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NCDA news
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Our AGM took place on Wednesday, 15th November,
2002 in the Assembly Rooms at the Old Town Hall in Carlisle.
Vice Chairman, Marion Potter
welcomed all to the festively decorated Assembly Rooms before moving onto
the business meeting.
Daphne Sisson and Dominique Ogilvy tendered their resignations. Dominique has looked after our
resources for many years and more recently has also helped in the Drop In
Centre whilst Daphne has been one of our Helpliners, our Fund Raiser
and has also helped in the Drop In Centre.
We thank them both for all their hard work and support in the past,
but both have offered to continue to help in the Drop In Centre from time
to time.
Since the AGM Jennie Cross has
joined the Committee with a view to becoming a Helpliner. Welcome Jennie.
Jane Stobbart read out the following Secretary’s Report produced jointly with
Marion Potter.
GUEST SPEAKER – SHEILA DOBIE
Sheila
initially trained in Physical Education. An appointment as Principal
Lecturer and Head of Dept, Physical Education and Art of Movement at Notre
Dame, Liverpool led to an interest in
motor learning difficulties and the perceptual problems of children with
physical disabilities.
She then returned to Higher Education at the Scottish Centre for PE
Movement and Leisure Studies. Further studies followed at Cambridge University for an Advanced Diploma
in Severe and Profound Learning Difficulties and later at Stirling University for a Master of Education
(SEN). As Head of Department
Movement Studies research time focussed on issues of integration,
conductive education and neuro-development remediation.
She trained in Chester in neuro-developmental
therapy and became increasingly committed to children and adults with
special needs. This led to the establishment of INPP (Scotland) initially within University of Edinburgh and subsequently as an
independent unit at South
Queensferry
which has recently moved to bigger premises with more staff to cope with
the demands.
Sheila
was accompanied and assisted by one of her colleagues, Andy, who provided
the demonstrations during the talk.
Sheila defined dyslexia as being a disorder
which caused failure in obtaining levels of reading, writing and spelling
commensurate with intellectual ability and can affect motor skills,
sequencing, visual and auditory processing.
In the past there has been the tendency to
conclude that there are just physiological reasons why neurological
difficulties lead to motor difficulties which are the most frequent reasons
for speech and language delays but experience has led to looking more
globally at each case.
Sheila
and her team at INPP have established that it is important how to determine
who children are with motor development difficulties. The children who have been assessed at
INPP have usually fallen into most or all of the following:
Ø
late at walking
Ø
creeping instead of crawling
Ø
difficulties dressing
Ø
difficulties learning to ride a bike
Ø
hypersensitive to sound
Ø
frequent ear, nose and throat problems
In a high percentage of cases there have been
medical reasons to explain motor difficulties and intervention has not been
used.
It has been discovered that immature and
adoptive mechanisms interfere with a child’s ability to express themselves
in writing and motor dependent tasks.
Therefore any physical and neurological delays must be identified.
Research into Dyslexia has been ongoing since
the symptoms of “word blindness” and problems of visual memory were first
identified by an ophthalmologist in the 1890’s, however the last 30 years
of research has focussed on four main areas of difficulty, namely:
- Difficulties with
automatic balance
- Immature motor skills
- Auditory processing
problems
- Visual processing
problems
In
1996 researchers at the University of Sheffield concluded that, “children
with dyslexia have deficits in phonological skill, speed of processing and
motor skills. These deficits are
characterised as problems in skill auto-misation which are normally masked
by the process of conscious compensation.”
When
two or more of the above symptoms are present, motor development
difficulties can be one of the underlying factors.
What
is the key to help motor difficulties?
Answer – through evaluation?
All academic learning is connected in some way
to the motor system of the body. Reading is not a purely cognitive
task, it requires eye movements to be precise and well controlled; writing
involves hand-eye coordination with the automatic support of the postural
system. Posture develops, as a child
gains control over balance and balance is dependent upon a mature reflex
system. Immaturity in the
development of primitive and postural reflexes can have a direct impact
upon motor dependent skills and academic learning that is linked to motor
performance.
ADULT SUPPORT GROUP
The NCDA are aiming
to extend its services to parents, students, teachers and other
professionals.
q
Are you an adult? Are you dyslexic?
q
Are you the relative of an adult dyslexic?
q
Would you like to meet other adult dyslexics
and or other relatives on a regular basis to share concerns, problems and
ideas?
q
Would you be interested in joining a support
group?
If your answer is
yes to most of the above questions please email Jane Stobbart – jane@pawsrest.fsnet.co.uk
Your feedback would
be much appreciated to help us establish if there would be a need for an
adult support group.
THE
LUNCH TIME CLUB
The Nelson Thomlinson School, Wigton
The club was originally
set up in 2001.
The intention of the
club is to help children with Dyslexia, come together to share problems,
successes and experiences, to give each other support, tips and strategies
to overcome problems and help each other to cope with difficulties.
The Lunch Time club meet
for half an hour each week, and is a child led meeting, teachers are
involved as back up.
Children are invited by
other members to join the group. One
member will report to a teacher if he / she feel they have a difficulty
which may require adult input.
The group use the time
to chat, play games, use computer programmes and the internet to read up
about the latest developments on Dyslexia.
Linda Snowden
SENCO
If you would like to
know about setting up a Dyslexia Club within your school please contact:
Antony cross
on ajcross@tesco.net
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