dysteachia

In a well-publicized paper that addressed why some students were not learning to read, Reid Lyon (2001) concluded that children from disadvantaged backgrounds where early childhood education was not available failed to read because they did not receive effective instruction in the early grades. Many of these children then required special education services to make up for this early failure in reading instruction, which were by and large instruction in phonics as the means of decoding. Some of these students had no specific learning disability other than lack of access to effective instruction. These findings are significant because a similar dynamic is at play in math education: the effective treatment for many students who would otherwise be labeled learning disabled is also the effective preventative measure.
Mathematics Education: Being Outwitted by Stupidity by Barry Garelick

The effective treatment for many students who would otherwise be labeled learning disabled is also the effective preventative measure.

and see Galen Alessi's classic: Diagnosis Diagnosed

Special Education Thoughts and Budgets

Here a few recent comments here at KTM, in which the commenters say things such as:

It doesn't cost much to educate my children. It costs a great deal to educate a few children. Our district is reputed to be good with special needs students, thus it draws more sped kids to us. The "cost per student" reflects overall spending, and no longer breaks out sped costs.

So, it's possible to educate students privately for much less than the public cost, because the school has the freedom to avoid heavy sped costs.....

I'm not advocating that sped kids not receive an education. I think that requiring each school district to pony up for unlimited sped burdens in isolation is bad policy. It leads to a poisonous atmosphere between parents and teachers. The school district has a clear conflict of interest between providing an education and balancing the budget. In our state, everything else in the school budget is subject to cuts, but not sped. That builds resentment.

and

This is not PC, but some kids have such severe handicaps/medical conditions that they should not be in the education system at all. I know of a 7-12 school that spent 4 years trying to remove one kid; not toilet trained, unable to speak, mental age about 2 years. Highly disruptive, of course.

What follows is an essay by my friend Lea, who is making herself an expert in funding in our local k-8 school district, Redwood City School District in California. She has a child with special needs. As I'm sure you have all read, California is in a budget crisis. Another piece of the puzzle you may not know is that California school funding is...really, really complicated. District A may be under one kind of funding rules, and District B, contiguous and for all intents and purposes, identical in demographics, may be under a second and more restrictive set.

Special Needs Children and Public Education

by Lea Cuniberti-Duran

Raising and educating children with special needs is expensive. That's just a fact.

I have attended many school district budget meetings in which officials blurted to their audience, "We cannot pay for XYZ because of our financial responsibility toward children with special needs: to educate one special needs student can cost the district $100,000 a year." I also hear about how the district has "an unfunded mandate to educate children with special needs, and how this results into an encroachment to the general fund."

As one can imagine this argument is not always well received by parents of typical kids who want a great education for their children, and are lead to believe that "all those quirky kids" are in the way. It is easy to believe the encroachment argument: how can one argue with the fact that our district has to transfer $7M from general fund to the special education department?

The school district's argument has been so effective that a good friend recently confronted my husband and me. She said she couldn't see why the district had to spend so much money to educate special needs children. She resented spending $100,000 for a child who will may never be a fully contributing member of our society. Why not spend that money toward the education of all the other children, those who will be able to contribute, go to university, and have a career?

Don’t Be Fooled By the Numbers

Districts use children with special needs the way a magician uses props: as a distraction, a way to divert attention from schools underperforming because of problems that have nothing to do with special needs. Just look at the numbers: Redwood City School District spends about $10,000 per student (according to the latest data released by the district). RCSD is rated a 5 out of 10 based on State and Federal tests results for the school year 2008-09

If we look at districts around the Bay Area that, like Redwood City, are revenue-limit (meaning, they rely heavily on state funding), have the same proportion of students with special needs, YET are rated higher by GreatSchools.net; we will see that these districts spend less money per student. From this we can infer that special needs students are not the reason why school districts underperform:

• Cabrillo Unified (in Half Moon Bay) is rated 7 out of 10; per-pupil spending* = $7,477


• San Mateo-Foster City is rated 7 out of 10; per-pupil spending = $7,917


• Mountain View is rated 7 out of 10; per-pupil spending = $8,433


• San Francisco is rated 7 out of 10; per-pupil spending= $8,357


• Millbrae is rated 8 out of 10; per-pupil spending = $7,203


• Novato is rated 8 out of 10; per-pupil spending = $7,203


• Walnut Creek is rated 10 out of 10; per-pupil spending = $7,281

====
*Lea crunched these numbers before the real per-pupil spending paper was available to her. So just assume that the real costs are higher.

