Special Education Today

I was just thinking about past years as this one comes to an end, and I thought back to some of my most memorable moments with students. I thought I would share this story about Sarah. She taught me more about language disability than most of the coursework I have taken.
Sarah was pretty blonde who struggled in school from the very first days of Kindergarten. I first saw her when she arrived at my school where I was a special ed teacher. She was 9 years old, quiet, and tall for her age, which made it more difficult for her to melt into the woodwork, where she felt most comfortable. I, like so many teachers who encountered Sarah, thought she was painfully shy because she didn't talk much, and didn't like to maintain eye contact for very long.
My partner and I did an initial assessment as nothing had been done in the previous school. This is a real danger for quiet little learners, especially girls, who have learning challenges- they fall through the cracks because they don't draw attention to themselves. Our testing showed that she was virtually a non-reader. Her spelling and writing skills were extremely weak as well. We referred Sarah for Ed-psych and language testing, but went ahead with some remedial group work in the meantime. This was before we started using Lindamood program, so the results were less than impressive. Sarah still didn't talk much, but during out months together I saw a very bright light in Sarah when she could express herself without language. She was keenly observant, intuitive,and very aware of how people were feeling. I also learned that she was good in math and loved science.
That first year we called Sarah's mother in, and met a shorter older version of Sarah. Her mother didn't seem comfortable with lots of "chit chat" and got frustrated with herself at times as she tried to explain how hard things were for Sarah. She was well aware that teachers thought Sarah was a slow learner. She knew, however, that Sarah was not. She had been trying to get more help for Sarah, but she admitted to having a hard time expressing herself, and she lacked confidence to disagree with the professionals.
Sarah was tested and found to have a severe language deficit, as well as a phonologically based learning disability- dyslexia. She had what I call a "double whammy". The testing showed that while she didn't talk much, she could think very well. When the Lindamood program got underway, we put Sarah in it, and at least for her grade 6 and 7 years, she started to make some gains.
Around this time I left the system. During a 3 month trip to Australia with my family, I studied another powerful program that I had taken some training in, the Visualizing and Verbalizing Language Comprehension Program, or, V&V. I wanted to improve and expand the services I offered through my reading clinic. I practiced on my son.
I called Sarah's mother when I got back and told her I thought this program would be really good for Sarah. She started the very next week, and came to the reading clinic for two hours a day after school. As I thought it would, this program had a dramatic effect on Sarah's expressive abilities, and her ability to understand what she was reading.
During this time I discovered first hand how Sarah's slow processing speed gave the impression that she either didn't hear something or didn't understand it. One day we were were creating detailed images from a social studies text book, since volume was a real problem for Sarah. I asked her a question about a detail, something like,
"How will you know that the country is Mesopotamia?" (meaning she needed to put something in her mental picture to remind her of the name). Sarah just looked down at the table, her mouth slightly open, and as I waited, nothing seemed to be coming. I assumed that she needed some clarification, and so after a moment or two, I started to rephrase the question. She abruptly held up her hand, which almost startled me it was so quick. Then her eyes slid over to look at me, and she said,
"It's coming." I shut my mouth and waited.
After another moment she proceeded to tell me in rich detail a funny and memorable addition to her picture that assured that she would remember the name, Mesopotamia.
This was a wake up call to me and I hope to anyone else who works with diverse learners and reads this. I wondered just how many times a day Sarah didn't get to finish a thought or a sentence- and I already knew that many teachers didn't think she was very bright.
I asked Sarah about it after the session was over. She told me that when teachers called on her for an answer she could hear the other students in the class grumbling and calling out, "Not her- she takes forever" or "Hurry up Sarah!". This embarrassed her and eventually she quit trying to speak in class. She learned to say "I don't know" quickly, even when she did know the answer, to avoid being humiliated by the other students. How sad.
Since working with Sarah, I now give students as much time as they need to complete a thought or an idea- and I don't mind the dead silence. I have found that students, at least in our one on one format, will tell me when they don't know something- and until they tell me, I wait.

Happy New Year to you all.

I just found this article and thought it was worth noting, because I have been telling colleagues and parents that the discrepancy model is on its way out, but lately I couldn't put my finger on any one source. I have read it in several papers.

