Huntsville Times Series on Dyslexia

Alabama schools won’t accept that the D-word exists

Monday, March 06, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Throughout Alabama, thousands of bright children struggle with the written word in public schools that don’t recognize or test for dyslexia. The children have trouble spelling, connecting sounds to letters and remembering what words mean.

Most can be taught to read, but many of them are falling behind.

“The teachers aren’t trained,” complains Lorraine Fredrick, a mother seated at the rear of the monthly meeting of the local dyslexia support group.

In which school system aren’t the teachers trained? “All of them,” comes the immediate chorus of about 20 parents and grandparents. “The United States,” says Fredrick.

Frustrated parents say school officials fight providing their children with extra help because of the potential expense of treating a puzzling disability that may affect as many as one out of every 10 children. Cheryl Jones, a professional parent advocate, explained schools’ position as she sees it: “If we assess it, then we have to address it. And sometimes we are not sure what to do with it, because there are several forms of dyslexia.”

State officials say federal law does not list dyslexia as a special education category. Otherwise, public schools would be required to offer special services, as they do for autism and other recognized disabilities.

“Teachers are kind of in a bind,” Dr. Denise Gibbs tells the support group gathered at Asbury United Methodist Church in Madison. As director of the Scottish Rite Foundation of Alabama Learning Centers, Gibbs travels the state training teachers and diagnosing dyslexic students.

Gibbs says schools have to wait until a child’s achievement trails the child’s IQ to provide extra help through special education. That means waiting for dyslexia to disrupt reading and drop grades while the child falls behind his classmates.

“Immeasurably and irretrievably behind,” Gibbs tells the parents.

Teachers, who aren’t qualified to diagnose students, often don’t notice the problem until the third grade, she says. However, children should be identified in first grade to receive intense language lessons before the grades plummet.

But if a parent doesn’t seek a diagnosis from Gibbs or someone else outside the school system, dyslexia almost always goes unidentified in Alabama schools.

No cure

Gibbs, who has a doctorate in special education, defines dyslexia this way: “It’s a learning disability that occurs in students who are not retarded but have trouble reading because they have trouble with the sounds that make up words.”

Letter reversals are a common symptom. For example, a child sees a “b” when the letter is a “d.” But many young children flip letters. It doesn’t mean they’re dyslexic. Rather, dyslexia hinders reading and thinking in much broader ways.

For some dyslexic children, reading aloud or making rhymes may be impossible. For others, connecting meaning to a word or putting words in sequence is difficult. For many, spelling is a challenge. There can be trouble with short-term memory, organization, even telling left from right.

Dyslexia never goes away. Although there is no cure, there are proved pathways to improvement.

Many dyslexic children can learn to read with special lessons that break up the parts of words, link words to pictures, provide the rules of pronunciation and involve most of the senses.

Yet not all public schools guarantee this type of instruction. And between any two Alabama school systems, there is little agreement on how to handle kids who clearly can’t read well but don’t fit one of the state’s disability categories.

Unspoken disability

“We get a lot of calls from families or teachers about dyslexia because they think it is part of special education,” said Dr. Julia Causey, special education coordinator for the Alabama Department of Education. “Just because you have that label that does not mean you meet other criteria” for special education services.

School officials argue that federal law does not require schools to provide extra help if the student doesn’t qualify based on testing for special education.

Dr. Katherine Mitchell, a state assistant superintendent, said the Alabama Reading Initiative and a program called Language! are designed to help all kids who struggle to read. She also said educators don’t agree on a definition of dyslexia. The disorder comprises too many symptoms.

So, is there such a thing as dyslexia?

Mitchell avoids the term. “A syndrome exists that has an organic base that causes kids to struggle,” she said. “Learning how to read is 10 times more difficult for them.

“Whatever their label, they are having trouble learning how to read. The struggle is real and it is frustrating.”

Local educators are left to follow state leaders’ view of dyslexia.

“It’s not recognized at all,” said Dr. Barry Carroll, superintendent of Limestone County Schools. “It makes it difficult to deal with the situation because there are no approved programs. Certainly, I think it’s a real problem.”

Parent learning curve

Angie Hood tells the same story as many parents across the state: You see the low grades. You talk to the child, you know he knows the answers.

You wait. Nothing improves. He’s in second grade now. He still can’t write his address but could give you directions to his house. Exasperated, you pay for private tests. You carry the dyslexia diagnosis to the school.

“They said we can’t accept these. These are not our tests,” says Hood, recalling her experience five years ago at West Madison Elementary. Mary Long, principal at the time, remembers Hood but said she can’t comment on an individual child.

In general, Long said: “We take them through all the proper procedures at looking at eligibility for services. We’ve got state guidelines to follow.”

The school starts with a team of teachers and administrators, who recommend changes in the classroom. After six weeks, they meet again to recommend more changes or maybe screening for special education.

Eventually, said Hood, the school tested Hood’s son for a learning disability. He tested too high for special education, so there were no services for him. School officials told her he was fine, she said. “But he wasn’t fine. He was failing reading,” said Hood.

You persist. You study the disability, the suggested teaching methods. You haggle over accommodations and special lessons. You set up camp at the school. You attend meeting after meeting, “coming out feeling like you’ve been sucker-punched. They’d say they were going to do things and they wouldn’t,” said Hood.

You notice time passing. You check your savings. You can sue the system. Or you can switch to private school.

Hood chose private school.

Then she and two other mothers started the North Alabama dyslexia support group. The group counts 118 members on the e-mail list now.

A medical diagnosis?

Amy Sledge, director of special education for Huntsville, can’t say how many dyslexia students attend city schools. She says that’s because dyslexia is not one of the 13 disabilities listed in federal law.

But child advocates are quick to argue that dyslexia is a well-established learning disorder. It is not mysterious. The disability has been mapped through brain imaging in the last decade.

“A lot of information has come forward in the last 20 years and it hasn’t reached everybody,” says Jerry Burfit. “In some areas you just get an absolute deaf ear.”

