When it comes to specific learning disabilities, there are some things that we know for sure: they are real, they are not something that a person outgrows, and they are equal opportunity disorders, meaning that they affect males and females alike and don’t confine themselves to a particular place or situation. Ask anyone who struggles, for example, with dyslexia (LD in reading) about their challenges in areas such as sounding out words, spelling, writing and understanding and remembering what they’ve read and it will become clear that LD does not just go away and can, throughout a person’s lifetime, pose hurdles to success in school, at home, in the community, and in the workplace. Are learning disabilities a prescription for frustration and failure? Absolutely not. Can individuals who have LD achieve success? Absolutely yes. But here is where it gets tricky. What specific types of instruction, intervention (also called remediation) and therapy are most likely to help individuals with LD to overcome or compensate for their difficulties? Are these treatments quick-fixes or will they have lasting results? Are they based on intuition, pseudo-science, strong scientific evidence, wishful thinking, or some combination of the above? And how can informed decisions be made about what to try and what to avoid?
Pursuing Extracurricular Treatment Options for LDFor the purpose of this article, let’s not focus on classroom instruction. Schools are doing the best they can (and they’re getting better all the time). Federal law and state and local practices are in place to ensure that all students can receive targeted and appropriate instruction and support. Instead, let’s consider the types of additional treatments that students are receiving, either through fee-for-service arrangements by schools or privately funded by parents at the encouragement of schools or on their own.
Start with What You Know About Your ChildI love music. Singing, playing instruments, going to concerts, you name it. Music keeps me calm, helps me to feel refreshed, provides a meaningful connection to others, and on and on. The only time when I absolutely must turn the music off is when I am reading or writing. Others, including my own children, prefer to complete reading and writing tasks with music playing in the background. So let’s frame some questions I’d ask myself if I wanted to be better at listening to music while doing other activities that demanded focus and concentration:
- Can I train myself to filter out or mask the sounds that interfere with my reading, thinking, remembering, retrieving, and producing quality work? (Probably, or perhaps a “definite maybe.”)
- Would undergoing a program of training to accomplish this have spill-over benefits for me in other areas of thinking and information processing? (This is precisely the kind of benefit promised by many treatments and therapies.)
- Would my completing the training build my confidence as a learner and encourage me to push harder to accomplish other goals that are seem out of reach given how I am “wired” to learn? (It could be.)
- What will this training cost me in terms of time, effort, and money? (And will I benefit if I do only parts of the treatment and not the entire program?)
- Have others tried this training and succeeded? (If so, are they like me in ways that would predict my own success? Have the benefits of the training been shown to last over time?)
- Have others tried and not achieved any real benefit (and if so, in what ways are they like me?)
- Has anyone done careful research to discover for whom this type of training works to achieve what specific types of outcomes (i.e., benefits) over what period of time? (This is a critical question to ask, and often the most difficult question to answer.)
The answers to these questions will help guide your decision about whether a particular treatment is worth consideration or whether it is a stab-in-the-dark, based on a gut feeling like it-might-not-help-but-couldn’t-hurt. When searching for answers, don’t just ask one person, even if they have first-hand experience with the treatment. And listen carefully for key words and phrases (read more about this below) that could help you filter and evaluate what you have learned. This can be a difficult and often confusing process, but don’t be discouraged. Knowledge is power and being an informed consumer is the best thing you can do for yourself and your child.
Look to Good Science When Considering a TreatmentIntuition is a good thing, especially when it proves to be right! But when it comes to saying that “doing A results in B,” the plot thickens and lots of other things come into play. One of my favorite sayings (when I wear my professional hat) is “the plural of anecdote is not evidence,” meaning that (success) stories alone are not sufficient proof that an activity or treatment is likely to work.
That said, let me say right up front that there is lots that we don’t know about how the brain processes information and how such factors as vocabulary and knowledge, experience and practice , physical and neurological maturity, nutrition, stress, emotional development and so much more contribute to a person’s overall learning profile. And I am not going to say that any one approach or combination of approaches won’t work for a particular child. What I will say is this:
- In the absence of convincing data and clear connections between research and practice, we are all prone to wishful (and even magical) thinking. This is not altogether a bad thing, as it could (and sometimes does) lead to new ways of thinking about problems and solutions.
- But let's be sure to resist the temptation to embrace alternative approaches to problems that lack meaningful evidence. It's bad for the field of LD, it is a waste of effort and expense, and it offers false hope to those who struggle to overcome the challenges of LD each and every day.
Where to Begin: Specific Things to Look For In the early 20th century, people turned to “magic” potions like “Swamp Root" medicine, "Vin Vitae," and the "Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company” for promising approaches to address their problems. (Really!) Today, parents are bombarded with treatment options ranging from the simple and inexpensive to the complex and very costly. So what is a parent to do? Here are some important things to consider:
- Identify the key words and phrases being used to describe a treatment and make sure that they are defined in ways that are clear. Words such as "help," "progress" and "outcome" may capture the positive feelings you want to associate with a particular result, but look carefully at how these will be measured and wonder aloud whether any changes you might see are the result of a treatment of just a matter of chance.
- Look for (and ask for) feedback, both positive and negative, from others who have first-hand knowledge about the treatment. Personal experience as reported by experts or parents is relevant, but remember that it is not sufficient as evidence.
- Ask for proof. The best “proof” that something is effective is when people (not connected to each other or connected to the treatment program) have studied its use, been successful in replicating positive outcomes, shared those results with others, and engaged in an open peer-review processes. If this type of information is not offered in background and promotional materials, it probably doesn't exist!
- Don't be swayed by jargon or lulled into belief because of credentials. The scientific process that underlies the "proof" behind a particular activity should be transparent (and not hidden from parents and educators) and easy to understand. Be sure that your decision to try something new makes sense to you, and is not based solely on the perceived authority of others.
- Beware of promises. There can be no guarantee that any single treatment or approach to learning will work with a given individual. And "money back if not completely satisfied" is not sufficient reason to experiment with a person's well-being.
When your child is struggling with learning, it’s natural for parents to want to try to find some way – any way – to provide help, support, and even a “fix” of some sort. There is a long (and growing) list of treatment approaches that purport to help address challenges specific to dyslexia, or other subtypes of LD or AD/HD, or weaknesses in overarching areas such as regulation of attention, executive functioning and metacognition, working memory and recall, auditory and visual information processing, and the list goes on and on. And many of these approaches might indeed offer some benefit to those who struggle with learning.
But know this: there are no simple remedies or magic potions when it comes to disorders of learning, attention, and behavior, so make sure your decisions are based not on solely on intuition or emotion but on solid evidence and good science.
