Learning Difficulty
DLS
(Difficulty
Learning Syndrome)
In this
discussion I deliberately omit explanations about
neurological sites implicated in various forms of dyslexia (like the Round
Left cerebral hemisphere and Sopranominale area Werniche)
as outside our competence, and this matter is
already been addressed by other researchers such Boder E. Jarrico and S.
(1982 N. Geschwind (1979), Griffin JR. And Walton
H.N. (1981), etc..
Until now have been classified three types
of dyslexia: Dysfonesia (total or partial inability to combine the sounds of words with their corresponding graph), Diseidesia (total or partial inability to transcribe
when the whole word phonetic sound makes it different from how you
writes) and Dysfoneidesia (a combination form of the two previous).
According to neurological models discussed so far, based on 1)
The existence of proven neuro-anatomical sites specific for the functions
eidetic and phonetic, 2) EEG studies, it appears that
dyslexia depends only on brain developmental abnormalities
of areas specifically concerned.
In recent years there have been extensive
genetic studies to determine whether dyslexia can be transmitted
genetically. The answer seems correct (conditional
obligatory) for the type of dyslexia diseidetico that seems to follow a
autosomal dominant transmission. And for the type disfonetico? so far
was not made any certain position. This shows, in
Anyway, that dyslexia can come in many forms and that
be considered dyslexic only one who does not learn in a
correct (with standard teaching methods) while possessing a
normal capacity and organic intellectual.
It will not be considered dyslexic person who
does not learn to reduced intellectual capacity, organic problems
associated with syndromes, etc.. Our study NOTis dedicated to problems as dyslexic
dysregulated neuro-anatomy, the latter can receive
Most helpful if treated multidisciplinarmente and not by a single
professional.
In our opinion, refute the hypothesis that the
learning difficulties is called ONLY dyslexia, but as a result of DLS
a set of problems related to learning, and which is generated ONLY from developmental brain abnormalities, as
subjects with learning problems and phonetic eidetic (similar to
characteristics to those of a brain abnormality) were
recovered in a very satisfactory manner without the intervention of specific
neurological therapies. Moreover, in our view, dyslexia
diseidetica occurred more in those countries where the language
Written differ (sometimes greatly) from that spoken. In fact, the
English-speaking peoples most affected by this problem. even this
argues in favor of a behavioral-functional theory and beyond
anatomical structure. Our presentation, therefore, will deal
problems of DLS (Learning Difficulty Syndrome) and not only of dyslexia, given the enormity of the problem
linked to learning.
In addition to these three types of dyslexia
There are many events that cause a DLS and schematically
we give the main:
Dyslexia: is a specific learning disorder
that affects 3% of the Italian childhood population. It affects
children with normal intelligence who, while not presenting
emotional problems, psychological and sensory difficulties to show
understand the meaning of what is written. The first signs
appear already in first grade: the student confuses the letters you
resemble even if turned upside down or mirror as eg. the b with d
or with p and q. Often these children read so
incomplete words, so as to make the incomprehensible or different
meaning. It is believed that the basis of this slowing down in the acquisition of
writing there is a difficulty in breaking the word into sounds that
compose and then, when the kids have to translate from the language
written, are confusing. Moreover, these individuals also have difficulty
Storing readings in addition to their understanding.
It is important to act immediately as the school failure
related to this deficit can become painful and frustrating on both
both psychologically and socially.
Dysgraphia: is the difficulty to realize the gesture
graph. This may be due to various causes such as a defect of
perception of movement of the arm, hand and pencil, by
visual impairment and mobility difficulties or visual-motor-related
graphical programming of the act. The children have problems in dosing
pressure to draw a mark on the paper and the writing is
very light or pulled down. Have difficulty controlling the size and
the size of the letters, to guide the writing on the paper: the
handwriting is skewed or shifted too far up or down. these
subjects have also great difficulty in re-read what they themselves have written. in
dysgraphia is the disortography which represents the difficulty to translate into
graphic symbolism the sequence of sounds in which the language is composed
oral hearing although perfectly. At dysorthography are associated with
common defects of verbal language (dysphasia) or reading
(dyslexia) that when they are not caused by poor eyesight, hearing or
intelligence, depend on abnormalities of the nervous system in which
form of verbal expression.
