Identifying dyslexia in children and getting help

Visual-dyslexia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Studies suggest that identifying dyslexia early and getting help is important as 95% of children can benefit from intervention programmes. The British Dyslexia Association (www.bdadyslexia.org.uk) recommends that if you think your child had dyslexia then it is better to get them assessed as soon as possible by an Educational Psychologist or a Specialist Dyslexia Teacher qualified to carry out the assessments. Some schools may be resistant to getting a diagnosis as it costs money. However, as a diagnosis will allow your child to get the support needed, it is probably best to go ahead with the assessments. Allowing the problem to continue may harm your child’s self-esteem as they continue having problems with reading and writing. Also research suggests that children who are poor readers at 6 years old find it difficult to catch up with other children (Torgesen & Burgess, 1998). So what are the signs of dyslexia and what can a parent do?

If there is a history of dyslexia in your family then there is an increased risk that your child will develop it. Early signs of dyslexia are: problems speaking clearly, no interest in letters or words, difficulty with motor tasks such as getting dressed, catching a ball or fastening buttons and confusing directional words such as left/right and up/down.

 

The most effective intervention programmes in schools seems to focus on phonological awareness. Children with poor phonological awareness may not understand that if you change the letter ‘c’ in the word ‘cat’ to ‘h’, the word would become ‘hat’.

 

Parents can teach letter sounds at home. For example, they can teach that the letter ‘c’ is pronounced as it sounds at the beginning of the word ‘cat’ rather than ‘see’ and that ‘k’ and ‘ck’ have the same sound. There is an excellent DVD made by the BBC, where all the different synthetic phonics sounds are presented. I bought the DVD on Amazon very cheaply for my son and it came with a workbook and poster of the different sounds.

You can also practice phoneme deletion with your children using word and picture cards. For example, you might have two cards with the word ‘mice’ on one and ‘ice’ on the other. You could then ask your child ‘if you take away ‘m’ from the word mice, what is left then?’ The cards could have pictures on to enhance the learning. Another technique is phoneme identification. You might say a single speech sound such as ‘t’ and show six pictured words. Your child then has to pick the picture that begins with ‘t’. Phoneme discrimination helps your child to really listen to speech sounds. This is where you present two pictures of similar sounding words to your child such as ‘cat’ and ‘hat’. You then say such just one of the words and your child has to pick the correct picture.

 

Parents can also play word games such as ‘I spy’ to focus on the letter sounds at the beginning of words or rhyming games such as how many words rhyme with ‘fox’. Getting children to clap out the syllables in a word also helps children to recognise how words are made up of different sounds so for example you could clap the three syllables in ted-dy-bear.

One study used a 14 week home- and computer-based training in phonemic awareness and letter-sound relationships with children who were genetically at risk of dyslexia.  Initially, the trained at-risk children kept up with untrained not-at-risk controls in reading ability. However, once the children started school, the trained at-risk children had delayed reading relative to the not-at-risk control children. This study shows the importance of support at school as well as at home and how the advantages of early intervention can be undone unless on-going help is provided. Therefore, it is important that parents push for support at school whilst continuing their efforts at home.

The good news is that schools are becoming more aware about how to support children with dyslexia and so if your child is identified as having dyslexia, they should get the help necessary.

 

Can music lessons improve your child’s intelligence?

Music lesson in Glanerbrug (Home) (Photo credit: Johan Koolwaaij)

I have an amazing tutor group, who are intelligent, work hard in their lessons and contribute a great deal to the school. Many of these children are musical and the music teacher suggested jokingly that music was the reason for their achievements. At the time, I scoffed at the suggestion and argued that being involved in any extra-curricular activity at school probably benefits children. However, since making these comments I decided to do a bit of research to see whether there really is a link between music lessons and intelligence. So what does the evidence show?

Schellenberg (2006) found a correlation between IQ, academic ability and how long 6- to 11-year-olds had been having music lessons, even when family income, parents’ education and involvement in non-musical activities were taken into account.

Schlaug and colleagues (2005) found that giving children music lessons can lead to improve visual-spatial, verbal, and mathematical abilities.

