Today, myth #9 for #DyslexiaAwarenessMonth: "Struggling with learning to read is only affecting your academic outcome, but has no influence on your mental health!" NOT TRUE! Difficulty with reading at grade-level can lead to low self-esteem, feelings of shame, inadequacy...1/6
Difficulty with learning to read can lead to helplessness, frustration often leading to a variety of mental health problems and individuals with #dyslexia, #reading impairments or other learning disabilities show higher rates of #depression and #anxiety 2/6
Individuals with #dyslexia /#reading impairments are often perceived by others as being ‘lazy’ or as those who ‘do not try enough'. Teachers/parents/peers often misinterpret the ‘dyslexic’ child’s struggle as negative attitude or poor behavior[Saracoglu, 1989; Riddick,1999] 3/6
Negative experiences leave children with learning disabilities vulnerable to feelings of shame failure, inadequacy, helplessness, depression & loneliness [e.g.; Valas et al., 1999] which can lead to possible anti-social behavior with long-standing consequences [Baker, 2007]. 4/6
Without proper remediation, it's less likely that children with learning disabilities such as #dyslexia will complete high school [Marder, 1992], join programs of higher education [Quinn, 2001], & increased probability they will enter the juvenile justice system [Wagner, 1993]5/6
Here is Myth #2 for #DyslexiaAwarnessMonth 2020:
FIRST SIGNS OF #DYSLEXIA OR #READING IMPAIRMENTS CAN ONLY BE SEEN AFTER 2-3 YEARS OF READING INSTRUCTION. Nope. Early signs can be seen as early as preschool. Here is what to look for:
Numerous studies have shown that these skills are predictive of successful #reading acquisition as early as age 4 or 5:
Phonological awareness
Pseudoword repetition
Rapid Automatized Naming
Expressive/Receptive vocabulary
Letter (sound) knowledge
Oral listening comprehension
We are back for #DyslexiaAwarenessMonth 2020 after all the wonderful feedback we received last year! Every Day we will bust another #dyslexia and #reading myth during the month of October:
MYTH #1 for 2020:
DYSLEXIA AND READING IMPAIRMENTS ARE RARE
While the exact prevalence of #dyslexia/#reading impairments depends on many factors (e.g., the definition, the spoken and written language, diagnostic practices), we can say with great certainty that dyslexia/reading impairments are not rare.
Let's take a look at the numbers: The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows in their report that approx. 65% of 4th graders are not #reading proficiently and the numbers are similar for students in 8th grade. You can find the 2019 report here nationsreportcard.gov/reading?grade=4
Thank you @BostonChildrensfor all your support during the development of this! We could not have done this without your Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator!!! #grateful
Thank you @ne_inno for believing in us! #NEInnovation#NEInno
Rapid and widespread changes in #brain anatomy and physiology in the first five years of life present substantial challenges for developmental #MRI studies. One persistent challenge is that methods best suited to earlier developmental stages are suboptimal for later stages
This new review describes the data acquisition, processing, & analysis challenges that introduce these potential biases when conducting & analyzing data from infants and young children & attempts to elucidate decisions & recommendations that can optimize developmental comparisons
Many school districts are deciding to use 'survey' or 'questionnaire' #screeners (asking teachers a series of questions) for assessing #dyslexia risk instead of directly assessing the child. It's very problematic for various reasons & can harm our #dyslexia advocacy efforts1/6
1) Several research studies have shown that teacher surveys are poorly correlated with the actual performance of a child, especially at the beginning of K (or any grade since teachers are still getting to know the student). It' important to DIRECTLY assess the child's skills 2/6
For example, this study bit.ly/36Gve6e: shows "..teachers’ judgments of students’ early #literacy skills alone may be insufficient to accurately identify students at risk for #reading difficulties. So, why are we still using these? 3/6