[senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondarypupils-Eddie's CD

Eddie,

Aly
I do not know if any of the children had APD and quite frankly, I dont care. 
The condition is not well defined - a credible, objective means of 
establishing its existence/severity is not currently available nor indeed is 
a credible, means of responding to it. I prefer to stand on firmer ground 
which has the support of logic.

 Consider the point raised about modalities.

I worked for a term with a group of poor readers who were unable to segment 
complex words into two or three simpler segments.  I respsonded to their 
'special need' by having them complete a one term course of daily 10 minute 
sessions  which resulted in making segmenting  a routine, reflex reation to 
complex words. That course was deemed to be succesful, not because their 
ability to segment became reflex  - but because their general literacy 
skills improved.

Naturally, prophets of doom would say that this did not prove that the 
segmenting course was responisble for their improved literacy skills and 
they would be right. But those whose glass is invariably half full rather 
than half empty, would say that this is irrelevant - the significant thing 
is their literacy skills improved and this is true whether they had APD, 
dyslexia or any other learning disability.

The whole point of seeking to enhance listening skills is the same - it is 
to improve the child's general literacy skills. If a child completes a term 
course which provides that he or she had a total of about sixteen hours 
concentrated and successful listening practice over the course of one term, 
I would expect there to be significant improvements, specfically in general 
literacy skills.  I have always believed that the function of the special 
needs teacher was specifically to cater to these special needs.  My own, in 
this case, limited research shows that the sixteen hours focused listening 
experience did impact positively on their general literacy skills and that 
is enough justification as far as I am concerned.  I leave it to everyone 
else to form their own conclusions.
I assume that if the course had been inappropriate, they would not have made 
significant improvements in general literacy skills - but they did!. Suppose 
for a moment that there is such a thing as APD and suppose further that one 
of the childrn in my study made good literacy gains as a conseqence of 
completing a listering skills course, would you say that that child should 
not have been put throught that course?

Eddie C.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Olanys at aol.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in 
secondarypupils-Eddie's CD

> Eddie,
>
> You also said:
>
> "Contrary to what you write, the target group for this approach do indeed
> have learning difficulties- " then you add...
>
> "But No - they don't have Hydrocephalus, Downes Syndrome - or
> APD or  Aspergers or Full Spectrum Autism  - they are neither deaf nor 
> dumb
> etc. etc etc but I did say that the approach was developed with mainstream
> secondary school children with reading ages of about 9.5 whose reading was
> beginning to improve but their general literacy skills, including 
> listening
> skills, were still fairy abysmal. I made no claims about its effectiveness
> with any other groups."
>
>
> 1. How do you know they don't have APD? There may be many children in
> mainstream who have APD as the cause of their listening difficulties. But 
> that  is
> irrelevant to you? How can you help a child if you don't know what is 
> causing
> it?
>
> 2. So are your target children those that have none of these  conditions?
>
> 3. Is the progam aimed at children with diagnosed or undiagnosed learning
> difficulties or not or is it just not suitable for the ones you named?
>
> Your post contradicts itself.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Aly
>
> Chair Auditory  Processing Disorder in the UK/APDUK
> www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm
> www.apduk.org 