Dyslexia and Talent - Rod Nicolson Positive Dyslexia

Rod Nicolson, Professor of Psychology (University of Sheffield).

The Conference on Dyslexia and Talent was a landmark event that brought together from accomplished dyslexics from diverse fields, including a MacArthur Genius award winner, Pulitzer-prize winning poet, CEOs, artists, doctors, lawyers, and leaders in the dyslexia community.

Join the movement at http://dyslexicadvantage.com

Dyslexia action: Dyslexia Still Matters - PetitionBuzz

Dyslexia Action are calling for a National Dyslexia and Literacy Strategy to enable the best evidence and solutions to be brought forward to increase the literacy standards in all UK schools. 

Our schools and teachers need our support, with access to training and expertise to better enable them to support the learning needs of children with dyslexia and literacy difficulties.

In the light of planned reforms of the Special Educational Needs system and considering other key changes, we put forward positive suggestions and solutions in our report 'Dyslexia still matters'. 

This Dyslexia Action report looks at the situation for children with dyslexia and literacy difficulties in our schools today.

It explores the progress that has been made and examines what still needs to be done to ensure school is positive and rewarding.

To read the full report, please visit www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk 

Go to Pettition Buzz to sign the petition: Dyslexia Still Matters - PetitionBuzz

Sleep: Accentuating the positive memories

Sleep plays a powerful role in preserving our memories, but while recent research shows that wakefulness may cloud memories of negative or traumatic events, a new study has found that wakefulness also degrades positive memories.

Sleep, it seems, protects positive memories just as it does negative ones, and that has important implications for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“The study of how sleep helps us remember and process emotional information is still young,” says Alexis Chambers of the University of Notre Dame.

Past work has focused on the role of negative memories for sleep, in particular how insomnia is a healthy biological response for people to reduce negative memories and emotions associated with a traumatic event.

Two new studies presented this week at a meeting of cognitive neuroscientists in Chicago are exploring the flip side: how sleep treats the positive.

“Only if we investigate all the possibilities within this field will we ever fully understand the processes underlying our sleep, memory, and emotions,” Chambers says.

Protecting the positive

To test how sleep affects positive memories, Rebecca Spencer of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her colleagues split 70 young adults into two groups, one that got to sleep overnight and one that had to stay awake.

Both groups viewed images of positive items, such as puppies and flowers, and neutral items, such as furniture or dinner plates.

The researchers then tested the participants’ memories of and emotional reactions to the images 12 hours later, after either the period of sleep or wake.

They found that “sleep enhances our emotionally positive memories while these memories decay over wake,” Spencer says.

“Positive memories may even be prioritized for processing during sleep.” But while people remembered the positive images more than the neutral ones, their emotional response to the positive images did not change over sleep versus wake.

“It doesn’t matter if you went to sleep or stayed awake, what you thought was a ’9′ i.e. really great, you still think is a ’9′,” she says.

The results, she says, could have significant implications for treating post-traumatic stress disorder, as using wakefulness could have the unintended effect of degrading of positive memories in addition to negative memories.

“It suggests that insomnia should be treated at some point after a traumatic event – perhaps a few days/weeks depending on the level of trauma, so that these positive memories can be strengthened and eventually outweigh the negative,” Spencer says.

Read more: Accentuating the positive memories for sleep | ScienceBlog.com

Homework: What to Do and What not

Homework Do's and Don'ts - Part I

Parenting Skills: Trust Issues in Children

Researchers examining 'trust' issues in children conducted a study whereby children were shown a video of a ficticious game called 'daxing'. In the video shown to the children, either a boy or a man argued over the correct way to 'dax'.

The child was then asked to play the game 'dax', and the method they chose to use was recorded. Children were also shown a puppet, who interjected and said it was his time to 'dax'.

The Puppet's role
I find the inclusion of a puppet very interesting in this study. I believe that the puppet here represented a non-threatening neutral or objective character, neither adult nor peer and therefore exerted little or no social pressure on the child.

