Design vs. Dyslexia
The University of Cincinnati is employing its design research capabilities to create a 21st century electronic toolkit to speed learning for children with dyslexia. UC digital designer Renee Seward describes some of the activities in her electronic toolkit to help children with dyslexia.
This month I reviewed the book Twilight written by Stephenie Meyer
Smitten or Bitten by Vampire Stories?
Twilight Saga
Have you ever read a vampire book before, expecting to be cast into a fantasy world of spell binding excitement – only to find it hasn’t exactly met your expectations?
Well, don’t let your past experience put you off!
This is a brilliantly written book that I’m sure will met your ever expectation. It’s a story full of mystical and make-believe creatures that come to life in your mind to scare you out of your wits!! Only joking some of them are quite cute actually.
Twilight is a whole new world of fantasy blended with the classic boy meets girl novel but with a twist. I won’t tell you what the twist is or I’ll spoil the intrigue.
A world were people aren’t what they seem – a world where there’s more to be discovered than meets the eye. Twilight is a gripping and captivating adventure, through and through!
It’s well worth reading and I would rate it as one of the best books I’ve read in this genre
WARNING: Don’t Read Past This Point unless You Want to Know the Story!!!
Twilight is the first book in the saga written by Stephenie Meyer. Written from the perspective of seventeen year old, Bella Swann. Bella, who moves from Sunny Phoenix to a small, showery town named Folks, Washington to live with her dad, soon becomes involved in something beyond her belief. She finds herself deeply attracted to a mysterious boy, later known as Edward Cullen. His inhumane Striking Looks, Pale, cold skin and unbelievable strength causes Bella to become highly inquisitive and she begins to speculate over the identity of Edward. She soon finds out that 17 year old Edward is in fact a vampire and has been one for 109 years! This made me smile when I read it – he must be the oldest 17 year old in town!!
Poor old/young Edward had suffered Spanish influenza and on his death bed was saved by Doctor Carlisle Cullen who made a decision to turn him into a vampire along with many others who were in the same situation. Edward along with all those saved from death make up the “Vegetarian” Cullen family who have, believe it or not, chosen to survive on animal blood only – strange behavior for blood thirsty vampires hey? Well its true – the first of their kind – Veggie Vampires!
Throughout the book you see the struggles and complications Bella and Edward face in their relationship. Not far into the book you see a close bond form between Bella and Edward. However, when the story later develops and everything becomes clear to Bella about who Edward really is things take a turn for the worse. When the rival vampire gang heads into town and one of the locals is killed, it’s not long before they discover someone else to try and get their teeth into him. They come across the Cullen’s who are enjoying a very agile game of base ball when they realize there is a human among them….Bella. Having the rival vampires chasing after Bella, leaves the relationship between Bella and Edwards even more tense than it was before. The romance between them suddenly turns into a desperate struggle to stay alive. At this point of the story Edward feels guilty and blames himself for having put Bella in so much danger. It seems impossible for them to be happy but they are unwilling to give up. Will they ever be able to work this doomed romance out?
Twilight is a relatively easy book to read and the story line was simple to grasp as it’s written in a way that it is incredibly easy to follow and to understand what’s going on. I am happy to recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book with unexpected twists and turns. Twilight is a book so full of dramatic cliffhangers that will keep you up all night. Oh, and if you like a book with a good ending, then this one is defiantly for you as the story ends with such an unexpected climax.
Twilight is a book you really won’t want to put down!!!
Click here to buy a copy of Twilight
Get your book review published on Dyslexic Brian
If you would like to get your book review published on the Dyslexic Brian website then please send them to me at Nellie@dyslexicbrian.com
New Brain Findings On Dyslexic Children | by Wendy Leopold
The vast majority of school-aged children can focus on the voice of a teacher amid the cacophony of the typical classroom thanks to a brain that automatically focuses on relevant, predictable and repeating auditory information, according to new research from Northwestern University.
Their study appears in the Nov. 12 issue of Neuron.
But for children with developmental dyslexia, the teacher’s voice may get lost in the background noise of banging lockers, whispering children, playground screams and scraping chairs, the researchers say. Their study appears in the Nov. 12 issue of Neuron.
Recent scientific studies suggest that children with developmental dyslexia – a neurological disorder affecting reading and spelling skills in 5 to 10 percent of school aged children – have difficulties separating relevant auditory information from competing noise.
The research from Northwestern University’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory not only confirms those findings but presents biological evidence that children who report problems hearing speech in noise also suffer from a measurable neural impairment that adversely affects their ability to make use of regularities in the sound environment.
“The ability to sharpen or fine-tune repeating elements is crucial to hearing speech in noise because it allows for superior ‘tagging’ of voice pitch, an important cue in picking out a particular voice within background noise,” said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.
In the article “Context-dependent encoding in the human auditory brainstem relates to hearing speech-in-noise: Implications for developmental dyslexia,” Kraus and co-investigators Bharath Chandrasekaran, Jane Hornickel, Erika Skoe and Trent Nicol demonstrate that the remarkable ability of the brain to tune into relevant aspects in the soundscape is carried out by an adaptive auditory system that continuously changes its activity based on the demands of context.
Interestingly, the researchers found that dyslexic children showed enhanced brain activity in the variable condition.
Good and poor readers were asked to watch a video while the speech sound “da” was presented to them through an earphone in two different sessions during which the brain’s response to these sounds was continuously measured.
