Stuart Brown's Play got into the science and evolution of play, if somewhat breezily (and playfully). This article does so in a more substantial manner, and it's easy to read, and has a cute animal video, besides.
Monday, October 25, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: PLAY
"Recess: Fish, reptiles and some invertebrates appear to play. But when is it play, and not something else? And why do animals do it?" TheScientist 10-1-10
Sunday, October 24, 2010
LARS'S LIBRARY: DAVID ALMOND'S INSPIRING SPEECH
Here's a little talk by David Almond (Skellig) that gave me hope for children's books and children's reading and writing. Very inspiring, so keep going past the thank yous (for the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award). Thanks to Elizabeth Bird's blog for the link.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
RECENT NEWS: MODEL READING FOR CHILDREN, AND FOR YOURSELF
Common sense tells you that it’s going to be easier to sell reading to children if they have parents who are avid readers. Research does, too.
Rick Riordan, whose novels have motivated large numbers of kids to pick up books, recently wrote a short essay on the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy, where he opined that “all children can become lifelong readers.” He listed four essential ways to make that happen. Number one? “Model reading at home.”
That means not only reading books to your children, but reading books to yourself. “If the parents are too busy to read,” wrote Riordan, “it’s a safe bet the children will feel the same way.”
Sounds so true, but what Riordan is asking parents to do is something that can be difficult for adults today. And it’s not only because we are busy.
Think of the places where people used to read a magazine, or pull a paperback out of a purse or a backpack. In doctor’s offices and on public transportation, in laundromats and coffee shops, more and more of the people who are reading are doing so on handheld devices and laptops.
Looking at a screen is an activity we don’t need to model. Onscreen entertainment is intrinsically exciting. We don’t have to persuade children to like candy, either.
Of course, kids could be reading online, just as adults do. But that’s hard to monitor, and there is a good argument being made, in books like Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, that the kind of reading we do on computers is a radically new kind of reading, and it is changing our very malleable gray matter. Think of the effect on younger brains, so much more plastic.
Maryanne Wolf, an expert on dyslexia and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, co-wrote an article in Educational Leadership a year ago, in which she and Mirit Barzallai express their concern over the possibility that digital learning is having a negative effect on children’s literacy.
They are afraid that students are not acquiring the tools necessary for "slower, more time-consuming cognitive processes" so critical to "deep reading.” Those tools “propel comprehension” and “include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection, and insight.”
“The expert reader needs milliseconds to execute these processes," note Wolf and Barzallai. “The young brain needs years to develop them.”
Wolf and Barzallai argue that the very skills that we need online, such as evaluating the credibility of sources, are ones that are hard to learn online. It’s a medium that is inherently distractible.
Books, however, require the kind of focus that nurtures deep reading. The page is simply the page, demanding complete attention. With nothing for readers “outside the text,” they are forced to “grapple with the text and apply their earlier knowledge as they question, analyze, and probe.”
If there is a great value in insisting that kids devote time to reading old-fashioned text, there are also benefits for their elders. David Ulin, former book editor of The Los Angeles Times, has just written The Lost Art of Reading, about his own battles to counteract the distractions of screen time. In an identically titled earlier piece in The Times, Ulin admitted his own susceptibility “to the tumult of the culture, the sound and fury signifying nothing.”
“These days,” Ulin wrote, “after spending hours reading e-mails and fielding phone calls in the office, tracking stories across countless websites, I find it difficult to quiet down. I pick up a book and read a paragraph; then my mind wanders and I check my e-mail, drift onto the Internet, pace the house before returning to the page.”
I think he’s touched on something to which most of us can relate. And I think most of us also identify with the accompanying sense of uncomfortable jitteriness Ulin feels: “the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it's mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age.”
By making the effort to read books, Ulin believes, we can find respite from that anxiety. Such reading, “by drawing us back from the present…restores time to us in a fundamental way.” It’s “an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage.”