Burfit is president of the Alabama Scottish Rite Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the chapter of the Masons. The group made dyslexia its exclusive focus four years ago.

From 2001 to 2003, the group diagnosed 695 Alabama children and trained 3,868 teachers to better help those children.

There is no definitive count of how many students cope with the disability. Alabama, like most states, doesn’t track them.

“Some schools systems will say it’s a medical diagnosis and they don’t have to test for it. It is under specific learning disability in federal law and school systems have to test for it,” said Jones, the parent advocate.

Jones works for SEAC or the Special Education Action Committee of North Alabama.

Using a federal grant, the small outfit informs parents about their child’s right to a free and appropriate education. Jones, occasionally brought in to represent a parent, will tell a reluctant principal: “If y’all don’t have a test for it then y’all are going to have to pay for it.”

Splitting hairs

What does it take to be recognized? For parents and school officials, the battle often hinges on the interpretation of federal law.

State officials contend that Congress didn’t make dyslexia a separate category for special education services, that a diagnosis of dyslexia from an outside source doesn’t change that. No federal category, no federal guarantee of special services, they say.

But a few parents and advocates answer that dyslexia is indeed listed in both the Code of Federal Regulations and the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Some of this confusion can be explained by two ways of talking about the same disorder.

Alabama does work with children who have trouble with language and qualify for special education. “Specific learning disability” is the official federal category for reading delays that can’t be explained by retardation or brain injury.

It is correct to say there is no stand-alone category for dyslexia.

But section 602 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act uses the term. It can be found there as an example of a “specific learning disability.”

“Such term,” reads the act, “includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.”

Frustration

For many children, qualifying for special education isn’t always an answer, anyway.

Schools may offer extra lessons in a “resource room” among students with unrelated disabilities, from Down’s syndrome to traumatic brain injury.

Teachers “told me, you don’t want him in there,” said Jennifer Stone, “because that’s what a lot of our special education kids are. They’re behavioral problems.”

Instead, she said her 9-year-old son, Garrett, at Sylvania High School, has been watching the dyslexia videotapes from the Scottish Rite. The Scottish Rite offers free copies to schools without other dyslexia programs. But Stone said they haven’t helped her son. “I do watch them. They are very boring.”

Dyslexia researchers say it takes a specific diagnosis, a well-matched curriculum and a trained teacher for a dyslexic child to learn to read. According to researchers, dyslexia must be diagnosed early so children can be trained to cope before they fall behind.

From Limestone County to Jackson County, parents grow frustrated with few programs and the lack of acknowledgment.

“They told me it was state law that dyslexia was not a learning disability,” said Vickie Gant, whose son, Tyler, attends Section School in Jackson County. “I’m tired of going up against a brick wall.”

Gant said her son is grouped with special education kids who do not have dyslexia. “Last week he begged me not to make him go to school,” she said. “He’s a regular 13-year-old that likes to skateboard and play video games.”

From Athens to Guntersville, parents turn away from public schools. But that’s not an option for everyone.

“Sometimes I think home schooling would be the best way to go, but I am not a stay-at-home mom,” wrote Marty Richardson in an e-mail about her son and his experiences at Guntersville Elementary School. “It would be very difficult to work his school into our schedule and I don’t make enough at my job to send him to a private school.”

How many have it?

Alabama is not alone in its reluctance to search for dyslexic students.

“I realize Alabama sometimes takes some hits for being at the bottom at some lists; the good news/bad news here is Alabama’s got company,” said Tom Viall, head of the International Dyslexia Association in Baltimore.

Because most states do not recognize or test for dyslexia, they also don’t track how many kids are diagnosed with dyslexia by outside agencies or doctors. Across the country, there are few reliable counts.

Gibbs tells the support group that researchers estimate between 10 percent and 20 percent of the population is somewhat affected.

But that estimate encompasses all sorts of struggling readers. For one child, dyslexia may mean he reads slowly. For another child, dyslexia may mean he will never be able to read well.

In her studies, Yale neuroscientist Sally Shaywitz also found no one tracked dyslexia, instead citing U.S. Department of Education figures that show 2 million school-age children qualify for special education for reading difficulties. She said the vast majority are likely to have some form of dyslexia, but many more dyslexic students never qualify for special education.

Viall uses his own numbers. The International Dyslexia Association, founded in 1949, claims 14,000 U.S. members, as well as thousands more in 60 other countries.

As head of the nation’s oldest dyslexia group, Viall estimates 3 to 5 percent of the population has a debilitating form of dyslexia, meaning they will never be skilled readers.Using Viall’s low estimate of 3 percent, that would mean more than 20,000 students in Alabama public schools struggle with a severe form of dyslexia. The number of those who struggle but could learn to read under the right conditions could be much higher.

“Why is this all of a sudden such an issue? Well, our economy has changed dramatically in one generation,” said Viall, pointing out dyslexia wouldn’t interfere in many factory or trade jobs. But most service jobs today require the ability to read, said Viall, even driving a forklift or checking out video rentals.

“A disability is a disability only if a society values that thing you don’t do well,” said Viall.

His organization suggests a new system where dyslexia students occupy a middleground between special education and general education, a system where teachers are trained to spot struggling readers in first grade. Those children are then sent for extra help in a “median tier,” instead of being funneled into special education or held back.

“In every school building in America you have 10, 15, 20 percent of your kids who are going to fall into this group,” Viall said of students affected in some way. “We know that there are ways we can teach those kids. The key is to identify them early.”

Through the cracks

As Gibbs crosses the state diagnosing children and training teachers, working for a charity that neither answers to parents nor the schools, she has grown encouraged.

“Everything is coming to bear in such a good way now for dyslexic kids,” she said. Some small systems, such as Madison city and Lauderdale County, have begun to accept dyslexia as a diagnosis, even opening programs for kids who don’t otherwise qualify for special education.

