Students
Who Learn Differently Overseas
LEARNING DIFFERENTLY
We all are
individuals, and we all learn differently from one another. For example, some
of us are auditory learners and others of us are visual learners. Some of us
have to hear something in order for it to make any sense, and some of us have
to see it, or picture it in our minds, before it can sink in. Many of us are
able to get through the prescribed educational curriculum sufficiently to pass
our exams and obtain our diplomas. And others of us are not.
This study
examines some of the issues and opportunities facing students who are living
overseas, and who are not able to succeed in their current educational
environment without additional help. These are students who are of normal or
above normal intelligence, students who suffer no obvious mental impairment or
emotional problem, and students who have had the opportunity and the motivation
to learn.
Current estimates
of the percentage of people who learn differently range from 15% to 25% in any
population, anywhere in the world. That last figure represents 1 out of every 4
people. Parents and teachers worldwide are becoming better educated in
recognizing students who learn differently. Additionally, the testing methods
themselves are becoming more refined.
Most of the
current terminology that refers to students who learn differently is
derogatory. At best, they are classified as having specific learning
difficulties. Other times they are referred to as being learning disabled. They
are said to suffer from minimal brain dysfunction. Just a short while ago, they
called it a brain "malfunction."
But is this
really the case? Autopsies on "normal" and dyslexic brains have shown
that the "normal" brain shows an asymmetrical development in one
sphere while the dyslexic brain appears to develop evenly on both sides. In
other words, the dyslexic mind appears to use the whole brain simultaneously
while the area associated with language acquisition in the "normal"
brain shows development on only one side. [1]
Equal development
of both spheres permits learning-differently students to enjoy special gifts.
They often "see" things 3-dimensionally, giving them a unique kind of
spatial awareness. This allows some of them to be, among other things,
excellent architects, inventors, directors for film
and theatre, interior decorators, and teachers for other learning-differently
students.
Why
Do Students Learn Differently?
Students learn differently for a variety of reasons many of which
are still under investigation. But scientific evidence has already made one
thing quite clear. What are now frequently being termed "specific learning
difficulties" are not just middle class excuses for underachievement, as
some have been so unkind as to suggest. Nor are they the result of the fact
that the student is lazy, dumb, dull, inattentive or stupid. They are differences based on
neurological conditions over which the student has no control.
More and more evidence is coming to light indicating that
differences in perception might be one of the root causes of many of these
problems. For example, in an article for the International Herald Tribune entitled,
"'Glasses for the Ears' of Dyslexics," Sandra Blakeslee writes:
Scientists have developed a radically
different treatment for children with severe language and reading difficulties,
one that may have applications for millions of children with dyslexia.
They call it "glasses for the
ears."
The treatment uses a special form of
computer-generated speech in a therapeutic program that is designed to force
changes in auditory portions in the children's brains - altering cells that
process simple sounds. Just as glasses correct faulty vision, these changes in
the auditory cortex sharply improve the children's ability to perceive spoken
sounds and to decode written words. Recent experiments show that after just
four weeks of treatment, language-disabled children advanced two full years in
their verbal comprehension skills, researchers say. They said the improvements
endured after training had stopped. In effect, the children could throw their
"glasses" away.
The two scientists spearheading the
research, Dr. Paula Tallal of Rutgers University in Newark and Dr. Michael
Merzenich of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco,
said in interviews that they believed the treatment would help many children
and adults with minor forms of language and reading disability - the condition widely
known as dyslexia. [2]
Other research
indicates that the lack of certain neurological chemicals in the brain might be
responsible for some behavioral control problems. Indeed, the use of drugs like
Ritalin for the treatment of some cases of ADD/HD seems to be a great help and
provide welcome relief for many students. The use of inhibition and stimulant
medications has been likened to the use of insulin for the diabetic. They don't
remove the problem, but their use permits the individual to lead a somewhat
“normal” life.
British
developmental therapist Stephen Clarke has come up with a different technique
for dealing with what he calls "developmental learning difficulties:"
Since the age of seven, Richard Griffith, now 15, has suffered
from a litany of problems. He was diagnosed as profoundly dyslexic (unable to
read or write), dyspraxic (so clumsy and uncoordinated that he couldn't kick a
ball or run properly) and hyperactive. Seven years of special education schools
had done little for him, but last November, Richard started a new treatment,
and his progress began to improve dramatically.