So, returning to Rick Riordan’s number one way to insure that our children become lifelong readers, let’s look at deep reading, the sort of reading we do with books, as something that is not only good for kids, but good for us, for our community, and for the larger society.
To help children read, help yourself. Think about what you want to read, go to the library or a bookstore, get books, and put them where they are as accessible as your digital devices. And then, although it won’t always be easy, follow Ulin’s advice and “try to make a place for silence.”
Show your kids the rewards you can find in the quiet act of contemplative reading found with a good book.
Rick Riordan, whose novels have motivated large numbers of kids to pick up books, recently wrote a short essay on the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy, where he opined that “all children can become lifelong readers.” He listed four essential ways to make that happen. Number one? “Model reading at home.”
That means not only reading books to your children, but reading books to yourself. “If the parents are too busy to read,” wrote Riordan, “it’s a safe bet the children will feel the same way.”
Sounds so true, but what Riordan is asking parents to do is something that can be difficult for adults today. And it’s not only because we are busy.
Think of the places where people used to read a magazine, or pull a paperback out of a purse or a backpack. In doctor’s offices and on public transportation, in laundromats and coffee shops, more and more of the people who are reading are doing so on handheld devices and laptops.
Looking at a screen is an activity we don’t need to model. Onscreen entertainment is intrinsically exciting. We don’t have to persuade children to like candy, either.
Of course, kids could be reading online, just as adults do. But that’s hard to monitor, and there is a good argument being made, in books like Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, that the kind of reading we do on computers is a radically new kind of reading, and it is changing our very malleable gray matter. Think of the effect on younger brains, so much more plastic.
Maryanne Wolf, an expert on dyslexia and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, co-wrote an article in Educational Leadership a year ago, in which she and Mirit Barzallai express their concern over the possibility that digital learning is having a negative effect on children’s literacy.
They are afraid that students are not acquiring the tools necessary for "slower, more time-consuming cognitive processes" so critical to "deep reading.” Those tools “propel comprehension” and “include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection, and insight.”
“The expert reader needs milliseconds to execute these processes," note Wolf and Barzallai. “The young brain needs years to develop them.”
Wolf and Barzallai argue that the very skills that we need online, such as evaluating the credibility of sources, are ones that are hard to learn online. It’s a medium that is inherently distractible.
Books, however, require the kind of focus that nurtures deep reading. The page is simply the page, demanding complete attention. With nothing for readers “outside the text,” they are forced to “grapple with the text and apply their earlier knowledge as they question, analyze, and probe.”
If there is a great value in insisting that kids devote time to reading old-fashioned text, there are also benefits for their elders. David Ulin, former book editor of The Los Angeles Times, has just written The Lost Art of Reading, about his own battles to counteract the distractions of screen time. In an identically titled earlier piece in The Times, Ulin admitted his own susceptibility “to the tumult of the culture, the sound and fury signifying nothing.”
“These days,” Ulin wrote, “after spending hours reading e-mails and fielding phone calls in the office, tracking stories across countless websites, I find it difficult to quiet down. I pick up a book and read a paragraph; then my mind wanders and I check my e-mail, drift onto the Internet, pace the house before returning to the page.”
I think he’s touched on something to which most of us can relate. And I think most of us also identify with the accompanying sense of uncomfortable jitteriness Ulin feels: “the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it's mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age.”
By making the effort to read books, Ulin believes, we can find respite from that anxiety. Such reading, “by drawing us back from the present…restores time to us in a fundamental way.” It’s “an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage.”
So, returning to Rick Riordan’s number one way to insure that our children become lifelong readers, let’s look at deep reading, the sort of reading we do with books, as something that is not only good for kids, but good for us, for our community, and for the larger society.
To help children read, help yourself. Think about what you want to read, go to the library or a bookstore, get books, and put them where they are as accessible as your digital devices. And then, although it won’t always be easy, follow Ulin’s advice and “try to make a place for silence.”
Show your kids the rewards you can find in the quiet act of contemplative reading found with a good book.
