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This week Chanté looks at whether pop culture can get the portrayal of neurodiversity right – from Bart in The Simpsons to Phil Dunphy in Modern Family. And why people self-diagnosing on TikTok can be problematic.

Research has repeatedly shown dyslexia is associated with specific cognitive strengths. These include visual-spatial processing, narrative memory, problem-solving, and reasoning. While there is still a lot to learn about these advantages and how they work, in this video we unpack what we know about dyslexia, and what many studies have concluded about these strengths.

A bill introduced this month would have fulfilled a longtime dream of advocates for dyslexic children — universal screening for the learning disability so more Colorado students could get the reading help they need. But before the bill even got a hearing, a key lawmaker signaled it won’t move forward after opposition from some educators and state education groups.

For years, the California Teachers Association has opposed universal dyslexia screening for students, helping to defeat legislation that would have mandated it. And yet, many classroom teachers are advocating for all students to be tested. The statewide teachers union’s opposition to mandatory screening continues to frustrate many educators. According to classroom teachers across the state, the California Teachers Association’s position will perpetuate a “wait-to-fail” approach to reading instruction that forces educators to sit by while students fall further and further behind.

She successfully battled to become a teacher and went on to help bring about a revolution in the government’s treatment of the disabled.

Her son wasn’t always comfortable pronouncing words in English. But Joseph, a Haitian immigrant raising him by herself, did not know how far behind he was in reading until a hospital where her son was receiving treatment connected her with a bilingual advocate.

Tips on finding a learning environment that plays to the child’s strengths.

There are lots of reasons why screening isn’t the magic bullet that necessarily leads to “fixing” dyslexic students’ struggles with reading. Literacy experts and advocates for children with dyslexia explain some of the multiple factors that can impede both the screening process and what happens next.

The importance of advocating for your child with their educators.

Dyslexia is largely misunderstood and, as a common ADHD comorbidity, it often exacerbates ADHD symptoms (and vice versa). Acknowledging challenges will help children and teens with both conditions feel understood and supported.

“Body doubling is a strategy where you work alongside another person as you attempt to engage in or complete a task.” If people with ADHD have no intrinsic interest in a task, Roberts said, they typically struggle with a lack of internal motivation to complete it or even to get started. Body doubling provides that motivation, experts said.

Known as informal removals, the tactics are “off-the-book” suspensions often in violation of federal civil rights protections for those with disabilities.

SEL is supposed to help all kids thrive, but students with disabilities are often excluded.

Love hurts. Love scars. For those of us with ADHD, traits like rejection sensitive dysphoria, big feelings, and obsessive thinking prolong and worsen the pain of a breakup. After a heavy dose of heartache, I’m here to share my tips for moving on.

Twice exceptional students are both gifted and challenged; they are also likely to remain undiagnosed and treated as their strengths compensate for or hide their struggles. High expectations can exacerbate frustrations at school, home, and in friendships as they miss the mark — and don’t know why. ADDitude readers share their stories of securing a 2e diagnosis and academic supports for their children.

“To improve communication with teachers, ask guided questions about how IEP accommodations are implemented and measured for progress and the best ways to support classroom goals at home.”

Although many see accessibility features as solely for users with disabilities, a wide variety of students can benefit from them.

Many autistic people and ADHD-ers report using “masking” and “camouflaging” in their lives. This is where people conceal certain traits and replace them with neurotypical ones to avoid being recognised as neurominorities.

“Catastrophizing is an insidious process; a hijacking of the mind’s eye that causes it to see only oblivion as it peers into an unknowable future. What’s worse, awareness of catastrophizing isn’t enough to get rid of it. Luckily, I can call on a few effective suppression techniques to temper the worst of catastrophization when it does creep up.”

ADHD is not as controllable as some might think.

This is where to begin to build a future where people can discover and unlock their potential, and truly feel understood.

Our ADHD kids are intelligent, creative, and fearless.

Interventions should span both psychological and academic skills challenges.

An estimated 5 to 15 percent of the population has dyslexia, the most common language disability, which hinders a person’s ability to read words correctly and efficiently. But in Boston and countless other communities, Black and Latino families have a much harder time than their White peers accessing two key tools to literacy: an instructor trained in how best to teach struggling readers the connections between letters and sounds, or a private school focused on children with language disabilities. 

The teachers union opposes screening for all students. 

But the leader of an administrators group says there’s “no humanly way possible” educators can make up for a year of school closures.

There are many benefits of focusing on the strengths of neurodivergent individuals.

“Hands down the best planner around for ADHD.” You’ve got our attention! These ADDitude readers sent us their favorite paper journals and planners — ones that really click with ADHD brains getting organized, prioritized, and productive.