Dysphasia: Deficits tend to improve with
time, especially if reported early. This is the
difficulty of articulating the verbal language and the therapist must
work on the articulation of sounds, the expansion of the sentence and
on the relationship between content and form. In this way, teaches to use the
different language to express meaning. If diagnosed in
delay, producing depletion cognitive impairment with permanent
language.
Dyiscalculia: is the inability to perform calculations
algebraic, even simple. Pupils have discalculici
normal intelligence and have no problems in doing
arithmetic reasoning. However these children is difficult
recognize and write numbers (and often write them mirror),
to indent operations, understand it must first be added to the
right-hand column and that the carry is added to the left. It is thought that
Whether a difficulty to mentally represent the various steps
of operations in a two dimensional space (the sheet) that is often
associated with a problem of coordination. Thus, for example,
these children are often distracted,
can be awkward to jump obstacles, do not fit in
bicycle tie knots and do not know (they also have difficulty
tie his shoes).
Hyperlexia: if a child learns to read perfectly
between 2 and 5 years, can be a normal child who has mastered in
advance a learning tool. But if this is the only
activity that does well, then you could be in the presence of a
first sign of hyperlexia. In this case the child is very good in
reading and writing, while having great difficulty in understanding what
reads or writes. There is in practice a mastery of the instrument without
no control of its meaning. It is difficult for hyperlexia is
an isolated disorder, but is often accompanied by other forms of DSL, or worse a few mental retardation or to
an autistic syndrome. Often it depends on a force made the
baby for you to learn topic which has not yet been prepared, in which
How did you come to capture only the mechanical aspect of the task
he was asked and not the real reason behind the read-
is to read things written.
Dyspraxia: it is a developmental disorder that
prevents the child to perform complex manual tasks. Is not a
motor problem in the strict sense, but a difficulty in planning and
control the sequence of movements. The signal of this deficit is
General clumsiness: your kids are doing some hard action
with poor results compared to their peers. It 'a disprattico
children 3-4 years old who can not learn to dress himself or
it difficult to climb over obstacles, a 6 year old who does not know yet
tie his shoes or he can not draw and cut out.
This disorder is often associated
to dyscalculia. The therapist is the movement with the help
or through the verbalization of games, so as to help with a
channel other than the motor, motion programming. if
start time, an emotional and educational practice avoids impacts
psychological frustrating (the lower being of their peers). In this way
you retrieve the basic skills but difficulties remain
in more complex tasks. This means that although not become a
super sport as an adult will have no problem.
Inattention: is the lack of development capacity
maintain concentration. A disturbance in attention, that some
scholars impute to an alteration of brain chemistry, it
usually reveals at school age. In practice, the children have difficulty
to remain attentive to both long and focus on achieving specific,
struggling to remain seated to follow the instructions. the easy
distractibility becomes a problem when it interferes with other
functions such as speech, movement, thought and development
cognitive. It is unclear whether this issue should be
regarded as a specific disorder or whether it is a symptom of other abnormalities. In this situation, so
as in some other, abnormal visual function may play
a role in the birth and development of this
problem related to learning. A defect of attention weights
little development of the child if this problem is isolated, even more
serious is the situation when it is associated with other abnormalities. E 'for
This often you decide to see a specialist only when,
in addition to attention deficits, language disorders, or motory.
S.C.S. Theory about DLS
The foregoing has highlighted
the existence of three types of dyslexia and six series of specific
problems related to learning. Whenever we are faced
a person with learning difficulties (DLS), it will be important
determine the type of the appropriate training to use.
The simplest definition of DLS is
probably the following: a subject is defined suffering from DLS when
despite possessing normal organic-intellectual quality,
have poor learning ability and behavior in relation
to his age.
