Misunderstood Minds 

I really really enjoyed watching the videos and the group work last week. It finally all came together. The activity and the brainstorming led us to the conclusion that we read in Edyburn's article about remediation vs. compensation. I am a high school teacher and I teach math and science. By the time the students with disability get to grade 9, they are frustrated, unmotivated, and angry and it is too LATE to start then.

As Edyburn's mentions in his article, when the nature of the disability is physical, we as educators tend to pay more attention to compensate and help the students out to be able to perform his/her required tasks but we tend to fail when the nature of the disability is cognitive. it is very obvious to me that we are holding a double standard here. 

The following are the summary of our videos and at the end the course of action that we came up with:

Nathan Vanhoy - Clip # 1

• worldly (well traveled)
• liked reading books
• sporty
• Grade 1 – didn’t recognize alphabet
• trying, and trying, and trying – you get tired
• aware of difference
• Mom – in denial; sat to read with him – realized he had memorized book to compensate
• containment response
• The school’s prescribed strategy – repeat 1st grade
• parents hired a tutor – seemed to know all material needed for 2nd grade but by week 9, problems arose (had memorized) - new material – problematic
• Dr. Mel Levine – tests for strengths and weaknesses; has child perform 33 tasks to get clues about how the child’s brain is wired
• problem for Nathan – rhyming – phonemic awareness

Adam Dunning - Clip # 6

• well-mannered
• Mom knew early on something was wrong for Adam – Parent's intuition
• would read with him, but Adam couldn’t identify word that should be familiar to him
• teachers said he was lazy
• Grade 5 – tested – did IQ tests but he had an average score (over all tests)
• parents continued to ask for testing
• in Grade 7 – reading at a Grade 3 level
• too old for early intervention
• school prescribed a small class setting – put him in a class in the cellar with 12 kids
• wanted out of school
• Dad went to school – some teachers had never seen him in class
• Adam – frustrated – Why can’t I read?
• needed professional help
• Dr. Weissrecognized his problem with syllables – multi-syllabic words – led to problems with spelling
• behavioural descriptions were being placed on a cognitive problem
• Adam turned to drugs and alcohol; stealing money from parents; skipping school – finally a police call – Adam had crashed a stolen car
• Dad had him committed to a psychiatric ward to get him help
• psychologist – We pay huge prices for not giving kids what they need

Nathan Suggs - Clip # 7

• loves science
• willful, forgetful, handful
• Ritalin was prescribed for ADD diagnosis –
• parents felt it was a temporary relief and decided
• to take him off it
• hated everything, angry, sad,
• Thought that he “shouldn’t be alive”
• Public school – not working
• private school – too expensive
• home school – Mom tried, but may have been beyond her scope
• Mel Levine – success is like a vitamin and a vitamin-deficiency is highly damaging to self-esteem of child
• knew letter K but could not write it
• output problem – great intake
• “demystification” = explaining the problem to the child
• Nathan is like a jaguar with a small gas tank
• Lavoie – analogy to three clocks out of sink – law of averages-will be in sink and then all goes well for child at that time; there is movement – demystification is essential; the child knows there are problems

 

When you have kids with disability in our classrooms:

1. Catching them on time is crucial.
2. The IQ test and other kinds of tests that use average may give you inaccurate information.  Children with disabilities are often incredibly strong in some areas.
3. Repeating remediation does not work, and if we past a point-of-no-return, it is too late to do anything. We have to start compensatory strategy very early so as not to lose them to drugs and alcohol. 
4. Doctor Weiss, a clinical psychologist, says we pay a huge price for not giving kids what they need.
5. The human body functions like a car and it is important to get to the source of problem just as Doctor Levine was doing rather than labeling students.  (demystification - an important issue for students).
6. Explaining and clarifying the problem for students can be very relieving.  Hiding their disability from them does not protect them.  Children often know there is a problem.
7. For kids, success is like a vitamin. It is really a vitamin-deficient life if growing up success deprived - Dr Levine.
8. There needs to be a collaborative effort.  Parents who come forward to identify problems need to be heard.  Listen to what they have to say and try to understand why they are saying those things.  Parents who are still in denial may need to be shown that their children are indeed quite strong in some areas, but not in others.
9. Kids who are not identified and given the help they need can often turn to self destructive habits (drugs/alcohol).
10. Kids can be exceptional, but struggle with basics (low testing from expression/articulate students).
11. Undiagnosed learning disabilities can cause students to becoming disengaged with the school system.