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What is Dyslexia?

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So What Is Dyslexia Anyway?  – Two “Classic” Symptoms Explored

We often wonder: Is my child dyslexic? or, Am I? and, What is Dyslexia exactly? However, in our experience, and in that of most people working in the field, not everyone who has difficulty with language or reading has “dyslexia.”

When you hear the word “cheese,” what comes to mind?
Some people picture a slice of yellow American cheese in its own individual wrapper. Others see a “wedge” of white cheese just cut from a “wheel.” Still others picture Swiss or blue cheese.
What about products with cheese – cheeseburgers, cheese danish, cheese pizza, cheese puffs. How about cheese concepts – “How Cheesy” or smile and say ‘Cheese!’”
They all contain cheese, but what exactly is cheese?

The same can be said of “dyslexia.”
Everyone has different ideas about what dyslexia means. The word “dyslexia” is actually a medical term meaning “difficulty with words.” That’s a pretty broad concept.
Let’s narrow this down just a bit.

There is current brain research indicating that people with dyslexia probably have physiological differences in the brain structure and how it processes, or thinks about, information.
At the Learning Center, we look at dyslexia from an educational standpoint. In other words, what can we do to overcome any limitations dyslexia might place on students’ ability to learn. We have worked with students with reading disabilities for over 13 years, and in that time we have come to recognize a couple of major symptoms that we would call “classic dyslexic symptoms.” These are: A significant phonemic awareness deficit, and a strong visual spatial thinking style.

What Is Phonemic Awareness and How Does It Affect Reading?
Phonemic awareness is a person’s ability to think about the number, order, and identity of individual sounds within words. It is the underlying thinking process that allows a person to make sense out of phonics, the sound system of our language.

The basic reading process is made up of three parts: Auditory (phonics), Visual (sight word recognition), and Language (the ability to use context clues and learn and apply new vocabulary).
In order to be an automatic, comfortable reader, all three of these processes need to be working efficiently together. If they are not, reading can be a frustrating struggle.
Current research and our clinical experience strongly indicate that weaknesses in the auditory part of the basic reading process, or inability to easily understand and use the phonetic code of the language, is a key factor in reading and spelling disorders.

A phonemic awareness deficit almost always keeps a person from being an efficient reader and speller. It usually causes individuals to be “disabled readers” in spite of the best efforts of parents and teachers.

For the second grader, it can mean being diagnosed as “developmentally delayed.” For the bright and creative seventh grader, it can mean spending countless frustrating hours doing homework and still failing. For the adult professional, it can mean making a “career” out of hiding the inability to read and write on the job.
Individuals with a phonemic awareness deficit find it terribly difficult to use phonics for reading and spelling. It has been said that these people simply cannot ever learn phonics. However, ongoing research in the field of auditory processing has shown us that this is not true. These individuals can be trained to develop their phonemic awareness and become effective readers.People with phonemic awareness deficit may experience the following:

  • Not accurate beyond their memorized vocabulary
  • Low level of sight vocabulary
  • Virtually no ability to sound out and/or blend words
  • Many times bright and motivated
  • Having to work “too hard” to read, spell, etc.
  • Poor grades
  • Written work is inaccurate
  • Confuse words in reading that look similar (such as quietly and quality)
  • Confuse words that sound similar (such as consonant and continent)

The Visual Spatial Thinking Style
The second “classic dyslexic symptom” is a strong visual spatial thinking style. People who have an auditory conceptualization deficit may or may not have the visual spatial thinking style.
Generally, these people tend to be bright, creative, “right-brained” thinkers, who think in concepts and pictures. They have the unique ability to see “in dimension,” or mentally “see” objects from all sideswithout actually moving their eyes or the objects . This talent lends itself to drawing, building, putting things together, and recalling concrete or visual information.

Many times, when “right-brained” children try to learn with the traditional “left-brain modes,” they are labeled as “attention deficit” because they mentally “leave” the classroom and create highly entertaining “movies” in their heads that are far more fulfilling and less disorienting than the symbolic ABCs and 123s.  Many times these individuals suffer from episodes that have come to be labeled simply “disorientation.” It is the uncontrolled loss of focus triggered by confusion, and it almost always occurs when working with symbols or when listening.

When the person experiences confusion about symbols (such as numbers and letters) his or her brain tries to understand. However, these individuals will usually go to their most comfortable thinking style, which is “seeing” in dimension. This can cause them to perceive the letter or word from different angles, recording different images of the word or letter in their mind. This makes it very hard to retrieve the symbols and often results in number and letter reversals or words “moving” on the page.

