>When their tests scores don’t count they won’t count. The expectations will fall.
I see this at my son’s school. There are very high expectations for regular kids and very low expectations for ld kids. There is just no middle ground.

I think people who know how to to work appropriately with ld kids will not let their expectations fall. I think this comes about not because of laws or no laws. If the schools don’t know how to work with ld kids (and I’d say that in many cases they don’t) then they do what your son did.

>My son is in a regular class and actually does better with the higher expectations. He did much worse in the ld class. He was miserable with the level of work because as he did worse they kept on lowering the bar which is an awful thing to do to a bright kid.

No, I’m not surprised at that. I think that depending on the district this could certainly be the case. I think if you want to see what appropriate expectations can do you should look at the private ld schools and centers. (Not all of them as there are some awful private schools too).

I think for an example take LMB centers or the Lab School in Washington DC. I think these are places where the expectations on ld kids are very high (don’t know about either first hand). Some parents have been writing on their kids experiences in private ld schools.

Just making the point that putting the emphasis on dealing with the disability and working on it *can* mean you expect quite a lot.

>Now he is proud because he can do decimals and algebra in 4th. It took tons of therapy but it was worth it.[/quote]

I’ve also seen ld kids struggle about to complete the regular assignments in a regular class and not learn too much reading (or whatever).

I have trouble with the whole process of government bureaucrats legislating such stuff when they are totally clueless.

—des

I think that one very big problem we have had in Sped services is a great disparity of program offerings from state to state, district to district and school to school. There are indeed pockets of brilliance peppered across the country, but I do think that overall, the general tendancy in the public schools has been indeed expect little from sped students, socially promote them until they are old enough to drop out, and do not worry, we need burger flippers and groundskeepers.

For years and years in my area the “experts” running the schools have talked in babbling circles when confronted by parents and other concerned parties about the low performance of LD (and other Sped) kids, patting themselves on the back heartily as they speak with their forked ttongues, all the while doing next to nothing to actually address the concerns of the “difficult parents” or improve the quality of Sped services.

It is for this reason that I personally like NCLB in all its components.

I agree that the people in the various legislators may not have all the background to make truly informed decisions about Sped (or a myriad of other topics either) but I do think that they have a good overall understanding of components of Sped, such as compliance with law and regulation, intent of policy and the problems with outcome when remediation/recovery is not achieved. The schools have repeatedly shown that they are not very concerned with the first, will talk at great lengths with out saying a whole lot on the second and too often very little interest in achieving the last.

Let the Sped kids as a group take the tests. Let them pass or fail based upon their own mastery of content. When they do fail, let us examine why they are failing. Is it inherant to their disability/condition/challenge/whatever that they will (severe MR, etc.)? Is it because they have not been given some type of therapeutic intervention that has shown to recover some children (AIT, O-G, IM, ABA, SID, etc.)? Or is it because the professional we entrust to edumicate our kids give them worksheets to colour quietly in the back of the room while they impart knowledge to the smarties?

When the percentage of children allowed to exempt or fail falls below what the current system has, when more and more schools “fail” themselves, the professionals who have been reluctant to really put forth their best effort will be placed finally on the hot seat, and we will get first some very deep “soul-searching” and then we may finally see a change for the better overall.

Excelsior!

Yeah but for some of these kids these standardized tests (which they over give to normal kids, imo, and that normal kids are getting taught to the test and all manner of bad teaching practices) are really hard on ld, adhd, bd, etc kids. The kid has no idea what is going on, and may not answer questions due to fear, not understanding the test itself, any myriad of reasons.

I guess I am not so sanguine about well let the tests come it doesn’t do any harm and might wake up the school district thing. I think the obsessive relentless giving of tests is bad enough for so-called normal kids but really bad for some ld kids, etc.

Decisions are made on these awful things which were bad enough when I went to school back during the dinosaurs.

—des

Do not get me wrong, it is not that I do not care about the stress the testing process will cause.

But is it better to turn a blind eye to the failure of so many schools to educate the Sped population? Is it better to allow BAU to continue as it has? A recent study in 4 prisons found that over 40% of the men there were Dyslexic, compared to about 4% of the school aged population. This is the result of social promotion as a policy.

