Medical device aids speech therapy

One out of every 15 kids has a speech impediment. When a toddler says “wabbit” instead of “rabbit,” it may be cute, but as the child grows older, it can be the source of cruel taunts and teasing.

What’s more, conventional speech therapy can take months and may never completely fix the problem. But now a new device arms therapists with a set of tools that can correct the problem with unprecedented precision and speed.

Dyslexia: Teacher’s hi-tech tools give hope

AN INNOVATIVE project set up by a teacher at a Scottish primary school has made a significant breakthrough in helping children with dyslexia.

A five-year study of pupils in P3-7 using computer programmes tailored to the needs of individuals has found children’s spelling ages improved by an average of 14 months and, in some cases, by up to 30 months in a school year.

It is now hoped the scheme, which was outlined at the annual conference of the Scottish Educational Research Association last week, can be extended to other schools across Scotland.

A hereditary, life-long condition, dyslexia is a spectrum of difficulties in learning to read, write and spell. One in ten people are thought to be dyslexic, with up to one in four of these thought to be severely dyslexic.

According to Dyslexia Scotland, if the condition remains unidentified, it is likely to result in stress and low achievement and self-esteem.

Fiona Lyon, head of additional support needs at Our Lady of the Missions in Thornliebank, East Renfrewshire, used existing computer programmes, modifying them to the individual needs of her students.

After collating results over a five-year period she found it had led to a marked improvement in spelling.

There are around 80 dyslexic children at Our Lady of the Missions, a school of 750 pupils. Using the Wordshark 3s and Education City programmes, Lyon set out to establish whether there was any advantage in using intervention based on IT, rather than traditional methods such as worksheets and a spelling book.

Lyon said gains using traditional methods had been “marginal”, while success using the computer programmes had been “astounding”.

She said: “Information technology offers a flexible way for pupils to communicate, learn and be creative and can be a highly motivating method of providing opportunities to learn and have fun.

“Most classrooms are equipped with computers and an interactive whiteboard, so IT should be part of the pupils’ daily learning.

Lots of schools use Education City, but we use a facility which allows you to tailor-make activities for the children.

I created a bank of activities for the children, but it was pupil-led and they had to save their scores, so there was an element of independent learning.

“These programmes make children listen, sit up and learn. We have seen huge gains which are quite significant”.

Lyon said some children with mild forms of dyslexia were still going undetected.

“Mild dyslexia could probably go undiagnosed, but other more severe forms will definitely not go missed. Normally, you can pick up these children in P1.”

Lyon said her results showed huge improvements in the pupils’ spelling ages, with some increasing by 24 to 30 months in the space of a school year. But the gain was inversely related to the age of a child, showing that the method was most effective with younger children.

Dyslexia Scotland
Dr Margaret Crombie, of Dyslexia Scotland, said the East Renfrewshire project had been a “great success”, which pointed to how computers could be better used to tackle dyslexia.

She said: “Technology can often break down barriers to learning and be a motivational tool, especially for those children who have found learning difficult and off-putting.

Technology has infinite patience and a child can gain the learning needed to master tasks such as spelling that can otherwise appear boring to present-day children.

“Dr Lyon has systematically evaluated the benefits of such technology for learners and has achieved great success. Any projects where children can achieve the success needed to become successful learners are to be welcomed.

“Once again, early intervention has been shown to be vital for effective outcomes. To gain the best results, every teacher needs to have an armoury of tools to help with early identification and intervention”.

Scottish Government
Earlier this month the Scottish Government announced funding of £40,000 to help bolster an online teaching resource supporting pupils with dyslexia.

Launched in June 2010, the dyslexia toolkit is a comprehensive web-based teachers’ resource for the assessment of literacy difficulties and dyslexia.

Education Secretary Mike Russell said: “The Scottish Government is working to improve the life chances of all Scotland’s children and young people.

“If we are going to realise that ambition, learners need to receive support to overcome any barriers they may have to realising their potential.”

Check out more information on Teachers' Resources at the TES website

Timothy Syndrome: Brain finding sheds light on autism

Cells taken from people with a rare syndrome linked to autism could help explain the origins of the condition, scientists suggest.

The Stanford University team turned skin cells from people with "Timothy syndrome" into fully-fledged brain cells.

The abnormal activity found in these cells could be partially corrected using an experimental drug, Nature Medicine reports.

UK researchers warned the findings might not apply to everyone with autism.

Compared with the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide thought to show characteristics of autism, "Timothy syndrome" is vanishingly rare, affecting an estimated 20 people across the planet.

People who have the syndrome frequently display autistic behaviour, such as problems with social development and communication.

Because it is caused by a single gene defect rather than a combination of small genetic flaws, each making a tiny contribution, it presents a useful target for scientists looking to examine what goes wrong in the developing brain of a child with autism.

Ready for work

The US researchers used a technique developed recently to generate brain cells called neurons from only a sample of the patient's skin.

This allowed them to examine their development in the laboratory, and even use them to test out possible treatments.

