Oct 22, 2018, Irish Examiner: Reading Academy Online to help people with dyslexia https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/reading-academy-online-to-help-people-with-dyslexia-877247.html One in 10 people is affected by dyslexia, but despite the prevalence of the learning difficulty, which makes it harder for some people to learn to read, write, and spell, many teachers report that their training is inadequate. Two teachers have now provided a solution: The Reading Academy Online, a course tailored for parents, caregivers, and teachers of struggling readers. As teachers at St Oliver Plunkett National School in Co Dublin, one of four special reading schools nationally, Sarah Dieck Mc Guire and Sarah Lumsden Watchorn recognised the unmet demand for specialist teaching services for children with reading difficulties and dyslexia…. While the Department of Education provides a number of specialist units within national schools and four designated schools for children with dyslexia, many students with reading difficulties are still struggling in mainstream classrooms. … However, the founders realised that because of the scale of the demand and shortage of specially-trained teachers, another solution was needed. So they devised an online course based on the programme used in the centres. The course material is highly-structured and is suitable for parents, grandparents, caregivers, or resource teachers, regardless of experience, to teach a struggling reader. The instructor doesn’t need to take a course, but they learn as they teach. The course is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach. … [Yale U. report Dyslexia affects one in five people. http://dyslexia.yale.edu/advocacy/ycdc-initiatives/multicultural-outreach/ ]
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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