Comments on: Young, Gifted… and Stuck (Part 2): or helping children with ongoing spelling problems, assisted by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell and Blondie!

By: Fiona Ford

Fiona Ford — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 16:04:48 +0000

I will certainly look into all you suggest. I have never assessed my own children until last year, when I assessed my daughter using an informal psycholinguistic assessment. She only had difficulty in syllable clapping and…..rhyme! I’ll certainly do what I can to raise awareness, as will my daughter.
Best wishes,
Fiona

By: Michael Jones

Michael Jones — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:46:53 +0000

Hi Tim
I have had an enduring fascination with the Isle of Wight festival. The DVD ‘Message to Love’ shows the festival in all its shambolic glory. It’s a bit expensive on Amazon, but I had it as a video recorded off the telly. There are some great music clips, e.g Free, but the anarchy off stage is the real star of the show! I’ve seen the whole Jimi Hendrix set, and it wasn’t so bad. He doesn’t seem depressed or suicidal, as some people have said.
You get to see the historic event when a guy sneaks onstage and grabs the mike from Joni Mitchell. She was really shocked and started to cry. She thought the audience were heckling her afterwards, so she told them off as if they were a bunch of kids;”you’re be behaving like a bunch of tourists man. Show some respect!”
I have a tape of a Radio 1 programme dedicated to the festival’s 25th anniversary, and there’s an interview with Jim Morrison. He sounds like an academic.
Also there’s an interview with the onstage DJ, who explains that one of the reasons that Hendrix was so delayed getting on stage was that his trousers kept splitting and his billowing sleeves kept getting caught in his guitar. Amazingly the DJ had a sewing kit in amongst his albums and stitched Jimi up before he went on(if you look closely you can see that be did a pretty good job!
Plus Kris Kristofferson walking off, Leonard Cohen drunk and the organiser getting more and more irate with the fans as the weekend progressed: its the stuff of legends.
I went on a cycling pilgrimage of the IOW to find out all the sites mentioned in the excellent book about the festivals. No one o. On the island that I met could direct me to the actual site at East Afton Farm, but I did find the pub next to where Dylan and the Band spent two weeks rehearsing. I met a guy there who told me that most nights a bearded American used to visit the pub and get pretty sloshed. Everyone thought he was Dylan, but it turned out to be either Levon Helm or Robbie Robertson.
I will definitely look up the Paul Morley reference.
My next post is about Jennifer Lopez and Freddie Flintoff..
Best wishes
Michael

By: Michael Jones

Michael Jones — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 14:07:13 +0000

Thanks Fiona
This is quite fascinating information and I think a lot of teachers will benefit from finding our more about your work and Dr Barry’s study. It is recognised that there is a link between early phonological difficulties and later reading and spelling problems. I think that glue ear in early years, anx ongoing glue ear, have significant impacts on reading and spelling. One of the key indicators of later success in reading is the ability of young children to recognise RHYME. Lack of this ability may be an indicator of later spelling problems.
Dr Jeni Riley, of the Institute of Education discussed this with me recently. Annika Hallsvik, of Lexion, is interested in exploring this. Frances Girling, a SLT involved with NAPLIC, has lots to say about this too. If you Google BAPLIC you will find an excellent group of like-minded people who may be able to offer you support.they are an excellent professional network.
Jo Belsten, who co-authored our book, is an independent SLT and may be a useful contact too.
I think that Special Children magazine, who I have written for, might be interested in finding out more about your experience.
Please keep in touch
Michael

By: Fiona Ford

Fiona Ford — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 11:57:23 +0000

Hi Michael – many thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree with you about the problem being different to dyslexia. Unfortunately, I think my son has a bit of both!There is dyslexia in the family, and the combination of the two is not a good mix. I used cued articulation with my children when they were little, which I believe helped to develop their sound systems. Both of them struggled with listening, so we did lots of listening games and Orchard toys used to do a very good jigsaw with a tape, which was great. My daughter has recently tried a Lightwriter, which helped with written work, I believe because she processed back visually what she had written and was able to make some corrections. She says she “speaks” in words in her head when she’s writing (as do I), which may explain why this helps. On the downside, it’s not cool to use one when you’re 13 so we’ve had a few problems with that. The receiver aids she is using are part of a trial but really seem to help (and are so “not cool either!”) She has written a power point for her teachers which explains her difficulties very well which I could forward to you if you would like. It has been used by Audiology at our local Hospital and Dr Barry (see below) for sharing and teaching. I recently left the NHS due to a heavy dose of disillusionment, and am working in mainstream Primary Schools. In one school I am screening around 84 children- Nursery Reception and EAL for speech, expressive language and comprehension. I’m seeing some evidence of this in probably 25% of children, funnily enough! We’re planning on doing lots of sound awareness and listening activities as a pre-cursor to speech work and will combine it with work on written language if age appropriate. I bought your book “Let’s Get Talking” a while ago, which has been a huge help with school support staff – thank you! The study my daughter is taking part in about Auditory Processing Disorder is headed up by Dr Johanna Barry at Nottingham University and I believe the aim is to produce a comprehensive and reliable screening questionnaire. What saddens me is the lack of interest in finding out how to support these children, who have a lot of potential. Fiona