The simplicity of our definition
allows to focus on a very important aspect: DLS
IS NOT an organic disease, but an
impaired learning over time which has worsened the behavior
of the individual.
This suggests that a subject suffering from DLS
have normal intellectual abilities, but is not able to
use them properly, has normal visual acuity, but
does not know "where" to look; have normal ability to use hands and
feet, but can not coordinate, etc.
From these simple statements comes
the question: where is located the DLS?
The answer is also immediate, on the light
of the above, certainly in the cerebral cortex. Our
brain is perfectly able to use all
afferent pulses to be able to develop appropriate action. We will call
Core Exchange that area of the brain that performs the actions
on the afferent impulses and routes them to the sites responsible to
give the necessary response.
When we read a page of a book,
our eyes slide on the rows from left to right. Using area
seventeen, our brain decodes the images that
our eyes have focused, word after word and it is found the
meaning in our inner vocabulary by means of the internal core
exchange. Each word has a meaning that can vary when
inserted in a sentence. The area of meaning shall
to integrate all the words read in isolation, in a sentence that
has a meaning.
At this point the exchange core places in
memory what is absolutely necessary, the concept of the read sentence. With the
succession of phrases found on our page, the core
exchange shall recover from
memory the sentence or the sentences previously read (or rather the
concentrated of their meaning) and integrates them with what is
passing at that time. At this point storing again in
Memory a concentrated meaning of all sentences that time to
time we read. At the end of the page, it will have stored in our
memory, the concept of the entire page and not every single
word or punctuation mark. The latter, in fact, represents a small
legend that is requested to fully understand what
there is written, but is not stored along with the meaning of the
page.
Even the eyes have an important role,
as well as to see. The need to ensure that on the fovea of the two
eyes slides each symbol of what is written, that the reading speed
is adequate to the understanding, that the jump of the line
always start from the left (right only for the Arab peoples) jumping a
single line and starting from the first word on the left. In addition to this
the image must arrive on both foveas clearest and constant
over time and also the image of the two eyes must result to
a single merged image.
This can work if the mechanisms of
control of each gives the correct information
(afferent signals) to the exchange core.
The same problem occurs when the
transcribed words are heard. This time the eyes are not
directly involved in reading (but only in writing), yet the
area of meaning receive words without sense or
with a different meaning. This will prevent a correct transcription of
what has been dictated.
When we are in presence of a subject sufferiung from
DLS, some of these mechanisms operate incorrectly and more
mechanisms are involved, worst will be reading/writing performance
and therefore the level of DLS. Take for example the
pursuit and saccadic mechanism that have to move
the eyes to shift on foveas each character read. If these systems
do not work well, can be popped whole words
(saccade excessive), may be inverted position of words or
numbers (excessive saccade that brings the eyes of a next word
and adjustment saccade that brings the eyes back to the previous word, and so on), can
be read twice or part of numbers or words (insufficient saccade
or tracking), can be skipped entire lines, etc.
In this way, the exchange core will receive pieces of
a sentence or other means (for the reversal of words or
numbers). In each case will be sent a sentence almost incomprehensible or
convoluted with meaning.
At this point the exchange core will choose
three ways:
1. rejecting the
sentence because it is incomprehensible to start re-reading the
sentence. This operation can be repeated several times until the
understanding of the text, often partial, giving origin to a READER
DELAYED.
2. try to obtain
identify however, at all costs a meaning of the sentence read
taking experience on previous readings. This will result on low performances as the
understanding of the entire page will be certainly different from
true meaning of the text (this is typical of the disphonetic dyslexia).
3. abandon reading because it was considered difficult and tedious. Result: the student
leave the school.
The reader delayed will be able to mix with the
phase two to try to speed up the reading. In the latter
we have an almost total incomprehension of what is read and
huge slow execution with a considerable expenditure of energy.