A study by Wong and colleagues (2007) suggests that musical training can help children to recognise different sounds and so help with reading and learning a second language.

Forgeard and colleagues (2008) compared children who had at least three years of instrumental music training with a control group and found that the musically trained children performed better on verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests.

You may argue that children who have music lessons may come from better off families with greater aspirations. You may also argue that children who have the motivation to learn a musical instrument may also have better attention spans and be more cooperative and so do better on tests. This is a problem with many of the studies looking at the effects of music lessons on intelligence. It is difficult to establish how music lessons actually help children.

Interestingly, research shows that music training improves academic achievement even when IQ remains constant. Learning a musical instrument may only improve children’s concentration and persistence rather than IQ. However, from my own perspective, I will be encouraging my son to learn a musical instrument as soon as he is old enough. I want him to have the enjoyment of music and the benefits.

What are the signs that your child might have autism?

Children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty expressing their emotions or understanding other people’s emotions. They find it hard to make friends and to communicate with others and they have problems reading people’s facial expressions. They are also less likely to engage in imaginative play, for example, they would find it hard to pretend that a wooden block is a train or a rocket. They can also be quite sensitive to stimuli in their environment such as loud noises.

There can be speech and language difficulties in children with ASD but not always. Examples of speech and language difficulties are: not speaking by 16 months, repeating words and phrases over and over again, repeating questions rather than answering them, not being able to communicate their desires and not understanding humour.

Children with ASD can be quite inflexible, for example, they do not cope well with changes in routine. Other signs of ASD are: attachments to strange objects such as wires or keys, lining up toys or spending long periods of time staring at moving objects such as a wheel spinning on a car. Some children with ASD can also show an amazing memory for facts such as train schedules.

ASD may lead a child to feel anxious. Many autistic people have certain routines that help them deal with their anxieties e.g. wearing the same clothes, eating the same foods and repeating the same movements (hand flapping, finger flicking).

So what are the signs of ASD in babies? One of the major signs of ASD in babies is lack of eye contact. Babies with ASD often do not babble or mimic facial expressions. Very young babies cannot smile but if babies are not smiling by six months, it can be a sign of ASD. Another sign of ASD is when older babies do not use gestures to communicate such as pointing or waving goodbye.

Some babies will develop normally but then regress between 12 and 24 months. A toddler who stops using words or stops playing social games such as peek-a-boo could have ASD. If your child regresses, it is a good idea to speak to your doctor or health visitor as this is an indicator of ASD.

Simon Baron-Cohen suggests that children with ASD have problems understanding that other people have different thoughts to them. He developed the Sally-Anne task to test for ASD. It is possible to use an adaptation of this task at home with children over 4 years old, although a diagnosis should always be done by professionals. You can put two puppets together and say that both puppets are watching whilst a toy is placed in a basket or container. You then tell your child that one of the puppets is going out of the room. The next step is to explain to your child that the second puppet is going to hide the toy in a different place. You bring the first puppet back into the room and ask your child, where the first puppet thinks the toy is. Children over 4 years older who do not have autism should be able to understand that the first puppet thinks the toy is still in the original place. However, children with ASD tend to think that the first puppet will know the new hiding place for the toy. This is because children with ASD have difficulty understanding that others do not always know what they do. They have trouble comprehending that other people can have different thoughts and feelings to them.

So what can parents do if they think their child has ASD? First of all, you need to get a diagnosis of ASD. The Peach Charity recommends early diagnosis and intervention to improve communication skills. Parents may be told not to worry by GPs and health visitors but if you suspect your child has ASD, it is a good idea to push for diagnosis. Your child may then be assessed by a range of professionals including a paediatrician, a child psychiatrist, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a psychologist and an educational expert such as a specialist teacher or educational psychologist.

One intervention programme that has been found to be effective is ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis). ABA involves teaching children with ASD the skills to communication effectively and interact with others. The programme also involves rewarding children for appropriate behaviours such as waiting for their turn in a game.

