Flawed Joint Statement about learning Disabilities And Vision.

Here we go again. A new Joint statement from pediatricians and eye doctors who admit they can't diagnose any learning disabilities want to make a blanket statement that learning disabilities and vision aren't related. Here is the PDF file link.

http://www.dys-add.com/VisionTherapy2009.pdf

After reading the statement , my thought is that that they are throwing out the baby with the bath water. It is easy to understand their position and why they felt the statement was needed. It would also be easy to correct their statement with the addition of a few facts. Fact # 1 , there are a minority of dyslexics , properly called visual dyslexics , whose reading problems are caused by visual problems .
Fact #2 , the minority of visual dyslexics is about 10% of the dyslexic population or about 1-1.5% of the general population.

I designed and sell See Right Dyslexia Glasses which act as a universal visual dyslexia filter to remove the visual problems associated with visual dyslexia. I make no claims that the glasses help learning disabilities in general. They do not help dyslexics in general. The small minority of dyslexics with visual dyslexia that can describe visual problems that make reading difficult will have the visual problems removed with the See Right Dyslexia Glasses.

Visual dyslexics are known to have a higher rate of poor depth perception than the general population. Eye doctors that would like to see evidence of the affect of See Right Dyslexia Glasses might consider the fact that they will correct poor depth perception instantly and the poor depth perception will return when the glasses are removed. I mention that because I do not believe that eye doctors have anyway of correcting poor depth perception of visual dyslexics.

The idea presented in the statement that missing letters and moving words leading to reading problems are the result of anything other than visual problems is FALSE. It is really a stretch to say that it is a proven fact. I would suggest that the failure to being able to identify dyslexic individuals is partly because of a poor understanding that some dyslexic problems are visual.

Products that associate learning disabilities in general with visual interventions are likely to fail the majority of people with learning disabilities and at best help a small minority. The Irlen method has had some real success but does a poor job of identification of who will be helped leading to many failures. I have yet found any indication that vision therapy is an effective therapy for learning disabilities. I would describe vision therapy as bait and switch. People want educational help and vision therapy promises to help all with learning disabilities. The eye training provided has never been shown to help anyone.

Reading the joint statement about dyslexia and vision by every type of doctor that can NOT diagnose dyslexia was interesting. In many ways I do agree with their results for the mentioned vision therapies and how they have not been proven as beneficial for learning disabilities and so shouldn't recommended.

I believe that their basic agenda is a result of feeling that promoters of the mentioned vision therapies in the statement do not take a professional approach to the business of selling their products. It is actually hard to argue with the position that the mentioned promoters are not acting professionally.

All doctors are expected to act in a professional and ethical manner.Whether or not those promoters are being ethical depends on if they are knowingly over promoting the products or just incompetent or unaware.One requirement of being a professional doctor is to prescribe treatment to those that need treatment and to not prescribe treatment to those that do not need to be treated. The majority of years of education a doctors receives are slanted towards being able to diagnose who is to be treated for what and how.

I suspect that the joint statement was prepared because The Irlen Method and Vision Therapy are seen as overselling their respective products as being the necessary treatment for learning disabilities. Their sin is at least that learning disabilities is too broad a subject ( or condition) to only have a single treatment and to suggest either as a general treatment.

The joint statement basically says that Vision Therapy has never shown any educational benefit and that Irlen tinted lenses studies have shown mixed results at best. It implies that you can conclude results from flawed studies. By any reasonable standard you can't conclude results from flawed studies.

There is no reason that visual problems should be related to learning disabilities in general. If there is a visual aspect to some learning disabilities it would be a subset of reading problems or dyslexia. This has never been tested in a proper manner and so has not been shown to exist. It is no surprise that something that has never been shown to exist does not have a recommended treatment.

Visual dyslexia is not likely to be proven any time soon by a scientific study.

