you may refer to the resource directory on LD published by Banjara academy, bangalore. tel: 080-2353 5787, 2353 5766
email: banjara@bgl.vsnl.net.in

best wishes to you.

he doesnot understand 5 is bigger than 3 but knows 5>3.

can any one help

in children magazines we come across drawings that are very similar to look at, but through close observation many differences can be spotted. these ’spotting the differences’ can be fun and they improve child’s visual attention and observation and discrimination. we can provide children “sorting out” games in which they are asked to sort out colours, shapes or sizes. ask them to “match” similar looking letters, like, ‘m’, ‘w’, ‘u’, ‘n’, ‘g’, ‘p’, ‘d’, ‘b’etc. and also to “pick the odd one out” exercises where an odd word/picture is introduced among a group of similar words or pictures.

memory games with pictures and objects can be played to improve visual memory. let not the number of pics or objects be too huge to confuse the child. the number should be within the comfortable range initially and slowly increased as per the comfort of the child and not push the child to frustration levels.

“visual closure” can be improved by introducing incomplete pictures/words with blanks inbetween and the child asked to guess the right picture/word.

here i have only indicated few of the activities to improve visual perception. one can use his/her creativity to come up with number of such exercises to help children. you may even browse the web to catch hold of similar activities.

it was a nice explanation of acquired and developmental dyslexia and the efficacy of the remedial measures in these cases.

also interesting was the information about problems in brain circuitry that mediate several other functions other than reading and spelling that manifest as associated difficulties.

here i would like to know from you if there are any disruptions found in the connecting nerve circuitry between the left and the right hemispheres in these cases, which may lead to the difficulty of associating the parts (left-logical) with the whole (hollistic-right). because many of these children are able to give out the answers to arithmetic sums without being able to work out the different steps involved!!

the truth in your sentence, “We have come a long way in understanding the disorder but still infants in the field of remedial training” should humble all of us special educators!

thank you, akila. keep your comments coming and we would be happy to receive independent posts also from a knowledgeable person like you on child psychology and learning disorders. we wish you the very best in your practice.

1) Reading is a complex process that involves serveral processes to occur together (smoothly) at the same time for the individual to read, understand, remember and then react/respond to. these seemingly easy processes have to occuer within a small period of time for it to appear like an automatic process. Disruption in any one process can result in severe impairment in the output i.e. oral response or written form.
The written form, in itself a complex process, also draws heavily from the ability to read and spell fluently. thus difficulties in writing, though often seen in dyslexics, is not necessarily part of the same problem.
2) there appears to be some confusion regarding acquired and developmental reading difficulties. When an individual has the ability to read and spell accuratley but has lost it subsequent to head injury, adutitory deficits or visual deficits we are referring to those individuals who have the ability to read /spell but have lost it secondary to a more primary problem. treat the primary cause and then the reading and spelling automatically gets better.
However developmental reading difficulties is a completly diferent ball game altogether. The brain functions differently in these individuals compared to non-disabled readers. thus the concept of poor versus beter environment or structured inputs (tutions) does not seem to be the answer to the problems faced by these individuals.
3) Remedial measures for secondary/acquired dyslexia appears to be more effective as we are not looking at indivuduals who are inherently poor readers. While those that are meant to target the developmental kind claim to be more long drawn procedures. Thus when one claims to have 100% accuracy rates in remediating reading difficulties it would be useful to keep in mind the population (and the prevleance of reading dificulties in this population) for which is targetted.
3) I do quite agree with John’s comments on the limitations of fMRI studies. However several studies have pointed to the involvement of these same areas in the brain that are different from disabled to non-disabled readers. thus it would be unwise to completely ignore these findings. Also (to my knowledge) the studies do not cliam to know the causes of dyslexia but refer to these differences as the neurobilogical marker of dyslexia. Better understanding of the circuits in the brain tells me that these area can cause disruption in several functions that they mediate and thus we see so many other associated difficulties in these children in additon to their reading and spelling difficulties.
In the recent years there have been a few studies which have looked at providing remedial training to these circuits known to be invlived in reading and have reported success.
4)Remedial training has been proved to be successful and several studies claim that they have been able to help dyslexics become better readers. Accuracy in reading and spelling is easier to remediate than speed of reading and writing.
5)Dyslexia is often used to refer to a number of signs and symptoms assumed to be part of reading difficulties. However those who work with children with reading difficulaties know that each child is different from the other in that one child does not have the same kind of problems another child has. Thus there is not single package that is available yet to help all children with reading difficulties. However, if a through assessment is carried out, then the remedial training can be aimed accuratley at the deficits noticed in that particular child. We have come a long way in understanding the disorder but still infants in the field of remedial training.

Akila
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Dr Akila is a Child Neuropsychologist, a PhD scholar researching in the area of Learning Disabilities in Children from a University in Newzealand. She has done her MA in psychology and MPhil in LD at NIMHANS. She runs her own psychological clinic “SAMVIDH” where she conducts assessment, therapy and remedial programmes for children with learning disorders. she can be contacted through email: akila.keshav@gmail.com

“Learning Problems” by Mercer
Merill Publishing Company, London and Melbourne

“Overcoming Dyslexia” by Dr Beve Hornsby
P G Publishing Pvt Ltd, Singapore and Hongkong

hope the information helps you.

as far as i am concerned, all my knowledge on dyslexia is through the course materials that i got during the studies, lectures and seminars that i have attended and through internet browsing and most importantly through the parents of dyslexics and the children themselves.

you may visit these sites to know more about dyslexia or learning disability. the two are only indicative and there are number of sites explaining LD and they quote many books on LD that can help parents.

http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/

http://www.ldonline.org/

listening skill can be improved by playing games and activities in which the child recognizes various objects that you name, various colours that you name, giving a set of instructions to follow, the game “simon says…….” where the player has to listen and do as per the instruction, narrate simple stories and ask questions inbetween to find out if he is following the story, both of you playing a game of giving out words beginning with the sound that is the ending sound of the previous word, like, dog – gate – tomato – orange – gem or jane…………..

auditory memory can be helped by the activity of digit and letter span that you say and the child repeats in the same order. this helps in improving the sequential ability. every day when he returns from school, ask him to narrate the day’s events in a sequence. whenever the family returns from an outing, ask the child to recount the day’s happenings. as he watches a TV serial, ask him to explain to you the story in its right sequence. you may innovate your own games and activities like this to improve his auditory perceptual skills.

please do not get perturbed by the diagnosis. just be there for him, encourage and support him and he will surely make his own strategies to overcome the issues as he grows up. get him remedial education. my best wishes to your efforts and love to your son.