So Gibbs worries that if dyslexia were suddenly recognized as a separate disability by the state, kids would receive the special education label but not necessarily the right help.

“I don’t think that’s something we should aspire to,” said Gibbs. Instead, she promotes teacher training and early intervention.

Special education teacher Margaret Petty offers an unusual perspective.

Last summer, Petty took training to instruct dyslexic children at Rainbow Elementary in Madison. Petty makes an understanding teacher – she is dyslexic.

As a child, she learned the old-fashioned way. “Back then they didn’t know what dyslexia was. It was, ‘Just try harder.’ ” Today there are more diagnostic tests. More schools are training more teachers, even parents are becoming more aware, said Petty. But, she said, school systems need to do more to help children at the earliest ages.

Should dyslexia be recognized as a separate special education category? “Yes,” said Petty, pausing briefly. “These kids sometimes fall through the cracks. You spend most of your life thinking you are stupid.”

Monday, March 07, 2005

A few of the many famous dyslexics

From Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, to Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Enterprises, countless successful people have spoken about their dyslexia, recalling the struggle to learn to read in school.

“The looks, the stares, the giggles” I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.” – Magic Johnson, basketball legend

“I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.” – Tom Cruise, actor

“I never read in school. I got really bad grades – D’s and F’s and C’s in some classes, and A’s and B’s in other classes. In the second week of the 11th grade, I just quit. When I was in school, it was really difficult. Almost everything I learned, I had to learn by listening. My report cards always said that I was not living up to my potential.” – Cher, singer

“I couldn’t read. I just scraped by. My solution back then was to read classic comic books because I could figure them out from the context of the pictures. Now I listen to books on tape.” – Charles Schwab, founder of stock brokerage

“When I had dyslexia, they didn’t diagnose it as that. It was frustrating and embarrassing. I could tell you a lot of horror stories about what you feel like on the inside.” – Nolan Ryan, baseball legend

“I, myself, was always recognized as the ‘slow one’ in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.” – Agatha Christie, novelist

“Kids made fun of me because I was dark skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently. – Danny Glover, actor

“As a child, I was called stupid and lazy. On the SAT I got 159 out of 800 in math. My parents had no idea that I had a learning disability.” – Henry Winkler, actor

“I was one of the ‘puzzle children’ myself – a dyslexic And I still have a hard time reading today. Accept the fact that you have a problem. Refuse to feel sorry for yourself. You have a challenge; never quit!” – Nelson Rockefeller, former vice president

Source: Dyslexia Awareness and Resource Center

Money makes the difference

Struggle to read often frustrating to child, parent

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Some days, Julie Harp will ask her daughter about a test. Hannah will say she knew all the answers. She will dig in her bookbag to show her mother the paper. But when she finds the test, she will let slip a faint “ohhh” as her face falls.

Most times, Julie Harp lets her daughter, 9, throw those tests in the trash. Hannah doesn’t like to be reminded that she is different from the other children. Hannah, like so many dyslexic children, has trouble putting what she knows on paper.

For Hannah, writing takes time. Letters are flipped, words are reversed, sentences haven’t always been spaced well. The letter S consistently appears as the numeral 2.

Two years ago, Julie Harp paid $250 to have her daughter tested for dyslexia at an outside agency. She took the diagnosis to Hannah’s elementary school in Decatur. There she heard what so many parents hear: Dyslexia is not officially recognized by Alabama public schools.

“Dyslexia is not considered a learning disability. Therefore there is not anything they want to do to help her,” said Harp. “The child, she is smart. There are so many things she can do. But she’s drowning.”

Hannah brings home a math test with the answer 41 circled. The correct answer is 14. Hannah knew it, could say the answer aloud, but the teacher marks the flipped version wrong. The low grades continue.

“What do you do? I’ve been on the Internet. You think, ‘Oh, wow, this looks really good.’ And it’s $4,000 or $5,000 for this program.”

‘He’ll catch up’

Corbin Roth of Huntsville uses a ruler to point to the word endings on the board. “F T says ffft,” he announces. “L F says ulf.” Every day, at Huntsville’s Greengate School for dyslexic students, he rehearses such basic rules for one hour. He sits one-on-one with a tutor trained to help him. He records his progress with the written word in a daily journal.

Corbin is only 7. But his story started much the same as Hannah’s.

“We had noticed even before kindergarten,” said his mother, Melinda Roth. “Here’s a kid who is being read to and played with and he doesn’t know the letters of the alphabet. Everybody said ‘He’s a boy, he’ll catch up.’ “

At Hampton Cove Elementary, Roth said her son flunked the state test to screen the reading ability of kindergartners. By Christmas, he could barely recite half the alphabet and he had begun flipping letters, b for d, p for q.

“The school’s suggestion was that he do kindergarten again,” said Roth.

Lead to headaches

Julie Harp caught on during Hannah’s second time in first grade in Athens. Because most teachers aren’t trained to diagnose dyslexia, parents must strike out on their own.

Julie Harp paid for a diagnosis from the private Dyslexia Center in Decatur. This school year, she moved to Decatur and enrolled Hannah in the second grade at Chesnut Grove Elementary.

Julie Harp doesn’t blame the school. She said Hannah’s teacher is kind, but bound by rules. She said Hannah writes better in cursive, but students aren’t allowed to do that in second grade. Harp is frustrated and she wants help for her daughter, who is already developing natural coping mechanisms.

There are long-term implications beyond reading. Children with dyslexia, left unaided, can lose self-esteem. At the local dyslexia support group, parents say this leads to poor study habits, hatred of school, even behavioral problems in class.

“I like reading,” says Hannah. Her mother listens in disbelief. “I like playing outside on the playground, science, reading,” Hannah continues. Hannah is shy about the very word dyslexia. Hannah is doing well at math and she likes to draw.

But for her, reading can lead to headaches. Earlier, reading even caused Hannah to be sick, said her mother. Hannah acknowledges this, but brushes it off. Reading “is kind of hard,” she says, “But not that hard.”