At some point we are going to have to have a paradigm shift. The schools are notorious for flaunting laws and regs, and self policing, as they have done for the last 5 decades is a farce.

There will be hardships to be endured by the children; unfortunately, like other areas of remediation/recovery “no pain, no gain” may be a difficult truth for some to accept. If the system would put a greater effort into 1:1 using proven methods when these kids were very young, some would recover more fully than they do now, and many would be able to succeed in like typical kids.

I believe that underlying NCLB is indeed Congress’ anger at the arrogance of so many school professionals that despite the laws passed and lawsuits loss, we commoners should not question their superior understanding of LD’s. It is for this reason that I like NCLB.

A Dad who is proud to be recoverring an autistic son outside of the status quo system and not afraid to voice his opinion, limited tho it may be.

Dad,

Although I understand your feelings, I don’t actually think NCLB was a bill made in the anger of Congress. I think it was the “nice idea” that doesn’t really work feel good sort of thing. IF I REALLY thought that now with NCLB we will now have all sorts of kids working one on one because they need that; that I think ABA and OG and PG and LMB and all these things are going to be in schools and go to kids who need them then I would be happy to think that my nephew is sitting around trying to take a standardized test, when he shouldn’t. I just don’t think that’s going to happen .

I would be most happy if I am proven wrong and I have to go work in the public schools because they are doing such a wonderful job. Meanwhile I don’t think private tutoring is in any immediate danger.

—des

I really like it in theory… but I gotta tell ya, I can’t look a class of kids about to take a test well above their reading level and watch them go and be Measured Up and come back looking awfully beaten down… without telling them that yes, I know this testing stuff is not a measure of what they know (except… a thousand other messages shout otherwise) and yes, I think it sucks they have to sit through them, too. when we *could* be learning sometihng. Spending a month learning strategies to get them to *score* in the 8 percentile instead of the first, when I could be teaching them the kind of reading skills they’ll use when these tests are ancient history to them — that rather bites, as well.

Dad, I have taught LD youngsters for over 15 years. The majority of these students are good and will never land in jail, dyslexic or not.

You are quoting statistics that convey correlation, NOT CAUSATION.

I do find that argument that has been bandied about for years wearying, esp. when so many LD students are great people.

Now, may I suggest the real reason these 40% are in prison? A large number of prison inmates are ADHD. About 40% of the ADHD population has co-morbid LD. But, the condition that leads to the criminal behavior is the ADHD. A recent study has found that there are differences in the area of the brain that controls impulses. Please refer to the link on the home page.

As a resource teacher, I have known for years that the main issue in ADHD is self-control, or the control of impulses. The presence of hyperactivity (when it is present) is a symptom of poor impulse control, not the primary feature of ADHD, as was once thought.

Fast forward a few years to the untreated and SEVERE ADHD person who has impulses to commit acts of violence and other law breaking acts. The inability to pause and consider an impulse from all angles before acting upon it, can lead the person to act on any impulse.

Also consider that delayed gratification is difficult for severe ADHD. So, this explains why so many extroverted severely ADHD students are behavior problems. They live for the brief, momentary glory their outbursts provide them. Negative attention is still attention. They are not able to evaluate the long term effects of their behavior, so they do what comes to mind, when it comes to mind.

So, 40% of these folks also happen to have an LD. They are NOT in prison because they have an LD and have poor reading/writing skills. Most people who have limited reading and writing skills will never see the inside of a jail and will live their lives productively.

[quote=”Anitya”]Most people who have limited reading and writing skills will never see the inside of a jail and will live their lives productively.[/quote]

You make some valid points, but I have to disagree with what appears to be your underlying premise that those who have untreated ADHD will see the inside of a jail and will not live productive lives. Most people with untreated ADHD, just as most with untreated or poorly-remediated LD, will live their lives under the radar screen. Some will end up committing crimes, as indeed will some NT people. Most however will not. Clearly they will face major difficulties. Those whose LD or ADHD is ignored or unrecognized are known to struggle with self-esteem, under-achievement, anxiety and depression. Many will not understand the reason that they are unable to accomplish what others may accomplish and they may come to believe that they are dumb, lazy, inconsiderate and just plain bad, the way that our society teaches them. Some will achieve despite their many obstacles. Many of our great leaders of business are individuals whose ADHD was not recognized. Many of our great artists struggled with LD or ADHD and their struggles contributed to their greatness. Recognizing and treating LD and ADHD is the best thing we can do to help our children be happy, productive adults, but even if we fail in that task, it does not mean that they are doomed to a life of crime.

