Reading Disability “Poorly Recognised”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 10

Reading Disability “Poorly Recognised”

A disability which causes serious difficulty in learning to read or write—specific dyslexia—is poorly recognised in New Zealand, according to two Hawke’s Bay doctors.

The condition was not well recognised by the teaching profession, or psychologists, and this applied to some extent to the medical profession, said Dr. C. Crawford, of Napier Hospital, and Dr. A. W. Reeve, of Memorial Hospital. Hastings, in an article in the latest “New Zealand Medical Journal.” “Some teachers appear to regard their pupil’s lack of progress as a reflection on their teaching,” the doctors said. “Some educational psychologists tend to rely on their own unaided assessments, and children with mild cerebral palsy, minimal brain damage, or cerebral dysfunction are therefore mis-diag-nosed.

"Others have been taught, and still believe, that specific dyslexia does not exist, and that reading and writing difficulties are all attributable to inadequate teaching, organic brain damage, mental retardation, emotional factors and so on.” GREAT VARIATION The doctors said a great variation occurred in the recognition of cases in different countries. In Denmark, it was estimated that 10 per cent of children were dyslexic, and there were special schools for them. English figures were unreliable, but .01 per cent had been suggested: in the United States, one estimate was as high as 20 per cent.

Figures in New Zealand were not known, but the authors said they had collected 13 cases in four years without advertising their interest. Describing the circumstances often involved, the doctors said from time to time a child was brought to the doctor because of difficulties in learning to read and write.

“He has usually been normal in his accomplishments till he goes to school, and then has unaccountable difficulty in reading and writing, quickly falling behind the rest of the class.

“Often the problem is presented to the doctor in an indirect form. He may be sent to an eye specialist because of imagined trouble with his vision: or to the psychologist because he is thought to be generally backward: or to the psychiatrist because he is ‘maladjusted’: or the teacher may put down to laziness his apparently perverse inability to read even simple words.” RARE IN GIRLS

The doctors said the boy involved would seem bright to talk to (it was rarely a girl) and he might have a wide vocabulary. But asked to read or write, and either he would be grotesquely bad, or else disheartened by previous failures, he might refuse to try. Drs. Crawford and Reeve said that although poorly recognised in New Zealand, the disability was often clear-cut and easily recognisable. They explained that it was a genetically determined condition, thought to be caused by a failure to develop asymmetry of brain function. The child affected was often ambidextrous.

Specific dyslexia was six times more common in boys than in girls, and varied in its severity from slight difficulty in spelling and writing to marked inability to spell or read even two-letter words. “Although speaking fluent ly and with a large vocabulary the child reads poorly because of a difficulty in translating written symbols into spoken words,” the doctors said. “There is always an accompanying confusion between left and right. The child maystart at the wrong end of a word or line, thus reading GOD for DOG, or TAC for CAT. He may also confuse pairs of letters, such as d and b or p and q because they are mirror images. There is often vertical confusion between u and n, and w ind m. Intensive Teaching The physicians said the condition was at its worst between the ages of six and 12 years, and might improve suddenly of its own accord in the teens.

“Some cases are greatly helped by intensive teaching, but there is a large group which may be severely disabled for life and who may never achieve more than unskilled work,” the doctors observed.

“Some are able to take up professions; some are able to do clerical work or become skilled technicians, while others may achieve no more than unskilled work.” Outlining treatment, the doctors said it should be explained to parents that the reading difficulty was not due to laziness or lack of intelligence, but to an inborn error —ln much the same way as a defect of colour vision was an inborn error.

The “look-say” method of reading needed replacing by the old-fashioned “phonetic system” in which the child learned letter sounds, and progressed to word sounds, syllable by syllable. He had to learn as a feat of memory, every letter of the alphabet and never make a mistake. He could then progress to a larger collection of letters, forming first simple and then later, complex words. Enthusiasm Needed The doctors advised that visual learning should be reinforced by other sense channels, such as the appearance of a tetter, the tracing of its outline, and writing it down. Reading matter should be interesting and exciting. Toys should be used to Incorporate words and letters. Teaching had to be carried out with intensity, patience, sympathy and understanding, and the teacher should be an enthusiast.

Psychological treatment was not necessary in uncomplicated cases, and might even be unwise.

These children often had great difficulty in remembering left from right This could be overcome by identifying one arm by means of a ring, on the finger, or a watch on the wrist