Dyslexia: TUC Guidelines

The TUC has published the third edition of its guide to dealing with dyslexia in the workplace.

Several million working age adults have dyslexia, which can cause problems with performance, organisation of work and time management, with around four per cent of the population seriously affected by the condition.

Workers can face real difficulties at work if their dyslexia is not diagnosed or if appropriate adjustments to their working conditions and environment are not made.

Union reps can play a vital part in supporting work colleagues with dyslexia and negotiating solutions with employers, says the guide.

The new edition of Dyslexia in the Workplace is a major rewrite of the original handbook, taking account of changes in the law and in good practice.

The guide includes an outline of the main issues around dyslexia, how to identify whether an employee is dyslexic, how to undertake proper workplace assessments and how companies can do more to support staff with the condition.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “All too often, workers with dyslexia can find themselves facing disciplinary action over perceived failures, when early awareness of the condition could have led to sensible solutions being identified.

“Our new workplace guidance gives union reps and employees the information they need to support dyslexic work colleagues and sort out any workplace problems.”

• Dyslexia in the Workplace: a TUC Guide by Brian Hagan (3rd edition 2014) is available from TUC publications for £5 (trade unions and union members) or £15 (all others).
• Readers can view a copy of the handbook here 
• The TUC is organising Fair Pay Fortnight from Monday 24 March to Sunday 6 April. It will be a series of events across England and Wales to raise awareness about falling living standards. 
• All TUC press releases can be found here

Epilepsy Scotland's guidelines on Post-ictal Psychosis

Read Epilepsy Scotland's guidelines on Post-ictal Psychosis, the recovery process after having a seizure.

Postical psychosis often complicates chronic epilepsy, especially in patients with seizure clusters that include tonic–clonic seizures, bilateral cerebral dysfunction (e.g., bilateral epileptiform activity or history of encephalitis), and a family history of psychiatric illness.

Psychosis includes delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, mood changes, and aggressive behaviour.

It typically emerges after a lucid interval of hours or days after the last seizure.

This treatable disorder is associated with serious morbidity and mortality.

UK Government Dept of Education Guidelines for Dyslexia, etc.

Click on the picture to go to UK Gov website and the Guidelines for Teachers, regarding Dyslexia and other Learning Difficulties.

Rules Your Children didn't Learn at School

ADHD: UK NHS Guidelines (2008)

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Diagnosis and management of ADHD in children, young people and adults

Description
The advice in the NICE guideline covers:

• the care, treatment and support that children, young people and adults with ADHD should be offered
• how families and carers can support people with ADHD.

It does not specifically look at:

• the treatment of children younger than 3 years
• the treatment of conditions other than ADHD.

Guidance documents

• Full guideline documents
• NICE guideline PDF format | MS Word format
• Quick reference guide PDF format
• NICE guidance written for patients and carers PDF format | MS Word format | Fformat MS Word
• CG72 Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): NICE guideline (web format)

Free Vision and Learning Guide - Download

Dr. Kellye Knueppel noted that what a client's daughter was experiencing was not uncommon. Letter and /or word reversal.

“From approximately age 5 to age 11, directionality concepts are developing, so reversals are normal at younger ages,” she said. 

Dr. Knueppel also shared that educators are usually taught that reversals are normal until age 8, and typically, no action is taken even if the child at ages 6 or 7 reverses things more frequently than his or her peers.

“We have tests to determine if the amount of reversals the child is doing is actually age appropriate or not,” Dr. Knueppel said. 

“If it is, we would just monitor the situation. If the reversals are more frequent than they should be, we would work on laterality and directionality concepts.”

If you notice frequent reversals, as she did with her client's daughter, consider a Functional Vision Test. 

You may find out that, as Dr. Knueppel noted, your child’s word reversals are normal.  However, if you find there is a problem, you can pursue the treatment that will allow for healthy visual development.

The Vision and Learning Guide is filled with information that can help parents and teachers determine if a child has a vision problem.

It provides an overview of how vision can impact learning, and includes:

• The Vision Quiz to help you quickly assess a child's symptoms.
• Samples of what schoolwork looks like from a person with vision problems.
• Classroom stress points and modifications to help students.
• Links to studies on the efficacy of vision therapy.

The Vision and Learning Guide provides the critical first step to determining if a child has a vision problem.

Download Your Free Vision and Learning Guide

Epilepsy Scotland's Guide to Teenagers

To read this guide simply click on the picture or follow this link.

For more information on Epilepsy Scotland follow this link.

New Diagnostic Guidelines for DSM: The Manual for Mental Disorders

New Diagnostic Guidelines for Mental Illnesses Proposed - BusinessWeek

For the first time in more than a decade, the American Psychiatric Association has announced proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), long considered the "Bible" of psychiatry.

Unlike its predecessor, DSM-4, the new DSM-5 would not formally recognize sex and Internet addictions; would create a new category for "risk" disorders for people possibly heading towards developing full psychosis or dementia; and would create a new disorder, "temper dysregulation with dysphoria" (TDD) to incorporate both mood and behavioral disturbances, partly a response to current overdiagnosis of juvenile bipolar disorder.

Other issues were also addressed, including creating an overarching category known as "autism spectrum disorders" to encompass autism, Asperger's syndrome and other similar conditions. This term is already widely used. And "mental retardation" would become "intellectually challenged."

DSM is the tome used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to diagnose different conditions and to guide research.

The proposed draft will be available for public comment until April 20. The final document, which has already been 10 years in the making, is expected to be released in 2013. The DSM-4 was published in 1994.

One of the major changes in the proposed volume will be a move toward "dimensional assessments" for mental disorders, meaning that strict, immutable categories will be replaced by a reliance on continuums and that "cross-cutting" symptoms -- those that span several different disorders -- will be included in the criteria.

"There's no measure in the [DSM-4] to account for the severity of the disorder and therefore no way to measure if a patient, on quantitative measures, is improving with treatment," Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the DSM-5 Task Force and director of research for the American Psychiatric Association, said during a Tuesday teleconference announcing the proposed changes. "We're trying to address this with more quantitative measures on a continuum with a cut-off to decide mild, severe, very severe."

This time around, experts say they are giving "careful consideration" to how mental health disorders might vary according to race, gender and ethnicity.