Hannah goes outside to play with her sister and a friend. A short while later, they are in the back of the house playing dress-up. Hannah has fashioned a gold satin gown. Today, she is a princess.

Pulled from school

At Hampton Cove, Roth began to worry about wasted time. And she began asking questions. She said the school told her it would take three to four months just to test Corbin for special education. She said she met with the principal and the gudiance counselor.

Before he could qualify for assistance, the teacher had to be given six weeks to try to teach Corbin differently. As with Hannah or any student, there would have to be committees and meetings and evaluations before Corbin could be assigned to special education. The process takes months.

Corbin couldn’t recall his phone number or birthday, but his mother said he set up the game Mousetrap without instructions. Yet, he couldn’t rhyme words.

Researchers have established a genetic component of dyslexia. Hannah’s uncle has dyslexia. Corbin’s grandfather had it.

“In March, I was desperate and I took him out of school,” said Melinda Roth.

Parent education

At one point, Julie Harp also took Hannah out of school. This is a common crossroads for knowledgeable parents.

Harp said she worked with Hannah at home. “You only did it for three days,” said Hannah. Harp has five children and Hannah is the oldest.

Lately, Harp has been training herself, reading books like “The Gift of Dyslexia” by Ronald Davis. Since then, she began using clay so Hannah could sculpt and touch the letters of the alphabet. The sense of touch helped Hannah’s recall. Harp also reads with her daughter at the kitchen table most days, encouraging Hannah to close her eyes and see the word.

Julie Harp is thinking about becoming a special education teacher.

No mention of D-word

Melinda Roth hired a private tutor while she worked with her son at home.

She also had her son tested for dyslexia at the Greengate School in Huntsville. She continued to pursue options at Hampton Cove, eventually having Corbin tested for special education three months after she pulled him out. Corbin qualified for extra help from a special teacher in language, reading and math services.

Amy Sledge, director of special education in Huntsville, said dyslexic students are evaluated for reading deficiencies. When achievement scores trail IQ scores, then children are given extra help in a special education resource room, said Sledge.

At Hampton Cove, there was no mention of dyslexia.

“They all agreed with me he had a problem. They were just so bound by the bureaucracy,” said Roth “I can’t blame them. It was very, very frustrating.”

Among slow learners

Special education advocates often cite Decatur as having one of the better systems in North Alabama. But even there, services are governed by federal rules.

“We function in special education under IDEA (the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act),” said Bill Gilchrist, supervisor of special education for Decatur City Schools. “There are identified categories under IDEA. One of which is specific learning disability. There is not a category called dyslexia.”

Even though there’s no category for dyslexia, Principal Loretta Teague said Chesnut Grove tries to help every child no matter the difficulty or designation.

“We sit down and put a plan in place. It’s not like we ignore it. We don’t diagnose. But we do have a process and I don’t want any child to fall through the cracks.”

Hannah went through the months-long process, starting with a review by a team of teachers and administrators, moving onto a screening committee and eventually qualifying for extra reading help through special education.

Sometimes the special education teacher comes into Hannah’s regular class to help with reading. Other times, Hannah is pulled from the regular classroom for extra reading work. But at those times, said Hannah’s mother, Hannah reads with children who are not dyslexic. Those children may not learn the same way nor need the same help.

“They really need a specialized course for dyslexia,” said Julie Harp.

Small classes

By the time Hampton Cove offered extra help for Corbin, Melinda Roth had moved on. With directed tutoring at the Greengate School for dyslexic children, she said, her son in one summer had memorized the alphabet and started on multisyllable words.

At Hampton Cove Elementary, Principal Dale Kirch said she isn’t surprised at the success Corbin’s had.

“I can’t compete with a one-on-one or three-to-one ratio,” said Kirch, acknowledging the small classes at the private Greengate School. Kirch added: “I do believe our system could have assisted the child.”

Melinda Roth decided to enroll her son for first grade at Greengate. The school, operating out of a church in downtown Huntsville, provides 14 teachers for 19 children. Each student has dyslexia.

“I see it as an advantage,” said Greengate teacher Wendy Lenentine, talking about classmates sharing the same difficulty. “They all know each other. They all know what it’s like to be called on and not know the answer. They all know what it’s like to feel dumb.”

Corbin reads over the words drill and cliff, fluff and class. As he says each letter, he points to a finger. “Good, what do you notice about the words on this section,” asks his one-on-one tutor, Jana Harris. Corbin recounts the “floss rule,” or how two like consonants at the end of the word make one sound.

After a few more sentences, Harris stops to ask: “Does this help you?”

“Yeah, it does,” says Corbin with an earnest look. He’s a serious boy, conscious of dyslexia, conscious of the fact that students here eventually return to public schools. “When I got 6, they found out I was alexic,” he says. “Now I know how to read pretty good. I’m doing the ending blends.”

Corbin still writes the letter “z” like a lightning bolt. But he says he’s eager to move from two syllable to three syllable words.

The price of help

Melinda Roth believes in Greengate School, where she, like many parents, spends time as a volunteer.

“If I had listened to what the (public) school was saying I could very easily have woken up with a fourth-grader who couldn’t read,” said Roth.

But Greengate costs $15,000 a year.

For Hannah, the school is out of reach. Julie Harp pulls out another flier showing one week of dyslexia courses in California. The classes cost $3,650 for five days. She’s looked into local tutoring, but that’s $350 each week for only two hours a day, twice a week.

“Who in the world can afford that?” she asks. “Everything that I get hopeful about, that I think might help her, these are the price ranges I’m looking at.

“It hasn’t gotten better,” says Harp. “If I could figure out anything I could do to make any kind of difference, I’d be out there.”

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Medical doctors first diagnosed dyslexia more than 100 years ago. In 1896, an article in The British Medical Journal described dyslexia as a case of someone having accurate vision, mental acuity but an inexplicable inability to read.

Today that inability has been mapped using brain scans from a new technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging. Scientists have mapped the regions of the brain that receive more blood during reading.