So what does the research say about parental involvement? McConachie and Diggle (2007) argue that parents should be given training in how to help their children with ASD. They say that parents can benefit from the increased skills especially as children with ASD can be difficult to manage. They also point to research that says that training parents in groups can help them to form a support network with other parents (Baxendale, Frankham, & Hesketh, 2001; Symon, 2001). They reviewed a number of studies and concluded that training parents in how to use ABA at home helped children’s communication skills and behaviour. They also point to studies that suggest that parental training can reduce parental stress levels and even lower the incidence of mothers developing depression. Some parents report that being trained in how to deal with ASD also helped them with their other children (Laski et al. 1988).

Does it really matter how much television you let your kids watch?

A child watching TV. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to psychological research it does matter how much TV your children watch. One study found that the number of hours of TV watched between 1 and 3 years old was linked with attentional problems at aged 7. Psychologists suggest that this is because real life does not move as quickly as the animated cartoons on television and that if young children are allowed to watch these animations, they find real life slower and more boring. TV watching is not only linked with attentional problems but also increased aggression. This is not surprising when so many cartoons contain violence, just think of all those superheroes using violence to get rid of the bad guys. Children are very impressionable and are easily influenced by the characters they see on TV. However, this is the kind of research that I wish I could ignore as it makes life much more difficult for me. I would much rather put on the TV than spend time pushing trains round a train track with my 3-year-old. Unfortunately, this is where knowing too much psychology is a bad thing as I can’t help but feel guilty about allowing my son to watch too much TV. I promised myself I wouldn’t buy a DVD player for the car before my son was born but it was the only way to get me through long journeys with him and still have my sanity. I bought the DVD player when he was 9 months old after two journeys with him screaming on the motorway to get out of his car seat. However, I have tried to reduce TV watching time a home. This is not easy especially when I am trying to get dressed in the morning or cook dinner at night. With no TV to babysit my son, I have had to get quite inventive when cooking. I have ended up getting my son to measure out the spices or herbs into a bowl, which takes twice as long and makes a huge mess. I have also given my son play dough so that he can pretend he is cutting vegetables when I am doing it. I accept I might be slightly overdoing it and making life hard for myself but that is the cost of being a mum who knows too much psychology.

 

How do you deal with a child who is upset?

Managing emotions - Identifying feelings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My son fell down in the park the other day and started crying and I went straight to him, picked him up and cuddled him until he stopped crying. But am I mollycoddling my son too much and turning him into a wimp? I know that other mothers might see it this way and want their children to ‘toughen’ up.

As usual, when I have questions about my parenting style, I turn to psychological research for the answers. ‘Tuning into kids’ is a new parenting programme being run in Australia and it suggests that we should not dismiss or play down our children’s feelings. Parents are taught to accept and explore their children’s emotions rather than dismiss them. For example, when parents dismiss their children’s emotions they say to themselves that they want to change their child’s worried moods into cheerful ones. However, according to research, it is better for parents to try to understand why their children are worried and to find out what their children are thinking. According to Gottman and colleagues (1997), parents should be aware of their children’s emotions and help their children to understand and label their emotions. It may be hard for parents to accept their children’s strong emotions such as anger and jealousy but it is important to try to empathise with them. If parents can learn to deal with their children’s strong emotions, children feel validated. Parents can also use it as a time for getting closer to their children and to teach their children how to solve problems. Gottman and colleagues found that when parents coach their children in emotions, the children have fewer behaviour problems and better social skills.

Havighurst et al. (2010) compared 4 and 5-year-old children, whose parents had been taught emotion coaching (the ‘Tuning into kids’ parenting programme) with children whose parents had not been taught how to tune into their children’s emotions. The children whose parents had been taught emotions coaching had a much better understanding of different types of emotions and they also had fewer parent- and teacher-reported behaviour problems six months later.

This research suggests that I should continue to comfort my son when he is upset and not worry about making him independent. I do find it hard sometimes to deal with my son when he is angry but I have to remind myself to accept his strong feelings. Having read this research, when my son said he didn’t want to go to his new preschool a couple of weeks ago, I said to him that I understood that he was worried. I also resisted the temptation to say that he would be fine and instead told him that I had felt worried on my first day at school too. Acknowledging his worries seemed to make him much more willing to go into the new preschool and as I said in a previous post, he told me afterwards that he had enjoyed himself.