It had no established role, except that of an object that had a social status equal to, or lower than the child and therefore, can easily be addressed and controlled by the child. Perhaps moreso than his peers, perhaps not, but I digress.

To return to the study, the puppet performed 'daxing' either in the way the boy in the film or the man in the film did it, and the children's reactions were recorded.

Results
The researchers found that the children imitated the adult's method of 'daxing' significantly more often than they imitated the boy's method.

Children were also more likely to intervene when the puppet performed 'daxing' using the boy's method, protesting that the puppet was 'daxing' wrongly.

Lessons Learned
The results from the study suggest that children prefer to learn from adults rather than other children when it comes to rule-governed activities like learning a new game.

They also expect other people (the puppet) to learn and perform actions in the way that the adults have defined. This is demonstrated by the expectation that the puppet would also follow the adult's actions and not the boy's and consequent protests if it did not.

Social Norms
These findings tell us many things. Firstly, that young children will more readily accept adult's instructions and behaviour as being right, in normal circumstances and that adults' behaviour should be copied and followed or repeated, accordingly. Certainly, if the other choice is to listen to or comply with their peers or, heaven forbid, a puppet (other people).

This has wide spread implications for social learning of both good, bad and corrective guidance and behaviour in children and adults, especially for parents. The basic expectations of the children are that their parents are the leaders, good role models and positive examples to be trusted, obeyed and followed.

For more information on the study click on the link to the British Psychological Society (BPS)

Dyslexia: Be positive

The Bluebird of Happiness and Positivity
It is often difficult but very important that you try to stay positive about dyslexia. The more positive you are the easier it will be to address and possibly overcome, the drawbacks and difficulties that you, or your children, may be experiencing.

A positive mindset always helps when tackling any ‘difficulty’ in life. It assists in keeping things in perspective and stops a ‘challenge’ that you are trying to overcome becoming a 'problem.'

Challenges can be FUN!
Challenges are achieveable goals and can often be seen as fun to tackle. Whereas ‘problems’ are generally perceived to be enduring, stubborn and near impossible to solve.

If you consider reading ‘difficulties’ as a ‘challenge’ to overcome, you will most probably do more reading each day in an attempt to improve your reading skills. Whereas, by seeing reading ‘difficulties’ as a ‘problem,’ you will most likely reduce the amount of reading that you do or avoid reading all together.

Easy to say
It may be easier to say that, having a positive mind set towards dyslexia helps, but it is easier said than done. Some children who suffer from dyslexia go through a predictable stage of being quite negative about their condition.

This is particularly the case for many children who discover later in life that they suffer from dyslexia. They have spent a long time trying to deal with it on their own terms and have built up a number of 'unofficial' coping strategies.

Having gone through this pain, they are now trying to make sense, not only of their new found ‘problem’ but also of all the past ‘failures’ in their lives, even if they now realise that they were connected to their dyslexia.

Late arrivals
Some ‘late arrivals’ look back over there school years and feel resentment for being let down by the educational system. They feel angry that their dyslexia was not spotted and that their needs have not only, not been addressed but have also certainly not been met.

Most, will feel the anguish of having been wrongly categorised and judged ‘stupid’ by teachers, friends and family. Many people become insular and depressed, feeling that they could have made more out of their lives if they had known earlier about dyslexia.

Acceptance and the Future
In such cases, it is neither easy nor realistic to expect that children will suddenly dismiss their feelings, switch off their negativity and start thinking positively towards dyslexia, even if it is the best path to take.

There is no future in living in the past. Let it go! It is necessary that they work through their feelings and emotions, to the point where they can accept and forgive the past for what it is, and position themselves to look to the future.

They will have self-esteem issues and these can be deeply rooted. They will need strong, reliable support to help them work their way through this. They will need positive re-enforcement to ensure they emerge outwards and upwards.

