Data Point #1 - The Respondents Children Were Smarter Than Average :-/
91% of respondents said their child was very intelligent!
Okay, we'll be the first to admit that we likely did not somehow attract only parents of the hyper-intelligent. I mean, it's possible, but I'm putting my money on it. We might have a wee little bit of Lake Wobegon Effect going on here. So this is not actually a data point at all. It just gives us a little better idea who the respondents are.
We can reason a couple of things
- The children were not mentally retarded in any way. So more likely specific learning disabilities rather than any intelligence handicap
- The parents are looking for the positive in their children. A very good sign and one of the first steps in resolving the problem. That's fantastic!
Question Asked: Does your child seems very intelligent but has difficulty with reading, writing, spelling, or math?
A Higher Percentage Of Visual Problems Than Auditory Problems
Data Point #2 - An Extremely High Percentage Of Visual-Kinesthetic System Issues - Some Easily Corrected
This we found extremely interesting and it may point to an easy solution at least for some.
This first question was about questions that relate to visual tracking and visual efficacy. Visual tracking is mostly about the eye muscles. Without good visual tracking, all sorts of problems will arise in reading and other academics. Because the eye's need to be stable for the brain to process what it is receiving it can cause terrible attention difficulties. Because there is so much cognitive load then other types of cognitive processing become overload. This results in a lack of comprehension and fatigue. Basically, the student is doing everything they can just to "see" the words on the page.
Yet despite all this correcting visual tracking is generally very easy to do. Of all of the micro-skills of learning it is the fastest and the easiest to correct. For some, it is all that is necessary to completely correct academic problems. That's not the norm but it does happen.
What is alarming here is that most of the time when a student is struggling with reading they are either assigned more reading practice which may be a recipe for disaster. Or they are started on an auditory remediation program or phonics. Largely due to the misinformation floating around that all dyslexia is auditory based.
True, auditory processing issues can be and are very often a part of the problem or the whole problem. That can be seen in some of the data further down this page. The problem is that by not considering that visual processing and especially the evidently highly prevalent visual tracking problem parents may be missing a big early win. And early wins are critical to solving this problem. They produce the confidence needed for both the parent and the child to keep moving forward.
Notice in the survey results below that a whopping 72.8% said their child loses their place or skips lines and 57% said their child uses their finger to track lines. Both are strong signs of visual tracking problems. Additionally, 19.3 said letters or words jumped. Visual tracking can be the cause or contribute to this symptom as well.
And strikingly only 14.5% had none of these symptoms.
With that data, I would think strengthening visual tracking and visual efficacy would be the first line of attack for all remediation programs. We certainly put a lot of visual tracking and visual efficacy early on in the Learning Success System and sometimes parents get lucky and that's all they need. Love it when it's that easy.
Additionally strengthening peripheral vision can go a long way in remediating this problem.
There is a very large amount of "information" on the web stating that "dyslexia" is always an auditory or language processing problem. There are some problems with those statements. Especially because everyone seems to have a different definition of what dyslexia is. Obviously, brain differences and auditory processing problems can be the problem, but not always. This misinformation may prevent parents from looking into visual-kinesthetic remediations which are very simple and inexpensive and in some cases can often quickly eliminate the problem.
Question Asked: Does your child have any of these problems while reading? Check all that apply
Notice also that in the next question, which is related to other visual processing skills that only 12.9% of respondents said that they had none of these problems. So presumably 87% did have problems in this area. These problems are more related to other visual processing skills such as visual closure, visual discrimination, and visual memory but can also relate to visual tracking. Some of these are related to what is referred to as attentional dyslexia
Question Asked: Does your child experience any of these reading problems? Check all that apply.
And the following question could relate to visual processing as well. But more than anything just says that there is a problem somewhere and that problem is causing too much cognitive load.
Question Asked: Does your child have any of these reading comprehension problems?
As does this question. 46% of respondents said their child had actual physical symptoms related to visual processing
Question Asked: Physical Symptoms
With 31.6% saying there was light sensitivity. This may be a clue that Irlen syndrome is a part of the problem for these respondents.