"As you might expect, early intervention gives the best results. Yet for decades most schools wouldn't consider special education for a child until he or she had fallen at least a year behind. That may be changing. Congress is considering legislation that would eliminate the need to show a discrepancy between a child's IQ and his or her achievements before receiving a diagnosis of dyslexia.

Ideally, all children should be screened in kindergarten—to minimize educational delay and preserve self-confidence. How do you know someone has dyslexia before he or she has learned to read? Certain behaviors—like trouble rhyming words—are good clues that something is amiss. Later you may notice that your child is memorizing books rather than reading them. A kindergarten teacher's observation that reading isn't clicking with your son or daughter should be a call to action.

If caught soon enough, can a child's dyslexia be reversed? The evidence looks promising. In her book, Shaywitz reports that brain scans of dyslexic kindergartners and first-graders who have benefited from a year's worth of targeted instruction start to resemble those of children who have never had any difficulty reading."

this is from Time magazine, and here is a link to the full article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030728-465794,00.html

Ok... so I have been knocking on the school district door for 11 years trying to convince the various Grand Pooh-bahs in charge of special education that they need to train teachers in evidence-based methods in reading instruction. This is so elementary (pun intended) that it's hard to fathom why I had to do that. I have been politely received, politely listened to, been asked to submit proposals on a few occasions, but nothing has ever happened.

Way back in 1997,when I still worked for the district, my colleague and I presented pretty compelling evidence to our school board that the Lindamood Program was worthy of further investigation. We had both taken the training when it was offered as a special in service program, and had been using it in small groups for a year. (We were two of the four people from our entire district that signed up- the 3rd was a speech pathologist and the fourth left the district at the end of that year) We did pre and post testing with 3 months of instruction in between- and the average gain was a year in reading ability. The school board was polite, appreciative, and that was the end of it.

So here it is, 11 years later... and still there is a hodgepodge of programs and approaches being used across the district- and only one that I know of is evidence based (the school that I used to teach at, where my colleague still soldiers on).

I mentioned in a previous post that the current administration has finally made a move- and has hired a consultant to go around training teachers to use a program of his design;one that seems sound enough to me after a brief inspection. However- what is the point of doing this if the delivery of the program is not regulated and is left up to schools to determine? Already we know of one school that is offering it at half the desired number of sessions per week, and for far less time. In effect, the evidence base has been rendered null and void.

I have also learned that the current administrator finally provided training in the Lindamood program last month! I was all set to cheer loudly when I also learned that a half a day was devoted to this training. Say what?!!! I took five full days of training, and even then, starting out was slow and I had to refer to my notes and study the text frequently. Half a day? I haven't talked to any of the teachers who attended, but if it was me, I think I'd want to jump off a bridge after a mere half day of training. That, or else quietly push the program to the back of the shelf and forget it ever happened.

Is it any wonder that sometimes I need to SCREEEECH!?

Gregory Fabiano and colleagues report about a non-experimental analysis of the effects of a group contingency on children’s behavior in school cafeteria. Pretty interesting. Worthy of systematic study. Behavior Modification, Vol. 32, No. 1, 121-132 (2008) DOI: 10.1177/0145445507308577 © 2008 SAGE Publications A Group Contingency Program to Improve the Behavior of Elementary School Students in a Cafeteria Gregory A. Fabiano, [...]

I had an interesting discussion about ADHD in my online work with some teachers and parents about whether or not a diagnosis is helpful or a hindrance to the learner.
The gist was, I had suggested that the diagnosis could be helpful because it explains some of the difficulties encountered by the learner, and relieves some of the guilt and shame they had been carrying. Because the problem is not a visible one, it is easy (and usual) to assume negative things about these individuals that aren't true. (They are troublemakers, they don't respect the teacher, they don't care about the work, they're stupid, they are not trying, they are lazy etc.) The person who believes these negative ideas with the most conviction, is the learner. When a person loses their homework, house key, wallet or important information frequently, it would be natural for them to wonder, "What's wrong with me?" And in the absence of an obvious answer, they fill in the blanks themselves with very harsh assumptions. The diagnosis also allows a sound treatment program to be undertaken under the guidance of a doctor. Despite many parents' reluctance to try medication, it remains one of the best treatment options available. In thinking about the ramifications of giving pharmaceuticals to children, we need to also examine the ramifications of not treating the problem; Plummeting self esteem, drug and alcohol abuse, failure in school and work, and trouble with the law. These are all well documented possible outcomes for sufferers of ADHD.

