To Label Or Not To Label

As I teacher I think I have been hyper aware of Riley's learning differences for longer than his teachers. I have lost count of the numbers of sleepless nights I have had worrying about him, even when there was not that much to worry about.

From the end of Kindy I knew that Riley was just not like the other kids. His Kindy teacher put a referral into the local chapter of the government child development centre and eventually we were seen. The referral was so vague, they pretty much had him down for every test imaginable.

We saw the physiotherapist and he was diagnosed with hypermobilty. Hypermobility for some can be really debilitating, for Riley it is not, but he really struggles with fine motor skills, will never be carried aloft by his team mates for a game saving goal and is super bendy. He does still have the pencilmanship of a pre schooler though, sadly, and his hand fatigues very easily. We have been seeing occupational therapists and physiotherapsits ever since.

We then saw the speech pathologist, the paediatrician and the clinical psychologist. He was deemed to be fine in terms of speech and nowhere on the autism spectrum, but diagnosed with ADHD. The irony is that his IQ test showed that he was of on the 99th percentile for visual comprehension, 98th for perceptual organisation and then in the 40s for working memory and processing speed. Sadly, I have found out that the first two can be improved if need be, but research shows that, generally, the later two do not improve greatly. The more he struggles with his reading and writing the worse the last two seem to get. And it breaks my heart!

Anyhow, to label, or not to label. Associate Professor from Edith Cowan University spoke to us today about the research done by John Hattie, a leading educational researcher based in New Zealand, on what works best. There are some things that research shows us actually have a detrimental effect on a child's education. One of those is giving children a label, eg, ADHD, autism, dyslexic. His research shows that those kids who are not labelled do better than those who are. Do not ask me how he knows this when he is testing a group who would apparently have labels but don't. What would I have done if I had heard this earlier and Riley wasn't already labelled? He would still be reading at the same level, still be in the same reading group, still be distracted. Such a dilemma for parents I think.

A close friend was asked by the classroom teacher of her 8 year old to get him tested for dyslexia, and yesterday I was gung ho in telling her about this research and encouraging her not to bother with the testing. Today, after a wise friend of mine shared some of her insight, I think I would encourage parents to have their children tested.

In Western Australia, dyslexia is not recognised as a learning disability. We need to put pressure on the West Australian government to recognise this as a learning disability and fund it accordingly. If we don't have a label for them, then the government can continue to believe that this very common and soul destroying learning disability does not have an impact on children's learning and long-term educational outcomes.

http://www.wheresmyglow.com/http://www.wheresmyglow.com/

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