Dyslexia 'is just a middle-class way to hide stupidity'

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Dyslexia 'is just a middle-class way to hide stupidity'
By REBECCA CAMBER - More by this author » Last updated at 20:34pm on 28th May 2007

Dyslexia is a social fig leaf used by middle-class parents who fear their children will be labelled as low achievers, a professor has claimed.

Julian Elliott, a leading educational psychologist at Durham University, says he has found no evidence to identify dyslexia as a medical condition after more than 30 years of research.

"There is a huge stigma attached to low intelligence," he said.

"After years of working with parents, I have seen how they don't want their child to be considered lazy, thick or stupid.

"If they get called this medically diagnosed term, dyslexic, then it is a signal to all that it's not to do with intelligence."

He added: "There are all sorts of reasons why people don't read well but we can't determine why that is. Dyslexia, as a term, is becoming meaningless."

One in ten people in the UK - including 375,000 schoolchildren - has been diagnosed with dyslexia.

The condition is said to impair short-term memory and the ability to read, write, spell and do maths.

Supporters of the condition argue that dyslexics are intelligent people who have difficulties processing information and need extra help and time than others who are poor readers.

But Professor Elliott has claimed that the symptoms of dyslexia - such as clumsiness and letter reversal - are similar to those seen in those who simply cannot read.

He argues that the condition should be rediagnosed as a reading difficulty.

His comments provoked fury among dyslexia campaigners.

John Rack, head of research and development at the charity Dyslexia Action, denied that the disability was a middle-class phenomenon.

He told The Times: "There is ample evidence that dyslexia exists across the spectrum and the argument that there is no consistent means of identifying it is one cited by people who don't know enough about the subject."

However, other experts have suggested that parents are putting their children forward for reading ability assessments to "get them off the hook".

Dr Michael Rice, a dyslexia and literacy expert at Cambridge University, said: "There is a sense of justification when children are diagnosed.

"It gets them off the hook of great embarrassment and personal inadequacy."

According to Professor Elliott, dyslexic university students are gaining an unfair advantage by getting extra time for their studies and many are getting diagnosed simply to get up to £10,000 worth of equipment including laptops and extra books.

University lecturers have complained about students "milking the system" by pretending they have the condition.

One lecturer who teaches in the South-East said:

"On one degree course I teach, about one quarter of the students get help with their coursework and other assistance because they have this label. You become quite cynical."

The number of students who receive disability allowances at university has risen to a record 35,500 at a cost of £78.4million a year.

 

Since we can Leave No Child Behind, they must all be average intellegnce or better.

 

I believe Einstein was diagnosed with dyslexia. And Winston Churchhill...Dr. Seuss...

They were all idiots.

 

I don't see dyslexia floating around as a diagnosis much...

But what about ADD??? Seems like every child who does poorly in school, or is poorly behaved...is propped up with stimulants and drugs!

When I was in grammar school, we had one girl that I believe truly had ADD. Kathy. She would sit in her chair, rotate on her rear (in a small circle), for hours. She would randomly yell out at teachers, couldn't do homework, and was constantly picked on. I felt sorry for her. She looked "medically" diagnosable.

Now, its the cool kids that have ADD. All pushing adderal. Thats a diagnosis out of control.

What about depression? Years ago, depression had to be life altering to be a diagnosis. Now, probably 20% of the population I see is diagnosed with it. Your dog died? You need meds. Didn't get a raise? You need meds. Boyfriend left you? You need 2 meds.

Some how I think that as a society we are losing our coping mechanisms and fostering a generation of weaners...

 

I'd have to agree with you there. We're all about the quick fix, however temporary it may be.

 

apparently it pays well to be Dyslexic in the UK - where we give out better drugs for ADD over here

John Chambers at Cisco Systems is a high profile Dyslexia sufferer. guess he's another poor broke middle-class dummy.

Everyone has some combination of barriers to success - not many require medication, imo.

 

I think that the best thing we as parents can do is raise the next generations right...

I love my kids, but don't reward whining.

When the get into the inevitable fights, and one of them comes up crying about this or that (My brother hit me!!!), I always have the following dialogue with them:

Are you bleedng?
No, Daddy.

Do you have an injury we need to take you to the hospital for?
No, Daddy.

Did someone die?
No, daddy.

Take 5 deep breathes and tell me whats going on.

If they start whining/crying, they take 5 more deep breathes and come back.

Works great.

If you reward whining, it will continue. Reward good behavior, hug your kids, and tell them you love them.

 

Amen, brother. That's almost word-for-word what I say to my boys. Usually, I'll add something telling them how they need to work together. I wonder how soon until they figure it out and turn against us.

