May 29 2007
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 
May 29th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I do think that certain conditions do get overhyped these days. Dyslexia is one of them. I am dyslexic, and it is not a cover for low intelligence…I hold a bachelors in History and work in the Information Technology field…and I reverse words while reading. All that means is that I have to be extra careful while reading, and I have some trouble with math because of the reversals. I never utilized the services offered to me by my University (I was diagnosed my senior year of college). I looked at it not as an excuse but as something to overcome.
One comment on the last part of the post….There are many parents who do not read to their kids anymore. I am friends with a Pre-K teacher and many parents say that they don’t have the time to read to their kids…which is total BS of course.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Oh, this is a total soap box issue for me.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD 9 years ago, and I have spent those 9 years fighting everyone to not medicate him. He was put on special programs in school and went to counseling, I did everything they suggested EXCEPT put him on medication.
This school year, since I no long had anyone else intervening in my decisions regarding his education for the first time in those 9 years, I had him pulled out of the “special programs” that are supposed to help children with ADHD and I had him held to the same standard in the classroom that all other kids are expected to adhere to, and he has 3 days of school left and his grades are higher than they have been in 5 years.
I call bullshit, too. Teachers need to teach and parents need to parent. Drugs are not the answer for our children.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:15 am
[...] As is usually the case, my boy Vinny at Insignificant Thoughts has a good catch today about an educator’s challenge to the validity of dyslexia. [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Yet another study that will be countered by in a few weeks. I have no idea about scientific data or studies, but I know I have it. It was not a label because I was a below average student or stupid. In school I was in the gifted program and had wonderful grades. I am currently working on my Master’s in Education.
None of this changes the fact that letters and numbers move around on the page and that I have an almost complete inability to hand write anything. Computers are awesome.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Oddly enough, you could be illiterate and brilliant. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I fail to see the difference between not being able to read and being called dyslexic and not being able to read and being called illiterate. To both, the words are jumbled and/or unintelligible.
No one is calling anyone stupid, but it does sound an awful lot like people are using the “dyslexia” excuse as a crutch on a more regular basis.
Oh, and saying you have no idea about studies and that you just “know” you have something, it just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. If multiple studies prove something doesn’t exist, you don’t have it no matter how much you think you do.