John Bald/language and literacy

Computer monitors and eyestrain.

Sensitivity to light causes problems ranging from mild discomfort to epilepsy. We are all sensitive to excessive light, and the flicker of fluorescent light is a hidden problem for many people - I recently saw it listed as an aggravating factor in autism in The Horse Boy. We spend a lot of time in front of computers, but I know of no research comparing the qualities of different types of monitor - I will update this as and when I hear of any.

I've just changed an ASUS MS236H monitor, that I'd had for around three years, and which I'd always found harsh, even on a low setting, for an HP Pavilion 22xi.  Both have the same screen size, but the HP is much more comfortable for me to use at all settings. It seems to have some kind of anti-glare element on the screen, but I can't tell what it might be. I'll ask HP. In the meantime, if you find looking at a screen uncomfortable, consider this one, and don't hesitate to get in touch with any results. I bought mine from John Lewis for £129, including a two-year guarantee. Other monitors are available - if you have a good one, please reply to this posting.

The Dyslexia Debate, Julian Elliott and Elena Grigorenko. Review

In 2005, Professor Julian (Joe) Elliott, of Durham University, took part in a television programme that claimed that there was no way of distinguishing between "dyslexia" and other forms of reading difficulty. This was followed by a conference in London, to which I contributed a case study, and this book is the long-term follow up. 

Professor Elliott, and his Yale colleague Professor Elena Grigorenko, have produced the widest-ranging analysis of research into the subject I've ever seen, with seventy pages of references to research, ranging from the battles over phonics to the latest brain scan evidence. While they give credit where it’s due, their criticisms of the limitations of the research evidence they scrutinise are consistent and convincing. Even brain research evidence, the clearest yet of a genuinely biological basis to reading difficulty, has its limitations clearly exposed – the illustrations of brain dysfunction that have resulted from scans are composites, and do not yet provide any clear evidence that can be used to help individuals. Their conclusion is that it is still impossible “to identify a dyslexic subgroup in any consistent or coherent fashion that would be acceptable to the scientific or professional community” (p.170).  The term “dyslexia” therefore has “outgrown its diagnostic and conceptual usefulness”, and should be “discontinued.”

And yet it is “untenable”, say the authors, to deny that some reading difficulties are biological in origin. They propose instead that such difficulties be termed "reading disability". The problem here is that most people assessed as dyslexic are not disabled - a young man who had been so assessed approached me in Oxford while I was carrying the book, and we had an interesting discussion about its contents and his experience. He was now working as a retail manager, and found it ridiculous to think that he was in some way disabled. What he and others in his position need are some adjustments to the ways in which they are taught. These adjustments are known to some (not all) teachers,  and are based on a strand of case-study research beginning with the work of Grace Fernald - whose 1943 classic, Remedial Techniques in Basic School Subjects is not listed in the references. Only one article of Fernald's is listed, from 1921, and evidence of her techniques is seen as "anecdotal". This term in itself is too easy - the whole of surgery is based on clinical observation and case study, and it is as valid a research technique as any other.

The dismissal of evidence on the use of tints is similarly based. If we take from the physical sciences and the development of new drugs the idea of a double-blind, randomised, controlled trial as "gold standard" research, it is self-evident that the method can't be applied to a tint, as everyone can see it. We can't have a "partially sighted" trial.

Here are three cases involving tints:

1. A very bright girl who read excruciatingly slowly, but with perfect accuracy and understanding. She explained that she needed to read everything twice, and with an overlay immediately read just as well, but faster than she could articulate the words.

2. A school secretary whose desk was opposite a glass panel behind which was an unshaded fluorescent light, and who was losing days of work at a stretch through incapacitating migraine. Covering the panel with cardboard and adding a blue tint to her computer screen removed the problem.

3. A boy whose behaviour deteriorated so rapidly when he started school that he became a danger to himself and his family. After five years of misery, a teacher in a private school tried a tint and the problems disappeared.

Three anecdotes. There are many similar cases on migraine, but they remain anecdotes. Or cases, if we consider that they are essentially true, and the outcome of professional observation. None of these people were dyslexic, however the word might be defined - they were sensitive to certain elements in light, a different issue, but one that can cause devastating problems with learning to read and write.

Which brings us to Dr Terry Moore and Chris Carling, and their advocacy of Thomas Locke's approach to language study in Language Understanding: Towards a Post-Chomskyan linguistics. Locke's pragmatism, using best avaiable evidence, will not produce a perfect solution - or the illusion of one - but will, as he says, probably get our ship into port. We can't match people who are assessed as dyslexic with controls with any reliability, so case studies and other evidence are the best we have, and some of their shortcomings can be tackled by using standardised tests and long-term follow-up, as in the Clackmannanshire reading research.