A Good Investment
Allowing people with disabilities to reach their full potential is a good investment. With appropriate services and support, people with disabilities can lead full and productive lives. And helping those who may never be fully independent reach their full potential costs taxpayers less than funding 24/7 assistance for the rest of their lives.

We, as society, need to move away from thinking that people with a mental or physical disability cannot be contributing members of society. Just look around in your daily life, and notice some examples of people who have gone and beyond those simple expectations: my children’s occupational therapist who is missing an arm, or a tax accountant who happen to be dyslexic, or one of my personal heroes, Dr. Temple Grandin, PhD, who is a leading expert in livestock management as well as an advocate for the autism community.

Work programs can specialize in employing individuals in areas where they excel, like complex but repetitive tasks that a neurotypical person cannot perform with consistent precision. I was told of a woman with Down syndrome whose job is to prepare all the instruments for the surgeons in a mid-west hospital. Educating and teaching skills to a person with a disability may require extra resources, but it leads to more independence – so it’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s the least expensive approach.

We Are Not Sparta
We, as society, value life, and have laws to protect it. We also value diversity. Long gone is the time of Sparta when people with differences were thrown off a cliff. But in the not-so-distant past, American children with disabilities were taken away from their families and put in institutions, where they were often left in very desperate conditions: with minimal food, clothing and shelter and terrible unhygienic conditions. In 1967, for example, state institutions were homes for almost 200,000 persons with significant disabilities. Some of these institutes still exist, like the NAPA State Hospital outside Sacramento, California which has been investigated by the State as recently as 2005 for abuses and infractions against patients.

The birth of IDEA

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal government, with the strong support and advocacy of family associations, such as The ARC, began to develop and validate practices for children with disabilities and their families. These practices, in turn, laid the foundation for implementing effective programs and services of early intervention and special education in states and localities across the country.” (From the US Department of Education)

This lead to the creation of IDEA (Individual with Disabilities Educational Act), which gives children with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education, in the least restrictive environment, with accommodations, modifications and support so that children can access their education. This law benefits ALL children with an IEP, no matter how few services he or she is receiving.

What Has IDEA Accomplished?
A few examples from the US Dept of Education:

• The majority of children with disabilities are now being educated in their neighborhood schools in regular classrooms with their non-disabled peers.


• High school graduation rates and employment rates among youth with disabilities have increased dramatically. For example, graduation rates increased 14 percent from 1984 to 1997.


• Today, post-school employment rates for youth served under IDEA are twice those of older adults with similar disabilities who did not have the benefit of IDEA.


• Post-secondary enrollments among individuals with disabilities receiving IDEA services have also sharply increased, with the percentage of college freshmen reporting disabilities more than tripling since 1978.

In Conclusion

In a year like 2010, when schools are squeezed by a state in financial disarray, when budgets and programs are slashed with a hatchet; when the panic feeling of saving money makes people cut corners; special needs children will be the easy target for blaming and the victims of further cuts. As a parent and an advocate for my children, I have pledged to stay involved, informed and calm; attend as many school board meetings as I can, and share information with other parents.

.....

I am committed to push further and follow in the footsteps of the parents and advocates before us, who fought for their children to have a more appropriate education and a dignified life.

iatrogenic LD

Vicky S asks:

What percentage of identified learning disabilities do you suppose is inadvertantly caused by our schools, their teaching methods, and curricula?

I've been trying to suss this out for a while now. This week I found an estimate of the percent of reading problems that could be prevented:

We estimate that the number of children who are typically identified as poor readers and served through either special education or compensatory education programs (as well as children with significant reading difficulties who are not formally identified and served) could be reduced by up to 70 percent through early identification and prevention programs.