LARS'S LIBRARY: THREE RECOMMENDATIONS
For sixth graders and up:
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
I avidly read the Tillerman cycle (seven books) several years ago, and since then, have constantly recommended them to others. Revisiting Homecoming, the first book, in audio was a real treat. Barbara Caruso, the narrator, does a stellar job. Homecoming was even more powerful and engrossing the second time around.
It's a Boxcar Children with profound depth and character development, a novel with a YA label that is far too limiting. It is a book about and for children, but just as much a book for and about adults. Cynthia Voigt's writing is lyrical and evocative, and her characters are unique and true.
Thirteen-year-old Dicey Tillerman, abandoned by her mother, along with her sister and two brothers, turns her family's bleak circumstances around in a journey as compelling as the Odyssey. At the end of Homecoming, the Tillermans end up on the eastern shore of Maryland, but they will keep traveling through your mind, and will likely persuade you to read more of the Tillerman cycle.
For fifth graders and up:
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane
Forget about the baseball on the cover. Knowing about baseball is not a requirement for enjoying The Girl Who Threw Butterflies.
A supporting character, Celia, could care less about baseball, and Celia is just as cool as cool can be. Mick Cochrane could have written a book about Celia, who is Molly’s best friend.
Molly wants to pitch on her elementary school’s baseball team, the real baseball team (as opposed to the girls’ softball team). Categorizing The Girl Who Threw Butterflies as a girl-power novel, though, would be doing it just as much a disservice as calling it a sports novel.
Sports and gender equality are important to The Girl Who Threw Butterflies, but not as important as the story—a story about families, about eighth grade boys and girls, about adults and children, about death and loss, about friendships, about never really knowing your friends or your enemies, and about finding out who you are. If the book is making a point, it’s to pay attention, to look closely, to work hard on the details.
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies has it all—Cochrane’s skillful writing, unforgettable characters, parts that make you laugh out loud, and parts that bring tears to your eyes.
For fourth graders and up:
Doodlebug by Karen Romano Young
Doodlebug is an extraordinary graphic novel. Doreen Bussey, aka DoDo, aka Doodlebug, chronicles her family's move from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and her adjustment to a new school, in handwritten text and hand-drawn pictures. Her wonderful and not-at-all weird family is not at all like any family I've ever met in children's fiction. Their reasons for moving to San Francisco are not like any plot device I've ever encountered, even though they are totally realistic, and all too likely.
Doodlebug herself is irrepressible and irresistible. Don't you worry, she, and her sister Momo, are going to win the day. And that's not giving anything away.
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
I avidly read the Tillerman cycle (seven books) several years ago, and since then, have constantly recommended them to others. Revisiting Homecoming, the first book, in audio was a real treat. Barbara Caruso, the narrator, does a stellar job. Homecoming was even more powerful and engrossing the second time around.
It's a Boxcar Children with profound depth and character development, a novel with a YA label that is far too limiting. It is a book about and for children, but just as much a book for and about adults. Cynthia Voigt's writing is lyrical and evocative, and her characters are unique and true.
Thirteen-year-old Dicey Tillerman, abandoned by her mother, along with her sister and two brothers, turns her family's bleak circumstances around in a journey as compelling as the Odyssey. At the end of Homecoming, the Tillermans end up on the eastern shore of Maryland, but they will keep traveling through your mind, and will likely persuade you to read more of the Tillerman cycle.
For fifth graders and up:
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane
Forget about the baseball on the cover. Knowing about baseball is not a requirement for enjoying The Girl Who Threw Butterflies.
A supporting character, Celia, could care less about baseball, and Celia is just as cool as cool can be. Mick Cochrane could have written a book about Celia, who is Molly’s best friend.
Molly wants to pitch on her elementary school’s baseball team, the real baseball team (as opposed to the girls’ softball team). Categorizing The Girl Who Threw Butterflies as a girl-power novel, though, would be doing it just as much a disservice as calling it a sports novel.