Dyslexia testing is prohibitively expensive and best case today is what is called dyslexia risk identification followed by some intervention for kindergarten children.This is often called dyslexia testing but has low standards.

By its very nature a generalized dyslexia testing program is going to test all children in an area. The people to give the tests and record results must have some generalized skills with testing and children ( think money ) and testing all the children will take time ( think money). Identification of children at risk ( the bottom half) and intervention ( more money). After intervention you find that 70% have come up to standard and that 30% didn't. They are the children most likely to be dyslexic and can now be tested for dyslexia.

It is also very likely that because of the assumptions on language abilities tested to determine dyslexia risks that visual dyslexics will not be included in the final group as their language skills are often very good.

To conclude , I suggest that See Right Dyslexia Glasses that claim to remove described visual problems , have a money back guarantee , and are easily evaluated in a matter of minutes to at most hours indicate that at least some people with learning disabilities have visual problems where removal of those problems leads to faster more accurate reading with better comprehension.

More information about See Right Dyslexia Glasses and visual dyslexia can be found at The Visual Dyslexia Solution web site

Dyslexia Theories

Another way of looking at the theories of what causes dyslexia is to understand that all are partial explanations of the large condition that is dyslexia.
Together they form a fairly good understanding of what dyslexia is where they all fail when considered individually.

Granted, each theory has believers that claim " This is dyslexia ". If the goal is to understand a particular dyslexic and get help for that particular dyslexic, then the reality is that it needs to be determined which theory applies to that dyslexic so that a focused intervention can be developed.

There seems to be a disconnect between what dyslexia researchers are trying to do ,which is finding the single cause of dyslexia and what is wanted by most dyslexics which is what intervention will help him or her.

I offer as proof the different studies using fMRI to study dyslexia that study
specific areas of the brain ( generally each of which is related to a particular theory of what dyslexia is ). All the studies find the same result of being able to see the difference between groups of dyslexics and non dyslexics but with data overlap between the groups that makes identifying individual dyslexics impossible.

If you have only read the media reports of those studies and have already picked one that you firmly believe is the right result and that what causes dyslexia has been found , I suggest you find and read the researchers conclusions. Not one researcher can claim to evaluate a person by fMRI and determine if he or she is dyslexic.

When different dyslexics have different problems , which is what is observed, how can one theory of one cause be correct. On the plus side you can conclude that indeed these theories are each and every one of them are supported by fMRI
FOR SOME DYSLEXICS BUT NOT ALL .

I personally have developed filter glasses for the minority of dyslexics that fit the criteria of being able to describe a visual problem that makes reading difficult. While that criteria covers a broad range of visual problems that make reading difficult it is narrow enough so that an individual can determine if he or she is in the group.

My point is that while no one theory covers all dyslexics, together they do form a list of problems from which any particular dyslexic is likely to be able to find the cause of his or her dyslexia problems. What is still needed is for the different interventions to determine criteria that will identify which intervention will help which dyslexic.

Until that happens, dyslexia interventions developed for a particular theory will continue to have failure rates due to the simple fact that some dyslexics have problems in other areas that are not addressed.

Dyslexia Misunderstood and Why

I have been reading some blogs that try to explain dyslexia in a few paragraphs and it is just impossible. By pointing out some common short cuts that are taken when writing about dyslexia I hope to promote a more careful reading of the material about dyslexia.

Dyslexia is very difficult to write about because having individualistic symptoms everything needs to be qualified. I thought I would make a couple of comments about what I have read lately. One recent study is being promoted as" Dyslexia Unraveled ". It repeates some generalized meaningless statements.

"In fact, most people who have this disability have average to above average intelligence." This is a nice feel good statement that everyone makes but is often taken to mean that people with below average intelligence never have dyslexia.

Here is the truth. Because dyslexia is easier to detect in people with higher IQ's , diagnosed dyslexics generally have a average or higher IQ.