One of my correspondents proposed that if allowed to develop these organization skills in their own time and in a home-learning environment that was supportive, that perhaps this negative self image could be avoided. She felt that the label would not be necessary either. She believes that it is the school system that causes the need for a label- because the learner has to perform on someone else's schedule. This is an interesting idea, but my feeling is that it only postpones the inevitable.

Even a supportive home-learning environment can't delay the person needing or wanting a part-time job, or needing to keep commitments with friends, or professional appointments.

While children with ADHD mature later and definitely need more support than there peers in managing their time, their schedules, their relationships- we do them a disservice, in my opinion, in not being honest and accurate about what the learner is dealing with. Facing the truth is better than ignoring it.

I came across an entry in a middle school teacher’s blog that provides a good illustration of how to manage a classroom learning environment. Ellen Berg, who has taught mostly English and communication arts (but, also shop and pre-calculus) at Turner Middle in a racially isolated part of St. Louis (MO, US) where most of [...]

I read an article a few years ago by the Dutch researcher Dirk Bakker- and he classified problem readers as either perceptual or linguistic readers. I have found in my work, these descriptions are perfect.
The linguistic reader tends to read very quickly, and uses appropriate cadence and expression- in fact if you weren't listening to what he was saying you would think him a fluent reader. However, he very soon gets so far off the original text that what he is saying bears little resemblance to what is on the page. Eventually meaning breaks down and he stops, confused. These readers tend to use context and the first letter or two of the word, and are really reading with their ears. They read what they think sounds right.
The perceptual reader, by comparison, reads painfully slowly, sounding out just about everything, including the words we normally memorize as sight words.
I am sure this theory would coincide with the areas of the brain that are both underactive and overcompensating in learners with dyslexia- but I haven't read any literature about this.
In my work I find the linguistic reader the most difficult to remediate. I think two factors work to make this so. First, the learner has worked hard to cover up his reading problem, and to him, reading fast is the goal. He is not going to like being asked to go back to a plodding and slow pace (careful and accurate, to us) after working so hard to sound like everyone else. Also, I think the learner is working from a part of the brain that deals with meaning, not visual clues.
This is just my theory, based on my experience working with these "speedy readers".
I wonder if you have experiences with these type of readers?

Today I attended a meeting. I was asked to attend by a family to help them understand a program their district is offering their son, who has a fairly deep case of dyslexia. I have worked with their son over the last year and a half, and I know him fairly well. Cool kid, cool family. The meeting was between the father of the boy and a former colleague of mine, hired by the school district to implement his own reading program across the district.

Interesting situation for me to be in! I am not involved with this family anymore, as the district has developed a rapport with this other gentleman and has hired him to be the magic bullet. I attended because I like the boy, and really appreciate that the family is crusading not just for their son, but for other kids like him.

The poor guy has poured his heart and soul into his life's work and has made it available to the district. Today however, it was very apparent that he had no control over his own work anymore. The schools have complete discretion as to how much time they will devote to his program, and today, we discovered it was likely going to fail, because of the way it was to be delivered. My colleague got good results using this program (he has developed it over the last 25 years,) but he acknowledged it could take several years and needs to be taught daily. However, the school the boy attends is offering this to the boy at about half strength. They are offering three days a week for only 45 minutes. Because of this short time period, parts of this program are bound to be omitted or glossed over. We all agreed today that the program wasn't going to be effective if delivered this way. It may mean that a sound program will be deemed ineffective, through no fault of the man that designed it.

During our conversation this gentleman lamented that no-one could deliver reading instruction at the intensity level required due to budgetary restraints- and I was so glad that I could say, "Well, actually, I can." Now of course, parents have to pay for the service- but I can honestly say that after 10 years, I have never had anyone complain, and in fact, roughly 1/3 of my students come back at least once, and some two or three times for little refreshers.

So today I had it reconfirmed that I made the right decision to leave the system in order to have the freedom to do what needs to be done. I would absolutely hate losing control of what I do as my colleague has had to do. To see something that could work so well be misused and undervalued would REALLY bother me.

Over on TeachUTeachMe Becky Barr has a post about learning styles that makes me feel good. It’s not simply that she sites a post of mine from Teach Effectively!, but that she helps carry the flag for reasonable preparation of future teachers. Link to Professor Barr’s article. Of course, I also like her picture of [...]