Using marbles to reward good behaviour

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Recently, I had been taking away toys for my 3-year old son’s bad behaviour but then returning them for good behaviour. My friend, a child psychologist questioned this method. She suggested that I separate negative consequences from rewards as giving toys back for good behaviour might undo the lessons I was trying to teach him when I removed the toys in the first place. Her recommendation was that I continue to remove toys for bad behaviours, perhaps returning them after a day/week but that I should reward good behaviour in a different way. One idea that she suggested that seemed easy to implement was putting a marble in a jar for good behaviour and then when the marbles reach the top of the jar, giving a reward. I have told my son he can choose a reward such as going to Thomasland when the marbles reach the top of the jar and he seems really enthusiastic about the whole idea. One thing I really wanted to change was how quickly my son gets ready in the mornings so I have told him that he needs to brush his teeth without a fuss and get his own pants and trousers on and he will get a marble. We have been rewarding my son with marbles for almost a month now, and my son consistently gets his own pants and trousers on, brushes his teeth, washes his hands after the toilet and gets ready for bed quickly, all things I was struggling with before. I do have to remind him that he needs to do these things to receive a marble but ultimately, the marbles seem to be working. What surprises me is that he is still persevering at getting the marbles even though he is only halfway to receiving  his reward.

Should aggressive make believe play be discouraged?

How to discipline your child with 1,2,3 Magic

Reading (Photo credit: surlygirl)

A couple of weeks ago, I called my friend to wish her ‘Happy birthday’. She also happens to be a clinical psychologist, who works with children. The conversation got onto to my 3-year-old son and I told her I was having problems managing his behaviour. She suggested I try using a method called ‘1,2,3 Magic’. This is a method where you give your child three warnings for bad behaviour and if they continue, you give them a consequence such a timeout or taking away a toy. So how does it work exactly? Well the first time your child does something you don’t want them to do, you say ‘That’s 1’, the second time you say ‘That’s 2’ giving them time to stop their bad behaviour but if they continue you say ‘That’s 3’ and follow it with a consequence. By having a three-step system, it allows the child time to try to change their behaviour. I will point out that this was not the first time my friend had explained the method ‘1,2,3 Magic’ to me, but unfortunately the first time I didn’t fully pay attention. So prior to my conversation with her today, I have been going through the three steps but with far more words. For example, I would say ‘Stop throwing your food on the floor’ to my son, then if he continued, I would say ‘If you don’t stop throwing your food, you will go into timeout’ and then if he still didn’t stop throwing his food I would say ‘Now you are going into 3 minutes of timeout for throwing your food’. My friend explained that this method was far too wordy and that when you just say ‘That’s 1, 2 or 3’, your authority carries more weight. It also gives the child less room for argument. I have been using this method over the last couple of weeks and I have really noticed a difference in my son’s behaviour. Sometimes but not always he will stop what he is doing on the first or second warning. I hope the 1,2,3 Magic method will keep working its magic in my house.

Are only children spoilt?

Child 1 (Photo credit: Tony Trần)

An increasing number of families have only one child often out of choice. However, there are social pressures to have more children as the commonly held belief is that only children are lonely, spoilt and lacking in social skills. China’s one child policy has led to a generation of only children who have been dubbed ‘little emperors‘. On the other hand, research such as Falbo and Polit (1986) and Falbo and Poston (1993) have pointed to the beneficial effects of being an only child in terms of increased achievement and higher self-esteem. The research has also highlighted the negligible differences in personality between only children, first-borns and those from two-child families. Mellor (1990) found that only children scored significantly higher than children from larger families for trusting others, being independent, taking initiative, being responsible and productive and having a good self-image and high self-esteem. Oliva and Arranz (2005) found that only children did not differ from other children with regards to family relationships, peer relationships and psychological adjustment. However, there is some negative evidence about being an only child: Jiao et al. (1986) found that children with siblings were more persistent, cooperative and popular than only children. Internet accounts of being an only child suggest that it can be quite a negative experience but then such accounts can be biased as only certain types of people are likely to write their accounts on the internet or to look for support from internet forums. A recent survey ‘Understanding society’ (2009) found that the greater the number of younger siblings in the household, the less satisfaction with family life. It also found that sibling bullying is found in half of UK households. Being an only child comes with a number of benefits, such as better achievement, higher self-esteem and closer relationships with parents. The perception that only children are spoilt is simplistic. It does not take into account that being spoilt with attention is actually a good thing for young children in terms of their self-esteem. I have two friends who are only children and they are generous, kind and very unspoilt! They say that their parents gave them lots of attention but that they weren’t spoilt materially. So maybe parents of only children just need to make sure they don’t spoil their children with material items.