Yale neuroscientist Sally Shaywitz found dyslexics relay on a slow analyzer at the front of the brain for decoding world bit by bit, while skilled readers use a speedy automatic recognition system at the back of the brain to process words whole.

If school process unclear, parents can turn to law

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
images/greengate/articles/ Staff Writer [email protected]

As a freshman at Grissom High School, Clay Gibson was allowed to type assignments. Teachers gave him extra time on written tests.

“I was doing fine,” Gibson said. At the end of the 10th grade, the school system agreed: School officials removed his special education designation. That sparked a dispute that eventually led Gibson to attorney James Irby.

“I’ve had a number of cases where schools have not provided services for children who obviously need it and have dyslexia and otherwise are capable of doing just fine,” said Irby, a former superintendent from Athens who takes special education cases across North Alabama.

“It’s not a matter of the child is not able to learn,” he said. “It’s a matter of the child has an imperfect ability to read.”

Gibson flips digits and scrambles phone numbers. He has trouble with spelling and handwriting.

Help not guaranteed

Irby, who won’t speak about specific clients, said any school system is bound to recognize such symptoms and find a way to help without failing or holding the student back. But outside special education services, there are few guarantees of extra consideration.

In his junior year, Gibson’s services were governed by a group of teachers and administrators who were members of a building-based school support team. It’s a state program, a sort of half-step between regular education and special education.

But not every teacher honored the team’s recommendations to give Gibson more time on tests or to allow him to answer orally, Gibson said.

“Nobody would follow the program guidelines,” said his mother, Loretta Gibson. “They would flat out refuse.”

During his junior year, Gibson’s grades sank as he misspelled vocabulary words on tests in Spanish class. Gibson said the teacher agreed to let him tape-record his answers, but the tapes were misplaced.

In Algebra 2, he said, he understood the concepts but reversed the numbers. He needed a calculator to keep straight long rows of arithmetic. Gibson said the teacher did not allow any student to use a calculator second semester.

Despite a history of high marks in advanced classes, Gibson received two F’s at a time when he was applying to college.

Grissom Principal Tom Drake said he could not comment because the Gibson’s sued the school system.

Dr. Ann Roy Moore, superintendent of city schools, said dyslexia is not a distinct special education category.

Moore said that she cannot discuss the case of an individual, such as Gibson, but that the system does help dyslexic students who struggle.

“If we have materials and other techniques we can use where suspected, then we do that,” she said. “We try to do what we can to meet the needs of the student.”

Legal battle begins

While Gibson attended summer school to make up the math credit, his mother hired Irby to overturn the low grades.

Irby knows the law, plus he knows how school systems work. The belief that dyslexia is not a special education category is common in the public schools of Alabama, he said.

“Let me tell you why I disagree with that,” Irby said. “There is a discrepancy between the Alabama Administrative Code, which does not enumerate dyslexia, and the Code of Federal Regulations, which does.”

The federal code cites dyslexia as an example of a specific learning disability, which is a recognized special education category.

“Whenever there is a disagreement between state and federal law, federal law trumps,” Irby said. “It applies to any school who takes federal funds.”

Last fall, despite the two low grades, Gibson enrolled at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, where he is studying political science. He had aced advanced placement history at Grissom. But he believes the low grades in math and Spanish damaged his chances for scholarships.

System reverses itself

Then in January, six months after he graduated, Huntsville City Schools acquiesced.

“A year and half later they came to us and asked us to settle for what we originally asked for,” Loretta Gibson said.

Gibson’s grades were overturned. Spanish was raised to a D. The math grades were re-placed with an A from summer school. Gibson said the school system paid all attorney fees.

The city system also requested a confidentiality clause. “I told them I wouldn’t sign it. So they took it out,” Gibson said.

Two months ago, he took the legal agreement to a meeting of the Huntsville school board. He complained about lack of services for dyslexia and tax dollars wasted on attorneys to fight students.

He said many wonderful teachers helped him at Grissom, and a few others didn’t. He asked the board “to look out for students in the future.”

As an insider, she still needed years to achieve results

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Last year, Kohl Pittson wouldn’t have known that “qu” was the chicken sound because q doesn’t go anywhere without u. Last year, Kohl would have frozen on seeing a long word, unaware of how to break it into parts.

Last year, at Rainbow Elementary School in Madison, he may have sat in class and pretended he could read.

“The hard part is, you see the word backwards and you might be reading a word somewhere else,” said 10-year-old Kohl, whose eyes sometimes scan a word from the bottom of the page while reading a sentence at the top. “It makes you stress out a lot.”

Kohl, in a softly serious voice, said he’s not stressed anymore.

After four years of fighting, Kohl’s mother succeeded in prodding Madison City Schools to acknowledge the demands of her son’s dyslexia. But Katherine King is not a typical mother. King is also an insider, teaching first grade down the stairs from her son’s classroom at Rainbow.

For King, the warning signs began early. In first grade, Kohl couldn’t recall the last five or six letters of the alphabet. He told his mother that words moved around on the page. He would often begin writing at the bottom of the page.

“We knew there was a problem,” King said. “I’m an educator but knew very little about what dyslexia is.”

A long campaign

During Kohl’s second trip through first grade, King had her son tested and diagnosed for dyslexia by the Alabama Scottish Rite. That’s when King’s campaign began.

Having sat on the other side of the table during conferences about student services, King knew what to ask, what to expect and how to request help. She said teachers are often discouraged from recommending expensive services. Still, King had to school herself in special education law and hire attorney James Irby before the system would adopt a program she believed would help her son and others like him.

In the end, King pressed for the Wilson method, which uses an energetic combination of images, objects, written words and spoken language.

Last summer, Madison sent about 30 elementary and middle school teachers for training in the Wilson method. King wasn’t selected. But Kohl, a fourth-grader, now spends 45 minutes every day in special reading lessons at Rainbow.

