Educator: Dyslexia is poppycock…

Dyslexia is a social fig leaf used by middle-class parents who fear their children will be labelled as low achievers, a professor has claimed.

Julian Elliott, a leading educational psychologist at Durham University, says he has found no evidence to identify dyslexia as a medical condition after more than 30 years of research.

“There is a huge stigma attached to low intelligence,” he said.

“After years of working with parents, I have seen how they don’t want their child to be considered lazy, thick or stupid.

“If they get called this medically diagnosed term, dyslexic, then it is a signal to all that it’s not to do with intelligence.”

I tend to feel the same way about ADD or ADHD or whatever condition they’ve assigned to being a kid these days.

Supporters of the condition argue that dyslexics are intelligent people who have difficulties processing information and need extra help and time than others who are poor readers.

But Professor Elliott has claimed that the symptoms of dyslexia – such as clumsiness and letter reversal – are similar to those seen in those who simply cannot read.

He argues that the condition should be rediagnosed as a reading difficulty.

Difficulties processing information?

I’m not bagging on people but no one seems to have ever proven that dyslexia actually exists as anything more than an excuse for people not being able to read. Something tells me if you held a book up to someone known to be illiterate and someone who’s been “diagnosed” as dyslexic, the number of similarities would be startling.

However, other experts have suggested that parents are putting their children forward for reading ability assessments to “get them off the hook”.

Dr Michael Rice, a dyslexia and literacy expert at Cambridge University, said: “There is a sense of justification when children are diagnosed.

“It gets them off the hook of great embarrassment and personal inadequacy.”

Again, it sounds like ADD / ADHD. If your kid is a chronic misbehavor or an antsy hyperactive kid, you can name it a condition, get a drug to sedate them, and call yourself a great parent. I think these guys are right on, frankly.

Finally, this stat…

“On one degree course I teach, about one quarter of the students get help with their coursework and other assistance because they have this label. You become quite cynical.”

The number of students who receive disability allowances at university has risen to a record 35,500 at a cost of £78.4million a year.

Nice.

One more quote from a commenter on the story who really nails it:

I can recall only one person from my schooldays, at both Junior and Grammar, who had difficulty with their reading. During my working life I encountered one or two – so why are there so many now? I could read a little and write my name when I started school at four, so perhaps parents no longer read with their children. Everything now has to have a name or, worse, a syndrome which excuses everything from poor reading to bad behaviour.

- Jill, Valencia, Spain

Maybe it’s all the homework

[tags]dyslexia, bullshit[/tags]