The Aniumus is making it all up...

[G4Z]

According to this Labour MP anyway : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/7828121.stm

Can you believe it? I know people who 'claim' to have dyslexia and I am sure they are not just making it up. What does this guy know, does he have some sort of medical degree?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Stringer

Well what do you know, he is a chemist. Clearly qualified above and beyond the whole medical profession and in a position to make a judgement on this issue that we should all take note of. I think not.

[Moby-Dick]

I very nearly posted a similar thread - I wonder how much companies that sell courses in "synthetic phonics" (which sounds like something Scientologists would use imo ) have paid him

[nvening]

If dyslexia really existed then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%.

WTH - every dislexic person i know is literate and would be even if they didnt have specialist help; however without the help they would most porbably struggle and achieve lower grades.

[GoNz0]

i know a few people are bound to make it up, pass the exam at uni and get about 2 grands worth of computer equipment free of charge to keep...

on the other hand most of the people i install equipment with are glad they are no longer branded as thick and are so happy to have all the IT equipment to help them through uni.

[Agent]

i know a few people are bound to make it up, pass the exam at uni and get about 2 grands worth of computer equipment free of charge to keep...

It's actually quite hard to fake dyslexia. The tests that are done are very specific and almost always include a face to face talk with someone who knows what to look for.

[GoNz0]

hope so, hate paying my taxes to scammers lol

[Brucelles]

I know a guy with a PhD in physics (some branch of acoustics) who is severely dyslexic. Clever bugger, but he uses the spell checker before sending anything. Eat does snot all ways help, off coarse.

[format]

According to this Labour MP anyway : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/7828121.stm

Can you believe it? I know people who 'claim' to have dyslexia and I am sure they are not just making it up. What does this guy know, does he have some sort of medical degree?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Stringer

Well what do you know, he is a chemist. Clearly qualified above and beyond the whole medical profession and in a position to make a judgement on this issue that we should all take note of. I think not.

G4Z, I have to ask - was the title misspelled on purpose ?

[Zak33]

but he uses the spell checker before sending anything. Eat does snot all ways help, off coarse.

I have a boss like that.

[Funkstar]

Well the guy does come off as sounding like a bit of an idiot if you ask me.

However, dyslexia is used as an excuse by a lot of people for their bad or lazy spelling and writing.

[Saracen]

On the surface of it, this MPs comments are rather stupid and not a little insensitive. However, I'd like to see EXACTLY what he said, and in context, before reacting.

From the quotes I read, what he appears to be saying isn't that people don't suffer from what we label as dyslexia. He's not (I think) saying they're making it up, or that it's just a cover for lousy spelling abilities.

What I think he's saying is that if the proper teaching methods were used, much (perhaps all) of the effects that dyslexics suffer from could be either alleviated or eliminated. And if so, then I agree with him.

Part of the problem seems to be that dyslexia is a term we tend to apply to the effects of a condition, but without really understanding what causes it. Sure, it's a "learning difficulty", but that can be seen as a derogatory or patronising term that doesn't do justice to what seems to be the case, which is that dyslexics tend to think differently. Note, NOT think less, or in an inferior way, but differently. So if you identify that different way of thinking early on, and use teaching methods that suit it and work for it, then you can at worst alleviate, and perhaps eliminate, dyslexia.

In other words, it can be argued that dyslexia is a label applied to a condition reinforced in kids at a young age if we don't recognise that not everyone thinks the same way, and if we don't use the right tools to deal with it when it's identified.

To an extent, the same is true of autism. Two cousins of mine are autistic, though perhaps not badly so. You only have to talk to them to realise that they don't process ideas quite the way most of us do. They don't seem to intuitively understand many of the social contexts that most people just take for granted (despite them actually being learned behaviours learned, generally, from our parents). Either of those two cousins get easily confused in busy social situations. They have trouble processing what most of us do by reflex, especially if humour involving satire or innuendo is involved). Because they have trouble processing it, they seem to have to consciously work out what people meant, when most of us just seem to understand it intuitively. They get there, but it takes time. And because it takes time, the seem slow. Well, one is a post-grad physics student and his abilities are VERY highly regarded, and the other has just started a pure maths course and again, is very, very bright indeed.