Sports and gender equality are important to The Girl Who Threw Butterflies, but not as important as the story—a story about families, about eighth grade boys and girls, about adults and children, about death and loss, about friendships, about never really knowing your friends or your enemies, and about finding out who you are. If the book is making a point, it’s to pay attention, to look closely, to work hard on the details.
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies has it all—Cochrane’s skillful writing, unforgettable characters, parts that make you laugh out loud, and parts that bring tears to your eyes.
For fourth graders and up:
Doodlebug by Karen Romano Young
Doodlebug is an extraordinary graphic novel. Doreen Bussey, aka DoDo, aka Doodlebug, chronicles her family's move from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and her adjustment to a new school, in handwritten text and hand-drawn pictures. Her wonderful and not-at-all weird family is not at all like any family I've ever met in children's fiction. Their reasons for moving to San Francisco are not like any plot device I've ever encountered, even though they are totally realistic, and all too likely.
Doodlebug herself is irrepressible and irresistible. Don't you worry, she, and her sister Momo, are going to win the day. And that's not giving anything away.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
LARS'S LIBRARY: NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
The 2010 National Book Awards nominees have been selected. Young People's Literature finalists are Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, Kathryn Erskine's Mockingbird, Laura McNeal's Dark Water, Walter Dean Myers' Lockdown, and Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer. And I haven't read any of them. Time to get on it.
LARS'S LIBRARY: DON"T TELL ME THIS ABOUT PICTURE BOOKS!
How sad. Not as many people are buying picture books, apparently because they are considered a lower or lesser kind of reading matter, according this NY Times article.
The picture book is not dead. A great rejoinder to the NY Times's all too final statement, that picture books are "no longer a staple for children," at Philip Nel's blog.
The good thing about the Times article is that it's got picture book lovers making their case, as in "The Importance of Picture Books" by Lisa Von Drasek.
The picture book is not dead. A great rejoinder to the NY Times's all too final statement, that picture books are "no longer a staple for children," at Philip Nel's blog.
The good thing about the Times article is that it's got picture book lovers making their case, as in "The Importance of Picture Books" by Lisa Von Drasek.
Monday, October 18, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: CAN COMPUTER PROGRAMS HELP BRAIN FITNESS?
"For Young Brains, Teaching Technologies Are Hit-or-Miss" LiveScience 10/12/10
"When Brains Hit the Gym" KQED/Quest 10/15/10
Can computer programs make people smarter? Who knows?
Can computer programs help to improve memory and focusing skills? Maybe.
Are claims made by "brain fitness" marketers exaggerated? Very likely.
"When Brains Hit the Gym" KQED/Quest 10/15/10
Can computer programs make people smarter? Who knows?
Can computer programs help to improve memory and focusing skills? Maybe.
Are claims made by "brain fitness" marketers exaggerated? Very likely.
WORLD OF LEARNING: THE POWER OF SPEECH
"Young Children Are Especially Trusting of Things They're Told" ScienceDaily 10/15/10
Although I thought this study was fascinating, I didn't post it at first, as my province is kids older than three. But on further reflection, I think this applies to teaching and learning through the elementary years. Teachers and parents need to be aware of the power their words have. It makes sense that kids, who would otherwise be overwhelmed by figuring out what is going in the world, have to trust adults. It's our job to earn that trust.
Although I thought this study was fascinating, I didn't post it at first, as my province is kids older than three. But on further reflection, I think this applies to teaching and learning through the elementary years. Teachers and parents need to be aware of the power their words have. It makes sense that kids, who would otherwise be overwhelmed by figuring out what is going in the world, have to trust adults. It's our job to earn that trust.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: DEEP READING
"The Importance of Deep Reading" Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai/Educational Leadership 3/2009
I just got turned onto this 2009 essay by my sister, but it dovetails with other reading I've been doing, as it focuses on the benefits and drawbacks of the internet, particularly as it relates to reading. I've just started Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He prepared for the book and opened up discussion of the issue in the much-ballyhooed Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
I've also noticed a tangential discussion on social networking and its convenient "shallowness" in Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece, "Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted," and a piece by Damon Darlin in The New York Times, "Keeping Our Distance, the Facebook Way."
