An interesting video may change the way you look at your life

Some people are so negative it’s depressing just to be around them. No matter how hard you try to cheer them up and make them see the bright side of things, they insist that their lives are gone to pot and that there is nothing in their life that is right. It’s hard to tell what it is they’re trying to get out of life, or what they want from you.

Great Stuff

You offer them suggestions and they respond with a series of “buts.” You point out the really groovy stuff in their lives and they feel forced to tell you why those things aren’t really so groovy after all. You begin to feel that they prefer to be unhappy, dissatisfied, and negative.

There’s not much else to do at that point but give up before you lose your equanimity. You can’t force a person to change perspective. It’s got to come from within.

Raw Deal

On the other hand, kids with learning disabilities may become convinced that life has handed them some tough stuff to deal with. They did, to at least some extent, get a raw deal and deserve some understanding and patience. Sometimes you just need to offer them a different perspective. If you can get them to listen, try helping them break out of the blues by showing them this clip.

There’s a cute saying that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. This clip is a good illustration of that. The words in the clip don’t change, but viewed from a different perspective, they have a whole different meaning.

That’s kind of like dyslexia, actually. A person with dyslexia may not see text the way other people do. That makes it hard to read.

Yes, it’s a disability. But with that disability comes a gift: the gift of learning to see outside the box. Because reading is difficult for someone with dyslexia, learning is done by other means.

Foreshortening (perspective)

The person with dyslexia has been handed a big problem at birth; but always having to get around the problem of reading forces the person with dyslexia to become a terrific problem solver. Maybe that’s why so many entrepreneurs and millionaires are dyslexic. When a big business problem arises, the dyslexic businessman or woman has already learned to stop and look at the problem from a different perspective. It takes some tenacity, but the solution is bound to make an appearance if only the problem-solver refuses to give up. A can-do attitude is the way to get to solutions, every time.

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Percy Jackson - Getting Kids to Read

Creator of Percy Jackson Offers Tips for Getting Dyslexic Kids to Read

Rick Riordan created his book series to help his son battle learning disabilities.

When author Rick Riordan’s son Haley was 7, he hated school. Haley had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. Reading and learning were serious challenges for him. Riordan relates that Haley used to hide under the family’s dining-room table to get out of doing his homework or to avoid reading.

Royal Blood

Percy Jackson - Image via Wikipedia

Riordan loved books and was desperate that Haley should love them, too. That’s why he started writing the Percy Jackson series, which began as Haley’s bedtime stories. Riordan gave Percy the same learning disabilities as Haley: ADHD and dyslexia; but the author depicted the learning deficits as indications of royal Olympian blood, medical conditions found only in demigods.

Today, Haley is 16 years-old. He walked into his father’s office not long ago, announcing that he’d just completed a 600-page manuscript. That would be a stunning accomplishment for any 16 year-old, but coming from Haley, the announcement was proof positive that the boy had turned the tide against dyslexia and had come to love the printed word. Riordan had won and Haley was the benefactor.

Long Journey

Over the course of the past nine years, Riordan’s protagonist became the main character of a five-book series. As Percy rose to stardom, Haley was taking his own journey. He came out from under the dining room table and instead of avoiding books, became an avid reader.

As Riordan looks back and reflects upon the success of the Percy Jackson series and Haley’s embrace of books and writing, he decided to share what he has learned about the process of turning children into bookworms. It boils down to four essential factors:

1. Provide an example. If you don’t take the time to read, it’s a good bet your children won’t, either. If your kids see you reading, they’ll follow your good example. Make reading a part of your family’s daily schedule. Declare the hour of 7-8 PM family reading hour. Have general book discussions. Discuss what makes a book or an author great.

Image via Wikipedia

2. Find books your children will want to read. A series is good because it will leave your child wanting to read more. Don’t worry about the caliber of the books your child seems to prefer. The main thing is to build a foundation—you want to get your child reading for pleasure. Make friends with the librarian at your local children's library and pick her brains about books your child might enjoy.