Small pieces of the language such as punctuation marks and small non-conceptual sight words such as the, of , and if may also be difficult for the visual-spatial thinker to pay attention to because it is hard to attach a concept or mental image to them. Disorientation may occur when the individual is overwhelmed with too much information, particularly with language.  When disoriented, the person often loses track of what’s going on around him as well as losing track of time.

We don’t ever want to take away a person’s thinking style. It is a wonderful creative style that was and is shared by important individuals in our society such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Bruce Jenner, Greg Louganis and many more.

Our goal is to help students develop other learning styles in addition to their own so they don’t have to suffer from confusion with language. “Dyslexic” symptoms, triggered by confusion about flat, linear symbols and small pieces of the language do not have to become a way of life.

There is help!
At the Therapeutic Literacy Center we help clients to develop control over their thinking processes to make sense out of reading, spelling, written language and math.  Through carefully researched and consistently effective methods, both of these most common and classic dyslexic symptoms can be overcome so that children and adults with average or above intellectual ability can become efficient learners.  Dyslexia and other learning disabilities are not diseases. They are simply differences in thinking or processing information that can be changed permanently . For some learners, the traditional methods of reading have not been successful. These individuals must be taught in a different way.

*Note: There are many other centers. Lindamood Bell and Banyan Tree are some of them in our area. Yet, once you enter our office, you will FEEL the difference. Our clinicians are all college graduates with degrees in psychology. They aren’t part time people working a “job” while they look for something else. They are all full-time clinicians dedicated to all of our clients. Working full-time allows us to go deeper in training and expertise in your child. We promise that there will never be “only two eyes” on your child. The level of collaboration and team work in studying your child along their growth accelerates their progress. That is our commitment to you.

Do Attention Problems mean my Child has ADHD?

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5 Reasons Why Your Child’s Attention Problems Might NOT be ADHD.

Meet 5  different Students with one common story.

  • Attention Challenges, Attention Focus, ADHDJeremy wiggles constantly in his chair. It keeps him from getting his work done and is very distracting to the students sitting near him.
  • Manny talks to his neighbors all the time instead of doing his work. He’s always interested in what everyone else is doing, but he can’t seem to pay attention to his own work.
  • Sara tries really hard to be “good.†She sits up tall and looks right at the teacher. But pretty soon, she’s fiddling with things on her desk or staring straight through the teacher. When it’s time to start working, Sara always has to ask, “What were we supposed to do?â€
  • Rachel never knows what she’s supposed to do for homework. She uses her planner, but what she’s written is incomplete and doesn’t make a lot of sense. If she does do her homework, she usually can’t find it when it’s time to turn it in.
  • Jessica is getting Ds and Fs in high school. She can read, write, spell, and do math but she doesn’t pay attention in class, does poorly on tests, and doesn’t get her work done.

What do these students have in common? Each of these children has trouble paying attention in class, yet  Not one of them has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Good attention and efficient learning depend upon a solid foundation of underlying learning skills
The vast majority of students who come to our learning center have some challenges with attention, but only a small minority are truly ADHD. Successful, easy learning depends upon a solid foundation of underlying learning skills. These skills include the following:

  • Developmental Learning Skills: These are basic visual and motor skills that help children develop a sense of self, internal organization, and body and attention awareness and control.
  • Processing Skills: These are skills such as attention, memory, auditory and visual processing (how we think about and understand things that we see or hear), processing speed, language comprehension, and phonemic awareness (the thinking process critical to reading that supports learning and using phonics).
  • Executive Function: This is our personal manager that guides and directs our attention and behavior. It helps us reason, problem solve, organize, and make decisions.

Poor attention in class may be a symptom, not the real problem
If a child has problems with any of the underlying learning skills, his attention system will also be stressed. While attention may become a problem in school or with homework, it may not actually be the real problem.

5 Students ~ Five Different Learning Challenges Affecting Attention
Jeremy, our wiggly, distracting student can’t sit still in his chair because of a retained primitive reflex called the Spinal Galant.

Primitive reflexes are involuntary movements that are present in infants to help with the birth process and adaptation as a newborn. If these reflexes don’t “disappear†within about the first year of life, they will continue to fire and cause neurological interference that inhibits efficient development and easy learning.

Jeremy’s retained Spinal Gallant reflex causes him to wiggle in his chair when he doesn’t mean to.When he tries hard to sit still, it takes all of his attention, so he can’t really think about what the teacher is saying or what he’s supposed to be doing on his assignments.

Manny is dyslexic. He’s very smart and very clever. He has memorized some words, but he can’t sound out new words and sometimes when he looks at the page, it seems like the words and letters are moving around. At nine-years-old, he’s already figured out that getting in trouble for “entertaining†his neighbors is better than anyone knowing he can’t read.