Many definitions of dyslexia also have a cut off on the low end of the IQ scale where reading difficulties can't be attributed to dyslexia or low IQ because reading standards for low IQ individual don't exist. If you remove low IQ people from consideration as dyslexics of course the remaing dyslexics will tend to have average or higher IQ's

While the feel good statement is important to help dyslexics know that their reading problems are not generally caused by being stupid or slow it does direct the effort to identify dyslexics away from people with lower IQ's. Those unidentified lower IQ dyslexics would also benefit from help so the feel good statement also does quite a bit of harm also.

Consider that the following 2 statements are both true and add nothing of value to understanding of what a person is. Note: the reason both statements can be true is that average people are included and counted in both groups.

1) People generally have average or HIGHER than average IQ's.

2) People generally have average or LOWER than average IQ'.

Here is a statement that is true for both dyslexics and people .

Dyslexics , in common with people , may have lower,higher or average IQ's and as far as science has been able to determine dyslexics do not differ from people in respect to IQ.

I submit that the statement "In fact, most people who have this disability have average to above average intelligence." is true but also misleading and has the potential to divert attention away from dyslexics of lower IQ causing them to be under represented and ignored. This harm very well offsets the advantage of being a feel good statement.

My niche is visual dyslexia so I have to make another comment about another common statement used to define define as being "often exemplified by reversing letters and the order of letters in a word.". Another true statement but not really helpful in understanding dyslexia and reversing letters only adds confusion because so many people with and without dyslexia reverse letters when writing is first encountered and beginning to be mastered.

Early on in school people often reverse letters. This behavior in dyslexics continues longer than it does in people without dyslexia. Early on , because people without dyslexia outnumber those that do, indeed the group of those who reverse letters can have fewer dyslexics than non dyslexics.

There are standards of ranges of how many reversals are common at different ages with the behavior being extinguished in those without dyslexia usually by the second grade.

Without the qualification of age and rate of occurrence, reversing letters as a description of dyslexia is useless and I suspect causes many parents to worry that they have dyslexic children when they do not. Again a counter productive description of dyslexia because it is not qualified.

There are other visual problems , such as seeing vibrating text as an example, that are useful in identifying visual dyslexia because they are not common in the non dyslexic population. Adult visual dyslexics can usually describe their visual problems . Children will often be able to describe their visual problems if how they see the page is discussed. More information about visual dyslexia can be found at www.dyslexiaglasses.com .

About 10% of dyslexics have visual dyslexia as a primary and sole cause of reading difficulties. Most dyslexics have no visual problems and a poorly defined % have both visual and language processing problems.

Which brings us to .
"Once a child is diagnosed, studies have shown that multi sensory learning techniques have helped children with dyslexia a great deal"

All dyslexia intervention techniques have non responders. Because multi sensory instruction does address the most common dyslexia problems it has been proven to be effective for a majority of dyslexics. If no specifics are known except that a person is dyslexic, then in a statistical way it can make sense to use multi sensory instruction. It would be better to try to identify a dyslexic's individual problems and focus the intervention on his or her specific problems.

Visual dyslexics are not going to be have their visual problems addressed by multi sensory instruction. There are also some additional dyslexia related problems that are not addressed that may require different techniques.

We have found the cause of dyslexia or not ! There are 2 major sources of the " cause of dyslexia found". There have been many fMRI studies that have imaged many different areas of the brain to compare dyslexics and non dyslexics. Most have been reported to have identified the cause of dyslexia from a single area of the brain. To date all the studies have had the same result of seeing differences between groups of dyslexics and non dyslexics but with enough overlap of results that individuals can not be identified as dyslexic or not.

If you take the time to read all the fMRI studies and treat them as a single study you would have a much clearer understanding of what the present fMRI research data is telling us.

The following statements seem to be true.

In general every dyslexic will not show positive results in every area of the brain studied.

Ever area of the brain studied will show that some of the dyslexics have problems related to that area.