During writing you can meet
similar problems: do not write straight, write
incomplete words (mostly missing the
final letters or central), writing letters or mirror-reversed
of the same letters when flipped, write the numbers excanging
figures, writing characters with different sizes, etc.
DLS, however, is not limited to
reading or writing.
To get to reconstruct correctly
all the mechanisms that communicate with the afferent exchanger core,
you must consider all the behaviors of the individual
are different from a standard canon of behavior.
The vision coordinates many visual-motor behaviors
and then the vision must begin to understand all mechanisms that are controlled or changed by the visual system
(except for the pure disfonetic dyslexia).
The understanding of right and left
(laterality), up and down, great and small, front and back, long and
short, etc.., they are interactions of something that was visually
been interpreted at least once previously.
It follows that the most important period for an individual's life is from birth to 2nd-3rd year of life.
During this phase, the individual has enormous
ability to learn and to shape their own brain system (in this period the child must not perform any other obligation if
not to that of learning).
It will be important to follow the child
during this phase and consult an optometrist and a Paediatrician
at the same time (sometimes even a psychologist) to create a
synergy that works in favor of the child so that develop the necessary skills
to live the necessary experience for visual-motor growth of the body and the brain.
At this point we realized that people who have not completed their afferent system-core
exchange-efference are disadvantaged in relation to their peers.
Because no one has taken steps to intervene
first (parents, family doctor, pediatrician), the Optometrist is
able to help people suffering from DLS by implementing the SCS Method that
collects a group of information and exercises that are specially designed,
to perform more in the consulting room and less at home.
The purpose of the S.C.S. method is to
build properly the interactions between vision and experience,
behavior and learning, where these are lacking.
To understand the important role
of the Optometrist in the diagnosis and treatment of DLS, is
appropriate to review the main visual problems,
visual-motor, and fusional, common in subjects with DLS.
Dunlop in 1974 noted the absence of ocular dominance in dyslexics children
and through the occlusion has obtained its stabilization
in 70% of the cases dealt with by excluding the sensory input in the occluded eye,
has prompted the forced choice of the contralateral eye. In
this study lacks the description of the methodology used: how the
eye was occluded? The subjects were all emmetropic? Which
was the method to detect the dominant eye? How long did
the occlusive period? For how many hours per day ?
An answer can be given by our
experience has shown us to try a treatment in occlusive
subjects without sensory dominance (not eye director, but eye
dominant) by inserting the occlusion of the contralateral
Body hand-foot dominance, and the contralateral
coordination of the hand only if discordant with the foot. Eg. if the
child has the dominance on the right hand and the right foot, was occluded
the left eye, and if the dominance is on the left hand and right foot, the right eye was occluded.
The occlusion was used only for activities
during some exercises for a period of 20-30 minutes a
day. The method to detect the dominant eye is the following: The
subject looks diplopia in two identical designs slightly blurry
(prism 3 ^ -5 ^ base up in front of one eye and prism 3 ^ -5 ^ base down in
front of the other with mild blurring produced by two lenses
+0.50 / +0.75. The target is a line of letters or symbols / drawings
horizontal 5-6/10). The sharper one determines the dominant eye. In the event both are blurred the same, the brighter deternimes the dominant eye.
If further parity has found, take off the prisms and use anaglyph filter, the more persistent colour of the line determines the dominant eye.
Other studies (Abram and Zuber) have shown
the speed of saccades in normal subjects (250 m / sec.) and in
dyslexic subjects (50 m / sec.). Still Ashon and Hainess (1982) have
examined the binocular coordination of dyslexic children during
reading finding that they converge more and diverge less of
their peers without learning difficulties.
From our results and those of many
other researchers there are no particular refractive or anisometropic defects
that cause the DLS.
Consequently, the Optometrist must not
limited to a possible compensation of the refractive error, but must assess the
quality of eye movement, postural situation, binocular vision and try to quantify the depth of the DLS.
For diagnosis and
treatment of DLS, please refer to a professionals
Optometrist who will evaluate and treat this
visual-behavioural problem in the most appropriate manner.