Sara has an auditory processing problem. She tries so hard to listen, but what she’s hearing is spotty and inconsistent, like a bad cell phone connection. She tries to fill-in the gaps, but pretty soon, it just doesn’t make sense and she can’t keep her attention on it anymore.

Rachel has poor visual memory skills. When she tries to copy down assignments, she has to look back and forth so many times between the board and her planner, that she often loses her place and misses part of the information. It takes her longer than the other students, so she often doesn’t finish because its embarrassing to have to stay after class copying the assignment.

When Rachel does her homework, she sticks it in her backpack. The problem is, she can’t hold a picture in her mind of exactly where it is, so when it’s time to turn it in the next day, she can’t remember where she put it. Well-meaning teachers and family have suggested that maybe Ritalin would help her pay better attention. They don’t realize that Rachel is paying attention, but her visual memory is not supporting her well enough to remember the information.

Jessica has weak processing and executive function skills. She’s pretty sure her parents and teacher are right when they say she’s lazy and unmotivated because she just can’t seem to pay attention and get her work done.

Weak underlying processing and executive function skills can keep a capable student from being able to pull it altogether to perform as expected. They struggle to keep up and have inconsistent homework grades and test scores.

Addressing the root cause of the poor attention symptom can eliminate the problem. All five of these students were able to solve their attention and learning challenges by developing the underlying learning skills that were not supporting them well enough.

Jeremy went through Core Learning Skills Training to integrate his retained reflexes and improve his body awareness and control. He no longer stands out in class.

Manny went through a specialized auditory stimulation and reading program to develop his phonemic awareness and ability to look at the words on the page without getting disoriented. He can now understand how the sounds in words work and has learned to read and spell. He’s putting his strong verbal abilities and humor to use in the school play.

Sara went through a program of Auditory Stimulation and Training to increase her auditory processing skills. She is able to listen to her teacher and her friends now without getting exhausted and missing information. She no longer feels lost and anxious and is able to be the good student she always tried to be.

Rachel received training in various visual processing, visual memory, and organization skills. She can now copy from the board and use her planner accurately most of the time. She is more organized and can remember where her homework is in her folder.

Jessica did an intensive processing skills program called PACE and before she finished the 12-week program, she had brought her grades up to As and Bs.

Don’t ignore attention problems in school
Problems paying attention in class can be a sign to parents that their child is struggling in school. This should not be ignored.

But parents and teachers should be aware that whenever an area of underlying processing or learning skills is inefficient, extra energy will be needed to perform. This stresses the person’s attention. It is important to look very carefully to determine if the attention challenges seen in class are the cause of the learning problem or the symptom.

At Therapeutic Literacy Center, we focus on enhancing and developing those processing skills that bring about the biggest impact on learning: Auditory Processing, Auditory-Visual Association, Comprehension, Processing Speed, Divided Attention, Selective Attention, Memory, Visualization, and dozens of other skill sets that many of us take for granted.  We address the cause, not merely the symptom.  Give us a call today to learn more about our programs and how we can help your child deal with Attention issues!

Summer Reading Programs, summer tutoring, or summer school?

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When your child is struggling to read….

Teaching a child to read requires deep knowledge in cognitive processing. It requires informed observation of every error a student makes. Thanks to neuroscience, we know a lot more about the brain and learning processes involved in reading and writing than we ever have known before.  Neuroscience has given us a view into the brain during reading and  phonological tasks. This brain research is beginning to provide us information about why some students struggle more than others in learning to read and write.

Yet, education hasn’t yet partnered with neuroscience and cognitive psychology to best inform how we instruct students in learning to read. For now, it is up to the most inquisitive educator to continue to ask questions about every error their students make while they are learning to read.

Part of the problem is that most educators received their training before the new insights were available. Additionally, time and resource constraints prevent schools from applying the insights offered through recent research. Even if schools were able to find opportunity to support teachers in developing the deep knowledge necessary for this level of observation and study, class sizes don’t allow even the most informed teachers to take the time with each individual student necessary for this work.  The system of schooling just isn’t prepared to meet the needs of all students.

School curriculum indeed works for 80% of the student population. Another 3-5% qualify for additional services in special education. So what about the 15% of students who are still struggling?  Those students have difficulty getting their needs met in the traditional school model. Even the best teacher has difficulty in knowing what to do and when to help that 15% of students.

How can these students get what they need to succeed?

We can talk about the school year in the coming months. Right now, most families are looking into summer options. As you look at summer school, a summer tutor or summer reading programs for your child, consider these questions: [checklist]

  • Does your child need to maintain skills they already have?
        – If so, traditional summer programs or tutoring may be appropriate.
  • Does your child need to “catch up“ and achieve grade level expectations?
        – If so, a more intensive and research based approach is what they need.

