News and Events

August, 2005

News

AD/HD? Or Sleep-Deprived?  An article in the UK newspaper The Guardian contends that some sleep-deprived children may be wrongly diagnosed with AD/HD.  While one pediatrician says that we don’t know exactly what a sleep-deprived child looks like, a study that cut children’s sleep from 10 to 9 hours a night yielded irritable, oppositional kids with impaired working memory and impaired verbal task ability. Pediatric sleep disorder expert Paul Gringras contends sleep disorders and AD/HD often coexist, and that as many as 50 percent of children with autism or AD/HD also have sleep problems. Another expert, Stephen Sheldon, director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, thinks that the symptoms of as many as 30 percent of the children diagnosed with AD/HD may actually stem from sleep pathology – similar symptoms, different cause. (www.guardian.co.uk/; search for “sleep disorder.”) 

Education in the Ether.  Parents of 2e high-schoolers often use the summer to find enrichment for their offspring – or, in the case of classroom underachievement, to find an opportunity to remediate. US News and World Report (June 27) reported on the advantages of virtual on-line classes for high school students. One advantage, the article noted, is flexibility. Learners can take courses anywhere, anytime by logging in asynchronously to interactions that don’t necessarily take place in real time. Another advantage is that many students find the on-line format easier for learning. The article points out that to be successful with an on-line course, teenagers must be able to work independently. The article also cautions parents to check with their student’s principal to make sure a particular on-line course is eligible for credit from the student’s regular high school.  

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Help for Auditory Input and Processing?  Wired Magazine reports on an exhibition of personal hearing devices at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. One device can filter out annoying noises, for example ambient sound in a crowded room. Another device is a set of earphones which can, on demand, repeat the last 10 seconds of conversation. The exhibit also includes a pair of glasses with four built-in microphones; the device amplifies sound depending on which way the listener is facing, providing a “type of three-dimensional superhuman hearing similar to that found in certain animals.”

The Big Re-Evaluation.  SchwabLearning contains an article by a woman who discovered at 76 that she had dyslexia. “School was a living nightmare,” she says, because of her difficulties in reading, pronunciation, and spelling. She graduated from high school, didn’t consider college, and survived in the work world by inventing her own work-arounds. Although a co-worker once told her she might have dyslexia, it wasn’t until a few years ago she purchased a book on the topic, read a few pages, and suddenly was able to re-evaluate her life: “Dear Blessed God, I am not dumb. I have dyslexia.” Ecstatic knowing the reason her brain works differently from others’, she no longer hides her disability.

A UK Boost for NCLB.  The respected UK publication The Economist (July 21st) pointed out some potential good news for the administration of George W. Bush and for the future health of American education. The article noted improvements in test scores administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress; improved were reading and math scores for nine-year-olds and the narrowing of the gap between minorities and white students. The article points out that while No Child Left Behind had only been in place for a year when the tests were administered, the ideas behind it have been in place in many states since the mid-1990s. The Economist gives Mr. Bush credit for applying the ideas at the federal level and for increasing US Department of Education funding by 40 percent, a bigger increase than for defense spending. The Economist thinks the test improvements are important: “…the growing gap between the educational performance of the rich and the poor, and between the majority and minorities, is arguably the biggest threat to America’s traditional conception of itself as a meritocracy.”

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Cash or Pride – Take Your Pick.  The Toledo Blade (July 4) reports that a school board in Detroit’s western suburbs is willing to sell naming rights to its school buildings and athletic facilities. The president of the Plymouth-Canton school board explained the move as a reaction to broken promises from the state for adequate funding. The article noted that a New Jersey school district received $100,000 over 20 years for naming rights to what is now the ShopRite gymnasium, after a local grocery. The Toledo Blade isn’t enthusiastic about such practices, opining that nothing of enduring value will be lost if commercialism is kept away from our public schools.     

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