Maintain a Positive Attitude
If you are going to assist and support someone who suffers from dyslexia, always create a strong feeling of security, well-being and encouragement. Focus on, and maintain a positive attitude and outlook that lead to positive activities.

Think positively of the destination and take progressive steps to get there, the path and speed of travel are yours to select. Enjoy the journey!

Dyslexia: First Days at School

The first days of school are difficult for all children but they can be expecially difficult for children who are suffering from a form of dyslexia.

This is especially the case if the child knows that they have difficulties with words and reading. Their apprehension will be even greater, so you need to make the transition to school as pleasant and as comfortable as possible.

Preparartion
Preparation is the key word to help your child transition between the comforts of you and your home and the unkown scary world of school. So, the key things to address in the beginning is to make the experience less 'unknown' and less 'scary.'

Similar Experiences
Take time to explain to your child what the structure of their day is going to be and make it as real as possible for them. If they have already experienced being at a pre-school nuresery or class, then simply use that as a basis to explain the differences to come.

Older Children
You can ask older children to explain what school is like but this can be a bit tricky because some older children will tease and joke around, thinking they are being funny but instead they are frightening the child more.

So, this has to be a supervised event. Stay with them and correct any negative or scare tactics as and when they occur.

Making Friends
Hopefully your child will have already made friends with other children of their age and that they are going to the same school together. The school is just another place for them to go and play and have fun together. This is certainly the best scenario but it doesn't always work out that way.

Networking
Do some mother to mother networking in the neighbourhood. Use your own be-friending skills to introduce yourself to another mother in similar circumstances i.e. their child is preparing to go to school for the first time. Explain how you would like the children to make friends with each other before going to school, so that they will have a friend in situ.

The friendship may not last but by that time they will have made other friends and school will be just another place to go and have adventures.

Use Your Own Experiences
If your child is going to a new school and doesn't know anyone there, spend some time beforehand telling them about how quickly you made new friends at school. Use your own positive experiences. Let them see the pleasure in your face when you talk about it.

Separation Anxiety
Inevitably, separation anxiety impacts the mother as well as the child but it should be a transitional phase that both can overcome. The mother knows that they will be re-united at the end of each school day. The child has been told this but may take some time to realise the truth of it.

Constant reassurance does help but the best way to prepare the child for the separation process is to introduce the concept to them slowly and regularly, during normal day to day activities.

Leaving your child in the care of a responsible adult for a short time until you do something else, should not be an alien experience for the child but the difference with going to school is the length of time that the child is separated from it's parent.

It is important, in the first days of a new school that the parent is there, waiting outside the school, to pick up the child and no excuses will be accepted for avoiding this responsibility.

Ask the School
Most schools understand that starting school is a stressful time for children and parents and will arrange a pre-intake visit and if not then you can suggest it to them. A brief introduction to the 'child-friendly' teacher should alleviate some of the child's fears.

Re-assure the child in the presence of the teacher, that they can approach the teacher with any concerns and that they will be as safe and well taken care of in the school, as they are at home.

Raise Concerns
I recommend that you make an appointment to speak to the teacher, before your child goes to school and point out any concerns that you have about the child's ability to read and understand words. At this time you can develop a strategy and a plan to help the teacher, you and your child work on this issue.

Do not expect your child to do this because they will find it far too difficult. If you make this approach early enough, then the teacher may recommend some simple tasks to help you build up your child's confidence and understanding, before starting school.

Escalate
It is rare to find a teacher that will not help you constructively with your child's difficulties but it does happen. You should persevere with this but if, after 2 or 3 visits to the school, you are unable to engage with the teacher, then simply ask the head of school to intervene.

Be positive and assertive, but remain polite and considerate throughout, because you need their support. You do not want to damage the relationship you have with them or that they have with your child, at this early stage. You will need them on your side for the duration of the term and probably longer.

Summary
Preparation, familiarity and reassurance will help your child approach their schooldays with excitement and as a great adventure. Yes, there will be difficulties and the occasional upset but they can be dealt with, if and when they happen.