The therapy involves no drugs, no psychotherapy, no teaching. It
is mechanical, repetitive and it is performed with a small paint
brush. Everyday his parents spent 20 minutes stroking the brush along
the base of his fingers. During a second month, it was brushed down from the
base of his nose, around his mouth to this chin, and then across the top of his
lip.
His sports master was the first to comment: "What have you done
to the boy?" he asked Richard's father, Colin. "He can suddenly play
football - he's so good, I'm considering him for the team."
Within another month, the tantrums had stopped and Richard was
beginning to read and write . . .
Richard attended a clinic run by Stephen Clarke, a developmental
therapist who originally trained as an aerospace engineer. His
"paintbrush" technique is based on the theory that learning
difficulties, such as dyslexia, and related problems such as dyspraxia and
hyperactivity, are caused by the presence of immature neurological reflexes. [3]
In another case,
a mother describes her son's examination for visual problems:
Alexander was wired up to strange machines and every aspect of his
vision was monitored: the results were a revelation. Apart from being, as we
knew, myopic, his main visual problem became obvious on recording his eye
movements with infra red recorders to foveal targets.
He was found to have great difficulty in keeping his eyes quite still and in
making accurate saccadic and pursuit movement. Mrs. Fowler thought that this
difficulty with his eyes may well have caused letters
to move about and mirror-reverse. [4]
There is now a
great deal of genetic research that shows learning differently runs in
families. Scandinavian researchers announced in the fall of 1999 that they had
found the gene for dyslexia , DYX3, on the second
chromosome. Such knowledge can be used to help educate family members and
insure early remediation of any problems.
Whatever the
cause, the fact remains that dyslexia and ADD/HD are not attitude problems, but
rather are the result of physical, neurological differences. And as such, they are beyond the
control of the individual. Nor can they be outgrown. Sometimes this might
appear to be the case for, as they develop, the students learn coping techniques which improve their performances. But as of
today, there is no "cure." There are, however, many effective
remediation treatments and teaching techniques that can enable these students
to learn successfully.
In the rest of
this chapter, we shall be taking a closer look at dyslexia and ADD/HD. But as has been noted, there are many
other ways of learning differently, such as pervasive developmental disorders
(PDDs) like autism and Asperger’s syndrome, dyspraxia (motor coordination
problems) and dyscalculia (difficulty understanding mathematical
concepts). For more information on
these particular problems, we suggest running them through the Google
search engine. It is important to
note here, however, that any one of these difficulties can often found in
conjunction with one or more of them, and that methods of remediation for one
will often be applicable to another.
It is very appropriate that this study was first introduced
in Greece for two reasons. The first has to do with the great Athenian
philosopher, Socrates, who adopted the Delphic saying, "know thyself" as his personal motto. By examining how we
learn, we learn more about ourselves.
This way of thinking is called meta-cognitive thinking, and it needs to be
taught in schools.
The second reason is because the word "dyslexia"
comes from the Greek, "dys" meaning "difficulty" and
"lexis" meaning "language and letters." At last count,
there were at least 86 different definitions of dyslexia, and most of these
were exclusionary. It's not this, it's not that, it's
not the other thing, so we'll call it dyslexia. However, most people agree that
it involves difficulty with the perception and/or execution of written, and
sometimes spoken, language.
Physical
Evidence
In an article on a meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, The
Economist wrote ". . . dyslexia is
essentially an inability to deal with linguistic information in visual
form." [5]
The article goes on to consider various physical manifestations of
dyslexia such as the fact that the anatomy of a dyslexic brain is slightly
different in subtle ways from that of a non-dyslexic When asked to perform certain
tasks like reading while in an fMRI scanner, the electrical activity is
different in the scans of dyslexics and non-dyslexics. In addition, more and more evidence is
being found that links dyslexia and ADD/HD with certain genes.
Physical evidence
is also available to prove that dyslexic brains can be retrained and taught to
learn such tasks as reading.
