Diane, Mom of Amanda, 6y, a Typically developing Princess, Kindergarden student, and a terrific big sister!, and Joseph, 3.5y, myoclonic epilepsy, external hydrocephalus, a Left side PVL, Cerebral Palsy, mild sensorineural hearing loss, a stable heart murmur, wears SMO's bilat, takes Keppra, and loves going to school!! 

   Diane, Mom of Amanda, 6y, a Typically developing Princess, Kindergarden student, and a terrific big sister!, and Joseph, 3.5y, myoclonic epilepsy, external hydrocephalus, a Left side PVL, Cerebral Palsy, mild sensorineural hearing loss, a stable heart murmur, wears SMO's bilat, takes Keppra, and loves going to school!! 

   Diane, Mom of Amanda, 6y, a Typically developing Princess, Kindergarden student, and a terrific big sister!, and Joseph, 3.5y, myoclonic epilepsy, external hydrocephalus, a Left side PVL, Cerebral Palsy, mild sensorineural hearing loss, a stable heart murmur, wears SMO's bilat, takes Keppra, and loves going to school!! 

 

--- On Sat, 11/14/09, Evelyn Delgado <joyzee_devil@...> wrote:

From: Evelyn Delgado <joyzee_devil@...>
Subject: [Care to Share Support Network] Op-ED Contributor
To: "Jane Appel" <jbappel@...>
Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 10:25 PM

 

Here is a piece from today's Times by Simon Baron-Cohen (brother of Sasha of Borat fame) on the consideration of removing Asperger's diagnosis from the new DSM scheduled to come out in 2012.  This has been a hot topic lately as word has leaked that both Asperger's and PDD would be eliminated and the only thing left would be autism spectrum disorders, divided by severity. Aimee   http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 11/10/opinion/ 10baron-cohen. html?_r=1& ref=opinion

Solutions for Kids with Written Output Disorders

What is Dysgraphia?

Most individuals who have significant motor or sensory-motor handwriting challenges have a form of the neurological disorder known as Dysgraphia — with “Dys” meaning “difficulty” and “graphia” meaning “writing.”

Dysgraphia is a deficiency in the ability to write, regardless of the ability to read, not due to intellectual impairment. In childhood, the disorder generally emerges when children are first introduced to writing. Dysgraphia can occur after neurological trauma or it might be diagnosed in a person with Physical Impairments, Tourette Syndrome, ADD/ADHD, Learning Disabilities, or an Autism Spectrum Disorder such as Asperger’s Syndrome. It is also very possible for a person to be Dysgraphic without showing evidence of any other disabilities. These individuals often have a parent or other close family members who show signs of Dysgraphia as well. The DSM IV identifies Dysgraphia as a “Disorder of Written Expression” as “writing skills (that) ...are substantially below those expected given the person's ...age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.”

General Symptoms of Dysgraphia

• A mixture of upper case/lower case letters
• Irregular letter sizes and shapes
• Unfinished letters
• Struggle to use writing as a communications tool
• Odd writing grip
• Many spelling mistakes (Sometimes)
• Decreased or increased speed of writing and copying
• Talks to self while writing
• General illegibility
• Reluctance or refusal to complete writing tasks
• Crying and stress (which can be created by the frustration with the task of writing and/or spelling. This can also be brought on in dysgraphic students by common environmental sources such as high levels of environmental noise and/or over-illumination) .
• Experiencing physical pain in the hand and/or arm when writing

The 5 Types of Dysgraphia

Dyslexic Dysgraphia

With Dyslexic Dysgraphia a person’s spontaneously written work is illegible, copied work is pretty good, and spelling is bad. Finger tapping speed (a method for identifying fine motor problems) is normal. A Dyslexic Dysgraphic does not necessarily have Dyslexia. Dyslexia and Dysgraphia appear to be unrelated but often can occur together.

Motor Dysgraphia

Motor Dysgraphia is due to deficient fine motor skills, poor dexterity, poor muscle tone, and/or unspecified motor clumsiness. Generally, written work is poor to illegible, even if copied by sight from another document. Letter formation may be acceptable in very short samples of writing, but this requires extreme effort, an unreasonable amount of time to accomplish and cannot be sustained for a significant length of time. Writing is often slanted due to holding a pen or pencil incorrectly. Spelling skills are not impaired. Finger tapping speed results are below normal.

Spatial Dysgraphia

Spatial Dysgraphia is due to a defect in the understanding of space. This person has illegible spontaneously written work, illegible copied work, but normal spelling and normal finger tapping speed. Students with Spatial Dysgraphia often have trouble keeping their writing on the lines and difficulty with spacing between words.

Phonological Dysgraphia

Phonological Dysgraphia is characterized by writing and spelling disturbances in which the spelling of unfamiliar words, non-words, and phonetically irregular words is impaired. Individuals with Phonological Dysgraphia are also unable to hold phonemes in memory and blend them in their appropriate sequence to produce the target word.

Lexical Dysgraphia

Lexical Dysgraphia is evidenced when a person can spell but relies on standard sound-to-letter patterns with misspelling of irregular words. This is more common in languages such as English and French which are less phonetic than a language such as Spanish. This type of Dysgraphia is very rare in children.

Some children may have more than one type of Dysgraphia. Symptoms, in actuality, may vary in presentation from what is listed here.

Stress and Dysgraphia

There are some common problems not related to Dysgraphia but often associated with Dysgraphia - the most common of which is stress. Often children (and adults) with Dysgraphia will become extremely frustrated with the task of writing (and spelling); younger children may cry or refuse to complete written assignments. This frustration can cause the child (or adult) a great deal of stress and can lead to stress related illnesses. This can be a result of any type of Dysgraphia.