[/checklist]

Stay tuned. In the next few weeks we will discuss how the brain research helps us give students what they need to be successful in the essential skills in:

  • Reading: decoding, fluency and comprehension with critical thinking

  • Writing: spelling, fluency and organization and expression of ideas.

Pediatricians help identify learning disabilities in children

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As many as 20% of people in the United States have a learning disability and in 2007, an estimated 2.7 million children aged 6 to 11 years were affected. Learning disabilities often prevent children from reaching their full potential. They can have difficulty learning to listen, speak, read, spell, write, reason, concentrate, solve mathematical problems, and organize information. They may also experience difficulty mastering social skills or motor coordination.

Learning difficulties are frequently associated with and complicated by attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For affected children, learning difficulties are not merely a source of frustration. Left untreated, these children may develop low self-confidence, poor self-esteem, and have increased risk of developing psychological and emotional problems.

Learning disabilities are complex problems with complex etiologies that are not yet fully understood. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities, including reading disabilities and dyslexia, frequently go undetected, misdiagnosed, or mistreated in children. Sadly, even in cases where learning disabilities are recognized, most children have already been experiencing years of academic difficulty in elementary school.

However research in brain function and learning has shown that learning and attention challenges can be permanently corrected. The American Academy of Pediatrics policy states that “early recognition and referral to qualified professionals for evidence-based evaluations and treatments are necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.”
Family Physicians identify learning disabilities
The role of the child’s physician in identifying and managing a learning disability is one of vigilance and support. The child’s parents and educators may not fully recognize the symptoms of a learning disability in their children and it may be the child’s pediatrician that is first to suspect and inform parents of available resources for assistance. Some parents may already suspect that their child may harbor a learning disability and turn to the child’s physician for guidance. In any case, the child’s physician is an important partner with the family and educators in the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment for the child.

It is not the role of the pediatrician to diagnose learning disabilities but instead to inquire about the child’s educational progress and be vigilant for early signs of learning disabilities. Even if there is no apparent delay in speech or language development, a family history of learning difficulties should alert parents and physicians to this possibility in the child. With enhanced awareness of the pediatric community on early detection and referral we can do away with the traditional scenario in which the child must show persistent poor academic achievement for years before referral, assessment, and remediation. Early recognition and referral to qualified professionals means more effective treatment for more children.

Therapeutic Literacy Center:
Current neuroscience shows that learning “disabilities” do not have to be permanent. The brain exhibits enormous plasticity so the cognitive skills involved in reading and writing can be improved. (More about Plasticity)  At the Therapeutic Literacy Center we specialize in the cognitive processes behind learning to read, write and spell. Auditory and language processing, phonological awareness, visual memory and critical thinking can be strengthened, often significantly, in a relatively short time given intensive targeted instruction. Our network of clinicians, psychologists, and neuropsychologists have studied how children learn, and applied that research to Therapeutic Literacy Center programs and instruction. Through carefully researched and consistently effective methods, we help clients to develop control over their thinking processes to make sense out of reading, spelling, written language and math.

Why not tutoring?

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How is your therapy different from tutoring?

That’s a question we get all the time. The truth is, we are very different from tutoring or test prep facilities.  Most schools and tutoring focus on WHAT a student learns. We focus on HOW a student learns. We work on the skills needed to be an efficient and independent learner.

Often parents tell us, “We even went to the big name franchise learning center and it didn’t help.” That’s because, for many students, the underlying learning skills are not in place. Here is an explanation of the details…

5 big differences between tutoring and remediation

“Spencer HATES school! He feels like the dumbest kid in the class. He gets very frustrated and angry doing homework. As a family, we can’t stand this anymore. We need to get Jason a tutor!”

Are you sure? Will getting a tutor really be enough to solve this problem?

Sometimes, tutoring is exactly what is needed. But more often, when a child has a learning problem, tutoring is like putting on a band aid. It covers up some of the symptoms, but doesn’t really solve the problem.

Here are 5 big differences between tutoring and remediation, or educational therapy, and how you know which is right for your situation.

  1. Tutoring typically focuses on academic skills or school subjects and remediation addresses the underlying processing or thinking skills that are needed in order for a someone to learn easily in school.

Here’s a way you can think about this. Think of learning like a tree. When you look at a tree, the most obvious, noticeable part is the top…the branches and leaves. But without a good root system and trunk, those branches and leaves can’t grow and thrive. Learning is like that. The top of the tree is the academic skills – reading, writing, math, history, science…

Growth and learning in these areas is dependent upon a strong root system and trunk. The roots are what we call the underlying processing skills. These are things like memory, attention, processing speed, auditory and visual processing (or how we think about and understand things that we hear or see). If there are problems at the root, or processing skills level, there will be problems at the top.