I hope these links "encourage deep thought," to quote Wolf and Barzillai, rather than "a more passive and, as Socrates put it, an even more easily 'deluded' reader." The paradox of the internet is that as we try to enrich connections by clicking on links, we may be uncoupling ourselves from real understanding based on critical evaluation of competing sources.
I just got turned onto this 2009 essay by my sister, but it dovetails with other reading I've been doing, as it focuses on the benefits and drawbacks of the internet, particularly as it relates to reading. I've just started Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. He prepared for the book and opened up discussion of the issue in the much-ballyhooed Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
I've also noticed a tangential discussion on social networking and its convenient "shallowness" in Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece, "Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted," and a piece by Damon Darlin in The New York Times, "Keeping Our Distance, the Facebook Way."
I hope these links "encourage deep thought," to quote Wolf and Barzillai, rather than "a more passive and, as Socrates put it, an even more easily 'deluded' reader." The paradox of the internet is that as we try to enrich connections by clicking on links, we may be uncoupling ourselves from real understanding based on critical evaluation of competing sources.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: MY REVIEW OF "UNSTRANGE MINDS"
UNSTRANGE MINDS: REMAPPING THE WORLD OF AUTISM: A FATHER, A DAUGHTER, AND A SEARCH FOR NEW ANSWERS. By Roy Richard Grinker. Basic Books, 2007. 301 pages.
The subtitle on the cover of Richard Grinker’s Unstrange Minds: A Father, a Daughter, and a Search for New Answers might give you the idea that his book is a memoir. And in part, it is. The struggles and rewards Grinker and his family go through as they raise, and grow with, their autistic member, the unforgettable Isabel, are touchingly told.
Unstrange Minds is much more than that, though. Grinker is an anthropologist, and he knowledgeably writes about how the definition and treatment of autism differs in relation to culture. He recounts his journeys to South Korea, South Africa and India, where he interviews the parents and educators of autistic children. He investigates the way different societies and governments deal with developmental and mental disorders.
It was interesting to learn that people with such disorders are more likely to be become participating members of their community in rural areas than they are in cities. It was also encouraging to find out that even though we still stigmatize and have a long way to go, America is probably one of the better places to be if you are autistic.
The first half of Unstrange Minds, however, is neither memoir nor anthropological treatise. It is an excellent, and invaluable, primer on the history of the diagnosis of autism, the study of its causes, and the treatment of its symptoms. Looking at that history, Grinker questions whether the increasing recognition of autism is the sign of an epidemic, or the result of more sophisticated diagnostic tools. He comes down on the side of the latter.
The history of autism as a diagnosis is quite a recent one, starting with the work of Leo Kanner and Hans Aspberger in the 1940s, and moving into the infamous work of Bruno Bettelheim in the 50s and 60s. Bettelheim, who was neither an MD or a psychiatrist, whose clinical studies were without scientific merit, was a superb self-promoter. On the basis of a popular book, The Empty Fortress, he became an "expert" pursued by media—an expert who blamed autism on bad mothers.
Diagnosing diseases of the mind through subjectivity and moral judgment is, of course, nothing new. Grinker points out that the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)—what people in psychiatry, psychology, medicine and health insurance use for diagnoses—didn’t exist until the 1950s, when it included homosexuality as a mental disorder. Autism and ADHD—not even mentioned.
Homosexuality was not downgraded to normal human behavior by the psychiatric establishment until the 70s. It took until the 1980s and 1990s for autism and ADHD diagnostic criteria to be listed. These changes are the reason you see DSM-II, DSM-III and DSM-IV, and taking it further, editions with an R added, for further revision. DSM-V is on the way, with more, and major, changes.
