Developmental Dyslexia from Birth to Eight takes a fresh approach to a condition which is often poorly understood and unjustly stigmatised. Illuminating the latest neurological advances in the field, this book will empower educational professionals to play a decisive role in supporting and encouraging children with dyslexia. With an overarching focus on the ways in which practitioners can advance children’s development and learning, Developmental Dyslexia from Birth to Eight recognises the varying guises in which this information-processing difference might present, and addresses the challenges that this creates for children and practitioners alike. Each chapter provides the reader with a thorough examination and explanation of dyslexia, along with reflective examples, case studies and relevant further reading. Areas of focus include: The origins and identification of dyslexia Intervention strategies and alternative therapies Observation and assessment Dyslexia and English as a foreign language Dyslexia-friendly settings National and global policy on provision for dyslexic children An engaging and accessible guide, this book will be an invaluable resource for educational practitioners and childcare specialists seeking to enhance their knowledge and understanding of dyslexia, to better support the children in their care.
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.
Dyslexia is a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. Although the disorder varies from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds) and/or rapid visual-verbal responding. The syndrome of dyslexia does not imply low intelligence or poor educational potential, and is independent of race and social background. Although dyslexia seems to be more prevalent among males than females, the exact ratio is unknown: the most commonly quoted figures are between 3:1 and 5:1. The evidence suggests that in at least two-thirds of cases, dyslexia has a genetic cause, but in some cases birth difficulties may play a role. Dyslexia may overlap with related conditions such as dyspraxia, attention deficit disorder (with or without hyperactivity) and dysphasia. In childhood, its effects can be misattributed to emotional or behavioural disorders. By adulthood, many dyslexics will have developed sophisticated compensating strategies that may mask their difficulties. This new book presents state-of-the-art research in this dynamic field.
This text links general skills difficulties to dyslexia. It examines the research which has found that dyslexic children have problems not just with their reading but in a range of skills including several (such as balance) unrelated to reading.
Understanding the mechanisms responsible for developmental dyslexia (DD) is a key challenge for researchers. A large literature, mostly concerned with learning to read in opaque orthographies, emphasizes phono-logical interpretations of the disturbance. Other approaches focused on the visual-per-ceptual aspects of orthographic coding. Recently, this perspective was supported by imaging data showing that individuals with DD have hypo-activation in occipito-temporal areas (a finding common to both transpar-ent and opaque orthographies). Nevertheless, it is difficult to infer causal relationships from activation data. Accommodating these findings within the cognitive architecture of reading processes is still an open issue. This is a general problem, which is present in much of the literature. For example, several studies investigating the perceptual and cognitive abilities that distinguish groups of children with and without DD failed to provide explicit links with the reading process. Thus, several areas of investigation (e.g., acoustic deficits or magnocellular deficiencies) have been plagued by replication failures. Furthermore, much research has neglected the possible contribution of comorbid symptoms. By contrast, it is now well established that developmental disorders present a large spectrum of homotopic and heterotopic co-morbidities that make causal interpretations problematic. This has led to the idea that the etiology of learning difficulties is multifactorial, thus challenging the traditional models of DD. Recent genetic studies provide information on the multiple risk factors that contribute to the genesis of the disturbance. Another critical issue in DD is that much of the research has been conducted in English-speaking individuals. However, English is a highly irregular orthography and doubts have been raised on the appropriateness of automatically extending interpretations based on English to other more regular orthographies. By contrast, important information can be gotten from systematic comparisons across languages. Thus, the distinction between regular and irregular orthographies is another potentially fruitful area of investigation. Overall, in spite of much research current interpretations seem unable to integrate all available findings. Some proposals focus on the cognitive description of the reading profile and explicitly ignore the distal causes of the disturbance. Others propose visual, acoustic or phonological mech-anisms but fail to link them to the pattern of reading impairment present in different children. The present Research Topic brings together studies based on different methodological approaches (i.e., behavioural studies examining cognitive and psycholinguistic factors, eye movement inves-tigations, biological markers, neuroimaging and genetic studies), involving dyslexic groups with and without comorbid symptoms, and in different orthographies (transparent and opaque) to identify the mechanisms underlying DD. The RT does not focus on a single model or theory of dyslexia but rather brings together different approaches and ideas which we feel are fruitful for a deeper understanding developmental dyslexia.
Developmental Dyslexia has been a subject of interest to practitioners for more than a century. Despite its long research history, however, dyslexia (the terms specific reading disability, reading disability and learning disability are also used interchangeably in this volume) still provides a challenge for contemporary cognitive psychology, education, neurology and physiology. By bringing together contributions from researchers and scholars working in a wide range of fields and perspectives, it is hoped that this publication will offer a means of considering different facets of dyslexia, and enable a greater understanding of reading disorders and their remediation to emerge. The book is divided into eight major sections, the focus in each section being on a different facet of dyslexia. It is hoped this framework enables the reader to assimilate the wide range of pure and applied research and even give rise to a new perspective for the understanding of dyslexia.
Taking a developmental approach, this accessible text addresses the ever increasing interest in identifying the characteristics of dyslexia in young children and reflects on the best way to reach and support these learners. Drawing upon current research, the author considers our current understanding of dyslexia and calls upon best practice to advise professionals, students and family members alike who seek to fulfil the potential of young children with, or showing the signs of, dyslexia. This book considers key topics explored in current best practice and dyslexia research, including: the importance of the role of speaking, hearing and understanding language dyslexia in relation to other languages and orthographies dyslexia and overlapping characteristics, particularly dyspraxia the role of play identifying and assessing dyslexia in the early years. Adopting a dyslexia-friendly position, Barbara Pavey acknowledges the ethics associated with a social model of disability, so that the focus is upon modifying teaching and learning, and respecting the views of children and parents throughout. This book includes assessment and practice strategies, good practice points, helpful ideas, first-hand narratives of dyslexia, pointers for further reading, resources and online tools, and will be of enormous practical use to anyone supporting a young child with potential or diagnosed dyslexia.