Angie Hood, a Madison parent and head of North Alabama’s dyslexia support group, credits King with single-handedly changing the small school system.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Maria Kilgore, director of special education for Madison City Schools. “I would say Wilson (teaching method) is in Madison City Schools because of the needs of children, and Katherine King certainly did have a concern and brought it to our attention.”

Fifth-grader Korea Brunner is also dyslexic. She takes the Wilson courses at Rainbow. Her parents, Ernest Brunner and Adrienne Walls-Brunner, said there hasn’t been enough time to evaluate the program. But they said Korea used to begin most sentences with the phrase “I wonder if …” Since Wilson, they’ve noticed that Korea has been writing more original sentences.

More help arrives

At Rainbow, King had more than just legal help in gaining recognition for dyslexia.

At Rainbow three years ago, Ernest Brunner said, “I don’t think a lot of people believed there was a such a thing as dyslexia. They just gave us a funny stare.” Then Margaret Petty arrived, Brunner said.

Petty, who is dyslexic, began working as a special education teacher at Rainbow at the same time King was fighting for her son. Petty now teaches the Wilson classes and said they have helped greatly. “Two months ago these children couldn’t begin to do what they did today,” she said after one spelling lesson.

At one point, King considered giving up and sending Kohl to private school where teachers can be more flexible, or even choosing a private school dedicated to dyslexia. But she decided Madison had both the money and the responsibility.

“I’m sure it comes down to just that. I was thinking Madison city, we could afford it.”

Trying everything

At school, Kohl had been tested and labeled gifted/learning disabled for both a high IQ and low achievement scores, King said. Without that label, there would have been little early assistance.

“Children with dyslexia are not automatically in special education. It is not recognized as a special education code,” Kilgore said. “Sometimes the children don’t qualify, and that’s where a lot of the frustration lies.”

At school, Kohl tried the Alabama Scottish Rite program. That’s a videotaped training session the charitable group provides for free. But the dyslexia lessons work only with close supervision by a teacher, said Dr. Denise Gibbs at the Scottish Rite. Kohl said he often watched the videos alone. “It didn’t help at all,” he said.

Kohl tried Language!, which state education specialist Dr. Julia Causey suggests as Alabama’s best program for training dyslexic children. “It’s a joke,” King said. “Language! was designed to be in the upper grades, and it was designed to be rapid pace.” She called it a dumbed-down program.

“We did everything. Everything we had access to at school he had been through,” she said.

At the end of third grade, Kohl still couldn’t read well. But Kohl is well-spoken and bright. He takes Tae Kwan Do and plays the guitar. His math grades have been unaffected.

King kept pressing for the Wilson program.

An extra step

In the end, not only did Madison adopt Wilson, it went a step further.

Madison schools also invite the dyslexia students who don’t necessarily qualify for special education. “When they came up to the plate, they swung hard,” King said.

At first, Kohl didn’t want to go. He didn’t see any help from earlier reading programs and didn’t expect this one to work either. But a few weeks ago he said he had his first high score on a fourth-grade spelling test.

“His special education teachers, his regular education teachers, they are stunned by his growth,” King said.

But what works for one dyslexic student may not work for all, King cautioned. And the Wilson method is just one of numerous instructional techniques based on the work 70 years ago by dyslexia pioneers Dr. Sam Orton and educator Anna Gillingham.

Petty said more important than the particular technique is early identification of children who aren’t learning to read. “I think we need to have far more reading intervention,” Petty said. “The earlier the better.”

Today, Kohl reads the menu, he sings from the hymnal, he adds inflection when reading aloud. He still follows along with his finger in the text and may stumble over longer sentences.

But most significantly, Kohl said he now remembers what he reads. And in recent weeks he’s even started writing a series of short stories of his own, with titles such as “Llamas in Pajamas” and “Llamas Do Karate.”

“He’ll always struggle. He’ll always have to work harder than the next,” King said. “It’s not a cure. But (Wilson) has given him an opportunity to use something that will help him every step of the way.”

New research, resources help parents cope with kids’ learning difficulties

Thursday, March 03, 2005

By KAY CAMPBELL
Times Staff Writer: [email protected]

The little boy would overreact, bump his classmates, fall down, ignore his teacher and act distracted. When reprimanded, he would have a meltdown, screaming into tears.

Every day at school was a bad day, even though the child was very bright.

Many people would diagnose the child as simply “bad.” But the child, profiled in the September-October 2000 Networker, actually had a rare form of autism.

Parents of struggling children who are not obviously mentally or physically disabled often have a difficult time convincing anyone their child needs something other than “a good spanking.”

Very slowly, and little by little, a few activist parents are fighting to change that as scientists learn more about conditions such as dyslexia, hyperactivity and autism.

Everything to gain

By the time Helen Cole of Huntsville had heard stories of children like the boy mentioned above, whose behavior mirrored her son’s, her boy was in first grade.

Her son, now 12, is in a regular classroom now. But that is after years of therapy for a condition doctors didn’t even have a word for then: Asperger’s Syndrome.

Cole had known for years, the way mothers know these things, that something was different for her son. Simple tasks – brushing his teeth, buckling a seat belt – were hard. A birthday party’s boisterous joyfulness sent him under the table in a panic.

“He’ll grow out of it,” she’d been told, or, more often: “He just needs good discipline.”

And she hated to think the child had a problem she and her husband, both loving parents, couldn’t fix.

But, Cole said, they definitely couldn’t fix it on their own. They decided it’s better to “label” than it is to ignore a problem.

“You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by at least checking it out,” Helen Cole said recently. “If children have a disability, it’s an exponential curve if you don’t intervene.”

This is advice she wishes she’d had before her son entered school.

“Not until we had the situation staring us in the face did we do something about it,” she said. “I regret that. I do. I have to forgive myself every day that I didn’t do more sooner.”

Her son was eventually diagnosed with problems that arise in the spectrum of conditions that includes autism. It is much harder, sometimes impossible, for these children to ignore certain sensations – the label in their T-shirt at the back of their necks, for instance. They are hypersensitive to their environment.