In the September-October issue, Psychology Today magazine carried coverage of the father's-age issue. Under the headline of "A Man's Shelf Life," Mark Teich interprets recent developments for a general audience. "Everybody was familiar with the concept of women's biological clock, but when we introduced 'male' to the equation, the reaction was ...

An article from the Colorado Springs (CO, US) Gazette describes an award given to a teacher for helping students with Learning Disabilities develop self-advocacy skills. Under the headline “D-12 teacher an ‘American Star’: Award honors creation of program for learning-disabled teens,” Shari Chaney Griffen reported that Alan Pocock, a teacher in a Colorado Springs high [...]

I have been asked my opinion about a difficult problem facing a learner in the US. Her tutor, Lynda, has done remarkable work in a short time, bringing up the girl's decoding skills. The problem seems to be language skills and vocabulary, now that decoding is in place. The girl repeated 2nd grade and Lynda is afraid her student won't pass the 3rd.

There is written test that students must take to pass the year, but this little girl's vocabulary and language skills are so weak she won't be able to cope with the demands of the test. Lynda feels she has an 8 month window to try to help this girl develop the language, grammar and vocabulary necessary to pass the test- never mind to function fully in her community. The test situation must be front and center as it can mean the difference between the girl being one or two years behind.This is unfortunate, but it seems to be the reality.

These are my opinions based on my own experience, and I would welcome anyone else out there who has some suggestions for Lynda. First, vocabulary is absolutely necessary for reading to develop properly. It doesn't matter how well someone decodes a word- if they have a limited vocabulary they won't recognize what they have read as a meaningful word. I call that recognition the "aha" in decoding. We sound out a word, trying different syllable divisions, vowel sounds, and then when we realize we have just said an English word that we know, there is a moment of triumph- a little "aha!" that's it! Children with poor vocab development don't experience the "aha" very much. This is sad of course because rich vocabulary is the colour in our reading!
Teaching vocabulary is really difficult the older a child gets. It is nearly impossible to take an inventory of what the child doesn't know. The little girl in question would be 8 or 9 years old I assume? So, it's important to jump on it now. Each year school children are introduced to roughly 3000 new vocabulary words. She has a long row to hoe!
I would suggest first testing her knowledge of basic concepts. Whether you use a test or a published program (Linguisystems has lots of material on Basic Concepts) it would be good to fill those in first.
Then, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test might give you an idea of what words she is missing. It's hard to do much with that, but it would give you something definite to teach to.
The Folks Sentence Builder is a sentence and grammar building kit that I used to use in the public system. It teaches the different grammatical structures we use in our speech and writing. There would be a whole section on using the present progressive, for example. "I am running" "The dog is eating" and includes using adjectives, prepositions, objects etc. (I may be showing my age- there may be something more current than this!) I liked this kit because it worked from pictures and kids usually found it fun.
Of course, it will be hard to make up for the lack of reading to her that has occured, but this would be a must from now until March. If the mom doesn't have the time, perhaps an older student could be enlisted to help. I can't think of anything you could do with this other than to have the older child stop and ask frequently,
"do you know what that is?" and stop for a brief discussion.
I have had limited success using published vocabulary study books, as I mentioned before, it's hard to take an inventory of what someone doesn't know. Having said that, I have used vocabulary books by Stech-Vaughn, and they might help in this situation- it seems that the little girl is almost language deprived.

I am a learning consultant for a Distributed Learning (over the internet and some home visits) school called SelfDesign. I will ask for some assistance on this issue from some of my colleagues there, and report back if I find anything more!

This page had some good insights about teaching vocabulary. I am not advocating for their program, but this page had good info on it, particularly the info about the Matthew affect.

http://www.balancedreading.com/vocabulary.html

I hope I have represented your concerns accurately Lynda. If anyone wants to read the entire description of the issue, see comment #3 under Why don't teachers...

