[senco-forum] dyslexia

Julie - I hope my response was in two parts:

1.  Mourning the passing of a practice in which EP assessment was one of the routine foundation steps towards identifying provision;

2.  (Last paragraph) I would find the label 'dyslexia' a more useful starting point than knowing simply that the child shares a difficulty with 'common or garden poor readers'.

The first time that my school's liaison EP assessed a Year 7 child that I had thrust to the front of the queue, she came back and suggested that he was 'classically dyslexic'.  As a first year SENCO I had suggested to her before she met him that there was undoubtedly a great deal of understanding 'in there', but it seldom came out in a coherent form (although when it did, his comments could be piercingly insightful).  

She characterised this as 'tip of the tongue syndrome' - the point where such huge strain has been put on processing 'what I know' into 'how I say it' (or worse still, 'how I write it') that the hold on 'the answer', or even 'the question', becomes loosened and key information slips out of working memory.  So the learner either provides the right answer, but it's buried within an avalanche of related information that isn't directly relevant to the question, or struggles so much to prepare a 'refined' answer that it just doesn't get out.  (The odd thing is that this seems to occur naturally in middle age, whether we're dyslexic or not.)

Howard (we'll call him) knew an awful lot, but couldn't organise it into retrievable chunks, or shape it neatly in words; his processing of language into writing was extraordinarily laborious, quite something to behold.  

Even as a greenhorn SENCO, I knew before the EP stepped across the threshold that Howard couldn't read and write.  So while determining that I should really try to find out about 'dyslexia' properly, beyond 'it's word blindness and confusing b and d, isn't it', I followed the EP's advice about support to allow Howard to show what he knew (by reducing the processing demands) and some strategies and teaching to help join some bits of memory together. He also needed a very structured package of teaching to move his reading and spelling forward (which I can provide now, but back then what he got was a greenhorn SENCO, trying to implement EP advice on teaching approaches, plus some supplements of own devising).

I've since met far less intelligent Howards, but who still shared some of his characteristics, including a fiendishly convoluted and misguided understanding of the relationship between letters, sounds and words, a difficulty in 'becoming automatic' at anything, problems with organisation, weak short-term memory skills...and so forth.

I've also met stacks of weak readers, with very little in common with the Howards except weak reading and spelling skills (and weaknesses in phonological processing).  I know now that it isn't too difficult to get the majority of non-Howards to move forward with the right sort of teaching.

But this isn't quite the same type of teaching that the Howards needed, even if there would be a common core.  Howards often seem to have made more progress when looking at morphology, analysing the way written words work, generating their own rules or specific ways of remembering something, and learning to apply a fairly mechanical but functional set of rules for both decoding and encoding.  Howards seemed to need to find a way of remembering, understanding and applying this stuff that worked for them, however arcane and complicated it appeared to me; non-Howards were much more likely to benefit from 'standard' approaches to teaching about the written word.

Howards also needed strategies for managing 'life in the classroom' and 'how to remember something'....but you know what I would be going on to list.

Now I know that I've shown hints of a heretical belief that 'discrepancy' might be a component within my conceptualisation of dyslexia, but actually I just think that 'discrepancy' should also inform the nature of the support intervention.  (So the BPS won't strike me off the list, not that I was ever on it.)

'The question I am still wrestling with  is just how, exactly is 'dyslexia' a good starting point?   How would this label in itself inform what you do,  - what would you do differently for a 'dyslexic' pupil as opposed to another struggling pupil who had presented similarly but who didnt get the label?' 

I hope that Howard answers your question, but dyslexia is a useful starting point for me, because it guides me firstly to consider the nature of the support that the child is likely to need; and this is not the same as the nature of the support that 'the common or garden poor reader' is likely to need, even if they share a difficulty and an aim in common.  I find the idea that I shouldn't attempt to differentiate between the two groups pretty alarming.  I'm likely to need to differentiate further within my dyslexic group, even if it's just as far as labelling them as L- or P- type dyslexics (if I can), because I often find that a useful distinction, too.

'I agree that 'qualifying' rather than needing is a horrible notion -  but I sometimes think this construct is maintained as much by the very process of labelling as it is by mean LEAs.'

Ooh, no, won't have that.  LEAs, mean or otherwise, produce astonishingly complex criteria against which children's special educational needs have to be specified, but without using any 'diagnostic' labels like dyslexic, or autistic.  Increasingly, these criteria 'qualify' children for access to intervention at Wave-something, or access to '2.5 hours per week TA support' according to the LA delegated SEN funding system.  Was it in this forum that we met one LEA's new qualification category - SA Plus Plus Plus?  Now there's a label that really tells us nothing. 