After the high-profile dismissal of an old-school NYU organic chemistry professor in September because his classes were too difficult, a familiar debate reignited. How hard should college be, and in what ways? Who doesn’t deserve to be there in the first place? What does it mean to receive a rigorous education, and what tangible benefits does such rigor, once defined, offer a college graduate?

New findings from neuroscience provide new insights and perspectives on classroom practices for literacy. There is growing theoretical and practical support for more emphasis on the dyslexic person’s strengths. Paradoxically, dyslexia may be a gift with a cluster of unique assets.

“Reluctant reader” does not have a positive connotation, for children or adults who identify with that term. In order to redefine reluctant readers, we first have to understand who they are. Reluctant readers fall into two main categories: unwilling and unable. It’s important to recognize the distinct differences between these two. 

Listening to brown noise could have cognitive benefits for people with ADHD, but experts caution the evidence is still limited. The evidence that brown noise might help people with attention deficit issues is anecdotal, and there’s no definitive research. A few studies have suggested that a similar sound, called white noise, may improve cognitive function and concentration in people with ADHD, and experts believe brown noise may produce the same effect.

For college students with disabilities, even small changes to college-classroom procedures—like taking a test in a small, quiet room rather than a echoing lecture hall—can be make or break for academic success, but advocates say securing access to such accommodations can be confusing, costly, and time-consuming. A group of student advocates and national disability-rights organizations are seeking legislation to streamline the process by requiring colleges and universities to accept students’ individualized education programs, or IEPs, and evaluations from K-12 schools as proof of the need for accommodations and supports.

Subject-area teachers like me weren’t trained to identify and help struggling readers. Even if we had identified students with print-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, there was often no place to send them to get the support they needed. Some schools have implemented small-scale remediation programs, with varying rates of success. Some, like mine, have a few individuals doing their best to help struggling readers in groups that are too large during meetings that are too short.

A host of genetic variants associated with dyslexia have been identified by researchers, shedding light on the hereditary aspect of the disorder. Previous research has suggested it has a heritable component, with studies suggesting genetics account for somewhere between 40% and 80% of the average differences between those with dyslexia and general population. Researchers say they have identified about 170 genes and 42 specific genetic variants significantly associated with dyslexia in the largest such study to date.

A set of new literacy standards and teaching performance expectations, approved by the California commission that issues teaching credentials, should ensure all universities are on the same page when it comes to training future educators. The literacy standards, mandated by state legislation, put a greater emphasis on teaching foundational reading skills that include phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency. The new standards also included support for struggling readers, English learners, and pupils with exceptional needs. The California Dyslexia Guidelines  have been incorporated for the first time.

It’s a disservice to students, especially those who are historically disadvantaged, to center summer programming on remediating skills not learned during the school year, said speakers at a National Summer Learning Association conference session Wednesday. Rather, every day students spend in school over the summer months should include high quality instruction that engages students’ and teachers’ passions, aims for accelerating skills, and blends academics and enrichment, the speakers said. 

“These signs of change give me so much hope that young, Black, neurodiverse girls today won’t have to go through what I did just to discover their amazing selves.”

About 20% of Hawaiʻi’s population struggle to learn because they have dyslexia, according to the Hawaiʻi Branch of the International Dyslexia Association. Among the local resources available for children living with learning difficulties is Assets School on Oʻahu. In recognition of National Dyslexia Awareness Month, the school has an in-person seminar this week about accommodating and supporting a child with dyslexia. The Conversation sat down with the Assistant Head of School Sandi Tadaki to discuss how early intervention and acceptance can help students avoid years of emotional and educational struggles.

The world needs dyslexic thinking, an approach to problem solving, assessing information, and learning. Research tells us that dyslexic thinkers have the exact skills needed for the workplace of today. The Value of Dyslexia report points out that new roles and enhanced tasks will be created across industries that closely match the strengths of dyslexic thinking. This is why we have partnered with global charity Made By Dyslexia to help every educator identify, support, and empower every learner with dyslexia.

A new study explored whether adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for diet and physical activity had any relationship with toddlers’ ability to remember, plan, pay attention, shift between tasks and regulate their own thoughts and behavior, a suite of skills known as executive function. Reported in The Journal of Pediatrics, the study found that 24-month-old children who spent less than 60 minutes looking at screens each day and those who engaged in daily physical activity had better executive function than those who didn’t meet the guidelines.

Whether due to rejection sensitivity, poor self-awareness, social anxiety, or executive dysfunction, social challenges follow many children with ADHD as they grow. Parents can take a page from the social-emotional learning approach to guide their kids toward social success. Here are 6 ways to get started.Social-emotional learning activities and strategies for ADHD kids who struggle to make and keep friends.