I had a question from a visitor to Teacherscreech,(see comments under Why Don't Teachers...) and I thought I would talk a little about my training experiences and some reading that I have found invaluable.
I received a Bachelor of Education from the Institute of Child Development, in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. This was a special education wing of the Department of Education at the U. of S. that was piloted in the 70s and 80s. As far as I know it's not there anymore.
At the time it was a state of the art facility. Education students wanting to go into the field of special education spent the last two years of their degree at the Institute. My concentration of study was in language and learning disabilities. We had to do a practicum in speech development and another in learning disabilities, as well as our 3 months in a classroom. The Institute took clients from the community and we, the students, worked with these children under supervision of the department. We had to do clinical work in a room equiped with cameras and two way mirrors, so that our supervisors could watch and provide feedback. I felt prepared to work with special ed learners when I emerged with my B.Ed, but like most teachers I have talked to, I didn't really feel prepared to teach in a regular class until my first actual year in a classroom. I learned from my wonderful, patient peers!

I took further training in the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program in '96. It was originally a speech and language program, but was revamped after it's utility in developing reading skills was discovered. It changed the way I work- indeed it was excellent training and provided very rewarding teaching experiences for me in the public system. I worked with another special ed teacher and we had a wonderful partnership for 9 years, and I still regard her as one of my closest friends.We used the Lindamood program with outstanding results. But- this is one of the reasons I Screech- we did a presentation to the School Board with pre and post test results on 12 students, and really, the results were clearly way out front of anything we had been able to achieve before and most likely better than any other special ed department. We suggested, in 1996, that the school district look into training more teachers. And the upshot is that nothing happened. Not for another 11 years! I have made several presentations to successive superintendents in special ed in our school district over the past 10 years (there has been considerable turnover in this department)- always offering to train teachers and help schools set up a Lindamood classroom. This yielded no results. But I digress...
Our district completed a half day workshop in this program in November 2007. I don't know how much one can absorb of this program in 1/2 a day, but I am relieved that now more students will start getting the evidence based support they need.

I then took several weeks of training over two successive summers at the teacher training facility at the Calgary Academy. This is a world class private school in Calgary Alberta, that has the latest and best technology, teaching methodology and teacher training. These guys really know what they are doing and do they ever get good results! The training facility is called Inlets, where they teach others their successful methods. I liked their work so much, and was ready for a change afer 18 years in the public system, that I became a limited partner with Calgary and started my own reading clinic, Planet Literacy.

I had been doing PL for about 6 years when I decided I needed to learn more about children with learning disabilities, so I went back and got my Masters Degree. It was during this time that I started reading seriously about the newest research.

Their are many researcher/writers who have written great papers and or books: Joseph Torgesen, Louisa Moats, Sally Shaywitz, and Marilyn Adams to name a few. There is a wonderful paper by Louisa Moats and Susan Brady, called Informed Instruction for Reading Success: Foundations for Teacher Preparation, that was officially approved as a Position Paper for the International Dyslexia Association in 1997. I don't know if it is available any more on the internet, but one could contact the Association. It is really thorough, and highlights the gaps that many of us in the field have witnessed.
Also, a book that I can't do without, is Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz, Published by Alfred A. Knopf 2003. The ISBN # is 0-375-40012-5. Another good book is The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, by Peggy McCardle and Vinita Chhabra, publisher, Paul H Brooks, 2004, ISBN # 1-55766-672-5
For anyone wanting training is specific programs and methods for teaching reading:
In terms of training- I haven't seen it myself but I have seen students who have had Orton-Gillingham tutoring with good results. I think The O-G people have a comprehensive training program. Also, The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program is very powerful, and has been around for years. (see comments above) and I believe they travel around the US with their training workshops. They have info on their website, www.lindamoodbell.com. There is something fairly new that is really getting good reviews is the SpellRead program. It is being marketed to school systems in the US, but I think it was created in Nova Scotia. (I'm a typical Canadian- have to point out EVERYTHING that is made in Canada!) LOL. A friend of mine who is a neuropsychologist thinks it's going to be big.

Special Education Day is 2 December. Apparently it is a celebration of the day that US President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94-142, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, into law. The Education of All Handicapped Children Act became the Education of All Handicapped Act and then the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the name by which it is still known at the time I’m writing this.

There is a Web site, Special Education Day, dedicated to the day. It refers to the celebration of day in Massachusetts, an article in Education Week and the speech that President Ford gave when he signed the law.

By the way, the domain name for Special Education Day is quite similar to the domain name for this site. I named this site after a newsletter that Dan Hallahan, Jim Kauffman, and I published in the mid 1980s.

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