3. Think about your child’s reading environment. In general, you should offer your child a place to read where he won’t be distracted by noise. On the other hand, some children with ADHD find that fiddling makes it easier to concentrate. If squeezing a stress ball, for instance, makes it easier for your child to read, by all means, have him squeeze away.

4. Stay positive about the future. Children with ADHD and dyslexia can grow up to become successful. More millionaires than not have dyslexia. Adults with ADHD have the gift of hyperfocus and can stay focused on problems for as long as necessary, something the rest of us find difficult. People with learning disabilities have to learn to think outside the box because they have learning differences. As a result, they become excellent at problem-solving. The main thing is to get our kids through school so that they become free to find their niche.

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Internet Addiction

Plugged In 24/7

Is your child’s internet usage increasing as his grades (and personal hygiene) slip? Could it be he has an Internet addiction?

Kids are digital natives, born into the world of ever-evolving technology. Kids’ lives exist online as much or more than they do in reality. Digital natives can’t conceive of a world without cellphones, iPods, and the Internet. That’s why it should come as no surprise to hear that some teens report spending 7-14 hours a day plugged into their computers—way beyond the recommended Canadian guideline of two hours max.

Addicted

Still, Facebook can be a good thing, insomuch as it fosters social interaction. The problems begin when teens go out on a limb and engage in risky behavior just so they’ll have a cool status update for their “walls.” That’s when you know things are getting out of hand. Recent studies tell us that the more time a teen spends on social networking venues, the higher the level of his narcissism climbs. That should send parental alarm bells a ’ringing.

One U.S. health-care advocacy group, the Kaiser Family Foundation, issued a report stating that kids aged 8-18 spend more time facing their computer monitors, game and television screens, than they spend on any other activity except for sleep. The report says that kids access technology on an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes a day. This certainly is a contrast to the recommendations of the Canadian Pediatric Society that this same age group spend no more than two hours a day parked in front of a screen.

Susan Lambert, president of the British Columbia Teachers Federation, was shocked to hear that many teens are spending over 10 hours a day on computers. Lambert asks, "If you were spending an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes a day doing any single thing, wouldn't we be concerned?"

Addicted to the Internet

ADHD Link

One expert has noticed a link between Internet overuse and certain disorders, in particular ADHD and depression. Dr. Susan Baer, of the BC Children’s Hospital, where she is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in the neuropsychiatry and mood and anxiety disorders clinic, conducted a study on the topic and found that teens with behavioral and emotional difficulties were spending most of their free time in front of monitors and screens, averaging 7 hours a day on gaming stations, televisions, and computers.

But Baer also discovered that kids who spent lots of time on computers or at gaming stations but did not manifest addictive behaviors were not among those with a coexisting link to depression. "This was surprising to us and suggests that even though terms such as Internet addiction are controversial, there is a real difference between youth who are simply filling their free time with the computer, and youth whose use is more driven and problematic," said Baer.

Addiction Symptoms

Consult your physician if your child:

* Loses interest in academic achievement

* Feels angry and frustrated when denied access

* Feels depression and anxiety—longs to return when away from the computer

* Has sleep difficulties and changes in sleep patterns

* Neglects personal hygiene

* Neglects important responsibilities

* Spends less time with loves ones and friends

* Loses real friends while increasing virtual friends

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The Problem With Reading

Read To Learn

No one doubts that reading is an important skill to acquire. It seems obvious: we've got to learn how to read, otherwise, how will we read to learn? More to the point, what happens to the children who finds it hard to read? Are they doomed to be poor learners?

Adult Illiteracy

The rate of adult illiteracy has burgeoned to the point where it can no longer be ignored. That's why, in 1992, the United States government underwrote the National Adult Literacy Survey to the tune of $14 million to try to get a handle on the scale of the pervasiveness of literacy issues among adult Americans. The results were shocking: though most of those surveyed had graduated high school, 96% of them could not read, write, or do arithmetic on a level high enough to continue on to college. Worse yet, a full 25% just couldn't read at all.

No Change

A subsequent 2003 study, this time named the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, showed no significant change from the 1992 study in reading comprehension levels. Adults were still having the same difficulties in reading and understanding text, a decade later.