I'm glad to hear that you've wrestled with many of my statements - exercise is healthy.

Regards

Biff

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: julie cozens 
  To: Biff Crabbe ; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk 
  Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 6:48 PM
  Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment

  Biff  - I found your posting really thought-provoking. Thank you for 'wrestling with my statement' - I have done the same with many of yours! 

  I agree absolutely that assessment has to identify needs - I just dont think it has to be about labels.

  The question I am still wrestling with  is just how, exactly is 'dyslexia' a good starting point?   How would this label in itself inform what you do,  - what would you do differently for a 'dyslexic' pupil as opposed to another struggling pupil who had presented similarly but who didnt get the label?  For me, the label just isnt important - certainly not when there is still no one agreed definition of dyslexia, and when it does not in itself highlight a particular path of intervention.

  By 'assessment through teaching and appropriately targeted support..' I meant that there is no one- off  testing that EPs come in and do to 'assess for dyslexia' . Its a process of promoting of high quality teaching, and a careful evaluation of the pupil's response to it, and to increasingly refined and individualised interventions over time. EPs and specialist teachers support schools with this in many ways - and individual asssessment is still likely to be one of them. 

  I agree that 'qualifying' rather than needing is a horrible notion -  but I sometimes think this construct is maintained as much by the very process of labelling as it is by mean LEAs.

  Julie

  Biff Crabbe <ba at biffc.vispa.com> wrote:
    'My point was that this is assessment to inform intervention - not 
    assessment with a purpose of identifying 'dyslexics', or a special group of 
    students who qualify for a particular type of support.'

    Julie - I have wrestled with this statement, but still hate it. In order to 
    inform intervention, assessment has to identify needs. And the notion of 
    'qualifying' for support (rather than simply 'needing' it) is definitely an 
    LEA construct that schools have been forced to embrace.

    A few days back, Martin (Miles) asked the forum about ways in which SENCOs 
    seek to use and deploy the EP resource.

    In my first few years as a SENCO I hoped to draw on the expertise of the EP 
    in identifying the nature and scope of a child's needs, and we would then 
    put our heads together to identify the type of support interventions that 
    would meet the needs. The EP knew stuff that I didn't about the nature of 
    children's learning difficulties; I learned to devise individual, small 
    group and curriculum-based support interventions. But it started with the 
    EP making an assessment of the individual child's difficulties and needs, 
    and this always involved (her) spending some time in the child's company. 
    The more completely I could describe the child's difficulties initially, the 
    more refined and focused the EP's assessment could be (and it might only be 
    an observation of and a chat with the child).

    In later years (and with different EPs) more of the EP time came to be 
    allocated (by the LEA) to 'systemic' bits - assistance in understanding and 
    completing the latest new whizz of a paperwork scheme for 'monitoring', 
    looking at 'criteria' for placement at a particular support stage, 
    moderation processes etc. There was more discussion about longer lists of 
    children (and the longer the list, the shorter each segment of the 
    discussion). Inexorably, less and less time was spent by the EP with 
    children.

    You say that, 'we promote a careful process of assessment through teaching 
    and appropriately targeted support for any pupil who needs it.' And therein 
    lies a summary of the change in the role. What is 'assessment through 
    teaching', and who is carrying out the assessment that the EP is 
    'promoting'?

    As to your previous message about the usefulness of 'dyslexia' as a label 
    (long discussion issue that has cropped up often on the forum), I'd still 
    find it more useful as a starting point than 'shares some of the same 
    difficulties as the common or garden poor reader'.

    Regards

    Biff Crabbe

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: "julie cozens" 
    To: "senco forum" 
    Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:11 PM
    Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment

    Hello Phillipa

    I have a copy of your book and I have heard about your successful work in 
    Dubai.
    I am also aware of Martin Turners work.

    I certainly didnt mean to give the impression in my posting that we never 
    assess children in Devon! I did say in my email that we promote a careful 
    process of assessment through teaching and appropriately targeted support 
    for any pupil who needs it.

    My point was that this is assessment to inform intervention - not 
    assessment with a purpose of identifying 'dyslexics', or a special group of 
    students who qualify for a particular type of support.

    Hope this clarifies

    best wishes

    Julie

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