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IT Is The Way To Go!
by Jay Kirkland, April 2003
Introduction
City Literacy and Numeracy Project (CLAN) City Centre and Leith, has commissioned
this document to update the findings of an earlier report “Don’t Forget
Dyslexic Adults” presented by the author to Senior Community Education Workers
in May 2000. The report outlined the importance of screening potentially dyslexic
adults so that appropriate learning programmes could be developed for individual
learners. The report also specifically recommended software that was appropriate
for using with adults with Dyslexia.
This document:
• places dyslexia within a field of other related Specific Learning Difficulties
(SpLDs) and offers recent profiles of SPLD.
• offers a rational for the screening of adults who present with possible
SpLD
•outlines principles that can be applied to adults with Specific Learning
Difficulties within the context of Adult Education (CLAN/CBAL Edinburgh)
• concludes with a list detailing why IT solutions regarding assessment of
learning difficulty and styles and teaching and learning practise should be a
priority for Adult Education providers (CLAN/CBAL Edinburgh)
Included in the document are recommendations of software that is currently available
for use by and with adults with SpLDs in the context of City Literacy and Numeracy
and Community Based Adult Learning. Also included is a comprehensive list
of websites concerned with the subject of adult learners with SpLDs.
Download PDFof Dyslexia Report:
(works best in
Windows PC)
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Specific Learning Difficulties
(SpLDs)
Dyslexia is described as often as a gift, as a disability its key indicator, a
peaking and troughing chart of strengths and weaknesses. It has been constantly
defined and redefined throughout the last 100 years. Once, Dyslexia was synonymous
with SpLD but recent definitions of Specific Learning Difficulties that encompass
Dyslexia amongst a range of other difficulties make the task of understanding
it more manageable.
Jan Poustie, a specialist in SpLDs offers a Specific Learning Difficulties Profile
(1) which includes Attention Deficits (ADD, ADHD, Behaviour Inhibition
Disorder), Autistic Spectrum Disorder (associated are Aspergers Syndrome and Tourettes
Syndrome), Central Auditory Processing Disorder, Dyscalculia (also called Developmental
Dyscalculia), Dyslexia (also called Developmental Dyslexia), Specific Language
Impairment (also known as Dysphasia) and Dyspraxia.
Selikowitz (1993) offered the following definition:
Specific Learning Difficulty – an unexpected and unexplained condition, occurring
in a child of average or above average intelligence, characterised by a significant
delay in one or more areas of learning. (2)
D Harry Chasty’s definition is “Specific learning difficulties/dyslexia
are organising or learning difficulties which restrict the student’s competencies
in information processing, in fine motor control and working memory, so causing
limitations in some or all of speech, reading, spelling, writing, essay writing,
numeracy, and behavior.” The group representing all Member States, which
met as ‘Action for Dyslexia’ at the European Parliament in 1994 accepted
this definition as “an appropriate base for further research and development.”
Principle Educational Psychologist Ian McNab offered this explanation in 1998.
“Properly speaking, a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) is literally that:
a difficulty that is specific to a particular area, or that affects a particular
process (as distinct from a general learning difficulty, which affects the learning
of many different skills).
References:
(1) Next Generation – The Conditions:
http://freespace.virgin.net/adrian.pam/info/spldprofile.htm
(2) http://www.dundee.ac.uk/disabilitysupport/leaflets/dyslexiadef.htm
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