Autism spectrum disorders are just the latest of newly understood conditions that can keep children from learning. Like dyslexic children, these children are often obviously bright, so they don’t get early screenings.

And often the last to be helpful is a family physician.

Mother knows best

“Doctors are, like, ‘Oh, Mom, they’ll be OK,’ ” said Sheree Jacks recently from her office in the Child Development Center, a therapeutic preschool in Fayetteville, Tenn.

But parents should trust their instincts, said Helen Lowe, director of the Fayetteville center.

“You know when something is not on target,” Lowe said.

“However slight their concern about their child’s development, we encourage parents to call us,” said Patrick Kelly, one of two district coordinators for the Alabama Early Intervention System.

Often, the most valuable information will come from other parents.

Angie Hood didn’t have that, though, when her son, now in sixth grade, was diagnosed at 7 with dyslexia. After a few years of struggling to get the diagnosis – her son, like many dyslexic children, is bright enough to hide his condition with excellent memorization skills – she started the informal Madison Learning Differences support group.

Most of the parents who attend the once-a-month, one-hour lunchtime meetings have children learning to work through their dyslexia.

It’s a hard-earned expertise. Learning about and then attempting to get help can consume families.

“I figured it would be a shame to waste all we’ve learned by not sharing,” Hood said. “And it helps to be with parents who know exactly what you’re going through.”

Educational consulting

Another resource is an educational consultant, an expert, often with a background in psychology or education, who is certified to help parents find the best educational environments for their children.

The only licensed educational planner in Alabama is Rosalind Marie, a former school psychologist who has a private practice in Madison. Her work ranges from helping students find the best-suited college to helping families find enrichment and remedial or therapeutic help for children struggling in school or society.

Most parents, Marie said, will try to get the system to change, hire tutors and agitate for services public schools are supposed to provide for any child needing extra help. This can work. Sometimes.

“But your ability to have the environment change may be limited,” Marie said. “And letting a child stay in an environment that doesn’t help them means you will pay later on.”

Many parents find it necessary to move the child to another teacher, another school or even home.

“It is so hard for teachers,” mother Debbie Cazalas said as she discussed her decision to home-school her son, 16, who struggles with both dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. “They have so many kids with so many learning styles. They just don’t have the time.”

In addition to finding a good educational fit for children, Marie urges parents to consider summer remedial and therapeutic programs available in North Alabama.

“I think Huntsvillian’s are under-utilizing summer programs,” Marie said. “They cost money, but not near what boarding school costs. I’ve seen kids go for a summer, pick up friends and a set of skills for dealing with dyslexia or learning disabilities. I’ve seen kids find out that they can read. It’s almost like a booster shot.”

But good results are contingent on a child’s getting into a program with research-based activities and a trained staff.

Disability once led local attorney to drop out, enlist

Monday, March 07, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Fred Simpson starts with the tour of his renovated downtown office. He tells the children about 250 jury trials, about 12 years as Madison County’s district attorney. He talks about two Cadillacs and the trips to Europe. Then he swaps his focus.

“I know something about you,” he announces.

After a career spent swaying juries, Simpson can hold an audience. He tells the children he knows how they struggle to remember names, he knows about the intentionally messy handwriting, he knows about staying home sick on test days and trying to avoid the teacher’s gaze when it’s time to read aloud.

He knows what it’s like when people think you’re stupid because you can’t spell.

Fred Simpson, the attorney who tried 64 murder cases, the author of three books on Huntsville history, the man who worked through law school so he wouldn’t have to take orders for a living, is dyslexic.

“The way that all dyslexia people get through life is they hide what they do,” said Simpson, telling his story from his home in south Huntsville.

“My disability is, I can’t spell and I can’t learn to spell and I can’t pronounce words,” he said. “People downtown will not know I’m dyslexic. The other lawyers don’t know that. But I know now I’m not stupid.”

Simpson didn’t know the word dyslexia when he was taking a lick for every misspelled word on the weekly spelling test in Calera. Simpson was even a top debater and the cartoonist for the high school paper in Montevallo, but his inability to spell or read aloud caused him to drop out.

Simpson quickly sated his appetite for taking orders in the Air Force. He decided to earn his general equivalency diploma and make his way through Samford College.

Then relying on the help of his wife, Peggy, he earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University. At age 29, he took his first job as a lawyer and encountered his first secretary. He soon asked if she could type a letter as he spoke. Of course, she answered. “That was freedom day for me.”

Simpson went on to serve as Madison County district attorney from 1969 to 1981 and later opened a law firm. In court, unlike his colleagues, Simpson rarely took notes. If he did, sometimes he couldn’t read his own writing.

Peggy first suspected something amiss when her husband asked her how to spell “nephew” for a paper in law school. But it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the two came across a Reader’s Digest article on dyslexia.

“I finally came to realize that was my problem,” said Simpson, willing now to share this story to help children who face similar struggles. “I think it’s unfortunate that it’s considered a sign of weakness. But it is, I think, and I never let anyone know about it.”

Dyslexia takes many forms and varies in severity. For example, Simpson never flipped letters or read words backward.

In fact, reading comes easily for Simpson, and always did. He said he reads better than a page a minute. “I can grasp the meaning of subjects without pronouncing the words in my head.” But he may skip over proper names and recall characters in a novel as A, B or C. Foreign words or medical terms can also be daunting.

Writing came much more slowly, but it wasn’t impossible. He might have trouble keeping from thinking of a sentence ahead of the one he was writing, he said.

But then there was spelling. Even when he would turn to the dictionary for help, sometimes he couldn’t string together enough letters to find the word he was hunting. After he learned the proper spelling, the letters would vanish from memory. Messy handwriting provided camouflage in college.

In court, secretaries and paralegals kept notes for him. Finally, computerized spellchecking helped him write more easily on his own. Even Sonya Brasher, his paralegal for 15 years, said she never learned to decipher his scrawl.