Equal Opportunity

The most remarkable thing about the study is that reading difficulties are an equal opportunity disaster. Difficulties in reading don't just happen to people from disadvantaged homes. Most of these people go to decent schools, have stable homes, and have average or even above average IQ scores. However, they are struggling to figure out reading , and some of them never do.

Common Issues

Kids who have trouble learning to read have a lot of issues in common. They have a tendency to transpose letters and words, or leave them out altogether. They lose their place on the page, cannot retain much of what they have just read, and do not understand the sense of the words they do manage to read. When these symptoms occur in clusters, kids are said to have a learning disability (LD) known as dyslexia.

Some Statistics

According to the International Dyslexia Association, a minimum of one in ten otherwise normal people has severe dyslexia. The National Center for Learning Disabilities states that 15 million American adults and children have learning disabilities. Some estimates state that 70%-80% of children with learning disabilities suffer from dyslexia.

The Upshot

The upshot? People with poor literacy skills are our co-workers, friends, family, and children and their numbers are too big to ignore. It's time to accommodate those among us with reading difficulties.

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Gov. Christie's Vision

New Jersey Governor Calls for Change

Gov. Chris Christie has announced that he wants to change the system so that New Jersey teachers will have their performance reviewed every five years.

Last Thursday, on January 13, 2011, Chris Christie took the podium at a town hall meeting in Paramus N.J. to make the suggestion that teachers should be hired on the basis of five-year contracts. This would give schools the chance to review a teacher’s performance before choosing to renew contracts. Earlier in the week, the Republican governor had called for ending automatic tenure for teachers.

Enough Time

Governor Chris Christie, Photo Courtesy: CHRIS FAYTOK/The Star-Ledger

Christie feels that while teachers need to have enough time to get hands-on experience and learn how to teach the current system just makes it too hard to get rid of

poor teachers. Right now, the idea of having five-year teaching contracts is still just an idea. Christie’s office has yet to make an official proposal. The controversial governor, who is known to speak his mind, has not yet provided details on just how he will accomplish the abolition of teacher tenure. Furthermore, the teacher’s union has promised him a rousing fight.

The governor of New Jersey didn’t stop with teacher tenure when throwing out his creative ideas for improving the educational system, but also said he’s looking into a plan for the development of schools that would specialize in educating children with autism. These schools would be set up in each of 21 counties in New Jersey, if Christie has his way. During his speech at the town hall meeting, the governor said that his plan would provide a cost-effective alternative for those districts that were attempting to develop their own curriculums for educating special children.

Governor Christie of New Jersey Photo Courtesy: NYdailynews.com

“Visionary Concept”

Linda Meyer, the director of Autism New Jersey made a statement to the media to the effect that Christie is sincere about trying to provide both equality and access to education for every sector of society. She called his concepts, “visionary,” but other people are less convinced that the governor’s idea is such a good one. The director of one private school for children with autism said that the idea would put schools like his, which rely on referrals from the public school districts, out of business.

During the past ten years, the neurological disorder known as autism, which impairs social interaction, has proven a serious challenge that has driven New Jersey special education costs to an annual $3 billion. The number of students with autism has doubled over the past decade, to almost 12,000 students in the Garden State.

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Doctors with Attention Deficit

Students Claim ADHD to Get Drugs

Students who want to try ADHD medication for recreational purposes or to boost their grades find it all too easy to convince physicians they have ADHD

Though the U.S. government defines Adderall as a Schedule 2 drug, getting doctors to prescribe Adderall is a snap for college students looking for an easy way to ace their exams. One University of Massachusetts student reporter decided to interview her fellow students to investigate the matter. During one such interview, a fellow student claimed she held her primary health care doctor in the palm of her hand when she begged him to refer her to a psychiatrist who offers evaluations for attention deficit disorder (ADD).

Image via Wikipedia

Transparent Questions

During the psychiatrist’s assessment, the student responded to a series of transparent questions like, “Do you have a hard time concentrating or focusing?” The student said it took no mental gymnastics to figure out what responses would generate a diagnosis of ADD so that she would be entitled to the drugs she sought. However, the student was canny enough to only posit a certain number of symptoms so that she wouldn’t be too obvious in her quest to be diagnosed with a disorder she didn’t have.