Doctors at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina conducted
some experiments using fMRI scanning:
. . . This institution specializes in dyslexia, and Dr. Eden
and Dr. Zeffiro were able to borrow some of its patients and stick them in the
fMRI machine at Georgetown University. They did so before and after the
individuals involved had been on an intensive program designed to improve their
reading. They also scanned the brains of some control dyslexics who were not on
the program.
The results are intriguing. After the program, those enrolled
showed enhanced brain activity while reading. This activity was not, however,
on the left-hand side. Instead, it was in areas on the right-hand side exactly
corresponding to the language centers in the opposite hemisphere. The reading
program had somehow "recruited" suitable batches of nerve cells in a
place not normally associated with language processing. [6]
The article
concludes with some thought-provoking suggestions:
. . . It looks as if it (dyslexia) may have a profoundly
biological origin and genetic roots. Yet viewed in another light, its cause is
almost purely environmental. People brought up in illiterate societies are
hardly troubled by the other symptoms (behavioral differences). It was the
invention of writing, not mutations of the genes that caused the difficulty. Nature or nurture? Take your pick. [7]
Space Dyslexia:
Recently there
has been quite a bit of news in the British press concerning diagnostic methods
and treatments for dyslexia that are being developed because of research that
has been done by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Here are some
examples of these news items:
Children who spend just three weeks on the exercise program
(developed for the astronauts) show astonishing improvements in their reading
and writing. Staff at the pioneering treatment Center in
Warwickshire (at the Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Attention Treatment Center in
Kenilworth, England) claim that 97 per cent of them show
"significant" results after three months.
A research program will be launched at this clinic to test out its
claims. The project will be overseen by Professor David
Reynolds of Exeter University, former chairman of the (British) Government's
numeracy task force. [8]
The BBC Online
News reported on a new test to spot dyslexia that also comes from the DDAT
Center:
The first ever mass screening of
schoolchildren for dyslexia has been carried out in the borough of Solihull
using a revolutionary computer program designed originally for the space
program.
The guinea pigs were some 450 pupils at Balsall Common Primary
School who took a 90-second test where they watched a dot travel around the
edge of a computer screen and clicked the mouse each time it changed shape.
"It just measures their ability to concentrate and to track
something in a fine detailed way," explains Wynford Dore, the businessman
who founded the DDAT Center.[9]
And then there is
the case of the "Girl who beat dyslexia with tablets for travel-sick
spacemen:"
A ten-year-old dyslexic girl has rocketed to the top of her class
thanks to a space-age treatment. Jessica Foulston started taking travel pills
after experts discovered links between dyslexia and the temporary learning difficulties astronauts suffer in space. Spacemen
overcome the problem by taking motion sickness pills, and a New York
psychiatrist believes the same remedy helps dyslexics.
Before starting his treatment, Jessica was reading books for
five-year-olds - now she can read novels aimed at her own range. She has also
become one of the best maths pupils in her class.
Previous research into dyslexia suggested the condition was caused
by a defect in the language-processing part of the brain. But Dr. Levinson has
spent the last thirty years working on his theory that the inner ear and
cerebellum - which control balance and co-ordination - are linked to the
learning difficulty.[10]
However,
evidently NASA was unaware that it was involved any of these projects. The
following comes from the NASA website, under their Frequently Asked Questions
section:
I heard that NASA has a treatment for dyslexia, how can I get more
information?
Due to recent articles in the British press, namely "The
Independent", that describe a new treatment for dyslexia that utilizes
"Space research, in the form of computerized balance tests given to
returning astronauts and corrective exercises that reintroduce stability after
weightlessness", we have received numerous requests for information
concerning this research.
In response, the
Acting NASA Chief Health and Medical Officer, Richard S. Williams MD, has
issued the following statement:
In our experience, the prolonged exposure of Astronauts to the
microgravity environment of space flight does not give rise to any physical
symptoms or signs that would suggest dyslexia. To the best of our knowledge,
NASA is not funding or engaging in research concerning dyslexia. Similarly, we
do not have (or are unaware of) evidence that any of our medical or
rehabilitative interventions for the Astronauts might be effective in treating
dyslexia. [11]
WHAT
IS ADD/HD?