Every area of the brain studied will show that some of the dyslexics do not have problems related to that area.

The conclusion that seems reasonable is

Different dyslexics have different problems and those problems are related to different areas of the brain. It seems likely that individual dyslexics can have an assortment of problems that are individualistic. It also seems likely that the severity of a dyslexic's reading difficulty will be reflected by differences in severity in the individual areas of the brain wher his or her problems exists.

Another common source of " the cause of dyslexia is found" is from personal accounts that basically say " I am dyslexic , this is my problem, so this is what dyslexia is. ". This personal account often results in an intervention based on that belief and you would expect that intervention to be successful for the % of dyslexics that do indeed have that particular problem and a failure for those dyslexics without that problem.

Ron Davis, "Dyslexia is a Gift" and believes dyslexia problems are caused by the fact that dyslexics think in pictures is one example. The Dore method that promotes a physical exercise program as a cure for dyslexia is another example. Both of these examples claim that their method will help all dyslexics.

Until techniques are developed to identify an individual dyslexic's weaknesses and also identify the best interventions matched to each of them so that the most effective individual plan can be developed, much time and money is going to be wasted .

As I said , my niche is helping visual dyslexics that can describe visual problems that make reading difficult. More information can be found at the visual dyslexia solution where I sell See Right Dyslexia Glasses.

An Example of Sampling Bias in Dyslexia Reporting

Pre selecting has a long history in dyslexia research. " dyslexics are of average or above average intelligence." is a self fulfilling prophecy because if you look for dyslexics from the group of people having average to above average intelligence to the exclusion of below average intelligence then that is what you find. This technique produces what is called a sampling bias.

The following is from an article that suggests that schools need to do a better job teaching dyslexics how to read. That is certainly true. I just do not believe that the example below supports what is inferred from the rest of the article.

"Robert Broudo, the Landmark School's headmaster, said the school selects students with strong intellectual ability, even if they have serious reading deficits.
It then gives them concentrated help with their reading difficulties, he said, including one-on-one tutoring each day and grouping students by reading ability in each of their classes.
The results? About 90 percent of Landmark's graduates go on to college, and all of them passed Massachusetts' state graduation exam last year, compared with 65 percent of special education students elsewhere in the state. "

Let me take the above information and look at it differently to see why I suggest the results might not be what it suggests. I will use a group size of 100 as an example.

1) Normally 65 special ed students pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam out of a group of 100.

2) Normally 35 special education students do not pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam college out of a group of 100.

3) If you look at the top 50 of the group as indicated by intellectual ability you would expect a higher % to pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam .

4) If you look at the bottom 50 of the group as indicated by intellectual ability you would expect a smaller % to pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam.

5) All 50 passed the Massachusetts' state graduation exam from the top group after intervention.

6) If 15 out of 50 passed the Massachusetts' state graduation exam from the bottom group ,a 30% average, then the total would be the same.

Is it reasonable to suspect that the rate of passing the Massachusetts' state graduation exam is 100% from the top half and 30% from the bottom half for special education students when the average for the whole group 65% without the intervention? I believe it is.

For the intervention to not be indicated as any success by the standard of passing the Massachusetts' state graduation exam , the only thing that would have to be true is that the 35 special education students who did not pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam all were from the bottom half of the students.

I think it is reasonable to suspect that the 35 students who were not going to pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam were indeed from the bottom half of the group along with 15 students who were going to pass the Massachusetts' state graduation exam.

Do I think the intervention was of no value? NO ! Was any information given that would support the value of the intervention? NO !

How reading is taught needs to be improved, examples are everywhere in the statistics.That is why I will not say that the intervention had no value. This sloppy example does nothing to give any indication of what type of intervention works or does not work. The standard used, that the selected students did better than average as indicated by passing the Massachusetts' state graduation exam, could have also resulted from the sampling bias of selecting the better students and then comparing the selected group to the average.