Thread by @cblack__

THREAD: The Elephant in the Reading Room

In a recent piece on dyslexia, a well-known cognitive scientist states that “we know that (dyslexia) is not simply a delay, a product of the fact that kids develop at different rates.”

danielwillingham.com/daniel-willing…

His evidence for this assertion is that “the kids who read poorly in elementary school continue to struggle” later on down the road unless they receive specialized intervention.

Okay, this makes sense. Or does it?

Let’s take a closer look at three groups of children as defined by the age of onset of reading. There are:


1. Those who learn to read ahead of schedule (often before being taught),

2. Those who learn to read on schedule (when the school teaches reading)

3. Those who are not able to read on the school schedule, and who may show other markers such as lower levels of phonological awareness, smaller vocabulary, etc.

The cognitive scientist states that we know that this is not just a developmental variation, because this last group doesn’t simply develop normally at a later date, but continues to have problems with reading down the road.

Okay, this makes sense. Or does it?

Well, before we accept that claim, these three groups would have to be matched for as many factors as possible — socioeconomic class, health, method of instruction, etc. — that might effect learning outcomes. Right?

But what if there’s an enormous factor — an elephant-sized factor — that is virtually impossible to match for in a conventional school setting?

Let’s zoom in and look at the lives of these three groups: the early readers, the “right-on-time” readers, and the late or “delayed” readers to see what might be different for them.

Group 1: The Early Readers.

When kids learn to read ahead of schedule, the adults around them (with few exceptions) are beaming with pride and joy. At home, at school, at grandma’s house, these kids are praised, told they’re smart, and made to feel special.

Group 2: The “Right-On-Time” Readers.

When kids learn to read right “on schedule,” most parents and teachers will be content, proud, and satisfied with them. They are generally comfortable among their peers; they’re “normal.” They belong.

Group 3: The Late Readers.

When kids fall behind the school reading schedule, they sense that their parents and teachers are disappointed, frustrated, concerned (no matter how hard you may try to hide it, kids will always sense this.)

Report cards may detail their lack of “proficiency.” Whispered conversations about “what’s wrong” may start creating tensions at home. Parents may disagree and begin arguing about what to do about “the problem.”

Among their peers, kids may feel humiliated and inferior. Other kids may laugh at them or tease them for their struggles. They may be negatively compared to siblings — (or compare themselves, even if their parents try hard to avoid it.)

Playtime and rest time may be lost to special tutoring that the other kids don’t have to do. A sense of pressure and tension may continue to build. All the joy may go out of reading aloud at bedtime, as parents try to use this time as an opportunity to “teach.”

At some point kids start to hear words like “delay” and “disability.” The idea that there’s something wrong with their brain may come up. Meetings with strangers are scheduled & intimidating tests are given. By this time, the child may feel something is deeply wrong with them.

The sense of humiliation, of being different, defective, can cause stress levels and shame to soar, which can cause cognitive function to shut down. Kids may go into fight, flight, or freeze mode, becoming unable to focus, listen, or remember.

Add to this that if the late reader has an abusive family situation, reading failure at school may lead to verbal or physical abuse at home. Now do a little research on the impact of fear, shame, and violence on the brain.

Do the MRI’s of these children look different from the MRI’s of early readers? Sure. The MRI of somebody who’s thinking about ice cream looks different from the MRI of somebody who’s not thinking about ice cream.

The MRI of traumatized children looks different from the MRI of non-traumatized children. Whole regions of the brain go dark. Defense modes are over-activated. Areas that deal with language and reasoning go offline.

These kids may have all kinds of problems with learning down the road, not necessarily because they are “dyslexic,” or “learning disabled,” but because when your brain is in full threat mode you can’t focus or listen or remember.

But these aren’t symptoms of a disability. They are normal human responses to threat, fear, shame, and trauma.

So consider this: what happens to a child who had a naturally later developmental arc in this context? When all this anxiety, conflict, scrutiny, shaming, and intervention is interposed into a developmental process that would have unfolded easily with just a little more time?

What happens when a child is pressured to learn a skill that they are developmentally unable to learn? What happens when the very thought of that skill becomes inextricably associated with shame, fear, and humiliation?”

What happens if the age at which we require reading is simply cutting off and devastating a percentage of kids who would have learned to read easily at a later date? And if the earlier we require it, the more kids will be devastated?

So does dyslexia “exist?” Well, there are probably a few things that exist. Some kids with reading problems may fall into any of these categories; many probably have a combination:

1. There are definitely, beyond question, developmental differences –– substantial differences –– in every dimension and milestone of child development.

2. There may be developmental differences that cause children to develop skills in a different order — with some kids, for example, developing spatial or quantitative skills earlier and verbal skills later, while for others it’s the reverse.

3. There is definitely, beyond question, an acquired syndrome of anxiety or phobia specifically around reading that –– along with deep feelings of inferiority & shame –– can cause significant long-term problems.

4. There are definitely, beyond question, ways that trauma affects the brain that may have impacts on all forms of learning, reading included.

5. And sure, there may in fact be discrete brain differences that make reading harder for some people (and that often make other forms of learning or thinking quicker or deeper or more accurate or more creative or more fluid.) (Or funnier.)

But to try to tease out the role of anxiety, shame, and fear from developmental and other factors, you would have to have a control group of late readers who don’t experience that shame and fear.

Groups like that do exist — among unschoolers and democratic or Sudbury school students, late reading is seen as a completely normal human variation which in no way correlates to overall ability, intelligence, value, etc.

In those groups, we rarely see the pattern where kids who read late have permanent problems. On the contrary, in those groups, kids who read late often go very quickly from being non-readers to being fully fluent chapter book readers who are well “ahead” of “grade level.”

In fact, in these groups, late readers are often highly intelligent, highly academically proficient, and even highly talented in language and literature, and show no long term deficit at all in their reading, writing, or other language skills.

The fact that cognitive scientists whose field of expertise is human learning remain unaware of this is... remarkable.

Again — I’m not saying dyslexia doesn’t exist. I know unschooling parents who feel their kids are dyslexic. There may well be organic brain differences that make reading harder for some people.

What I'm saying is that there is no way to answer that question in an environment where kids at the later end of the developmental spectrum are shamed and stigmatized.

What's remarkable is that cognitive scientists are having this discussion without any mention of that shame and stigma and its tragic impacts on children and learning.

It’s an elephant in the room so large that it’s hard to believe they don’t see it. But I guess they don’t.

It’s actually a pretty interesting question for cognitive psychology: how is it that they don’t see this? What are the cognitive biases that could lead a scientist to overlook something so obvious?

It’s a pretty complete failure of empathy and perspective-taking.

It’s also, not incidentally, a pretty complete failure of scientific thinking.

So yeah. Put that on the list of problems with “evidence-based” education.

If you’re carefully, meticulously measuring & recording every ant & blade of grass & grain of sand, but you’re not measuring the elephant, you're not going to get the right answer to your question.