[senco-forum] Dyslexia assessments

In a message dated 28/06/2007 20:57:05 GMT Daylight Time,  
mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com writes:

The  children
absolutely love the activities, but how can I tell if I'm doing  any good?

You could ask the children. And you could ask those around them.

I believe that memory capacity is finite and that what can be done is to  
improve its efficiency. All the activities you described Mary will do this. as  
for a more objective evaluation - do they remember more, are they more focused, 
 do other key adults notice any changes..?

I did assess auditory memory skill changes in my research whilst developing  
Acceleread Accelewrite (royalties interest declared). Whilst on standardised  
tests auditory memory showed an average 24 month increase after 6 hours work  
spread over 4 weeks the best feed back was qualitative. And the best feed back 
 from a youngster's teacher was, "What have you done to this child? They seem 
to  be listening better, show more interest in books and and are altogether 
more  aware.

Part of me thinks that certain interventions just teach children to listen  
again and that the problem is a cultural shift towards ignorantly encouraging  
children to be passive listeners - ignorance being lack of awareness of the  
effect of the domestic regime.

 Just a few thoughts

Martin