In the first session, “da” was repeated over and over and over again (in what the researchers call a repetitive context). In the second, “da” was presented randomly amid other speech sounds (in what the researchers call a variable context). In an additional session, the researchers performed behavioral tests in which the children were asked to repeat sentences that were presented to them amid increasing degrees of noise.
“Even though the children’s attention was focused on a movie, the auditory system of the good readers ‘tuned in’ to the repeatedly presented speech sound context and sharpened the sound’s encoding. In contrast, poor readers did not show an improvement in encoding with repetition,” said Chandrasekaran, lead author of the study. “We also found that children who had an adaptive auditory system performed better on the behavioral tests that required them to perceive speech in noisy backgrounds.”
The study suggests that in addition to conventional reading and spelling based interventions, poor readers who have difficulties processing information in noisy backgrounds could benefit from the employment of relatively simple strategies, such as placing the child in front of the teacher or using wireless technologies to enhance the sound of a teacher’s voice for an individual student.
Interestingly, the researchers found that dyslexic children showed enhanced brain activity in the variable condition. This may enable dyslexic children to represent their sensory environment in a broader and arguably more creative manner, although at the cost of the ability to exclude irrelevant signals (e.g. noise).
“The study brings us closer to understanding sensory processing in children who experience difficulty excluding irrelevant noise. It provides an objective index that can help in the assessment of children with reading problems,” Kraus says.
For nearly two decades, Kraus has been trying to determine why some children with good hearing have difficulties learning to read and spell while others do not. Early in her work, because the deficits she was exploring related to the complex processes of reading and writing, Kraus studied how the cortex — the part of the brain responsible for thinking –encoded sounds. She and her colleagues now understand that problems associated with the encoding of sound also can occur in lower perceptual structures.
Source: Medical News Today
I’m Luke, I’m five, and my dad’s Bruce Lee
Cult hit ... web users spread the word about song
A HEART-WARMING song about a little boy riding in his father’s digger has become a sudden favourite for Christmas No1 2005. (Click here to watch video)
The track, called The JCB Song, came from nowhere to lead the charge for the festive top spot and will go head to head with the likes of Westlife, G4 and The Pogues.
It was penned by 27-year-old Luke Concannon and tells how great he felt when he was five and his builder dad picked him up from school in a JCB.
Luke, of Leamington Spa, Warks, struggled in his studies because of dyslexia and says he was often bullied.
The JCB Song celebrates how all his troubles disappeared when he was riding in the cab of the big digger with his father Kieron.
The song and accompanying video — which can be viewed on the internet — has achieved cult status after web users started to spread the word.
Tribute ... Luke wrote song for father
The video features of animations of childlike drawings done in crayon on school notebooks.
Luke is one half of double act Nizlopi. He recorded the track with fellow dyslexic John Parker, who has been his best mate since they were 13.
Luke recalls: “My first school was rubbish. The teachers and pupils were real bullies.
“My grandad and dad are Irish and both builders and my dad used to give me a lift home in his big JCB. He even let me drive it sometimes.
“I was so proud of him. I thought he was really cool and when we were in the digger I was so happy.
“All that rubbish with school just used to be left behind for a while.”
The song begins: “Well, I’m rumblin’ in this JCB. I’m five years old and my dad’s a giant sitting beside me.”
Luke goes on to compare his hero father to martial arts legend Bruce Lee — whose name he rhymes with JCB — and hard man BA Baracus from TV’s The A-Team.
No1, son ... young Luke with dad
He also refers to his favourite childhood toys Zoids and Transformers.
Kieron, 51, is very proud of the tribute his son penned for him.
He says: “It took a while to sink in when he came down and first played it for me. To think something I did with him as a kid had such a lasting effect really moved me.
“People say you must be proud, when they hear the song but it goes way beyond that.
“Anyone who is a parent knows what I’m talking about.”
Kieron has now given up the building business and is helping his son
to set up his own record label, Folk’n Deadly.
He even plays Irish pipes on the track, which will be released on the new label next month [story written in 2005].
Luke and John formed Nizlopi shortly after they first met on the school bus.
The bizarre name for their two-man outfit comes from a former schoolmate of Luke’s — Nina Nizlopi — who he had a crush on.
He says: “I thought her name was amazing. I think she lives in Chicago now but if we get a Christmas No1 I’ll definitely get in touch with her.”
Bookies reckon a festive chart-topper is not out of the question.
The odds against Nizlopi started at 33-1 and have gradually come down. They are now as short as 5-1.
Childlike ... crayon drawing
The JCB Song has been dubbed this year’s Mad World.
That was the Tears For Fears number which Gary Jules covered two years ago for the soundtrack to the film Donnie Darko. It surprised everyone by storming to Christmas No1.
The JCB Song is being seen as a quirky but credible alternative to cheesy Christmas ballads.
Luke says: “There is a lot of really bad music out there and I hope this offers something a little bit different and a little bit more thought-provoking than some of the other stuff.
“There’s a good story behind this track. I hope some people can relate to it and hopefully take some comfort from it.
“I don’t look at dyslexia as something that should hold you back and I hope other people don’t as well.
“I hope when people hear this song it leaves them with a stupid smile on their face. That’s how it’s meant to make people feel.”
Click here to listen to the song.
Story written by Derek Brown in 2005
Dyslexia in Gifted Children
Dyslexia doesn’t have to keep a kid down.
