Treating Reading Disorders
What is a Reading Disorder?
There are several reasons why someone might not learn to read. Some people who are functionally illiterate can't read because socioeconomic or environmental factors prevented them from receiving adequate learning opportunity.
On the other hand, when we speak of a person with a reading disorder, we usually mean a child or adult of at least average intelligence, who has had average classroom training. Those who have the opportunity, but don't learn to read or read only at a marginal level, are called dyslexics.
Popular media have generally portrayed dyslexia as a problem of seeing letters reversed or in the wrong sequence. This is true for only 1% of all dyslexics. Most dyslexia is actually part of an underlying language disorder, and is primarily auditory in nature.
The National Committee on Learning Disabilities includes reading in its definition of learning disabilities along with disorders of "listening, speaking and writing." These problems, the definition states, are "presumed to be due to a central nervous system dysfunction." It is very important to see dyslexia not as an isolated problem, but as part of a "whole language" dysfunction.
Who is Affected?
Children who have difficulty learning to read may be expected to have difficulty with language development as well. Both language comprehension and expression may be affected. A child may have problems following directions, understanding questions, formulating thoughts, producing sentences that make sense, using appropriate vocabulary, sequencing ideas, or retaining concepts.
Early childhood symptoms change with age, so that the older child may have difficulty appreciating humor, understanding idioms or drawing conclusions. They are often described as "concrete thinkers". Adolescents may have poor social skills due to their difficulty in using language to communicate and interact with peers and teachers.
In the early grades, the child with a specific reading disability may show limited progress in reading, spelling, or writing. However, the very bright child may compensate so well for his learning disability, that problems may not be evident until the later grades. In the upper grades, the child may show a widening gap in academic achievement in comparison to his peers.
It is not uncommon to find that adults show signs of learning disabilities which were never diagnosed or treated in childhood. Often, they struggled through school. Their difficulties were attributed to inattention or lack of motivation. While some never learn to read functionally, many adults may have managed to acquire at least functional skills. They have managed to cover up their inability to read swiftly and effectively, but they often feel they are held back in their careers or in their pursuit of higher education.
The Treatment Program
We learn through our five senses. Learning is easiest when the brain is able to associate the thing which is to be learned with several senses simultaneously. A learning program which makes use of several senses at once is called a multi-channel learning system. A learning disability implies a weakness in one of the channels. The child who has a weakness in auditory processing, for example, will find it much easier to learn using a system which adds visual and kinesthetic (movement) support.
The College Park Speech and Language Clinic treatment program begins with direct treatment of auditory processing skills. Encoding and decoding of sounds and their relationship to symbols, as well as the sequencing of sounds and symbols is strengthened through a multi-channel approach to learning known as auditory segmentation training. CPSLC uses a multisensory integrated approach beginning with the program called Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing™ ("LiPS®) to build the basic sound-symbol relationships quickly and effectively.
Skills which have been learned in the LiPS® program then are carried over to an Orton rule-based approach to reading and spelling mechanics. Orton provides for a highly structured treatment moving from simple to complex, and continuing the multi-sensory approach described above.
When the student can decode accurately, the job is not over. Reading fluency and rate must be part of the treatment plan. At the single word level, at the phrase level, and at the paragraph level, this skill must be taught specifically, so that the student can keep up with school work and genuinely enjoy reading. Reading and writing are viewed as part of the language environment, so that comprehension is a natural extension of the treatment plan.
However, there are many students whose primary problem is neither mechanics nor spelling, but reading comprehension. These persons may be able to read aloud so well that no one listening would ever know that they have a reading disability. But when they are finished, they have little or no understanding of what they have read. They may be forced to reread material numerous times in order to recall any facts, and then may not be able to draw conclusions about the information. CPSLC offers treatment using another Lindamood/Bell product known as Visualing and Verbalizing™. This approach to reading comprehension changes the way reading interfaces with higher order thinking skills, by teaching the student to create visual images as he/she reads. This carries over to verbal expression and written language as well.
Advantages to this treatment
This comprehensive language-based approach avoids fragmentation of learning. Reading, writing, language development, and comprehension are not separate parts of the curriculum, as they generally are in schools. We fuse these functions into a single, integrated unit.
Intensive treatment produces fast results that the child or adult can see in a very short time, improving motivation and self-confidence.
Group treatment/family counseling provides further improvement of self-concept through understanding of the problem in an environment that includes the whole family.
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