Here is where I will deffer with your opinion Anitya…

I do not think that such a high percentage of LD children (dyslexic in particular) also have co-morbid ADHD. What I think is occuring is a conditioned response the children with LD’s are having directly resulting from their LD.

If you have a child with a profound processing problems that makes learning to read impossible using commonly used teaching methods, it will not take very long before they begin exhibiting ADHD behaviors. Add to this the conditioning that remote control, instant gratification lifestyle brings, and I believe it is more learned behavior than intrinsict deficits in attention and executive functioning.

I had the pleasure of attending a seminar that included a presentation by Richard Van Acker in which he induced classic ADHD behavior in adults (mostly teachers) within 5 minutes. Of course it was short lived, but then these people did not have LD’s and had not be subjected to a lifetime of conditioning.

I do not believe for one instant that the significantly higher percentage of people with LD’s in prison is coincidence. Certainly there are very talented individuals who achieve remarkable things despite being dyslexic, et al. Trouble is, LD’s do not occur solely in persons who have talents and skills which will allow them to reach great hieghts; LD’s cut across all demographics, and it is the untalented, common persons with LD’s who face the great risk of winding up prison because they are disenranchised from our increasingly high-tech society.

Hi Dad,

<<I do not think that such a high percentage of LD children (dyslexic in particular) also have co-morbid ADHD. What I think is occuring is a conditioned response the children with LD’s are having directly resulting from their LD.>>

Anitya quoted 40% which sounds very accurate to me from what I have read. I tried to post a link that further supports this but I was unsuccessful.
If you go to the pub med site and plug in the term
“Naming and verbal memory skills in adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Reading Disability”, you will see what I am talking about.

Also, people wrongly assume that having ADHD is simply an issue of focus and concentration when actually, there are learning difficulties involved. A perfect example is the ADHDer who can’t remember a darned thing she/he just read. I have read that is possibly due to faulty working memory.
So obviously, that has nothing to do with operant conditioning.

<< Add to this the conditioning that remote control, instant gratification lifestyle brings, and I believe it is more learned behavior than intrinsict deficits in attention and executive functioning.>>

As one who has ADHD and problems with executive functioning in addition to NLD, I can assure you it has nothing to do with instant gratification.

<<I had the pleasure of attending a seminar that included a presentation by Richard Van Acker in which he induced classic ADHD behavior in adults (mostly teachers) within 5 minutes. Of course it was short lived, but then these people did not have LD’s and had not be subjected to a lifetime of conditioning.>>

I know you weren’t doing this but I have a problem with speakers like this as they come across as minimizing a real disorder. I also have relatives who again I can assure you do not have ADHD as the result of operant conditioning. It is real and if you saw them, you would know that it isn’t something they can turn off at will.

My two cents.

PT

I think perhaps you are misunderstanding me…

I am not suggesting that ADHD is not real, or that it can be easily resolved. I have met children with ADHD and have seen firsthand that it is indeed real and very challenging.

What I am saying however is that I do not believe that ALL the children being labeled ADHD really have this problem. I have also met children with processing problems who were labeled and medicated for ADHD for long periods of time who were in fact not ADHD but had an unrelated problem. They did not respond to the medication despite tweaks to dosage, they did not respond to the type of behavioral interventions which have shown to help children with ADHD.

When the people who work with children with ADHD full time say best estimates are 4% of the student population, and then a study is condcted in NC that finds about 10% of the children there are labeled ADHD and being medicated, I find that troubling. A similar study in VA found a similar finding. And these are not the state with the highest reported incidence or the highest use of stimulants in children.