They found obvious differences between neurons grown from Timothy syndrome patients, and those from healthy "control" subjects.

The healthy neurons developed into different subtypes, ready for work in different regions of the brain.

In contrast, the proportion of neurons developing into each subtype was different in the Timothy syndrome samples - more were equipped to work in the upper part of the cerebral cortex, and fewer in the lower part.

This meant there were fewer neurons equipped to work in a part of the brain called the corpus callosum, which has the role of helping the left and right "hemispheres" of the brain communicate.

These differences echoed those already observed in mice specially bred with the Timothy syndrome genetic fault.

In addition, the neurons were making too much of a particular body chemical linked to the manufacture of dopamine and norepinephrine, which play a significant role in sensory processing and social behaviour.

Dr Ricardo Dolmetsch, who led the study, said that the abnormalities found tallied with other evidence that autism was due in part to poor communication between different parts of the brain.

The team managed to reduce significantly the number of these malfunctioning neurons by adding a drug as they developed.

This, they said, meant it might be possible one day to treat this defect in a real patient, although the drug used was not currently suitable for children due to side-effects.

The National Autistic Society gave a cautious welcome to findings, but warned that they did not necessarily offer insights into every form of autism.

Researcher Georgina Gomez said: "Timothy syndrome is only one form of autism and so these findings only give a very limited picture of what might cause the condition.

"More work would need to be done to substantiate this particular piece of research."

The Refracted Alphabet Video

Refraction - The Alphabet from Jesse Zanzinger on Vimeo.

A brilliant visual experiment by Jesse Zanzinger. Refraction: The Alphabet — a stunning visual exploration of the alphabet, rendered in type refracted through backlit signage lettering and images on an iPhone, with voiceover by the late and great Richard Pryor from his Sesame Street ABC. Beautiful.

The 3D Alphabet Book - Pop-up Letters

We’re suckers for a good pop-up book, but Marion Bataille‘s ABC3D takes it to a whole new level.

Slick, stylish and designerly, it’s hard to capture its tactile, interactive magic in static words — you have to have it in your hands to truly appreciate it.

The Washington Post hit the nail on the head:

Does for paper what Claymation did for mud. It’s a three-dimensional, interactive, cinematic treat for the littlest fingers right up to the oldest eye...

Visit the Publishers website or read more and see the illustrations and videos: The Alphabet Book Rethought | Brain Pickings

David Sacks' Alphabets

A new book by David Sacks offers much more depth than the designerly eye candy the genre lends itself to.

Alphabets: A Miscellany of Letters is an ambitious exploration of the pervasiveness of letters in everyday life, tracing our visual vocabulary to its roots in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Kanji characters and other ancient alphabets with rich illustrations, beautiful graphic design and typography, found objects, graffiti and more.

Read more at the Brain Pickings website

Natalie Merchant Sings Children´s Poems at Ted

Natalie Merchant’s absolutely breathtaking live performance at TED earlier this year, which, though not doing justice to her live stage charisma. The rich emotion oozing from Merchant’s voice as her melodic storytelling unfolds is just otherworldly.

Where Children Sleep: James Mollison's Poignant Photographs

Kenyan-born, English-raised, Venice-based documentary photographer James Mollison explores Where Children Sleep — a remarkable series capturing the diversity of and, often, disparity between children’s lives around the world through portraits of their bedrooms.

The project began on a brief to engage with children’s rights and morphed into a thoughtful meditation on poverty and privilege, its 56 images spanning from the stone quarries of Nepal to the farming provinces of China to the silver spoons of Fifth Avenue.

From the start, I didn’t want it just to be about ‘needy children’ in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations. It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background.” ~ James Mollison

Perhaps most interestingly, the book was written and designed as an empathy tool for 9-to-13-year-olds to better understand the lives of other children around the world, but it is also very much a poignant photographic essay on human rights for the adult reader.

See more illustrations at the Brain Pickinfs website: Where Children Sleep: James Mollison's Poignant Photographs | Brain Pickings

A Book of Sleep

A lovely 2009 children’s book titled A Book of Sleep — the American debut of Korean illustrator Il Sung Na, whose beautifully textured drawings tell the poetic, quiet story of creatures going to rest.

When the sky grows dark
and the moon glows bright,
everyone goes to sleep . . .
except for the watchful owl!”

Read more at the Brain Pickings website: A Book of Sleep | Brain Pickings

The Actual '73 Giving Tree Movie Spoken By Shel Silverstein - YouTube

Shel Silverstein is one of the most beloved children’s authors and illustrators of our time, his masterpiece The Giving Tree one of those rare gems of children’s literature with timeless philosophy for grown-ups.

Every Thing On It is a lovely new book of 137 never-before-seen poems and drawings, only the second posthumous anthology published since Silverstein’s passing in 1999.

A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years . . .

To celebrate the new release, here is a 1973 animated adaptation of The Giving Tree, read by Silverstein himself — a priceless memento of one of our era’s most wholehearted creators.