Comments on: How a disgraced method of diagnosing learning disabilities persists in our nation’s schools

By: Howard Dolgin

Howard Dolgin — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 21:30:45 +0000

As an elementary reading and math teacher, I have worked in the discrepancy world. That method of identifying and providing help to the child, guarantees that the child will not receive the specialized instruction until it is too late.
I have also tutored kindergartners and first graders, sending progressing children back to the classroom and giving more time and specialized instruction to the children who needed more help. The Response to Intervention model worked quite well for most of the young children. Most caught up to the class and continued to learn.
The Discrepancy Model is like parking the ambulance at the bottom of a cliff. When the child arrives for help it is too late.

By: Michael G Gingerich

Michael G Gingerich — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 04:11:45 +0000

It was nice to see this issue getting attention. However, the focus of the story suffers from the same problem it aims to address: that the field of learning differences is very broad and encompasses multiple aspects of human brain functioning – cognitive, sensory, executive functioning, emotional management – Not Just Dyslexia!
I am a 77 year old retired Clinical Social Worker (MSSW, PhD) who spent the second half of his 40+ year career specializing in the diagnosis and treatment/remediation of learning disorders in children and adults. My focus was on the range of learning differences: Language Processing Disorders (Dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, dyspraxia), ADHD, Sensory Processing Processing Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Mood Disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Executive Functioning Disorders.
This story aims to address the “discrepancy model”, meanwhile, there have been several additional methods of assessing learning disorders used by our Nation’s Schools that have also fallen woefully short of fully identifying or remediating student learning problems. The impression is created of a singular learning problem improperly addressed by a singular solution, as if it stands alone!!!
Truthfully, I am horrified that a publication of the stature of Scientific American would publish such a narrowly focused and short-sighted story!
Not only I, but many of my colleagues were well aware of the poor job many of our schools did in assessing and remediating learning problems (despite the long existence of more effective methods) way back in the 1970’s!
This makes me wonder about the thoroughness of the scope of other Scientific American stories!

By: Casey Krueger, PhD

Casey Krueger, PhD — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:20:21 +0000

In my fourteen years conducting neuropsychological testing, I have seen the discrepancy model used to disqualify numerous students struggling with reading from special education services. The model cuts like a double-edge sword. Both children who have average IQs and struggle with reading, and children with above average IQs and mediocre reading skills, often do not show “enough” discrepancy to qualify for services.

Undeniably, the discrepancy model punishes both types of students. However, the impact on economically disadvantaged students is not buffered by outside resources, as it is for wealthier students.

I believe that Response to Intervention (RTI) is not the solution. This model requires intensive teacher training and time consuming reviews, reconsideration, and reevaluation. Given funding and staffing shortages that most schools face, using the RTI model means that children will flounder for longer while not obtaining needed supports.

Instead, we should: 1) Spend our resources on retraining teachers to utilize the “science of reading” paradigm to help all students develop reading skills; 2) Implement universal dyslexia screening to identify at-risk children early; 3) Provide intensive and evidence-based instruction to all children with identified reading difficulties, regardless of IQ. We need to change how all children are taught to read and how dyslexia is diagnosed.

By: Fernette Eide MD

Fernette Eide MD — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 04:39:54 +0000

I’m hoping you reconsider the conclusion and general orientation of this article. I have enjoyed The Hechinger Report’s investigations for years, but this latest article is in my opinion, poorly directed. The dyslexia field has been ravaged over decades by swings of policy that have resulted in excluding students who would benefit from what we now know to be effective interventions – and I have already begun to hear of students being denied support in school that they very much need.

Based on what was shared, Dr. Odegard should have received intervention – and the student who missed by a few points as well.

But there is also extensive evidence that dyslexic students identified by a wide discrepancy between ability and reading achievement, can have their reading difficulties remediated by targeted intervention as well.

Don’t discriminate against these students. We should be helping all those who would benefit from the help rather than taking away from some to give to others.

Also, from our extensive practice with dyslexic students over the years, the IQ tests – although imperfect – can be extremely valuable. So many students (including those from under-represented groups and poor socio-economic backgrounds) may have their ability and intellectual strengths identified for the first time when they have an IQ test done. These students may have been failing at all the school basics – reading, writing, math – then suddenly it’s discovered there is an unexpectedly high IQ. It changes how the students see themselves, how parents see them, and how teachers see them, and ideally how their schools educate them.

I do know that many students may be beaten down, not understand the idea of IQ testing or be poor at expressing their ideas when they are tested so that test results don’t reflect their true ability – some recognition of these possibilities must also be made – and retest later if possible. But it is a terrible mistake write off discrepancy as a “disgraced method.” It is not.

Look at all the neuroscientific studies of dyslexia- including the pioneering studies involving fMRI. Almost all that we have learned in the last decade about the science of dyslexia comes from groups of dyslexic subjects who were identified by the discrepancy between a measure of their intelliegence and single word or nonsense word reading.

Let’s also learn from the individual cases that get excluded and plan our education on individuals rather than consensus definitions.

We should be thinking more about how to help all students rather than to take away resources from some to give to others.

By: Stan Blackwell

Stan Blackwell — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 00:05:18 +0000

I am a 70yo white male, and I am dyslexic. When I was in 3rd grade (the second time), after hitting a teacher during a spelling test, my parents took me to see a large battery of specialists from social workers to psychiatrists. I was lucky because my father was in the US Army and the military paid for the evaluation. But, there wasn’t any help to be had. I was just given the diagnosis of being “handicapped in the ability to write”. My parents were also told that I had a very high IQ.

Because I graduated in 1972 and did not want to go to Vietnam as a “grunt”, I decided to go to college. Getting my BA in Psychology was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. With such a degree and little prospects of getting a decent job, I struggled to get an M.Ed. in counseling.

From my earliest memories, I hated myself. On the one hand, I could not read or write, but on the other hand, I understood and gained knowledge faster than my classmates, due to my intellect. To deal with my internalized anger and self-hatred, I started drinking and doing drugs in high school (although I never did heavy drugs – I was too afraid of getting busted). In 1986, I sobered up and have been clean ever since. But I still have the anger inside.

Today, I am retired and volunteer with a ministry that works with the homeless. As I look at our clients (many of whom I consider my friends) I wonder how many of them, having turned to drugs and then to criminal activities to get the drugs to deal with their self-images, would not be living on the streets but having the kind of lives they want, had they been educated in a manner that would have been helpful. How much money that goes to incarceration and then dealing with them on the streets would have been better spent if they had gotten the help. Yet, the system does not change.