My point in mentioning the Van Acker presentation was not to belittle those who have ADHD, but to illustrate how it can be over-used by people who may only have a limited background (such as a GP who schedules 6 patients an hour and spends less than 10 minutes with a child before writing a script) or may have their own agenda (such as some less scrupulous school administrators who find it easier to medicate children than to provide more specialized and intensive services for the actual problem).

As someone who has true ADHD, I should think that you would be more inclined to agree with me. When a diagnosis like ADHD is over applied it causes many people with no personal stake in the matter to discount the severity of the true condition (not so very different from the boy who cried wolf).

Some good responses.

Firstly, I don’t think I ever said most ADHD persons would see the inside of a prison. I said, a majority of prisoners are diagnosed with ADHD. These are different statements.

A prison doctor published an article on ADHD. I think he found 70% of the population in prison to be ADHD. They experimented with using medication as part of the rehab. program and a requirement of parole. When the person took and remained taking the meds. the recidivism rate dropped dramatically.

On instant gratification, the desire or need to follow an impulse, that second, is a form of an inability to delay gratification through planning and it is an executive function. When I refer to “gratification” I am not thinking in terms of happy, ha ha, gratification, but more the need to act on an impulse and do it now or you will “go nuts,” so to speak.

Some ADHD people have learning issues, this is why we find 40% and sometimes 60% co-morbidity with LD. Not ALL ADHD manifests in learning problems. Clearly there are variances in what is called ADHD,d with some more effected than others.

Many factors will influence turning to crime or not. The severity of the ADHD is one, the consistency and teaching within the home, the stability is another. And some folks just seem to defy all logic.

If all ADHDers were to go to prison, as I was believed to have said, I’s be there and so would other family members. However the stats. to bear out that more prisoners than not suffer ADHD and ADHD is related to self-control issues because of executive function implications.

Hi Dad,

Fair point about the GP who hardly spends any time with someone and diagnoses ADHD. Also, you are correct that it is overdiagnosed. But at the same time, it is also underdiagnosed, particularly, in females, and I think I was coming at it from that viewpoint.

Believe me, having NLD in addition to ADHD, I know better than anyone, the dangers of misdiagnosis as many NLDers commonly get the ADHD label when they have NLD. But as a person who actually feels I fit the ADHD label better than the NLD one, that is another reason for the viewpoints I expressed. Unlike people who fought against prescriptions for stimulants, I was fighting for them.

Regarding the speaker, I think another reason I reacted badly to him was he reminded me of the person who when you tell him/her that you have LD, in response says that everyone has a learning disability. Of course, I wasn’t there in person like you were and I do have to take that into consideration.

Anyway Dad, I hope what I said previously makes more sense and I apologize for any misunderstandings on my part.

PT

You know, I have wondered about that, the NLD/ADHD connection. I have a hypothesis.

Since the brain is such a complex organism, I don’t see “syndromes” as being one, unified thing, precisely. From my teacher viewpoint (I mean in working with students and observing them for some years), I tend to see collections of issues. While there is much overlap in LD, I do see some variances. I personally subscribe to the idea that an LD that is significant enough to cause academic difficulties and warrant a diagnosis, usually involves several processing issues, though some may be related. Some of the students I have taught have appeared to have fewer processing deficits and a few appear to have so many there is little to compensate wit, despite average range intellect.

I do believe that if you test enough, you will find that each of us is a collection, if you will, of competencies, not all of which are equal. Some of us acknowledge that we are visual or auditory. We acknowledge that that channel works best for us and we learn better when input comes through that channel. The represents an intraindividual discrepancy, of sorts. Most people just don’t have enough of these to cause overall learning difficulties.

So, given that NLD almost always looks like ADHD (plus other issues, of course), is it unreasonable to suggest that many or most NLD students actually have executive function issues along with others? Is it reasonable, if other issues are ruled out, to try a course of medcation to learn if some of the NLD symptoms may be managed?

I also see autism spectrum disorders similarly. As a collection of issues that may originate in different areas of the brain that collectively, when certain symptoms are co-morbid, take on the label of “autism.” In this manner we have mild or high-functioning autism all the way to severe. So, perhaps this is all in accordance with what areas of the brain have been effected and to what degree. Now, as to the whys, I am not venturing there on this post.