The trunk is like what we call “executive function.” This is the part of the brain that takes all the information that comes in through the roots and organizes it for learning. Again, if the student has problems with organization, planning, and reasoning (or executive function skills) it will affect school performance.

Traditional tutoring assumes that these underlying processing and executive function skills are in place and it works at the top of the tree, with the academics. In most cases learning problems are the result of weak or incompletely developed skills at the root level.

Working on the academics without a solid foundation of processing skills is just “spinning your wheels.” It may cause students to wonder what is wrong with them that they always have to have tutoring and can never seem to learn to do the job on their own.

To permanently solve a learning problem, the underlying skills must be developed.

The great thing is that we know now, through current brain research, that the brain can be retrained – these skills can be developed – so students don’t have to go through life crippled by their learning challenges.

  1. Tutoring typically looks a lot like school.

If a child is having trouble learning phonics for reading, tutors will provide more phonics practice. But more of the same is often more frustrating than helpful.

Current research tells us that the key factor in success or failure in reading is what’s called phonemic awareness, or the brain’s ability to think about the sounds inside of words. Without this underlying thinking process, you can have the best phonics program and the best phonics teacher, but you’re still going to struggle to learn and use phonics for reading and spelling.

In remediation, or educational therapy, we know that we have to teach the brain HOW to think about the sounds – to actually re-train the brain to process the sounds in a more efficient way. Then, the brain can learn to read.

  1. Tutoring is most effective as a solution to a short term problem. A long term learning problem must be dealt with by getting at the underlying issues.

An example is a 10th grade student who transferred from a very mediocre high school to a very high achieving high school. He got into an Advanced Placement Algebra 2 class that was way over his head. He found a tutor, and after 6 or 8 weeks, he began to get things sorted out.

This was a short term problem with a short term solution.

That is very different from Katy, a student with a history of difficulty with math. Katy had learned to do math by rote memory and lots of painful effort. But she didn’t really understand how numbers work. She could easily mix up math processes or steps and not realize it. Or she might recognize her error but not know how to fix it. When Katy got into algebra, she was lost. And no amount of tutoring was going to clear up the issue. Because Katy did not have the underlying concepts or thinking skills that were absolutely critical to her success.

  1. Tutoring may feel like an easier, more comfortable solution.

Tutoring provides a way to give students support and help them get their homework done. But it can also become a crutch because it doesn’t really solve the problem so that the student can do his homework on his own.

Many parents have said, “My child has had tutoring on and off over the years. He seems to do OK when we’ve got a tutor, but as soon as we quit, things go downhill again.” And that brings us to the fifth big difference between tutoring and remediation – the outcome.

  1. If tutoring is used to treat a learning problem, it is likely to end up being a “never-ending” process.

The goal of remediation, and our goal at the
Therapeutic Literacy Center, is to permanently stop
the pain, frustration, dependence, and embarrassment that
a learning problem can cause.

This is done through specialized programs and techniques that address the weak underlying processing skill areas that are causing the problem. Once students have a solid foundation or strong root system, they can become comfortable and independent learners.

There is an old saying, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”

Tutoring may support students to help them get through this night’s homework or this class. Remediation eliminates the learning problem and teaches students to learn so they can learn anywhere, anytime, for a lifetime.

Here are some common symptoms, any of which may indicate that there are underlying processing skills not supporting the learner well enough:

  • Bright child, teen, or adult is underachieving
  • Difficulty paying attention
  • Gets distracted easily
  • Avoids work
  • Yawns all the time when listening
  • Tries really hard for minimal outcome
  • Struggles to sound out words
  • Can’t remember months, days, math facts, spelling words
  • Can’t follow more than one or two directions at a time
  • Is inconsistent with math processes; can’t find or correct math errors; doesn’t understand how numbers work
  • Struggles to read, write, or spell
  • Is uncoordinated, awkward, or has poor posture
  • Has to work excessively hard
  • Gets fatigued quickly / has very low stamina for listening or schoolwork
  • Misunderstands what is heard or read
  • Misses or mishears information when listening

These issues can be changed! With specialized training the brain can learn to think and process information in more effective ways. Children and adults do not have to continue to suffer the effects of learning problems, but it will typically take more than a traditional tutor.

Assistive Listening Devices in Classrooms for Children with Dyslexia

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Two reports from the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University show that Bluetooth-style listening devices in the classroom can treat dyslexia.  Sounds suspicious I know, but if nothing else, trust the source enough to read on and you’ll be suitably impressed and hopefully inspired. Their research also uncovers a biological explanation which could lead to earlier diagnosis for this language disorder. The studies were published in Journal of Neuroscience and in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (links provided below).   These important findings further support an already large body of research pointing to a neural explanation for auditory processing in children with language learning problems, including dyslexia.