Question Asked: Is your child light sensitive? Especially under fluorescent lights
"Self-Esteem And Anxiety A Massive Problem"
Data Point #3 - This Is The Scary Part
The really scary part here is the high percentage of respondents who said their children exhibited traits related to extremely high anxiety. Strangely slightly more parents marked these traits than marked traits of low self-esteem or low self-confidence. This is exactly the reverse of what we would expect. Low self-confidence would begin to develop before anxiety over academic activities. Since confidence and self-esteem diminish before anxiety responses we would expect a lot of responses of low self-esteem and fewer responses indicating anxiety. That's not what we got. Just over half said their child was experiencing poor self-esteem yet the majority marked responses that would indicate their children were experiencing a high anxiety state.
This may suggest that some parents are not attributing the acting out to the root cause of diminished confidence. .Confidence so low it is morphing into fear.
Here are the self-esteem related questions.
Question Asked: Does your child have any of these emotional self-esteem problems?
And here are questions that would relate to fear and anxiety. A very low number of respondents, less than 15%, marked responses that would indicate their child was not experiencing anxiety. So presumably 85% of these children are experiencing extreme fear and anxiety. The numbers may be higher since the respondent may have marked symptoms on one question but not another.
This is a huge problem. These children will find it nearly impossible to learn anything in this mental state. They are in an amygdala hijack. The learning parts of their brain are completely shut off due to being in a fight or flight response. Continuing to practice academics is going to further exacerbate their fear and make it harder and harder to solve the problem once an effective solution has been started
Question Asked: Does your child do any of the following?
Question Asked: Does your child have any of these attentional problems?
Question Asked: Does your child have any of these physical symptoms?
Question Asked: Does your child exhibit any of these traits?
Question Asked: Is your child extremely orderly or extremely disorderly?
When trying to solve a problem understanding and acknowledging what the true problem is obviously critical. Yet often this simple truth gets overlooked. As this data shows, anxiety may be the biggest problem when trying to help a child overcome a reading struggle.
We've known for a very long time that anxiety was a big issue. That it blocked almost all learning. And we've seen many children overcome their learning challenges simply by building up confidence.
These days there is a lot of knowledge around how to build up confidence. There is an abundant amount of conclusive evidence on effective methods coming from neuroscience. There are countless professionals (including so many teachers) who understand how to develop confidence in children. And not to mention the ancient Kung Fu traditions that Liz and I learned our skills from and have used to very effectively build confidence in thousands of individuals.
Simply stated, this is a solvable problem.
Does it mean that building confidence will cure the underlying learning disability? Probably not! But remediating the difficulty without first building confidence is nearly impossible. It must be a core component of any program.
And there are at least some kids labeled as learning disabled who are not at all disabled but instead have a confidence problem. How do I know? Because I was one of them. In my first years in school, I was placed in remedial classes. Yet I had no learning disability. I was simply suffering from extreme social anxiety. Shyness. In first grade, I was labeled as learning disabled. In second grade I was being moved up a grade. First-hand experience and I still remember every moment of both sides of that situation. Confidence is critical.
No matter what, confidence is, by definition, critical to getting through any difficult endeavor. Learning to read is included in that. From the data, it appears that that fact is being sorely ignored.
The Data Is Showing Most Struggling Readers Are Experiencing Extreme Anxiety
I would have expected a majority of parents to say their child had diminished self-esteem. That is par for the course. But to see that the majority of children had gone far past losing confidence and into the realm of high anxiety. That was shocking. If a child is suffering from high anxiety no amount of academic practice is going to help them overcome their learning challenges. The anxiety must be handled first. The child must slowly build up confidence until they are ready to tackle greater challenges.
Yet that isn't always what happens. Very often unnecessary and even damaging strategies are used. All with the only end result being a more frustrated parent and a child with extremely high anxiety. sometimes more and more reading practice gets piled on. Just exacerbating the problem and sending the child into a highly anxious state. A state that makes learning nearly impossible.
On the other hand, solving the anxiety problem first makes everything easier on everyone and reduces the potential for damaging a child's self-esteem.
From the data, it appears that many children's anxiety is being overlooked as a primary component of their learning problem. And this is alarming!
This is a solvable problem which should be solved!
Labels
And what is also alarming is how much of this is being interpreted as behavior problems, laziness, or lack of intelligence. When most of this is likely caused by self-protective mechanisms.
Question Asked: Has your child ever been given any of these labels by someone?
And sometimes labels, proprioception problems, or low self-esteem can cause fear in other areas
Question Asked: Does your child have a fear of sports or other coordination activities?