Clinicians who make use of these diagnostic criteria have a lot of latitude in their interpretation. It's never going to be completely objective because evaluating behavior like "lack of social or emotional reciprocity" is by nature subjective, and because clinicians often diagnose to the category that gets resources from insurance companies, school districts, etc., etc. The DSM hedges its bets even further with the "NOS" qualifier, as in PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified), used for diagnoses close to autism that don't present the complete range of symptoms. All of this, Grinker points out, is heavily influenced by changing social views toward mental and learning disorders. An obvious example is our attitude toward the word "retarded."
The benefit in realizing the labeling is confused at best is that it means doctors and clinicians are working toward more objective analysis and categorization. That’s progress. Grinker is hopeful because the medical establishment is paying more and more attention to an identifiable set of symptoms, rather than beginning with causes. How can we know what causes something until we really know what it is? More importantly, how can we treat it?
The problem with the confusion for American parents with autistic kids, and for that matter any kids with learning differences, is the great difficulty they face in having our society and its educational system recognize, and do something about, the differences. All children should have the opportunity to measure up to their potential.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Grinker notes, "wasn’t set up with the expectation that parents would be involved in extensive litigation, or that pit-bull attorneys would try to reduce witnesses to tears over the correct placement of a child with special needs." It often seems we are spending more to keep kids from moving forward than we are on helping them to do so.
Grinker takes the reader through his own frustrating trials to give Isabel the best possible chance of success, and the disillusionment it causes him. In the end, he still believes that "things have improved since autism became a more popular diagnosis."
And he finds solace in looking for light instead of darkness in the love he has for his wonderful daughter. Isabel has helped Grinker realize "there is no pure, natural, or singularly correct way of seeing," and "to think more creatively about the kinds of meaningful relationships that are possible, and beneficial." Besides that, she is a pretty good cellist (with perfect pitch!) and an accomplished amateur zoologist.
Grinker has combined the personal and the professional parts of his life to produce an extremely well-written introduction to autism.
The subtitle on the cover of Richard Grinker’s Unstrange Minds: A Father, a Daughter, and a Search for New Answers might give you the idea that his book is a memoir. And in part, it is. The struggles and rewards Grinker and his family go through as they raise, and grow with, their autistic member, the unforgettable Isabel, are touchingly told.
Unstrange Minds is much more than that, though. Grinker is an anthropologist, and he knowledgeably writes about how the definition and treatment of autism differs in relation to culture. He recounts his journeys to South Korea, South Africa and India, where he interviews the parents and educators of autistic children. He investigates the way different societies and governments deal with developmental and mental disorders.
It was interesting to learn that people with such disorders are more likely to be become participating members of their community in rural areas than they are in cities. It was also encouraging to find out that even though we still stigmatize and have a long way to go, America is probably one of the better places to be if you are autistic.
The first half of Unstrange Minds, however, is neither memoir nor anthropological treatise. It is an excellent, and invaluable, primer on the history of the diagnosis of autism, the study of its causes, and the treatment of its symptoms. Looking at that history, Grinker questions whether the increasing recognition of autism is the sign of an epidemic, or the result of more sophisticated diagnostic tools. He comes down on the side of the latter.
The history of autism as a diagnosis is quite a recent one, starting with the work of Leo Kanner and Hans Aspberger in the 1940s, and moving into the infamous work of Bruno Bettelheim in the 50s and 60s. Bettelheim, who was neither an MD or a psychiatrist, whose clinical studies were without scientific merit, was a superb self-promoter. On the basis of a popular book, The Empty Fortress, he became an "expert" pursued by media—an expert who blamed autism on bad mothers.
Diagnosing diseases of the mind through subjectivity and moral judgment is, of course, nothing new. Grinker points out that the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)—what people in psychiatry, psychology, medicine and health insurance use for diagnoses—didn’t exist until the 1950s, when it included homosexuality as a mental disorder. Autism and ADHD—not even mentioned.
Homosexuality was not downgraded to normal human behavior by the psychiatric establishment until the 70s. It took until the 1980s and 1990s for autism and ADHD diagnostic criteria to be listed. These changes are the reason you see DSM-II, DSM-III and DSM-IV, and taking it further, editions with an R added, for further revision. DSM-V is on the way, with more, and major, changes.
