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| Young Reader, Credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski; 12frames.eu |
This issue very closely parallels ADHD. A child that has ADHD or is at least struggling to sit still in a school environment and deal with a lot of distractions will not get any accommodations in a public school setting unless he has a diagnosis.
Many boys struggle with being able to sit still for long periods of time and write as much as these schools want them to. Schools are designed for the way girls learn, not boys, so boys will struggle. I'm almost thankful that my son has ADHD, so he can get accommodations that every boy his age should have.
Plenty of schools (mine included) will say they have individualized plans to help every child, but they are not held accountable to implement anything unless there is a 504 or IEP in place. Even then, only the boldest of parents, that are willing to tirelessly bird-dog the schools, will see action.
Then we wonder why doctors overprescribe ADHD meds so easily? It's an injustice, especially because many people think ADHD is a joke at best, or at worst, an excuse. ADHD is a real condition that is really debilitating for many people that actually have it.
When a kid's brain flips letters around with dyslexia, and they need to remap their whole approach to reading, it's despicable to say it's not a "problem". Oh, and hold the phone.... ADHD and dyslexia are two conditions that are frequently co-morbid (or for us lay folks, they frequently occur together).
I hope you'll join me and sign the Yale Center petition decrying this change to the DSM-5, the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Just because we can't "monetize" dyslexia and prescribe medication for it does not mean that it is not a valid medical diagnosis.
1 comment:
Hi this is Ron I am checking out your site as you suggested.
Having both and a big mouth I will give you my 2 cents. People clearly understand stupid but have no clue when it comes to these two. ADD maybe we are getting a bit of a handle on it. They think if you only cared enough you wouldn't make those careless mistakes. We all have bad attitudes! I can remember the IOWA tests where you filled in the dots. I had trouble coloring the dot on the right line not the questions. Usually if I was on question 100 I would be on line 99 or 1line 101 depending on how I screwed up. I was smart enough to check every tenth question.
The good good part is in the real world I need to solve real problems and I do not have to fill in any dot. Dyslexics are great creative problem solvers and ADD is great for computer programming. Once you are out of school these are less of a problem.
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