Chapter 12: Rethinking Learning Disabilities (pdf file)
Reid Lyon, Jack M. Fletcher, Sally E. Shaywitz, Bennett A. Shaywitz, Joseph K. Torgesen, Frank B. Wood, Ann Schulte, and Richard Olson
Rethinking Special Education for a New Century

I have the impression that most kids identified as having learning disabilities are struggling readers but if palisadesk or Liz Ditz are around they can let us know whether that's correct.

constructivism & the rise in learning disabilities

It is interesting therefore to learn that direct instruction and mastery learning are recommended methods of teaching for students with learning disabilities. (Rosenberg, et al., 2008). It is also interesting to note that over the past two decades, the number of students with learning disabilities has increased. In 2006, approximately 2.6 million students were identified with learning disabilities, more than three times as many as were identified in 1976-1977. Although one reason for this growth might be better means of diagnoses of specific disorders, there has still been growth. Between 1990 and 2004, 650,000 additional students were identified with learning disabilities, representing a 31% increase at a time when the overall student population grew by only 15%. (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).

The increase in the number of students with learning disabilities raises the interesting question (if not uncomfortable for some), of whether the older way of teaching (direct instruction and mastery learning) may have had unintended benefits. According to Rosenberg, et. al. (2008), one factor associated with the identification of students with learning disabilities is the lack of access to effective instruction. Rosenberg et. al, also note that up to 50% of students with learning disabilities have been shown to overcome their learning difficulties when given high-quality instruction. Is the shift toward inquiry-based teaching resulting in more students being identified with learning disabilities?Are these students who in earlier days would have swum with the rest of the pack?

To answer this question would take a good bit of solid research. I hold it out as a research project for anyone willing to take it on, perhaps as a dissertation for a PhD.It would certainly provide some research that Sherry Fraser could cite. At the very least it might even result in helping people learn.

from: It Works for Me: An Exploration of "Traditional Math" Part III
by Barry Garelick

timeline

• In the mid 1980s, ed schools stopped teaching direct instruction and changed to teaching discovery.
  

• In 1985, the NCTE issued its resolution urging the abolition of formal instruction in grammar. ("[T]he use of isolated grammar and usage exercises not supported by theory and research is a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing and...that NCTE urge the discontinuance of testing practices that encourage the teaching of grammar rather than the improvement of writing." Jeremiah Reedy review: War Against Grammar by David Mulroy)
  

• In 1989, the NCTM released its standards. ("Computational algorithms, the manipulation of expressions, and paper-and-pencil drill must no longer dominate school mathematics." -- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, 1991 - Illinois Loop)
  

• Beginning around 1990, constructivist teaching became commonplace in the classroom starting around 1990.
  

• "Between 1990 and 2004, 650,000 additional students were identified with learning disabilities, representing a 31% increase at a time when the overall student population grew by only 15%. (U.S. Department of Education, 2006)."

I would love to see Caroline Hoxby conduct a natural experiment to find out whether learning disabilities increased first in schools that were eary adopters for constructivist teaching and curricula.


dyslexie, vraiment?
NBT

Schema-Based Instruction for Mathematics

Kitchen Table Math hasn't previously addressed the work of Asha K. Jitendra or the "Schema-Based Instruction" approach

Adrienne Edwards wrote a precis of Jitendra's recent article. What follows is her introduction:

In the Spring 2008 Issue of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of IDA, Asha K Jitendra describes a workable way to teach math to LD (indeed all) students. This post is adapted from it.

Since problem solving is not well addressed in many mathematics textbooks, Jitendra and colleagues have developed a conceptual teaching approach that integrates mathematical problem solving and reading comprehension strategies (e.g., reading aloud, paraphrasing, questioning, clarifying and summarizing).

Called “Schema-Based Instruction” (SBI), the system was tested and perfected for a decade. The goal: to improve student learning of word problems, especially students with LD and those at risk for math failure.

I recommend that you read Edwards' whole summary and the journal article reprinted at LD online before commenting here (Edwards doesn't allow comments on her blog, but I've emailed her a link to this post -- perhaps she will come over and comment).

Elsewhere on Schema-Based Instruction for Mathematics

Schema-based instruction improves math skills (APA Monitor Online, Monitor on Psychology Volume 38, No. 4 April 2007

Students who learn to identify three different kinds of word problems—and what strategies to use for each—do better on math tests than students who learn only one general-purpose model, finds a study in the February Journal of Educational Psychology (Vol. 99, No. 1, pages 115–127). Stopping to categorize a word problem before picking a plan to solve it may be especially effective for low-achieving students, says study author Asha Jitendra, PhD, a special education professor at Lehigh University.

