Education, the life course and research

Gordon Grant, Professor of Cognitive Disability at the University of Sheffield, continues the New Professor series by considering education, the life course and adulthood for people with learning disabilities. He takes up themes rehearsed by Roy McConkey in an earlier edition of the Journal (1998) and raises questions for research and development.     

Ageing transmigrants and the decolonisation of life course

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how ageing transmigrants engage in practises that serve to decolonise life course in order to create increased opportunities to live well. It analyses the experiences of Jamaican Canadian older adults (age 60 and older) who decided to remain in Canada, return to Jamaica, or travel between countries after retirement. As transmigrants with racialised minority and diasporic backgrounds, they grapple with questions of financial, socio-cultural, and emotional well-being that become more complicated and multi-layered in later life. This qualitative study utilises multi-sited ethnography to collect data in Canada and Jamaica. It also engages with the work of cultural critic Sylvia Wynter whose conceptions of decolonisation and humanism serve to reveal more diversified life course and ageing experiences. As postcolonial nation-states, Canada and Jamaica become ambivalent and vexed sites of home, belonging, security, and movement. Through decolonisation, transmigrants learn and unlearn how to navigate these spaces in ways that illuminate the ongoing struggles and pleasures of the quotidian within the broader contexts of transnational social fields.     

Dyslexia and the double deficit hypothesis

The double deficit hypothesis (Bowers and Wolf 1993) maintains that children with both phonological and naming-speed deficits will be poorer readers than children with just one or neither of these deficits. In the present study, we drew on this hypothesis to help understand why some children have a serious reading impairment. In addition, by adding an orthographic factor, we extended it to a triple deficit hypothesis. Participants were 90 children aged 6 to 10 years. Dyslexic children, whose reading was low for age and for expected level, garden-variety poor readers, reading-level matched younger children, and low verbal IQ good readers, were compared. The dyslexic group was significantly lower then the garden-variety poor readers and the low verbal IQ good readers on most measures, and lower than the younger group on phonological measures. Findings support the double deficit hypothesis of Bowers and Wolf, and also the triple deficit hypothesis. Most of the poorest readers, nearly all of whom qualified as dyslexic, had a double or triple deficit in phonological, naming-speed, and orthographic skills. Conclusions were that dyslexia results from an overload of deficits in skills related to reading, for which the child cannot easily compensate.     

Dyslexia and musical notation

The authors examine the difficulties experienced by dyslexic musicians in the formalized study of music, in particular, musical notation. They describe case studies from the literature and from personal interviews they conducted with musicians about their educational histories, musical weaknesses and strengths, and successful compensatory strategies. The authors make instructional suggestions for educators and musicians with dyslexia on how to use multisensory approaches to teach musical notation.     

Dyslexia and spatial thinking

Impairment in spatial thinking has figured prominently as an assumed cause of developmental reading disability. The empirical findings relevant to the idea, with special reference to right-left orientation, visuomotor and visuoconstructive performances, and finger recognition are examined. It is concluded that, although some dyslexic children do show spatial disabilities, there is little evidence to support the existence of a visuospatial type of developmental dyslexia. Presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of The Orton Dyslexia Society, San Diego, California, November 1983.     

Dyslexia and hormone deficiences

From a group of 75 children, originally selected as dyslectic on the basis of their reading and/or spelling problems relative to a total group of 1000 4.th grade children in the city of Trondheim, blood tests were obtained on 35 children. A control group of 45 children was drawn among the 1000 children. Among the 12 different hormones measured, significant differences came out on cortisol, triiodothyronine (T. 3), prolactin, and human growth hormone (HGH, somatotrophin) in boys and girls separately. A follow-up study of 22 dyslectic children from the same cohort gave results consistent with those obtained in the original study. The higher values of the dyslectic group on cortisol and prolactin may suggest the dyslectics to be in a stressful situation, possibly due to their language problems in school. The most striking difference, however, was the very low levels of HGH in the dyslectic group—to the extent that there was little overlap in the two distributions. This result was totally unexpected and is, in fact, opposite of what to be expected on the basis of at least short — time stress events. The results holds up when age and pubery development are controlled for.     

Dyslexia laws in the USA

Throughout the various states of the USA, the appropriate identification of dyslexia and the timely provision of interventions are characterized by variability and inconsistency. Several states have recognized the existence of this disorder and the well-established need for services. These states have taken proactive steps to implement laws and regulations for both identification and treatment, and the provision of equal access to students who are diagnosed with dyslexia. The majority of states, however, have not developed such laws and guidelines. The purposes of this article are to review the present status and content of these dyslexia laws, highlight some differences among the laws and regulations across states, and suggest strategies for initiating such laws.     

Re-engagement with education over the life course: motivations and barriers

ABSTRACT

As the Australian labour market restructures and the pace of technological advances quickens, reskilling and up-skilling are now required for sustained employability. Thus, many adults embark on further study after spending a period of time in the workforce. To examine the reasons for re-engaging, and for not re-engaging with education during adulthood, we conduct analysis of longitudinal data collected from a cohort of people who completed school in 1991. The majority of the participants completed an educational qualification between 25 and 44 years and were thus, lifelong learners. Understanding the patterns of re-engagement with education and the reasons why some people choose to re-engage whereas others do not contributes to current policy debates about how education prepares Australians for life.     

Dyslexia and oral reading errors

Thomson was the first of very few researchers to have studied oral reading errors as a means of addressing the question: Are dyslexic readers different to other readers? Using the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability and Goodman's taxonomy of oral reading errors, Thomson concluded that dyslexic readers are different, but he found that they do not resemble beginning readers. Thomson's study and his use of miscue analysis is re‐evaluated, both in relation to the educational and political climate of the time – which was hostile to the concept of dyslexia – and in the light of research and social developments since then. The study of oral reading still has value today, both for the teacher and the researcher, provided its limitations as a technique are fully appreciated.     

Dyslexia and education in the 21st century

This paper both reviews the other papers in this special issue and puts them in the context of the current agenda of research in dyslexia education. The pluralistic nature of the field is explored with reference to this special issue. The paper suggests a way forward for the field in terms of a developing research agenda for dyslexia education as we progress further into the 21st century.     

阅读障碍的心理语言学研究简介

阅读障碍是学校教育中教师经常遇到的一个问题，是特殊教育研究的重要领域。本文介绍了阅读障碍的概念、性质和分类，分析了阅读障碍的成因，并探讨了眼动与阅读障碍之间的关系。最后，本文指出了该研究领域存在的问题及我国阅读障碍研究的方向。     

Cognitive Endophenotypes of Dyslexia

The study investigated cognitive deficits associated with dyslexia and familial risk of dyslexia (endophenotypes) by comparing children from families with and without a history of dyslexia. Eighty-eight school-aged children were assessed on measures of phonology, language and rapid automatized naming. A series of regression analyses with family risk and dyslexia status as predictors indicated that word recall, morphology, and rapid automatized naming were associated with the deficit, whereas the two phonological measures (phoneme awareness and nonword repetition) were associated with both literacy deficits and family risk, suggesting that the phonological deficit is an endophenotype of dyslexia. Whereas the association with familial risk was similar for the two phonological measures, they differed in their relation to dyslexia status: Phoneme awareness showed a stronger association with dyslexia than risk status, whereas nonword repetition was more strongly related to the risk. The data are interpreted within the framework of multiple deficit models of dyslexia.