Clinicians who make use of these diagnostic criteria have a lot of latitude in their interpretation. It's never going to be completely objective because evaluating behavior like "lack of social or emotional reciprocity" is by nature subjective, and because clinicians often diagnose to the category that gets resources from insurance companies, school districts, etc., etc. The DSM hedges its bets even further with the "NOS" qualifier, as in PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified), used for diagnoses close to autism that don't present the complete range of symptoms. All of this, Grinker points out, is heavily influenced by changing social views toward mental and learning disorders. An obvious example is our attitude toward the word "retarded."
The benefit in realizing the labeling is confused at best is that it means doctors and clinicians are working toward more objective analysis and categorization. That’s progress. Grinker is hopeful because the medical establishment is paying more and more attention to an identifiable set of symptoms, rather than beginning with causes. How can we know what causes something until we really know what it is? More importantly, how can we treat it?
The problem with the confusion for American parents with autistic kids, and for that matter any kids with learning differences, is the great difficulty they face in having our society and its educational system recognize, and do something about, the differences. All children should have the opportunity to measure up to their potential.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Grinker notes, "wasn’t set up with the expectation that parents would be involved in extensive litigation, or that pit-bull attorneys would try to reduce witnesses to tears over the correct placement of a child with special needs." It often seems we are spending more to keep kids from moving forward than we are on helping them to do so.
Grinker takes the reader through his own frustrating trials to give Isabel the best possible chance of success, and the disillusionment it causes him. In the end, he still believes that "things have improved since autism became a more popular diagnosis."
And he finds solace in looking for light instead of darkness in the love he has for his wonderful daughter. Isabel has helped Grinker realize "there is no pure, natural, or singularly correct way of seeing," and "to think more creatively about the kinds of meaningful relationships that are possible, and beneficial." Besides that, she is a pretty good cellist (with perfect pitch!) and an accomplished amateur zoologist.
Grinker has combined the personal and the professional parts of his life to produce an extremely well-written introduction to autism.
Friday, October 8, 2010
LARS'S LIBRARY: WILD, WACKY AND IRREVERENT PICTURE BOOKS
Jon Agee, The Return of Freddy LeGrand
Jon Agee, Mr. Putney's Quacking Dog
Ted Arnold, No Jumping on the Bed!
Mac Barnett, Guess Again
Mac Barnett, Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)
Judi Barrett, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Chris Barton, Tom Lichtenheld, Shark vs. Train
Michael Ian Black, Chicken Cheeks
Pam Conrad, Doll Face Has a Party
Jules Feiffer, Bark, George
Jules Feiffer, Meanwhile…
Neil Gaiman, The Day I Swapped My Dad for the Goldfish
Neil Gaiman, The Wolves in the Walls
Stephen Gammell, Ride
Mordecai Gernstein, A Book
Mini Grey, Traction Man Is Here!
Mini Grey, Traction Man Meets Turbodog
Mini Grey, Egg Drop
Thatcher Hurd, Bad Frogs
William Joyce, George Shrinks
Joe Kulka, Wolf’s Coming!
Joe Kulka, Vacation's Over! Return of the Dinosaurs
Mercer Mayer, There’s a Nightmare in My Closet
Peter McCarty, Jeremy Draws a Monster
Chris Monroe, Monkey With a Tool Belt
Chris Monroe, Sneaky Sheep
Donough O'Malley, Monkey See, Monkey Do
Dav Pilkey, Dogzilla
Dav Pilkey, The Dumb Bunnies
Dav Pilkey, The Hallo-Wiener
Dav Pilkey, Kat Kong
Adam Rex, Pssst!
Michael Rex, Furious George Goes Bananas
Michael Rosen, Mission Ziffoid
Adam Rubin, Daniel Salmieri, Those Darn Squirrels!
Jon Scieszka, Baloney (Henry P.)