LD Online: An Exploratory Study of Schema-Based Word-Problem-Solving Instruction for Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities: An Emphasis on Conceptual and Procedural Understanding (reprint of article in The Journal of Special Education (2003): Vol. 36/NO. 1/2002/pp. 23-38)

Implications for practice: The findings from this study have several implications for practice. First, the schema-based intervention, with its emphasis on conceptual understanding, helped students with learning disabilities not only acquire word-problem-solving skills but also maintain the taught skills. Therefore, results of the study highlight the effectiveness of strategy instruction for addressing mathematical difficulties evidenced by students with learning disabilities (Montague, 1995, 1997b). Second, the results of this study suggest that teaching students to identify the relationships present in each word problem promotes generalization to other, untaught skills (e.g., multistep problems). Students with learning disabilities should receive instruction that teaches them to understand the key features of problems prior to solving them. Third, the effectiveness of the strategy when implemented by the classroom teacher may indicate the importance of researchers' collaborating with practitioners to adapt instruction to meet students' individual needs. Involving the classroom teacher in the implementation of this study was important because the teacher is now more likely to invest effort in continuing to use a strategy that had beneficial effects for her students.

Journal of Learning Disabilities, v29 n4 p422-31 Jul 1996 (ERIC digest)

Paper presented at the Annual International Convention of the Council for Exceptional Children (73rd, Indianapolis, IN, April 5-9, 1995). (ERIC digest)

A comparison of single and multiple strategy instruction on third-grade students' mathematical problem solving Journal of educational psychology (2007), vol. 99, no1, pp. 115-127 [13 page(s) (article)]
Abstract

The purposes of this study were to assess the differential effects of a single strategy (schema-based instruction; SBI) versus multiple strategies (general strategy instruction, GSI) in promoting mathematical problem solving and mathematics achievement as well as to examine the influence of word problem-solving instruction on the development of computational skills. Eighty-eight 3rd graders and their teachers were assigned randomly to conditions (SBI and GSI). Students were pre- and posttested on mathematical problem-solving and computation tests and were posttested on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment Mathematics test, a criterion-referenced test that measures student attainment of academic standards. Results revealed SBI to be more effective than GSI in enhancing students' mathematical word problem-solving skills at posttest and maintenance. Further, results indicate that the SBI groups' performance exceeded that of the GSI group on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment measure. On the computation test, both groups made gains over time.

Google Books: Teaching Mathematics to Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities ;
here's the link to the Amazon page

Curricula:
Solving Math Word Problems: Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities Using Schema-Based Instruction
(12452) ISBN: 9781416402459 ($53.00)

This is a detailed-scripted program using Schema-Based Instruction (SBI), designed as a framework for instructional implementation. It is primarily for school practitioners (e.g., special and general education teachers, school psychologists, etc.) teaching critical word problem solving skills to students with disabilities, grades 1-8.

I can see that I will really need to wrap my brain around this approach.

Dyscalculia: What Is It? International Dyscalculia Awareness Day

Dyslexia is a nickname for "Specific Learning Disability--Reading", listed as 315.0 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV). Most people understand that dyslexia is a persistent difficulty with reading, despite good instruction and at least average intelligence.

There is also a Specific Learning Disability -- Mathematics (315.1, DSM-IV), known as dyscalculia.

The Dyscalculia Forum chose today as the day to raise awareness.

According to the National Center on Learning Disabilities (NCLD):

Dyscalculia is a term referring to a wide range of life-long learning disabilities involving math. There is no single form of math disability, and difficulties vary from person to person and affect people differently in school and throughout life.

Here's an index page on math and LDs from NCLD. Here's LDOnline's index page on math disabilities. Here's an overview of math disabilities in children from SchwabLearning. Anna J. Wilson's Dyscalculia Primer and Resource Guide.

There are also a couple of good videos on Youtube: start with Dyscalculia: It Is Not Only Trouble With Math.

NBT

Reid Lyon on dysteachia:

When we look at the kids that are having a tough time learning to read, we went through the statistics: 38% nationally, disaggregate that, 70% kids from poverty and so forth hit the wall ... 95% of those kids are instructional casualties.

[snip]

95% of the kids hitting the wall in learning to read are what we called “NBT”: never been taught.