ADD/HD
is short for Attention Deficit Disorder/Hyperactivity Disorder. These are
conditions that are characterized by problems with sustaining attention,
controlling impulses and responding appropriately in different situations.
When First Lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a new, $5 million, governmental study by the
National Institute of Mental Health on the use of medications like Ritalin and
Prozac by children under the age of 7, she said that she didn't mean to
"bash" these drugs, but she felt that their increased use did raise
some troubling questions.
When it comes to drug treatments for children, why are we seeing
such great variations by community and race?" Mrs. Clinton said at a news
conference. "And what effects do over-use and under-use of these
medications have on our children?” [12]
The National
Institute of Health published its longitudinal study results on the use of
Ritalin in 1999 according to an article in The New York Times:
In one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted,
researchers have found that the drug Ritalin, the subject of sharp debate for
three decades, was more effective than behavior-modification therapy in
treating children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The
researchers, who worked at six sites around the country in teams assembled by
the National Institutes of Health, said that adding the behavioral therapy to
Ritalin treatment was no more effective than the drug alone.
But
they said they found that about 70 percent of the children they studied also
turned out to have problems like depression and
anxiety. In those cases, behavior therapy provided significant benefits,
especially when used in combination with the Ritalin. [13]
Richard Lavoie,
special education expert and creator of many award-winning videos, discussed
the difference between ADD recognition in boys and girls in March of 2001:
Most of the early ADD research was conducted exclusively with
boys. The field is now beginning to recognize and debate the fundamental gender
differences in ADD. My experience has clearly shown that girls are often
under-identified in school systems ... while boys may be over identified.
I have long felt that this discrepancy is due to the manner in
which boys and girls respond to school failure. Boys tend to act out,
misbehave, become defiant or aggressive. Girls tend to
respond to failure by becoming withdrawn and passive. (Of course, there are
notable exceptions!) Therefore, the boy tends to be referred for intervention
... and the girl is ignored and granted social promotions. We need to start
taking better care of our little girls!
·
Girls
are less likely to become OPPOSITIONAL or AGGRESSIVE than boys. ADD girls are
also less likely to be HYPERACTIVE or have concurrent LEARNING DISABILITIES.
·
Girls
tend to have ADD ... without hyperactivity. Boys more often have ADHD
...wherein hyperactivity is a significant aspect of the problem.
·
ADD
(without hyperactivity) students are generally characterized by introversion,
unfocussed, difficulty attending, low energy. The ADD
girl is often (unfairly and inaccurately) labeled "ditzy",
"scattered", "flaky". [14]
New treatments for ADD/HD:
Over 300
hospitals and clinics in the United States are using a new technique to help
people with ADD/HD. The therapy involves the use of a head set and a metronome.
CNN reports:
One of those therapies (to help with ADD/HD) involves performing
various tasks -- clapping, tapping the foot -- to the beat of a metronome.
The technique originated with Tom Eggleston, whose 14-year-old son
Jimmy has ADD/HD. Eggleston noted that Jimmy seemed to improve after taking
piano lessons with a metronome.
He was so impressed, he started a
company, Interactive Metronome, to market a metronome device as an ADD/HD
treatment tool.
The new research, published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy,
appears to bear out Eggleston's experience. Fifty-six boys took part in the
study.
"Their attention improved, their motor planning and
sequencing improved. They had improvement in selected academic skills involving
reading and some math capacities," said Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a child
psychiatrist who conducted the research. Greenspan is also an advisor to
Interactive Metronome.
Not all ADD/HD specialists are convinced. They say the study was
too small to draw conclusions and point out that children who used the
metronome did little better than those who played video games instead. [15]
However, many
parents have reported good results by combining this new therapy with existing
treatments.
A More Recent Drug
The Federal Drug
Administration has approved another drug to treat ADD/HD. Concerta (methylphenidate)
has the advantage over similar drugs in the fact that it needs to be taken only
once a day. This eliminates the necessity for the child to see the school
nurse, which can cause embarrassment, or asking the teacher to administer the
pills. [16]
Students Who Learn
Differently Overseas
by Susan van Alsenoy,
AWC Antwerp
Email: swl@fawco.org
Page created 10/29/99
EvE. Last updated 03/01/11 SvA.
Copyright © fawco.org. All
rights reserved.