News
April 2009
We report on progress for the World Dyslexia Forum.
Two articles focus on Germany: A tribute to retiring Board Member Dr Lisa Dummer-Smoch, and an article from ‘Legakids’ which tackles a sensitive issue.
World Dyslexia Forum at UNESCO, Paris, 3 – 5 February 2010
‘I have seen the tremendous cost to these children and their families of having reading problems that often were unidentified and misunderstood and inadequately treated. What we found was that the persistently poor readers seemed to have
lower verbal ability from the beginning and to attend more disadvantaged schools than the group that had compensated.’
Professor Sally Shaywitz MD, USA
These failures often lead to depression, drop-out and anti-social behaviour.
Dyslexia International is spreading a greater awareness about this problem – which is found world-wide in all systems of orthography – by asking official responsible for teacher training around the world to share their expertise at the Forum.
Free, quality online learning courses for teachers and other free resources could have a major impact. A prototype of a course will be shown at the Forum. Work has started on a film, ‘Dyslexia – Basics’, to accompany the course.
Local associations which provide support are responding enthusiastically to our call for presentations of their work. These will be shown on screen in the main meeting place outside the conference room. Cumulatively, the presentations attest to
the hard work needed to fill the gaps which are not being properly addressed in most countries by ministries and officials.
Preparations for the Forum are continuing at speed. The updated programme with profiles of all the speakers and chairpersons is now ready on our site, where you can
find a registration form and information about how to pay the fee.
Focus on Germany
1. Tribute to Lisa Dummer-Smoch
Dr Lisa Dummer-Smoch has retired from Dyslexia International. Her work in Germany in research and teacher training to see dyslexia better understood and
addressed has been invaluable. We are deeply grateful for her contributions as a scientific consultant and Honorary Board member in supporting our efforts since 2000.
Lisa, born in 1930, was an experienced teacher at different schools, including special schools for children with handicaps in speech development and for children with a general pattern of inability to learn. After 15 years as a school teacher she went back to university, where she completed her studies with a PhD in psychology. Her dissertation was recognized by the Austrian Ministry of Education with a special award in 1979.
She continued her career at the Ministry of Education of Schleswig-Holstein, where she was in charge of the implementation of school-psychology and educational consultation. During this time she initiated the first binding ‘Guidelines’ for dyslexic children in this part of Germany: dyslexia was to be understood as discrepancy between reading and writing problems in children with significantly better intellectual gifts. Later, she became professor for teacher training in the University of Kiel.
When the German Parents Association for dyslexics was founded in 1974 she was one of the first members. She was very active in this organization and led it from 1981 to 1989. Parents, teachers and scientists always looked forward to receiving the bi-annual congress summaries which she edited regularly with the cooperation of others or by herself. Her commitment for more than 30 years to dyslexia was finally honored by the “Bundesverband Legasthenie” with an award in 1995.
Dr. Lisa Dummer-Smoch is one of the authors of “Kieler Leseaufbau”, a neuropsychologically based, multisensory training program for dyslexics which has been in use in German-speaking countries since 1981. She authored other books and many articles about dyslexia - alone or with co-authors - and help-yourself-booklets for parents, like the well known “Ratgeber Legasthenie” or “Legasthenie – kurz gefasst für Eltern und Lehrer” which can be downloaded here.
It is no surprise that she is now well recognized as a profoundly-thinking scientist within German-speaking regions. She has played an active role in our scientific consultancy team in support of the World Dyslexia Forum. Always practical, she continues to support young dyslexic scholars in their careers.
We thank Lisa very much for her invaluable contribution to Dyslexia International and we wish her peace, good health and joy in her retirement.
In October 2001 Dyslexia International celebrated its first year with a brainstorming session. Dr. Lisa Dummer-Smoch was among the experts to discuss teacher training for dyslexic learners. (For details see Newsletter No.6)
From left to right: Anny Cooreman (Eureka School for dyslexic children), Bevé Hornsby of the Hornsby International Centre, Margaret Rooms of the Dyslexia Institute UK, Dr. Lisa Dummer-Smoch from Germany, Gudrun Dziallas (Dyslexia International)
2. Is dyslexia a sickness or illness?
Dr. Britta Büchner of LegaKids, Germany, sent us a considered response to the questionnaires we sent to local associations about how dyslexia is perceived in their country.
Her report confirms the disturbing impression that in many quarters dyslexia is treated in the medical rather than in the educational domain.
The plain fact that dyslexia is neurologcially based is disregarded. Education authorites are not taking into account the increasing body of knowledge now known about neuro-diversity.
This is a summary in free translation of what Dr. Büchner says:
There is a tendency to categorise children with dyslexia as sick, disturbed or handicapped when their talents do not correspond to the normal. This ‘labelling’ has an impact on the individual, the family, the school and society.
After diagnosis has been made, schools transfer the responsibility for treatment to special therapists. The diagnosis ‘dyslexia’ has been based on medical or psychological criteria whereas educational tools and methods are more promising for treatment.
What happens is that:
- Children are stigmatised.
- Self motivation and the child’s own healing process is slowed down: ‘I can’t do anything here, I am sick.’
- Schools and teaching staff can say: ‘We are not responsible for the “dyslexic” illness’.
- Discrepancies and prejudices make it easy to classify children into one or another category. But IQ and reading tests differ enormously in quality; their applications and results can easily be manipulated.
- Believing that the illness has to be treated therapeutically, parents and teaching staff direct their support towards the child’s deficits rather than his or her talents and skills.
- The term illness suggests an organic pathology which can be diagnosed and treated medically. However, up to now, neither medical diagnosis nor medical methods alone have proved themselves effective with regard to reading problems and dyscalculia.
- The attribution of the term illness also evades the issue; the child does not get the opportunity to learn to improve. Other causes related to factors such as family, society or school are not examined.
- The syndromes of an illness assume that the child concerned is unable to fulfill certain demands. However, children can summon their existing knowledge and experience which are useful for the acquisition of written and mathematical abilities and which should be recognised, strengthened and used by the teaching staff.
A diagnoses defining the condition as an illness boils down to: ‘What can the child not do?’ The enlightened method asks: ‘What can the child do and how does the situation have to change in order to help the child learn better?’ The methods of intervention are not then limited to the child but also take into account all the factors that bear on the situation.
Conclusions
Difficulties with written language have many causes, ways of showing themselves and results. In order to support these children and the other teaching staff we need teachers who have been specially trained in reading, writing and spelling. Reading and spelling tests can show where extra support is required but should not be used as diagnostic tools. The label of an ‘illness’ should not be required as the criterion to guarantee a child professional, educational and financial support.