[senco-forum] CATs data analysis

Hello everyone

Discrepancy definitions of dyslexia are a nonsense, we still do not know
what parameters RELIABLY divide the good reader from the poor reader and the
research makes this clear.  Find out why the pupil cannot read and go from
there.  My experience is that it is usually associated with what I would
term 'cognitive dyslexia, that is he / she is not fully aware of how our
writing system codes speech to print, this is not so much a  'learning '
difficulty but a 'teaching' difficulty, that is find out what works for the
individual pupil and amend your approach accordingly.  If you read into IQ
tests you will find out that poor reading can affect scores in the verbal
scale so a discrepancy in that direction might well reflect poor reading as
much as poor verbal skills so what exactly is the problem?  IQ tests need to
be approached critically and with knowledge of how they are constructed and
what might affect outcomes, a good first source is Kaufman (1994).  Labels
are of little use unless they are both descriptive and prescriptive.  You
have a 'dyslexic' pupil now what are you going to do, fix the problem or
amend the curriculum / get dispensations and leave the problem alone that is
accept the status quo?  The latter is of no long term benefit to the
affected individual as the situation will remain unchanged.  I for one am
glad that this model is not used by the more enlightened members of the
medical profession.  You have high blood pressure so we will fix the
sphygnamometer so that it reads lower than reality so that we do not have to
do anything concrete or practical about the problem, we will 'fix' that
world so that the problem does not need to be addressed and we can all hide
behind 'child centred' (i.e. that the problem must lie 'within' in the child
as all that we do is perfect, we are after all the professionals)
education - clever?.  Litigation here we come!

Philip EP

Ref.

Kaufman, Alan, S. "Intelligent Testing With The WISC-III". John Wiley and
Sons, New York 1994

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Amanda" <amandavh at btinternet.com>
To: "senco-forum" <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:31 PM
Subject: [senco-forum] CATs data analysis

> Hello everyone
>
>   Anyone else use CATs tests and can give me some advice.
>   I've always looked at our CATs data to see if there is a high non-verbal
and a low verbal score as a quick screening for dyslexia.  (Don't tell me
I'm wrong - it's only one of the screening procedures)
>   Now my new Educational Psychologist (as in new to us; she's very
experienced) says I need to trawl my data for a discrepency of 12 between
verbal and non-verbal as that is statistically significant.  If the
non-verbal is higher than the verbal, I screen for dyslexia as a starting
point.
>   What further tests would you do if you found the verbal was 12 or more
points higher than the non-verbal scores?
>
>
>
> Amanda
> Secondary SENCO
> Cornwall
>