Diagnosis of Dysgraphia

While Dysgraphia can be suspected by professionals such as Occupational Therapists and School Psychologists, a Neuropsychologist is usually best to make this official diagnosis.

Dysgraphia and the US Public School System

Dysgraphia is often very misunderstood in public schools across the US as to the potential severity of its educational impact. Even when Dysgraphia has been diagnosed by an appropriate professional such as Neuropsychologist or Neurologist, the area of handwriting problems and their effective solutions are often not appropriately addressed for special needs kids in both inclusive and self-contained classrooms. It is often thought that continued handwriting practice will improve a Dysgraphic student’s ability to use paper and pencil alone as a useful tool to complete all their written schoolwork. This is rarely the case. While Occupational Therapy can often help to improve a Dysgraphic student’s handwriting to a certain extent, as these students get older and written demands continue to increase each year, it is very common for these students to often write the minimum just to “get by” and their attitude about school and themselves can be negatively impacted to a significant degree. It is not uncommon for these students who do not have appropriate “handwriting solutions” in place to eventually have emotional and behavioral challenges related to their frustration in not being able to complete finished written products similar to those of their peers. This is especially true of bright students who have so much to say and no way to communicate it adequately in writing.

At Handwriting Problem Solutions, LLC, it is our mission to help kids with Dysgraphia learn to use the latest “Low-Tech” and “High-Tech” equipment and software that will help to “level the playing field” for them by helping them complete finished written products as similar to those of their peers as possible. While we never want kids to abandon their handwriting skills altogether, we believe in having students use their handwriting skills for assignments where their handwriting can be used in a legible, timely, non-stressful manner. When this is no longer possible, they can then learn to use the technological tools we recommend in our resource guide, “Handwriting Solutions — Equipment, Teaching Strategies and Educational Resource Recommendations for Kids with Written Output Disorders” to tell us everything they know in written form.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meet before presenting the “Leaders and Laggards” report on Nov. 9 in Washington.
—Andrew Councill for Education Week

By Michele McNeil

Washington

A report card issued Monday on state-level innovation in education found what a trio of ideologically varied groups sees as deeply disturbing results, with most states earning C’s, D’s, or even F’s in such key areas as technology, high school quality, and removal of ineffective teachers.

The report, “Leaders and Laggards,” uses state data and existing and original research to assign letter grades to states, based on seven indicators of innovation: school management, finance, hiring and evaluation of teachers, removal of ineffective teachers, data, “pipeline to postsecondary” (or high school quality), and technology.

Though the report does not give states overall grades, the worst marks are in the category of removing ineffective teachers. But most states got C’s and D’s in the other categories.

“We found only a faint pulse of innovation,” said Thomas J. Donohue, the president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which co-sponsored the report and hosted a Nov. 9 event here surrounding the report’s release. “We must turn that into a strong heartbeat.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan concludes remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for a Competitive Workforce's annual education and workforce report on Nov. 9 in Washington.

—Andrew Councill for Education Week

The report card is notable for its sponsorship by not only the Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, and the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market- oriented think tank, but also the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress. All three groups are based in Washington.

Among the sources for the report were data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Schools and Staffing Survey, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.

All agreed that the results were “deeply disturbing,” in the words of John Podesta, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, who served as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.

But there were bright spots.

Massachusetts, Colorado, and Rhode Island got gold stars for their policies to promote extended learning time in schools, while Arizona, Ohio, and Florida got that designation for their aggressive charter school accountability approaches. Hawaii was singled out as the only state with a school-based funding policy. All are signals of innovation, according to the report.

Still, the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers labeled the report as full of “old-hat, top-down measures that have failed to transform our schools,” according to a statement.

“The report’s recommendations are little more than a defense of the factory model of education, which has of late turned schools from havens for learning into test-taking factories,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in the statement.

Multiple Factors

The report card incorporates many factors into a state’s overall letter grade for each of the seven indicators.

To weigh innovation in teacher hiring and evaluation, for example, the researchers measured a state’s percentage of alternatively certified teachers (the higher the better), whether the state uses national programs (such as Teach For America) to recruit educators, and other factors.

What researchers were not doing was measuring “nifty, faddish experiments,” said Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Instead, the analysis was meant to examine whether a state has created a “flexible, performance- oriented culture,” he said.

The report’s focus on innovation fits with the education agenda of the Obama administration, which is expected to release within a few days the final rules for the Race to the Top Fund competition, which will award $4 billion in grants to states through the economic-stimulus program.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who gave opening remarks at Monday’s event, said the quality of the country’s education system is as important an indicator of economic health as the “stock market, the unemployment rate, or the size of the GDP.”

The Chamber of Commerce, which is a powerful lobbying force at the federal, state, and local levels, has been at sharp odds with Obama administration over health care and climate change.

But not on education.

“The administration is setting the right tone and putting its money where its mouth is,” Mr. Donohue said, specifically praising the Race to the Top initiative.

Secretary Duncan acknowledged the tension between the administration and the chamber, but said: “Education is the most bipartisan issue.”

The guiding principles behind Race to the Top—the so-called “four assurances” attached to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes some $100 billion in education aid—appear to be here to stay. In exchange for receiving federal stimulus money, states have to agree to improve teacher effectiveness, data systems, academic standards, and their lowest-performing schools, according to the law.

Mr. Duncan used his remarks to emphasize that the administration wants to “embed” the four assurances into broader federal law, specifically the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the No Child Left Behind Act is the current version.

He also highlighted his four other priorities for ESEA reauthorization, which is expected to get going next year: setting a high bar for states and districts, but allowing them to innovate; building in more competition for federal dollars; reviewing federal education spending line by line and focusing federal education aid on the programs that are most effective; and moving accountability from a “one-size-fits- all” approach to something more flexible.