Does this make any sense and might the notion have any merit?

Hi Anitya,

<<I do believe that if you test enough, you will find that each of us is a collection, if you will, of competencies, not all of which are equal. Some of us acknowledge that we are visual or auditory. We acknowledge that that channel works best for us and we learn better when input comes through that channel. The represents an intraindividual discrepancy, of sorts. Most people just don’t have enough of these to cause overall learning difficulties.>>

I would agree with this point. It is my understanding and that the person without LD, while preferring one type of learning chanel is certainly capable of using the other one even though it might be harder. However, that is not a choice of many people with LD.

<<So, given that NLD almost always looks like ADHD (plus other issues, of course), is it unreasonable to suggest that many or most NLD students actually have executive function issues along with others? Is it reasonable, if other issues are ruled out, to try a course of medcation to learn if some of the NLD symptoms may be managed? >>

Excellent point. As an FYI, many NLDers and parents of NLD kids have debated whether the executive function issue is part of NLD and if so, does that make the NLD more severe? Some NLD researchers have said that XF is part of NLD and others have said no.

It seems there was alot of variety among NLDers so obviously, this issue is far from settled. The people who agree with you on ADHD diagnosed in NLDers really being the executive function issue also have suggested meds as a possibility. So you’re not alone in that view.

The reason I continue to think I have ADHD and not just an executive function issue in addition to NLD is hard to explain but let me try. Even when my NLD needs have been taken care of, I have always had problems with concentration, particularly on boring material, unless the meds are working well. Before meds, I hoped the caffeine would hit just right.

A good friend of mine who has NLD, also has XF issues. But it has never been suggested that this person has ADHD and I would agree with that. In other words, there is a clear difference between me and this person even though we both have NLD.

Also, I question whether meds would work for most NLDers in managing their organizational symptoms which I assume you are referring to. It just seems that the NLDers who were misdiagnosed with ADHD did not do well on stimulants or they were barely marginal.

Now, perhaps they would have done better on something like stratera or another class of meds, who knows. It would also be interesting to know if these folks had XF issues or didn’t.

<<Does this make any sense and might the notion have any merit?>>

Yes, what you said definitely makes sense and I think that your notions do have merit. Obviously, I don’t agree with every thing you said but there are other folks who do.

I forgot to mention this but Brumbak and two other researchers did a study in 84 that showed that tryiclics definitely were helpful with NLD spatial issues. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any replicated studies but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Excellent post.

PT

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

No, I was not referring to disorganizational issues, I was referring to ADHD behavior that looks pretty typical. I have had NLD and Asperger’s students who had difficulty with controlling attention and impulse, in addition to the disorganization. They did not get medicated, ever, so I never was able to learn if these symptoms might have been decreased.

[quote=”Anitya”]Thanks for the thoughtful response.

<<No, I was not referring to disorganizational issues, I was referring to ADHD behavior that looks pretty typical. I have had NLD and Asperger’s students who had difficulty with controlling attention and impulse, in addition to the disorganization. They did not get medicated, ever, so I never was able to learn if these symptoms might have been decreased.>>

Hi Anitya,

I talked to a friend who has NLD but definitely doesn’t have ADHD. This person said that he/she has trouble with attention when it is noisy but not when it is quiet even if the material that needs to be paid attention to is boring. That’s not true of me as before meds, I have always had trouble paying attention even under quiet circumstances.

So I am wondering how those students you are referring to do in quiet situations. I know, quiet and school classrooms don’t go together usually but I still thought I would ask.

As an FYI, I reviewed the literature again and Michael Roman maintains that the more severe the NLD is, the more likely there will be an XF deficit. I am not sure I buy that but I thought I would let you and other posters know what he has said.

Byron Rourke definitely feels that NLDers have the XF deficit. He answered one question I had as I was wondering how an NLDer could have it if they have good rote memory for verbal information which I didn’t think somone with an XF deficit would have. But he mentioned that when the material is more complex, that rote memory breaks down and I inferred that he felt that the X-F deals with that type of information.

PT

I was referring to the classic looking ADHD symptoms; plenty of hyperactivity and NLD.