Assistive Listening Devices in Classrooms for Children with Dyslexia
Dyslexia is the most prevalent learning disability among children. Contrary to widespread public teaching, it is not only an affliction of the visual system; merely causing the eyes to rearrange written words.  Dyslexia stems from problems with auditory processing, a skill necessary to accurately interpret speech. Dyslexics typically have poor “phonological awareness”.  This means they struggle assigning the right sounds to the right letters. For example, they might confuse the words “bean” and “dean” because they cannot clearly distinguish the “b” and “d” sounds. Moreover, many children with poor phonological awareness suffer distractions from background noise, making it even harder to pay attention and focus on what a teacher is saying.

In the J. Neuroscience report, the authors show that poor readers have less stable auditory nervous system function than do good readers.  In the children with inconsistency in response to sound the data point to a biological mechanism and it may contribute to their reading impairment.  The authors proposed that assistive listening devices (classroom FM systems) may enhance acoustic clarity and thus reduce the auditory processing variability so elegantly described in the J.Neuroscience paper.

In the PNAS classroom study, they assessed the impact of classroom FM system use for 1 year on auditory neurophysiology and reading skills in children with dyslexia.  The results were clear and dramatic. Children with dyslexia who used classroom assistive listening devices (FM systems) had more consistent auditory brainstem responses to speech after 1 year.  This improvement was linked to increases in reading and phonological awareness. These changes were not seen for children in the same classrooms who did not use the assistive listening devices. The thinking here is that the enhanced signal-to-noise ratio provided by the FM system improved auditory brainstem function by providing the nervous system with a clearer acoustic signal. This would be particularly true for children with dyslexia who are more adversely affected by background noise than their classmates. It is important to note that the FM systems were not used during testing. The brainstem function had undergone a lasting change by enhancing signal-to-noise ratio over the course of the school year.  (Read more on Brain Plasticity)

Aside from the obvious practical implications of these findings for the home and classroom, they have provoked many questions and lines of inquiries for the research community.  Stay tuned!  Both articles are available as free full text for a closer look at the study set up and data.

J. Hornickel et al., “Assistive listening devices drive neuroplasticity in children with dyslexia,”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 32:14156-64, 2012.

J. Hornickel, N. Kraus, “Unstable representation of sound: a biological marker of dyslexia,”Journal of Neuroscience, 33:3500–04, 2013.

Helping Children Learn To Love Reading

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In a follow-up to our introductory blog which shed some light on who we are, the Therapeutic Literacy Center would now like to tell you a little bit about where we are and what we do: TLC is located in Solana Beach, California and our clients include those who have been diagnosed with autism, dyslexia, ADHD or a learning disability as well as others who may simply struggle within a traditional school system.

In a warm and comfortable setting high above the Pacific Ocean, we offer specialized programming which is short-term and individually based on an evaluation of specific areas of need. Your child may require 2 weeks or up to 12 weeks depending on progress that is monitored regularly.

When learning styles are de-mystified in a supportive setting, students gain the tools to become confident learners. This, combined with goal setting and descriptive feedback, fosters self esteem and independence in our students.

One of the areas we specialize in is dyslexia. Dyslexia can be difficult to diagnose and is frequently mislabeled as an auditory processing disorder. To further complicate the problem, reports on testing may do an excellent job of describing the reading and writing issues but then fall short in their recommendations. Children often have difficulties with decoding, spelling and fluency. Tests can show a clear deficit in phonological awareness, but what are the recommendations? “Student needs to improve reading.” Ok, so now what?

At Therapeutic Literacy Center we use a program called Fast For Word which applies the principles of brain science to help your child become a more efficient learner. Fast For Word is a proven reading and learning intervention that applies neuroscience principles of brain plasticity to help children, adolescents and adults achieve their full potential. Your child will simultaneously develop cognitive and language skills in a safe environment where they can learn to take risks.

This program, in conjunction with everything else we offer at TLC, is an effective tool to develop and improve fundamental cognitive and reading skills. We help our students by improving their memory, attention and ability to follow instructions, plus language and reading skills including phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, spelling and comprehension. Our program has been designed from extensive neuroscience research and is specifically designed for various ages and ability levels to maximize your child’s potential for learning.

Your child will not only be more confident in classroom participation but they will learn to enjoy reading.

Stay tuned for our weekly blog which will cover a wide range of topics ranging from autism, dyslexia and ADHD to the latest innovations in educational technology and so much more. Thank you for reading!