In the end, the problems of investigating the range of issues known as dyslexia lie as much in the limitations of scientific method as in the elusiveness of the phenomenon itself. It is there - though probably in no more than 1.5% of people and not the 5%+ suggested by psychological tests - and teachers need to tackle it. The way forward is to consider each element of evidence, including test scores on issues such as memory and processing speed, on its merits, and to tackle the specific issues that they indicate, without recourse to the global term "dyslexia". I never use it myself unless someone else does first, which may be a start. 

Making Molly's Memories.

This is Molly, and her story is here. Please read it, and see if you can keep your hand out of your pocket...

Fighting Blindness, Retinitis Pigmentosa research, is here.  A very informative site, and another worthy route for donations.

The private world of dyslexia, and a term that has run its course.

Who exactly is dyslexic, and who is to say?

To begin with, very few people are actually assessed as "dyslexic". It is more usual for a psychologist or other assessor to come up with an opinion that a pattern in test results, at times combined with an analysis of actual performance, is "consistent with" such an assessment. This is a phrase widely used in the medical profession when a doctor can't be sure. 

Virtually every test score that meets this vague criterion includes a weakness in memory. Most include a weakness in recognising words, and in recognising words presented at speed - also a weakness in memory, as the words need to be built up from their constituent parts.

The point at which a combination of weaknesses leads to a "category" judgement is never certain. Categories bring supposed benefits, and, some people say, comfort, in that they understand the issues more clearly.

But do they? And, in particular, does the category of dyslexia (hereafter dx)?

I no longer believe it does. Dx is a concept of the late nineteenth-century, when our knowledge of the brain and its operations was far less developed than it is now. At the time, it served a useful purpose in isolating particular difficulties with reading from general learning difficulties that had their own categories, usually socially and intellectually pejorative. More recently, it has come to be used as an umbrella term, which can be extended to cover just about any difficulty with reading except those caused by visual stress - which is itself confusing, as visual stress can cause symptoms that are closely associated with dx.

But let's get back to the hard evidence. If someone has a weakness in short term memory, they can learn to use their memory more effectively, for example by learning to group similar words, and so form artificially the neural networks that immediately successful readers form naturally. If they have difficulty in reading fluently, the task can be broken down and rebuilt, like a music lesson, so that the obstacles to fluency can be identified and tackled. If they have problems with spelling, which is perfectly natural in English (see D Crystal, Spell it Out, for the reasons why) then they can be taught to spell. 

In each case, the hard evidence of a particular cause of difficulty is more descriptive of the problem, and more indicative of its solution, than the umberlla term. This is important, not just because the term creates a sense of victimhood and helplessness, but because, against all intention, it actually gets in the way of designing the teaching that the individual needs. At present I never use the term dx unless someone else does first. We would have a much clearer view of the situation, and the action that is needed, if this practice were adopted by everyone else, and dx seen as a historical, rather than a modern scientific concept.  

Reading Recovery and Tints - Dyslexia Research Trust

An article in the Dyslexia Research Trust's Newsletter reports that half of the children receiving Reading Recovery teaching in Hackney also require a tint in order to help them read. This is one of the most significant findings in research into visual stress and reading difficulty, and RR is to be congratulated in co-operating with the experiment after years of ignoring the issue. This should be the starting point for a thorough review of all RR teaching methods, which are still based almost exclusively on Dame Marie Clay's research in the sixties and early seventies.

Mobility for blind people

No miracles, but an ingenious piece of applied technology, here, that enables a blind boy to find his way without bumping into things, using a click and echol technique learned from the study of dolphins.

Light and Learning to Read

The EU directive banning conventional lightbulbs and requiring people to use flluorescent light has serious implications for education. Fluorescent lights flicker, effectively switching themselves off and on 100 times a second, with the alternation of standard electric current. This creates a harsh environment, particularly when the light is reflected off white paper. The leading expert on this subject is Professor Arnold Wilkins of Essex University, and I highly recommend his books Reading through Colour (Wiley) and Visual Stress (OUP). The directive will cause distress, and needs to be changed.

Fluorescent light causes particular problems in education, as young children learning to read have both to focus closely on text and move their eyes in a very regular and disciplined way. Flourescent lignt makes these adjustments more difficult for a significant minority of children, and can lead to problems that are liable to be mis-diagnosed as dyslexia, as their effects are very similar. We need to take three simple steps

• Watch for any signs of irritation or difficulty with concentration in children learning to read - this may be rubbing eyes, reluctance to read for long periods or headaches
• Make the Institute of Optometry's screening kit (www.IOO.org.uk) part of our assessment procedures
• Avoid flourescent lignt wherever possible, and try to use daylight.

Here is a link to Professor Arnold Wilkins' work

http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/psy/PEOPLE/wilkins/wilkins.html