So they have trouble understanding things most of us take for granted, like social chit-chat. But then, I'm reasonably bright and even trying to understand some of the things they take in their stride (like much of what they do with physics and maths) gives me a headache. They might have a problem understanding social interactions at a party but they have no trouble with some particularly abstract concepts in maths and physics.

So who's a bit slow? Them ..... or the rest of us?

Which brings me back to dyslexia, and what I suspect this MP is on about. Is dyslexia a "false" condition .....

Mr Stringer claims the reason so many children fail to be taught to read and write properly is that the wrong teaching methods are used.

"The education establishment, rather than admit that their eclectic and incomplete methods for instruction are at fault, have invented a brain disorder called dyslexia," said the MP.

He might well be right. If people that end up dyslexic merely think differently, and are being failed by the system because of a lack of rigour in educational tools that could help them but doesn't because those tools are being used incoherently or inconsistently, then he may be right - dyslexia may be a word used to describe a "false" condition, merely because it's not identified early enough and/or handled properly by the system.

That people are left dyslexic by the educational system is not, as far as I'm aware, disputed. That they need to be, if taught using the right methods, is less clear.

In my opinion, if Graham Stringer has made an error (or at least, appears to have based on that report), it's that synthetic phonics is the answer. It might be part of the answer, but it doesn't work for all dyslexics. I know that from personal experience.

And that's why I said I'd like to see exactly what he said, and to see those quotes in context.

[G4Z]

G4Z, I have to ask - was the title misspelled on purpose ?

Nope, I am dyslexic.



















Only joking!

[G4Z]

Saracen, I think i agree and disagree with you here.

yes it needs to be seen in context, so here you go : http://www.manchesterconfidential.co...exia_is_a_myth

now, I am not saying he isn't correct that we should maybe use new teaching methods if they are shown to work. however the very fact that you have to identify dyslexics to give them the appropriate education kind of shows that yes it is a real condition and not a "cruel fiction" doesn't it?

Dyslexia is a cruel fiction, it is no more real than the 19th century scientific construction of ‘the æther’ to explain how light travels through a vacuum.

Pretty clear what he is saying, he is saying it doesn't exist which it patently does.

[Whiternoise]

I think it's partially that Dyslexia is often branded on people and used as an over-arching term for a wide variety of learning disabilities. I've been at school with lots of people who complain that their maths is bad because they're "dyslexic" which is simply not true - they may well be dyscalculia, but dyslexia is primarily to do with language (hence the lexic bit). There are loads of different "sorts" of dys- conditions and people tend to lump everything into dyslexia because, presumably, it's the most common.

However, i know people who suffer from Dyspraxia and are otherwise perfectly intelligent (and somewhat ironically, very talented musicians) - certainly i wouldn't say it's a made up condition.

In some respects he's right. If you're taught badly, then you aren't going to be able to spell - once again it's down to parents to enforce rigorous education both inside and outside school - very well. He's probably right too about this method that produces very high levels of literacy. I'm sure it's been shown hundreds of times that if you practice reading at home with your children, then they're going to do better at it. "kids these days" i imagine read less and less and parents are less likely to take the time to sit down and help.

You've also got to think what the means by 100%, what sort of tests are they doing and what exactly is that 100% of? Ironically it's almost impossible to test his claims online, because the search engines have been "google-bombed" with articles concerning his statement.

Nicaragua - https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...nu.html#People
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 67.5%
male: 67.2%
female: 67.8% (2003 est.)

Yeah.. not quite 100% is it?

South Korea is more on the mark:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97.9%
male: 99.2%
female: 96.6% (2002)

But just being able to read and write doesn't mean very much. Most people who can't spell can certainly read and most can write too - if with bad grammar, etc.

[Allen]

Currently, 35,500 students receive disability allowances for dyslexia at an annual cost of £78.4m, Mr Stringer claims.

You what? I'm sorry, but what on earth do they need to claim benefits for?

[Fraz]

I suspect that TheAnimus doesn't have a reading/writing age of 12 because he's dyslexic, I reckon he is actually 12