“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.” ~ Mary McLeod Bethune

Compensate or Eliminate

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Learning to read may appear natural and, therefore, easy to teach. Yet it’s one of the most difficult tasks any child will take on; and homeschooling parents must cover some important foundational topics along the way. The National Reading Panel has identified these skills as phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

A great deal of research* suggests students who have mastered two main critical skills—good phonological awareness and letter naming—will have little difficulty learning to read.

When school is not going well, parents look to tutoring as a solution. But tutoring often doesn’t work. Most learning challenges including auditory processing, dyslexia, ADD or ADHD can be dramatically improved or permanently corrected.

At the Therapeutic Literacy Center, we do MORE than tutor. We help children and adults ELIMINATE their learning challenges.

Many students can cover or compensate for a learning difficulty for a long time, but eventually it catches up with them. While the 3rd/4th grade level is common to diagnosing learning difficulties and disabilities, some students may get to middle school or high school before help is sought.

Clinically, we have found people at the graduate degree level before they finally seek remediation. How far a student CAN go before help is required will be different for each person.

But help is available and should be sought at the earliest possible time, because “compensating” is stressful even when not outwardly visible; it requires far too much energy. And it doesn’t fix the problem.

What can be done?

There are two ways of dealing with learning difficulties. The most common method used is to treat the symptoms by giving students extra work on basic skills, as well as more individual attention.

Our approach is to attack the underlying processes that interfere with attention and learning (yes, ADHD children CAN learn to focus their attention). We know that children and adults of at least average intellectual potential can and should become proficient learners. Because the traditional methods have not worked for some, we know that they must be taught in a different ways – not just individualizing the same old methods.

By concentrating on underlying processes, along with developing the needed basic skills, we have been able to help students who, until now, have enjoyed only limited success in school.

The Role of Sleep in Learning, Memory, and Health

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“I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.” ― David Benioff, City of Thieves

Recent findings in research studies related to sleep and learning lend support to some long-held hypotheses about why we sleep, what happens in the brain during sleep, and why it’s important; especially for learning. In one area of research, the findings provide evidence for a long-held hypothesis that during sleep, the brain cleans itself (1).  Another series of reports illustrate why sleep is so much more important for a child’s learning than it is for an adult.  The findings add a compelling new dimension to our current understanding of how sleep helps the brain reprocess newly learned information thus securing memories and learning (2).

Seminal studies about sleep and learning have shown unequivocally that people trained to complete a procedural memory-based task showed improved performance when a period of sleep followed the training (3).  Even a nap in the middle of the day could benefit some learning.  But to understand what is actually happening in the brain when we sleep we’ve had to wait on the right technological applications to allow us to peer into the brain and accurately measure activities and events during sleep.

Sleep is critically important to a child's learningIn the most recent report, regarding the brain’s self-cleaning mechanism, the research group provides direct evidence of specific cells active in clearing the brain of toxic metabolic byproducts – but only during sleep. Earlier work by the same group showed that the brain anatomy included a network of microscopic, fluid-filled channels that removed toxins from the brain; much like a waste-transport system for the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Many questions remained about how and when these channels were regulated.  The most recent studies showed quite elegantly that during sleep, the channels increased in size and flow of CSF.  Relatively large amounts of CSF were flowing through the brain during sleep, but not when awake.   They even demonstrated that certain waste product proteins, known to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease were cleared twice as quickly during sleep.  Although these studies were performed in mice, they results certainly fit with the long-standing view that sleep is for recovery.  The results are tantalizing for their possible implications for sleep disorders as related to Alzheimer’s or other neurological or neuro-developmental diseases in humans.

The other series of reports from behavioral neurobiology labs present exciting and compelling data regarding just how important sleep is for your child.   We all know that children are happier tend to behave better when they’re well-rested.  And the relationship between neurodevelopmental disorders and sleep-related problems has long been recognized.   Specifically, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD) or combined ADHD/LD, have a much higher rate of sleep-related difficulties and it is likely that the sleep difficulties contribute to and/or exacerbate the behavioral manifestation of these disorders (4).  But what about children not specifically diagnosed with a neuro-developmental disorder or a sleep-related problem?  How important is sleep beyond just resting the body for the next busy day of school and play?

Recent studies are showing that sleep is even more important for children than it is for adults when it comes to learning.  Dr. Ines Wilhelm at the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology has shown that when sleep followed training, children showed greater gains in the specific training knowledge than adults. The studies indicate that there is enhanced processing of memory during sleep in children compared to adults.  The children benefitted more from sleep when challenged with recall of specific learned tasks.

This may come as no surprise when one considers that during development of humans, as with most species, most of the basic lessons of life and survival need to occur in childhood.  Children sleep longer and deeper, and they must take on enormous amounts of information every day. And the children’s ability to excel at recall of specific learned information is linked with the large amount of deep sleep they get at night. In other types of memory, the children benefitted only as much as the adults; not more so.