By: Tim Dunkerley

Tim Dunkerley — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 08:55:17 +0000

I was a year ahead of you. Imagine being in Southsea and literally looking over the water to the isle of wight at age 14 where you knew your friends with the liberal parents were watching Hendrix…… Actually I probably would have hated it; I knew someone who slept through his set. It was a shambles and his et is strangely sad unlike the Who (their footage is pretty timeless)
I was at Wembley in 74 too and the Band are still Gods in my eyes, but there you go. Whats the best Fruit? Actually my most vivid memory of that gig was being stuck like sardines in the underpass out of Wembley next to someone who was by turns puking and apologising to the pukees(sic)
I too was too old to be a punk, but it did all made sense to me. I remember telling my sister that the Sex Pistols were the best band since the Beatles.. and if they weren’t then they ought to be (whatever that meant) And having just seen footage of Blondie at the 2013 IOW festival I would have to seriously question the “still rockin” tag.
Try and listen to what Paul Morley says about X factor I’m pretty certain there’s a great language analogy in there for you to dig out and entertain / inform us with.
Big up for exposing the phonics fits all myth.It also makes a whole heap of sense that if somone can’t hear properly then they are likely going to look.Additionally and seriously what about the, probably significant, number of children who’s sight (or more complicatedly) their visual processing is impaired as well as the glue ear.

Keep on Rockin in the (not so) free world Michael

Tim

By: Michael Jones

Michael Jones — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 21:11:41 +0000

Hello Fiona
I’m sorry to hear that your children have suffered in this way. There is a real need for detailed research into the links between glue ear, phonological awareness and later reading and spelling difficulties. My feeling is that there is a difference between the difficulties faced by those with dyslexia and children with a history of glue ear. I have seen a difference in progress once they have appropriate intervention, in the sense that those with glue ear can make very fast progress, while those with dyslexia take longer.
This is only a feeling on my part, and it surprises me that this area has not been explored on more depth, bearing in mind that as many as 25% of children in the UK will experience intermittent middle ear problems and hearing loss before give years of age.

I was on touch with a SLT with a teenage daughter with similar issues to yours. I think it is a fairly widespread problem. What can we do about it?
Michael

By: Fiona Ford

Fiona Ford — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 19:07:01 +0000

I am a Speech and Language Therapist and mother of six children, four of whom have suffered with glue ear. It’s such a relief to see someone else ssying what I’ve been saying for years now! My “glue ear sufferers” have all struggled with spelling, one in particular memorised her spellings by what they looked like on the page and could only reproduce them in the order they were learnt. She is now 13 and has a diagnosis of Auditory Processing Disorder, but also has “dyslexic” type difficulties – in my opinion (I have had the “paranoid professional parent label thrown at me several times). She works far too hard, uses visual clues and is a whizz at using a laptop, word banks etc for homework, producing work of a high standard. Unsupported, her work is very different and I am currently engaged in a running battle with her school to recognise this. She has written an article which is due to be published in Bulletin (RCSLT in August about her difficulties to raise awareness. My 18 year old son was diagnosed privately last summer at 17 with dyslexia, having gone from gifted and talented in early secondary school to C and E grades at AS level – school again would not recognise a problem, but attributed it to lack of effort on his part. Both have suffered greatly with self esteem. The other two (aged 15 and 6) have difficulty with phonics and listening, but to a lesser degree. Significantly, the first two I describe with the more severe difficulties had surgery to repair their eardrums at 10 – 11 years and suffered with perforations much more when younger. The impact of hearing on attention and listening skills, and subsequent speech and language development is vastly under-estimated.

By: Michael Jones

Michael Jones — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 16:33:50 +0000

Is that you Dave?

By: Cheech Marin

Cheech Marin — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 15:02:16 +0000

More nostalgia trips to the Canyons, please…!

Nah, seriously man, this was a heavy, far-out article. Just keep on doin’ your trip like only YOU CAN DO IT – know what I mean, man?