I'm stumped!

I was really excited with the gains my son made with reading reflex. The school sort of didn’t believe it either.

I learned there is no reason why I should explain, justify or convince anyone of anything at the school. I just keep my head low and let them believe he is doing well because of them. GAG!

The alternative was for them to dumb things down. I think they almost wanted to prove me wrong. He was miserable and so was I. I have had a few people tell me to keep my head and not convince people at the school that he has ovecome anything. They don’t believe it is possible so the tend to keep things at a lower level. He gets a new teacher every year and she will figure out how he is doing and not base anything on previous deficits that have long since been remediated.

I think in general people think people can’t change. Last year when my son attracted his soccer coach’s attention because of his skill rather than his lack of skill as in year’s past, I told him about how he used to play. I could tell he thought he was a natural athlete—and really didn’t believe me.

The school, of course, has a vested interest in believing he couldn’t have done that well. It makes them look bad since they couldn’t teach him.

Beth

Thanks guys,

Me being me (and probably more than a little NLD myself) I thought they would be as thrilled as I am for my son. Just goes to show … .

Lil

[quote=”Lil”]Thanks guys,

Me being me (and probably more than a little NLD myself) I thought they would be as thrilled as I am for my son. Just goes to show … .

Lil[/quote]

Lil, Beth, and Linda,

As an adult with NLD, I have definitely learned that there are people in this world who have evil intentions that are not so obvious at first glance. But what I am having a hard time understanding is why so many educators have their heads stuck in the sand.

Linda, you’re a nurse, right? If folks in your profession did what educators did and for example used treatments that were clearly shown by research not to work and this had been true for several years, you would be sued in a heartbeat. Yet educators are doing the same thing and getting away with it.

Also, why are they in the field if they believe they can’t help someone? Can you imagine the press that a nurse or doctor would get if he/she told a patient with an unusual condition that there was nothing that could be done even when there was?

Is it because they don’t want to bothered in light of the extreme pressures on educators in this age of testing seemingly every week? But this attitude seemed to be prevalent even before the testing pressures increased.

Also, educators seem to be upset if a student uses a different organization method that is different from the standard format such as one notebook intead of a million one. That requires no additional effort on their part but because they have been doing it a million years that way, how dare a student upset the status quo even if the method he/she is using works alot better.

Please understand I am not bashing teachers as my best friend is one. But I know she/he would be appalled at the horror stories on this board.

Anyway, as I learned about NLD, I realized that it was important for me to try to understand the perspective of the other side even if I completely disagreed with what they were doing. But I am at a lost with what is happening in education and hope you all can shed some light on this for me.

PT

I can remember in nursing school a discussion about whether or not nursing was a profession. The professor’s opinion was that it was not. A true profession has it’s own research base and nurses did not have their own research base to follow. They followed medicine or sometimes followed tradition. Nursing had plenty of what were termed ‘sacred cows’ which were procedures that were done one way because practitioners always just thought these practices made the most sense. These practices became sacred and were never questioned.

One such practice was treatment of decubitus ulcers (bed sores) an area that was the field of nursing where the doctors allowed the nurses to take the lead. For years we were told to put heat lamps on these ulcers and to keep the wound as dry as possible. The field of nursing expanded and nursing research developed into a field of it’s own. Nursing researchers found that wounds healed best through keeping the wound wet not dry and the heat lamps were breaking down tissue and causing cell damage. I am not saying there still aren’t plenty of sacred cows in nursing but things are improving.

It seems that teachers have many different scientific disciplines to look to for guidance of their practice. We need educators in the field performing research. Not just former teachers who are interesting in putting forth their pet project as a means of making a name for themselves. Teachers should not be relying on the field of psychology or medicine to gain knowledge and they should not be doing things just because they seem like they should work. They need to be actively involved in the scientific process. This needs to start at the university level with students doing research as part of the curriculum requirement to become a teacher.

Until we have teachers doing more of the research this phenomena will continue.

Your son’s gains should be recorded by the tutor in such a fashion they could not be doubted - his gains should be replicable in the public school’s setting. Are they? If so, are they refusing to listen to him perform? I’m confused.

Ken Campbell

Hi Ken,

My son has inattentive ADHD, NLD, APD, and anxiety. He takes Ritalin and Wellbutrin. When tested for LDs (privately) his point discrepancy on the WJ-III Broad Writing vs. the WISC-III IQ was 26 points. His point discrepancy for Broad Reading was 19 points. The school system identified him with a disability in written expression, and has refused to teach him how to read for two years (even though that is one of his “unique needs, not only his identified disability”). I was told he would never learn to read phonetically because of the APD. I said he MUST learn to read phonetically because of the APD.

And I presented current research papers, NCLB info, papers from our state DOE website - all stating that children would start to be left behind in about 6th grade if they couldn’t read phonetically. I was told emphatically that unless he was at least two years behind, he would not receive reading services (I asked them to show me that part of the law - they couldn’t). The testing at the reading clinic proved he WAS more than two years behind, mind you.

Rather than go to due process, I decided to spend my time and money on the Read America clinic (Phono-Graphix). The clinic used the Woodcock Reading Mastery Word ID and Word Attack subtests, as well as the PG tests. They used the same tests after the one week intensive, and my sped supervisor is telling me that the testing is invalid because you don’t use the same test closer than one year. I understand that, but I was present for the pre-test, and there is no way my son could have “learned” the material on that test. I know the way his mind works. I’d be happy to let them use a different test so I could prove the results, but I really don’t trust their reading specialist who does the testing (I’ve had dealings with her before).

Anyway, I told the sped super I would be happy if she wanted to cut the post test scores in half, because that still shows very remarkable gains. It’s just sour grapes because my son proved he could learn to read phonetically and made them look bad.

I didn’t understand that originally, I thought they would be as pleased for him as I am. Oh well.

None of this really matters, anyway, since he has never received reading services in the public school, nor will he ever receive reading services in the public school.

Of course, I am on a campaign to educate the higher-ups in the county so they don’t let another child like my son slip through the cracks. I keep hoping somebody will evenutally “get it.”

Lil