The upshot was that the unwitting psychiatrist found she had nine out of nine signs of ADD without the addition of the nine signs that would have added the “H” of hyperactivity to the diagnosis (ADHD). Less than 30 minutes after the examination began, the student had a prescription for Adderall in her hot little hand.

Little Uniformity

The reporter discovered that there is little uniformity in the diagnostic criteria used by physicians to diagnose ADD. Therefore, speaking of a “test for ADD” is misleading. Of the three students the reporter interviewed, two answered a series of questions or were asked to describe their symptoms while the third student was given a more complex diagnostic test.

In the case of the student described above, there was some “prepping” of the patient: the psychiatrist told her that ADD has nine symptoms and that if someone had a certain number of these symptoms, they can be prescribed medications to help them concentrate.

Image via Wikipedia

The student who received the most rigorous testing was also diagnosed with ADD and given Concerta, a medication similar to Adderall.

The upshot is that a student need not undergo a standard test in order to get a prescription for Adderall, which is an amphetamine. It’s more about finding the doctor who doesn’t mind writing out a script for the student who complains of ADD/ADHD symptoms. In every case, the goal is a legal method for procuring drugs that can be used to help students stay awake for all-night cramming during the final exams period.

Diane Fedorchak, director of Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS), says that only some 5% of the study body suffers from ADHD while another 8% of U of M students report using stimulants like Ritalin, Adderall, or Concerta during the past 30 days without benefit of a prescription.

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Literacy Skills in the Making

Your children know a great deal about reading before they ever hold a book in their hands. What is the nature of these very early literacy skills and how can parents turn their children into bookworms?

A young child’s understanding of reading and other related skills in the days before he is ready to read is called emergent literacy. There are several reading-related concepts that a child must have under his belt before he can begin the actual process of learning to read. But to begin with, a child needs to acquire three main skills before beginning his reading education, or for that matter, his education in general.

* Communication—a child should become familiar with spoken language and be able to communicate through speech.

* Alphabet—a child should understand the concept of letters and have the ability to name the individual letters of the alphabet.

* Exposure to Written Words—a child should be exposed to many stories and books before he is of an age to attend school. This is the way toward motivating a child to learn to read.

Get Busy

If you’ve ever looked on in envy as you saw a neighbor’s child always with a book in hand, you can now curtail the jealousy and begin to get busy. It is in your hands to turn your child into a reader. But the process begins as soon as your child is born.

Spend time reading to your child each day. Take care to choose books with simple story lines and colorful illustrations that will excite your child’s mind. As you read aloud, inject lots of expression in your voice. Let him feel the emotions expressed in the text through the feeling you put into the reading.

Another way to help your child gain reading comprehension is to tell her the story in your own words. The story comes alive for your child as she hears it through the device of natural conversation and a parent’s voice.

After Napping

Most people choose to read to children only at night, just before kids go to sleep. But in terms of encouraging reading skills, you want your child well-rested. After a nap is the optimum time to read to your child. Both of you should be relaxed and calm.

Offering a baby a book to play with is another great way to give her a chance to interact with words, illustrations, and pages. There are cloth or plastic books and sturdier children’s books that are terrific for this purpose.

The main idea here is to expose your child to lots of language. This is the key to helping her develop her vocabulary and communication skills. When your baby reaches toddlerhood, start reciting nursery rhymes with her and hesitate here and there to allow her a chance to fill in the words. Participatory recitation of rhymes is a very big step toward reading readiness. Your child will also memorize the rhymes. Developing word memories is yet another crucial part of learning to read.

Take your child to the library and make it a regular special jaunt for the two of you. Read her favorite stories to her again and again. Ask open-ended questions like, “What do you think will happen next?”

Network with other parents and share techniques for honing your child’s pre-reading skills. If you give it your best effort, you may just end up with a bookworm for a child. What could be more wonderful?

This post has been copied in its entirety with the kind permission of www.cognibeat.com