 

For someone that does not HAVE a disease or disability it is easy to point a finger and call he/she a faker. When one does not possess knowledge of a particular illness, symptoms and signs may seem foolish when, in fact, the person passing judgment is simply ignorant.

I'm sure the children which have been diagnosed with dyslexia have been given proper tests. I doubt it's as simple as having difficulty with reading and other schoolwork.

Would Camber argue that people with OCD do things repeatedly for attention or because they WANT to spend minutes or even HOURS of their day preforming rituals?

Again, ignorance in its finest form.

 

I have a friend and colleague (fellow doctor) diagnosed with dyslexia, whose intelligence I can vouch for. Yet he readily transposes letters in words and digits in numbers, and has poorer language skills than one would expect given his IQ. In contrast, his ability to reason through complex problems is excellent.

There's certainly the chance of a wrong diagnosis or fakery when a condition is difficult to diagnose. But to label the condition "meaningless" and a "social fig leaf" is the height of unscientific arrogance.

There will always be self-proclaimed "experts" in any field who like to buck the trend and say something outrageous. Another notable example is the German scientist Peter Duesberg who, many years back, claimed in a publication that HIV wasn't the cause of AIDS. His career tanked after this.

That "expert" was dead wrong, as this one is likely to be; problem is, there's a *lot* of empirical evidence linking HIV to AIDS, whereas dyslexia is a far more nebulous and difficult condition to diagnose. Most psychological conditions (without a clear neurophysiologic or neuroanatomic correlate) are.

 

Assuming this is true, what a perfect example of how no good deed goes unpunished. Seems that every time you try to help someone/some group you get screwed in the end.

 

+1

 

The same can be said for the housewives that take their overactive children to the doctor hoping to get a prescription for xanax. Somewhere someone will be abusing the system, that's just how it goes. Unfortunately, not every doctor is going to take the proper precautions to avoid such issues.

I was prescribed with a medication in January and I couldn't believe how quickly I was handed a bag of pills and shoved out the door. I rattled off a few symptoms and it was THAT easy. How do they know I wasn't totally BSing? They don't.. so, in such situations, nearly all of a similar nature, most will be dealt with on a case by case basis and under the assumption that each patient is honest. Statistics will show that prescription drugs are abused in today's society.

Also, this doesn't necessarily happen because today's society is corrupt, but because decades ago the medical field wasn't nearly as developed technologically as it is today. Clinical depression, amongst other diagnoses that have commonly abused meds, did not appear out of the clear, blue sky. It's not that people over-reacted one day and conjured the feeling of being very sad into an illness, it's just that now that we're a more advanced society we can be more aware and help those that are genuinely in NEED.

 

The good part of getting a dx of ADD or similar "soft" dx is you are not only protected by The Americans With Disability Act, but will qualify for a host of welfare benies including SSI cash payments.

 

the nuns beat both of them out of me. it took them eight years to do it. i still have bruises.

 

Dyslexia is real, though surrounded by myths and misconceptions. Converging evidence from a long history of research conducted at many excellent laboratories suggest that the basis of true dyslexia in rooted in certain neurophysiologic deficits. However, it is true that some parents and individuals blame poor performance on “dyslexia” when other factors are a more likely explanation.

A very, very short list for your consideration… they will lead to many other sources.

This is a link to a down-to-earth discussion of dyslexia by a leading researcher in the field:
http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=718

For those inclined and willing/able to invest in a report of current research, this is a link to a book concerning dyslexia. It is of a very technical nature:
http://www.languagedisordersarena.com/books/The-Dyslexic-Brain-isbn9780805858891

I hope this may add something positive to the discussion. I also hope the links work - if not, give me a holler. Thanks.

 

interesting, I have Dyslexia and didn't find out until I was older. I assumed that it was normal to read the way I do. although how I read is VERY different from the norm. for me it isn't the word so much as the sentence, I do at times get the words transposed or mixed, it usually happens with words that are phenomes or can be arranged as other words. I have to read the entire sentence at once and even then I don't see words, if I stop to recognize individual words it'll trip me up, so I 'see' the whole thought and my brain reads it to me thru pictures and concepts. okay I know that makes absolutely no sense to anyone, but that's the best way to explain it.

you should see me type, this whole thing needs to be re-checked and grammatically adjusted or it wouldn't make sense. here's a snipit from an articles explanation, that fits for me at least...

I've had an MRI and it was indeed strange to the docs, but thats how I was diagnosed. my father had it and I'll venture to guess both my boys will run a high risk of having it as well.

I LOVE to read so I've found ways to read without anyone noticing a problem. and maybe this is the 'key' my world is tangible in my mind, words, numbers, thoughts, everything is a 'body' it's all conceptualized into a 'movie'. and no I'm not on drugs sounds like it though.