Gender ratio in dyslexia

This paper is based on a study carried out in Great Britain on a national sample of 11,804 ten-year olds. The first section describes an attempt to pick out cases of “specific developmental dyslexia” (Critchley 1970), a constellation or syndrome of difficulties which some believe to be recognizable clinically. When specified criteria for dyslexia were used, 269 children qualified as dyslexic (2.28 percent of the sample). These included 223 boys and 46 girls, for a ratio of 4.51 to 1. Two possible difficulties in interpreting these data are discussed, and a defense is offered of the criteria used. Since some recent research papers report a gender ratio much nearer 1:1 (Shaywitz et al. 1990; Wadsworth et al. 1992; Lubs et al. 1993), those papers were examined for possible differences in procedure; it was found that the definition of dyslexia they used was “poor reading in relation to intelligence.” We carried out a further analysis on our own data using the same criterion. Of the 494 children who qualified as dyslexic on the basis of discrepancy criteria alone (4.19 percent of the sample), 314 were boys and 180 were girls for a ratio of 1.69 to 1. It seems, therefore, that the apparent differences in gender ratio reported in the literature have arisen because different criteria for dyslexia have been used. We argue that the definition based on clinical criteria leads to a more powerful taxonomy and that the widespread equation of “dyslexia” with “poor reading” is a hindrance to progress.     

Development of Community Based Rehabilitation in Pakistan: bringing mental handicap into focus

Integration of children with disabilities in ordinary schools and extension of basic health care to rural areas developed slowly during the past 130 years in British India and then Pakistan, along with the rise of urban disability service centres. In the 1980s many centres experimented with outreach projects and varieties of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), but mental handicap (or intellectual disability) has had low priority in these efforts. Projects continued to be dominated by professionals and to undervalue latent family and community knowledge and capacities for management of mental handicap. More critical evaluation, analysis, and reflection have now begun. Strategies are suggested that start with the existing realities and strengths of families and communities, using professional knowledge to enhance rather than replace them. Promising examples from Bangladesh for enlisting formal and informal education and social welfare infrastructure to benefit children with mental handicap are described.     

When writers visit schools: A symposium

Betty Miles, a member of the U.S. Editorial Board ofCle, asked eight other writers to reflect along with her on what it is like to talk with their readers in schools.The brief essays below are as varied as their authors' styles, but one theme runs through all of them: the importance of face-to-face encounters to writers, as well as to their young readers. These first-hand reports suggest, both explicitly and implicitly, ways of enriching author visits so that children's interaction with a real live author can enhance their interest in reading, and in writing.Betty Miles has written many picture books for young children and six novels for older readers, most recentlyMaudie and Me and The Dirty Book andThe Trouble with Thirteen. She and her husband live in Tappan, New York, where her three grown children went to school.