Managing the symptoms of ADHD can be a challenge for students and their families. Students diagnosed with ADHD can also experience symptoms related to other disorders that can impact learning, such as anxiety, depression and behavior disorders. That can make ADHD complex to diagnose. Educators can take several steps to identify the symptoms of ADHD in their students and connect them with the appropriate learning and behavioral supports when needed. Here are five tactics educators can implement today.

There’s no litmus test for dyslexia and education experts say the diagnosis covers a range of reading problems. Orton-Gillingham is one of the oldest approaches to help struggling readers, dating back to the 1930s, and it explicitly teaches letters and sounds, and breaks words down into letter patterns. It also emphasizes multisensory instruction. But two recent academic papers, synthesizing dozens of reading studies, are raising questions about the effectiveness of these expensive education policies. A review of 24 studies on the Orton-Gillingham method, found no statistically significant benefit for children with dyslexia. Instead, a review of 53 reading studies found that much cheaper reading interventions for children with a variety of reading difficulties were also quite effective for children with dyslexia.

ADHD coaching has been in the news this week, with the release of new guidelines for diagnosing and managing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The evidence-based clinical guidelines recommend ADHD coaching could be considered for adolescents and adults as part of a holistic treatment and support plan.

What is ADHD coaching? Do you really need it? And how do you go about finding coaching support?

Tips include wiggling your legs in the air and “the rule of 17.”

The mental health crisis is particularly acute for adolescent females with ADHD, who report abnormally high levels of anxiety (72%) and depression (44%).

The future of video games is about more than just fun.

Parent Lisa Manwell received a dozen calls last fall telling her her son couldn’t stay in school because of behaviors she says stemmed from his disability, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Many schools have promised to cut down on suspensions, since kids can’t learn as well when they aren’t in class. But none of these pickups was ever recorded as suspensions, despite the missed class time.

The practice is known as informal removal.

Laws and programs to address dyslexia are among the best hopes for students who struggle to learn to read. Legislation focused on dyslexia has been passed in at least 47 states. However, there is a downside that is not understood: Some dyslexia laws and practices exclude or neglect many struggling readers, even though most of them suffer from similar learning difficulties and require similar evidence-based instruction.

Dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often travel together. (About 25% to 40% of the time, according to some estimates.) For individuals with ADHD and dyslexia, routine treatment protocols and approaches for each condition may not be effective. ADHD symptoms might affect therapies for dyslexia, and vice versa. And addressing only one condition – a common error – often results in subpar outcomes all around. If your child has both ADHD and dyslexia, it is important to understand the dynamic interplay between these conditions and how it affects the application of treatments and interventions.

Our bodies don’t come in neat, one-size-fits-all packages, so of course neither do our brains. Start to think outside the box with these titles for the tween and younger set that feature neurodivergent characters and celebrate the extensive ways our minds can come up with ideas, solve problems, and learn new things.

Neurodiversity can be seen in every classroom, but not every teacher incorporates the needs of neurodiverse students into their pedagogy. Our neurodiverse students are often great at hiding how overwhelmed they are in the classroom. As a neurodivergent teacher who has worked with neurodivergent students for many years, I’ve found that the following strategies help make sure these students feel less anxious and help them stay engaged in class. All of these strategies can be used and modified for K–12 students.

Chicago students got more failing and incomplete grades during the pandemic, though that increase was much steeper at elementary schools than high schools, a new report out today finds. 

Growing up, my undiagnosed ADHD symptoms made me feel like something inside was broken or disconnected. A diagnosis in my early 20s, along with the right medication to manage symptoms, improved my life significantly — so much so that I carried on believing I had finally been “fixed.” 

All Massachusetts school districts will be required to screen students’ individual reading ability and literacy skills twice a year in an effort to catch learning disabilities earlier.

How you talk to your child about dyslexia and ADHD will depend on their age. With younger children, you need not focus on challenges just yet. For tweens and teens, acknowledging challenges is essential to helping them feel understood and supported.

Parents and educators can access free, online training to support the executive functioning skills of elementary school students with autism or ADHD. Children’s Hospital Colorado teamed with Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., and The Institute for Innovation and Implementation at the University of Maryland to pilot the online training and tele-support system for Unstuck and On Target, a program aimed at improving executive functioning skills such as flexible thinking, emotion regulation, planning and organization.

Many students with communication disorders were particularly affected by changes like virtual and hybrid learning that were implemented during the 2020–2021 school year due to the pandemic. As some of these children return to in-person instruction for the first time in more than a year, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) recommends the following ways for families to help them prepare for a successful in-person school year and support recovery of communication, social, and learning skills.

The veteran educator and leading voice for differentiated instruction offers five hopeful scenarios for classrooms this fall. There will be an abundance of collaboration, accomplishment, and adventure.