Today, Simpson paints, using oils to record his family and friends and scenes from Huntsville. After retiring last year, he also crafts Christmas ornaments and spends hours researching his family history.

But never one to shy away from a challenge, Simpson late in life faced the very crux of his disability. He began to write, publishing such chronologies of Huntsville history as “Murder in the Heart of Dixie” and the “The Sins of Madison County.”

“Life has been a challenge for me,” he said. “I could have quit at any time.”

But Peggy said he’s always had many strengths. “He can talk you under the table,” she said. And lately she thought he might share his decades of legal practice directly with students, using that penchant for conversation as a legal professor.

Simpson balked. “What if I was asked to write something on the board?”

With care, ‘disconnect’ can be managed

Monday, March 07, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Each school day, Korea Brunner returns home to show her parents her homework notebook. In those pages, 11-year-old Korea lists the nightly assignments and the teacher places her initials alongside. At home, Korea’s parents now know exactly what’s to be done.

“Before, there was a disconnect,” said Ernest Brunner, Korea’s father and main homework tutor this year. Before, he didn’t always know what the assignments were.

Three years ago, Korea was diagnosed with dyslexia. Korea has trouble deciphering the meaning of some words. That means like most children with dyslexia, Korea reads and learns a bit differently than other students. It also means schoolwork didn’t always go smoothly.

It’s not uncommon for children with dyslexia to develop a dislike of school and find ways to avoid homework. But lately Korea’s parents have implemented a few strategies to help her study on her own.

After dinner, Korea studies at a desk in her bedroom, away from the TV and the noise and the distractions of three younger brothers. When she’s finished working alone, her father might help her at the kitchen table to sort through more difficult questions.

Each night, mom or dad sign that assignment notebook once work has been completed.

“Those two are big helps,” said Adrienne Walls-Brunner, Korea’s mother, referring to both the notebook and the dedicated work space.

The Brunner’s are following proven methods, said Marcia Ramsey, head of Huntsville’s Greengate School for students with dyslexia.

“There needs to be a designated place for homework. A routine time for homework. The parent needs to be nearby, but not hovering,” Ramsey said.

“Parents should as much as possible let children be in charge of their homework,” she said. “With kids with learning differences it takes a fair amount of organization for that to happen.”

In years past, 15 minutes could be spent hunting a pencil or sorting out what the assignment was before work started, said Adrienne Walls-Brunner. The homework notebook eliminated some of that delay. This year, they also learned to keep a ready drawer of sharpened pencils and other tools.

“Keeping basic supplies at home is essential,” she said. “It cuts down on your frustration level.”

Korea now studies by designing her own flashcards, a history question on one side and the answer on the other. Korea said isolating the study points has helped.

One card reads: “Who was Crispus Attucks?” The card is a week old, the test has passed at Rainbow Elementary in Madison, but Korea rattles off: “A former slave that yelled ‘If you want to get rid of the soldiers attack the main guard.’ “

Her answer matches her handwriting on back of the card within a word or two. “That’s a trick right there,” said Ernest Brunner proudly. Last year, her parents wrote the cards. Now Korea does that on her own.

Korea also keeps the papers from each subject sorted in color-coded binders. And this year, her parents purchased duplicate copies of all her textbooks, so they can always find the one that’s needed. Ernest Brunner suggests Ebay and other bargain sites for used textbooks.

Of course, what works for one child may not work for all. But when it comes to dyslexia, there are some basic suggestions.

“I tell parents the best thing you can do with your kids is read to them,” said Tom Viall, director of the International Dyslexia Association. If the children are young, play word games, rhyming games, games where you finish one another’s sentences. If they are older, read together, he said.

Dr. Denise Gibbs, the director of the Scottish Rite Foundation of Alabama, trains teachers to instruct dyslexic children. She said a key to working with dyslexic children is that parents don’t make too many demands.

For example, with preschool children, this may mean holding up an item and saying its name, instead of always asking “What’s this?” The non-threatening philosophy can apply to older kids who are struggling.

So far, a few simple tips have helped the Brunners. Homework doesn’t seem to take quite as long. It used to run after dinner for two to three hours each night and demand more supervision. Korea works on her own most of the time now.

She said she likes the quiet of her room, but still calls on dad when needed. “He helps me figure out the questions,” said Korea.

That’s an important point for parents of children with dyslexia, said Ramsey.

If the assignment is to practice reading, the child should work alone. But if the assignment is to study something new, to learn about the Revolutionary War or how levers work, then a parent may help.

That can mean reading aloud for the child or reading together or simply being there, like Korea’s parents, to help navigate the meaning of certain questions or passages.

Adrienne Walls-Brunner said there was a time years ago when she became discouraged about Korea’s school work. “Now I know she can do everything. We just have to help her learn the way she learns,” she said.

Alabama schools won’t accept that the D-word exists

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Dr. James Irby, special education attorney, offers these tips to parents who suspect a child has dyslexia:

“Communicate with the special education coordinator of their system so the school system cannot say they did not know there was a problem.” The school has a duty to educate all children no matter what, he said.

Give the school copies of the dyslexia diagnosis from the Scottish Rite Foundation or other outside group. This shows that school officials had reason to suspect a disability.

If diagnostic testing was done by a private company, the parent can try to recoup the expense, said Irby. “Under certain circumstances the school system can be made to reimburse the parents.”

If you suspect a problem, but don’t have a diagnosis, write a simple two-line note. Tell the principal of the school that you want your child tested for special education and that your child cannot read. “That constitutes a parental referral. From that date the school system has 60 days to have that referral completed.” A parent referral bypasses long waiting periods with teacher referrals.

Parents can best advocate for children by forming a support group, sharing information and staying in contact with the special education coordinator and principal.

“Document, document, document.”

Dr. James Irby, Attorney (Athens) Area attorney that provides assistance with getting equal treatment for children in public schools.