YouTube discussion between David Boulton and and Andrew Johnson

                                                          

Here are extracts from a discussion between David Boulton and Andrew Johnson and my comments. LINK

 

At minute 34.30 - dyslexia is an inability to learn to read which is of Unknown Origin. It impacts usually depending on the researcher three to five percent of the population. Unfortunately, it's become such a big thing politically and profitably that they push that three to five percent which I kind of agree with to almost 15 to 20 percent because there's a whole lot more opportunity to intervene. 

 

I have said the same thing for the past over a decade.

Dyslexia - A multi-billion US dollar business written in August 2010. LINK

My e-mail to Dyslexia Scotland part 2 written in September 2010. LINK

Phonological Awareness Deficit is not the cause of dyslexics being unable to read fluently - A Myth Busted written in October 2010. LINK

There are many other posts I wrote over the years.

I believe the % of kids who may fall into the dyslexic category are no more than 2%. Even if we accept the 3 to 5 % as mentioned by David above that leaves a lot more who are unable to read due to ‘Dysteachia’.

 

I've had some pretty deep-dive conversations with people like Shaywitz and others that are on the Neuroscience side of trying to identify dyslexia and they can't point to anything that's higher than the three to five percent that you're referring to that they can say for sure is innately neurobiologically structurally ordained as opposed to or as distinct from a consequence of early learning environment trajectory differences. In other words, how much dyslexia or what we call or think of Dyslexia is learned and how much of Dyslexia is innate couldn't be otherwise in the structural development of a child is a bit fuzzy and that unfortunately because of our lack of criticality about those distinctions and because so many people are having so many kids having difficulty with learning to read it's become this fuzzy deep end of the pool that has become a rallying cry that's been also fused with the whole phonics conversation so the dyslexia thing is a big messy amorphous multi-ordinary term.

 

My comment:

It was Sally Shaywitz who was one of those ‘experts’ who wrote on the Yale website that it was phonological awareness deficit that was the cause of dyslexia. I wrote a long comment about why I dispute that theory. The comment was left unanswered for many years until one day she took down the whole article and my comments. She did not have the decency to leave the comment there and say that I had been correct all those years.

I have many posts on this woman too. Here are a few.

Time, audience/receivers all play a part (Episode 1). LINK

“dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.” (Sally Shaywitz) A revisit. LINK

 

The International Dyslexia Association presses a certain definition and they exist to sell products to make money. How much does it cost to get trained in Orton Gillingham a program that has no research base and does not work yet people do it.

 

My comment:

But because these instructors have spent a large amount of money they swamp social media stating that only OG works for kids who are dyslexic.

Minute 36

Shaywitz is not a reading instructor. She's a neurologist she's a medical person and she has her research where she takes one or two kids into the laboratory and they look at parts of their brain that do light up and don't light up and Stephen Straw says okay once you give a kid adequate instruction the dyslexic use that term and quote whose part of the brain didn't light up does light up so it's not a brain-based disorder

My comment:

I have said the same thing in my blog. Would my former students who are now able to read have that part of the brain lighted up now? Sally Shaywitz never answered that question when I asked her.

37:19 – Andrew Johnson said:

However, students in that three to five percent tend to have trouble processing letter sounds tend to have trouble processing phonics but not always to where Shaywitz and the international dyslexia Association get up to 20 percent so they have defined dyslexia not in a way that helps kids but in a way that helps them make money.

37:55 – David Boulton replied:

Yeah I wouldn't quite be so dark about it I think there are really generally good intentions like we've talked about many times before in where people are coming from but I do agree that it has become financially convenient for both the international dyslexia Association and all of the decoding dyslexia groups that have popped up around the country.

 

My response:

Both David and Andrew do not understand that it is not phonics that is the problem but the extraneous sounds attached to the consonants. My comment on David’s YouTube videos on LinkedIn on this matter was what made him block me and then delete the videos I had complained about.

I am not sure of the good intentions. I believe it is for the purpose
of making money from desperate parents. Don’t forget I wrote to more than 30 Dyslexic Associations around the world in 2010 and 2011.

What is pertinent here is the fact that one by one what I had written over the years is now surfacing. You can’t hide the Sun, the Moon and the Truth for too long.