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Monkey Business
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Mr. Lunch Borrows a Canoe
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Penguin Dreams
David Shannon, A Bad Case of Stripes
David Shannon, Duck on a Bike
David Shannon, The Rain Came Down
Art Spiegelman, Open Me…I’m a Dog!
Jeremy Tankard, Me Hungry!
Eugene Trivisas, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Chris Van Allsburg, Bad Day at Riverbend
Sara Varon, Chicken and Cat
Sara Varon, Chicken and Cat Clean Up
David Wiesner, Art & Max
David Wiesner, The Three Pigs
Jon Agee, Mr. Putney's Quacking Dog
Ted Arnold, No Jumping on the Bed!
Mac Barnett, Guess Again
Mac Barnett, Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)
Judi Barrett, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Chris Barton, Tom Lichtenheld, Shark vs. Train
Michael Ian Black, Chicken Cheeks
Pam Conrad, Doll Face Has a Party
Jules Feiffer, Bark, George
Jules Feiffer, Meanwhile…
Neil Gaiman, The Day I Swapped My Dad for the Goldfish
Neil Gaiman, The Wolves in the Walls
Stephen Gammell, Ride
Mordecai Gernstein, A Book
Mini Grey, Traction Man Is Here!
Mini Grey, Traction Man Meets Turbodog
Mini Grey, Egg Drop
Thatcher Hurd, Bad Frogs
William Joyce, George Shrinks
Joe Kulka, Wolf’s Coming!
Joe Kulka, Vacation's Over! Return of the Dinosaurs
Mercer Mayer, There’s a Nightmare in My Closet
Peter McCarty, Jeremy Draws a Monster
Chris Monroe, Monkey With a Tool Belt
Chris Monroe, Sneaky Sheep
Donough O'Malley, Monkey See, Monkey Do
Dav Pilkey, Dogzilla
Dav Pilkey, The Dumb Bunnies
Dav Pilkey, The Hallo-Wiener
Dav Pilkey, Kat Kong
Adam Rex, Pssst!
Michael Rex, Furious George Goes Bananas
Michael Rosen, Mission Ziffoid
Adam Rubin, Daniel Salmieri, Those Darn Squirrels!
Jon Scieszka, Baloney (Henry P.)
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Monkey Business
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Mr. Lunch Borrows a Canoe
J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Penguin Dreams
David Shannon, A Bad Case of Stripes
David Shannon, Duck on a Bike
David Shannon, The Rain Came Down
Art Spiegelman, Open Me…I’m a Dog!
Jeremy Tankard, Me Hungry!
Eugene Trivisas, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Chris Van Allsburg, Bad Day at Riverbend
Sara Varon, Chicken and Cat
Sara Varon, Chicken and Cat Clean Up
David Wiesner, Art & Max
David Wiesner, The Three Pigs
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
WORLD OF LEARNING: HANDWRITING REINFORCES LITERACY
"How Handwriting Trains the Brain" Wall Street Journal 10/5/10
The connection between reading and writing appears self-evident to me, and is something I think is really important. Of course my evidence is anecdotal, but the kids I see with reading issues invariably have difficulty with handwriting as well. A year ago, I saw Virginia Berninger, who is cited in this WSJ article, and her colleague Beverly Wolf, and read their Teaching Students With Dyslexia and Dysgraphia, which mentions recent studies showing some correspondence, and this article does, too.
The connection between reading and writing appears self-evident to me, and is something I think is really important. Of course my evidence is anecdotal, but the kids I see with reading issues invariably have difficulty with handwriting as well. A year ago, I saw Virginia Berninger, who is cited in this WSJ article, and her colleague Beverly Wolf, and read their Teaching Students With Dyslexia and Dysgraphia, which mentions recent studies showing some correspondence, and this article does, too.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
LARS'S LIBRARY: KIDS AND DIGITAL READING
There are some kids who are doing something else with digital media besides social networking and text messaging. They're reading books! And they like it! So says a study by Scholastic covered in this New York Times article.
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