Why is a play-based approach in schools a good idea?

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There are sound educational reasons as to why a play-based approach is a good idea in the early years of school. Young children may switch off from learning if all activities are teacher-led and they have to sit and listen for long periods of time. Play also develops children’s thinking skills. Children learn to think through problems, rather than learning facts. Knowing facts is not that useful in new situations. On the other hand, teaching children to be able to think creatively about a problem, without worrying whether they are right or wrong is a valuable skill. Many schools now teach thinking skills in their lessons but young children learn this through play. Fisher (1992) analysed the results of a number of studies into children’s play and concluded that children who are engaged in more pretend play perform better on tests of cognitive, language and creativity development.

Many schools in America are now implementing a ‘Tools of the Mind’ curriculum, which places great emphasis on play. The curriculum promotes make-believe play and suggests that children should develop play plans. Children and teachers sit down together in advance of play and talk about what they want to role play. For example, the children might plan that they are going to go to the moon and what they will need to get there. The children decide in advance what roles they are going to play, with rules about how to act (the astronauts have to carry out certain tasks such as collecting samples from the moon).  The theory is that the play plans help children to think ahead and also to avoid conflict during the role play. Children are also encouraged to use symbolic props rather than real ones to develop their imagination, so for example, the children might use Lego or wooden blocks to represent the trains. Teachers encourage the children to say what they are doing during the play to develop language skills. Bodrova and Leong (2001) argue that play helps children to learn self-regulation so that they are better able to control their emotions and aggression. The ‘Tools of the Mind’ curriculum also encourages children to write on their play plans to help them develop their writing skills. Diamond (2007) found that children in ‘Tools’ classrooms had better self-regulation and achieved more on standardised tests than matched children in a traditional classroom.

Research also suggests that children need to have time for free play without constantly being involved in activities. Children can become anxious if they have too little time for free play. Barnett (1984) assessed children on their level of anxiety on their first day at nursery school. It was found that the children who were able to play freely had lower levels of anxiety than those who had to listen to stories. This supports the idea that play allows children to work through their conflicts and anxiety. Warren et al. (2000) found that the themes expressed in the play of 35 children aged 5 corresponded with the children’s anxiety at school and at home. Play was a way for the children to work through their worries. Another case, reported by Axline (1947) demonstrates the importance of play. At the age of 5 years old, a boy called Dibs was referred to Axline, a clinical psychologist specialising in play therapy for very disturbed behaviour. Dibs’ parents thought he might be brain damaged. Axline watched Dibs’ play carefully to look for emotional reasons for his disturbed behaviour. Dibs often played with dolls that represented his family and in one instance, he buried a doll representing his father in the sand. This was interpreted as hostility towards his father. Axline was able to uncover Dibs’ conflicts and problems through the therapy. Dibs’ relationship with his parents improved as did his behaviour at school. Dibs’ IQ was tested after the therapy and he scored in the top 1% of the population. By then he had no emotional difficulties.

I do think it is important to teach children to read, write and count at school at an early age, if they are willing. Research suggests that disadvantaged children can particularly benefit from learning literacy and numeracy at preschool. However, it must not be forgotten that children can learn through play. Perhaps the middle ground is for schools to adopt a ‘Tools of the Mind’ approach, which promotes more thoughtful, planned make-believe play alongside literacy, when children are young.