If your child/student is not performing to his potential academically, you really need to look at the whole picture: healthy eating, positive social experiences, and quality, deep, undisturbed sleep at night.  If they are having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, this could be undermining all the other measures you’re taking to try to help them and ensure their success in school and beyond.

Therapeutic Literacy Center in Solana Beach offers assessments for learning disabilities as well programs and exercises using state of the art methods and technologies for developing underlying “mental tools” needed for success.

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

(1) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373  Science 18 October 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6156 pp. 373-377
(2) http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n4/abs/nn.3343.html Nature Neuroscience 16 391–393 (2013)
(3) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5544/1048.full Science 294, 1048 (2001); Pierre Maquet, et al.
(4) http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1998-04437-005   Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Vol 19(3), Jun 1998, 178-186.

The Upside of Dyslexia?

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My son is Dyslexic and I admit that I all too often fall into the mode of lamenting that he (and my family) must ‘deal’ with his condition.  I wallow and worry about how he struggles in school and at home.  Together we suffer through the standard approaches to learning and doing things, and we spend time and money for targeted therapy and remediation.  I muse to myself that it sure would be nice to spend time and money on other endeavors instead.

People are always talking about the need to find the upside of situations, of pointing out strengths instead of weaknesses, of celebrating achievements instead of noting shortcomings.  This is supposed to be the ‘new age’ of appreciating differences and lauding what the differences bring to the table, right? At the smorgasbord of humanity should we really be complaining that all the burgers don’t have the same shape and taste?  That someone is ‘doing it wrong’?  Most of us ‘get’ this but we still fall into societal expectations (limitations?) about performance and achievement.  We keep finding ourselves spending too much time lamenting the inability to measure up.

Consider the situation of the dyslexic child who is having academic difficulties in school.  You know they’re not lazy so you get help and do everything you can to help them struggle less and feel good more often.  So What’s the Upside of Dyslexia? Is there anything else besides waiting for results to celebrate?  Waiting to say “Hooray, you’re fixed.â€

In all that waiting, I forget to remind him and myself of his unusual strengths and gifts. I KNOW Dyslexics experience the world differently and I need to find a way to appreciate that – and believe it.  But I always end up immersing myself in literature and other venues to figure out how to ‘fix’ that.  I gotta step out of that kind of thinking more often.  We all do and maybe what I found can give you a boost as well.

I recently came across the work of Dr. Matthew H. Schneps, a founding member of the Science Education Department at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Astrophysics?  Yes. But wait, it gets better.

Schneps founded the Laboratory for Visual Learning (LVL) to carry out research on how individual differences in neurology such as those associated with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders, affect how people learn science.  His work has led to a number of spinoffs such as the development of an innovative technique for reading for people with dyslexia using mobile devices, but what I found most rewarding were the descriptions of visual advantages that dyslexics have in our world.

Dyslexics get the whole pictureFor example did you know that that many people with dyslexia have sharper peripheral vision than others?  The brain processes separately the information from the central versus the peripheral areas of the visual field.  And the brain seems to trade off on these capacities. The key to reading is being adept focusing on details located in the center of the visual field while being less proficient at recognizing features and patterns in the periphery.  As it turns out, people with dyslexia have a bias in favor of the periphery and so can quickly take in a scene as a whole; they get the “visual gist†more readily.

As an astrophysicist, Schneps and other scientists in his line of work must make sense of vast quantities of visual data and accurately detect patterns or anomalies.  He suggested that a condition of dyslexia may actually enhance the ability to carry out just such a task.  Indeed, one study he conducted showed that astrophysicists with dyslexia outperformed their non-dyslexic colleagues in assessing visual data (radiographs) to identify distinctive characteristics of black holes.  In another simple experiment, he blurred regular photographs to the extent that they resembled astronomical images.  Dyslexics easily caught on whereas typical readers failed to do so.  Still more studies demonstrate enhanced peripheral capture and whole scene capture by dyslexics as compared to non-dyslexics .

I’m only scratching the surface here and I certainly don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that we should simply ‘celebrate’ the gift of dyslexia and leave it at that.  Reading and other academic pursuits remain a real challenge for those with dyslexia and other related disabilities.  We have lifetimes of work ahead of us as we work to remediate weaknesses. But identifying the distinctive aptitudes of those with dyslexia helps us understand the condition more completely.  I plan on keeping an eye on Schneps’ work and LVL to increase my understanding and help me appreciate my son and other dyslexics for their unique abilities – not just their ability to overcome certain learning challenges.

Happy New Year!