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Each week, LD OnLine gathers interesting news headlines about learning disabilities and ADHD issues. Please note that LD OnLine does not necessarily endorse these views or any others on these outside websites.
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Dyslexia Advocates Call for Changes In Classrooms, Standardized Testing
The Hartford Courant
Dyslexia advocates have had some success in the nation's capital and in changing the rules at some colleges and universities. Some colleges now allow dyslexic students extra time on exams and make other types of accommodations. In Washington, 55 lawmakers are currently part of a bipartisan Dyslexia Caucus.
ADHD May Be More Likely in Children with Asthma or Allergies
Medical News Today
Children with a history of asthma and various allergies may be at higher risk of developing ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), according to a study published in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Feds Urge Schools To Tackle Bullying Of Kids With Disabilities
Disability Scoop
In new guidance sent to educators across the country, federal education officials say that schools may be liable if they don’t properly address bullying of students with disabilities. The guidance details the unique obligations that schools have under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to ensure that children with disabilities are not victimized.
'Dislecksia: The Movie' Set For October Launch
Orlando Sentinel
Distribution company Area 23a will launch the documentary "Dislecksia: The Movie" theatrically in the U.S. throughout October in conjunction with National Dyslexia Awareness Month. The documentary includes classroom footage and interviews, presenting Hubbell's belief that dyslexia is a learning "difference" rather than a disability.
Handwriting Camp Helps Kids with LD
Standard Times San Angelo
Kathy Colunga, an occupational therapist at West Texas Rehabilitation Center, wrote a book called “Planet L: Where Letters Become Legible.” Colunga struggled with dyslexia and dysgraphia, a neurological disorder that leads to inappropriately sized and spaced letters, and writing wrong or misspelled words, throughout her life, inspiring her to help children who have the same learning disabilities. Planet L serves as curriculum for summer handwriting camp.
Helping Children with LD Using a Computer-Interfaced Drawing Pad
Medical News Today
For less than $100, University of Washington researchers have designed a computer-interfaced drawing pad that helps scientists see inside the brains of children with learning disabilities while they read and write. Researchers studied 11- and 14-year-olds with either dyslexia or dysgraphia, a handwriting and letter-processing disorder, as well as children without learning disabilities.
Test Scores Sink as New York Adopts Tougher Benchmarks
The New York Times
The number of New York students passing state reading and math exams dropped drastically this year, education officials reported, unsettling parents, principals and teachers and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards.
Biological Deficit Causes Children with Dyscalculia to Have an Imprecise Representation of Numbers
Medical News Today
Researchers at the University of Graz in Austria surmised that a biologically driven deficit causes children with dyscalculia to have an imprecise internal representation of numbers, which explains their difficulty with the number line task.
More Students Are Taking Both the ACT and SAT
The New York Times
Not a single college requires it, but many applicants to the nation’s most selective colleges and universities are taking — and retaking — both the ACT and the SAT. Although almost every college for years has accepted either test, the SAT has long represented the gold standard. Yet the ACT has pulled ahead for the first time: 1,666,017 students took the ACT last year; 1,664,479 took the SAT.
Scientists Study Brain Activation When Processing Chinese Characters
Medical News Today
A recent study explores the neurological mechanisms underlying the process of reading in Chinese and potential treatments for difficulties experienced by those with dyslexia. Qing-Lin Wu and team from Taiwan Normal University divided 72 high-frequency Chinese characters into four categories: hand-action verbs with and without hand-radicals, and verbs not related to hand actions, with and without hand-radicals. Twenty-eight healthy participants, aged 21-30 years, underwent functional MRI scans while reading the characters.
With New Version Looming, States Rethink GED
Education Week
As implementation of the redesigned GED approaches, test-takers are rushing to complete the old GED test before Jan. 1, when the new version makes its debut. The 2014 version of the test will have more rigorous questions to align itself with the Common Core standards. It will also combine what were previously the writing and literature sections, bringing the number of test sections down from five to four. It will also now be completely computerized and test-takers will be required to use computer calculators.
U.S. Probes Use of Antipsychotic Drugs on Children
The Wall Street Journal
Federal health officials have launched a probe into the use of antipsychotic drugs on children in the Medicaid system, amid concern that the medications are being prescribed too often to treat behavioral problems in the very young. In New York, a spokesman for the state health department said some children between ages 1 and 2 received antipsychotics for conditions such as autistic disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity.
Mentoring Students to Prevent the ‘Summer Slide’
The New York Times
New research suggests that nearly all students lose a month or more of skills and knowledge over the summer break. However, not all kids are affected equally. Middle-class children who make trips to the library, travel and take classes, experience some slide in math but little in reading. Low-income students lose math abilities like their middle class counterparts. In addition, though, poor kids can lose between one and two months in reading achievement. One summer mentoring program in New York is working to ensure that everyone returns in the fall with the skills and knowledge they possessed the previous spring.
In Defense of Working Memory Training
The Creativity Post
The potential payoff of working memory training for helping those who could truly benefit from it is too great to not at least attempt to get this right, and take a more nuanced approach that takes into account multiple factors.
What the New SAT and Digital ACT Might Look Like
The New York Times
Big changes are coming to the nation’s two competing admissions tests. The president of the College Board, an architect of the Common Core, is intent on rethinking the SAT to make it an instrument that meshes with what students are learning in their classrooms. Meanwhile, the ACT, which has always been more curriculum-based, is the first of the two to move into the digital age. In adapting its test for the computer, ACT Inc. is tiptoeing past the fill-in-the-bubble Scantron sheets toward more creative, hands-on questions.
How Thinking in 3D Can Improve Math and Science Skills
KQED: Mind Shift
Spatial thinking skills, the researchers point out, are an important predictor of academic achievement and professional success in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and these skills begin developing—or not—in children’s own homes. A large study called Project Talent, for example, “found that people who had high scores on spatial tests in high school were much more likely to major in STEM disciplines and go into STEM careers.”
Parliamentary Outreach Resource Helps People with LD 'Get Government System'
Learning Disability Today
The Houses of Parliament (UK) Outreach Service has developed a package of learning resources to help adults with learning disabilities understand how Parliament works. Launched by the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow MP, the specialist resource pack forms the basis of a learning session in which participants are encouraged to think and talk about who runs the country and the laws they would like to make.
Addictive Gaming More Common with Autism and ADHD
NBC News
In a recent study, researchers surveyed the parents of 141 boys between the ages of 8 and 18 years old. Of those, 56 had an autism spectrum disorder, 44 had ADHD and 41 were developing normally. They found that kids with an autism spectrum disorder played - on average - 2.1 hours of video games per day. Children with ADHD spent about 1.7 hours per day playing video games and normally developing kids played about 1.2 hours per day.
Why We Need To Value Students’ Spatial Creativity
KQED: Mind Shift
Can enhancing spatial thinking improve outcomes in STEM? A new study by David Uttal, David Miller, and Nora Newcombe published in Current Directions in Psychological Science notes that “a recent quantitative synthesis of 206 spatial training studies found an average training improvement of 0.47 standard deviations.” The authors suggest that including spatial thinking in STEM curricula would “enhance the number of Americans with the requisite cognitive skills to enter STEM careers.”
1.7 Million Pound Boost for Disabled Teens in Lincolnshire, UK
This is Lincolnshire
1.7 million pounds has been earmarked to help students with learning difficulties and disabilities in Lincolnshire, UK. The money will help set up facilities for disabled students or those with learning difficulties, to help them continue studying after mainstream school.
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