Dyslexia Informer
November 2018
Welcome to the November Edition of the Dyslexia Informer
The weather is getting cooler and we are getting closer to Thanksgiving Break. Looking for something to be thankful for? GISD now has Dyslexia Therapists and Therapists-in-Training to serve students at all campuses! GISD Dyslexia has some resources and upcoming events that you won’t want to miss. Experience Dyslexia allows you to know what it may feel like to be a student with dyslexia. The next Experience Dyslexia Event will be held on November 8th. We are also looking forward to our first parent Resource Group on November 27th.
Control, Organization, Memory, Initiation: The Impact of Executive Function in Dyslexic and/or ADHD Students
Many students with dyslexia, and students with ADHD, have difficulty with executive functioning skills. The book, Late, Lost, and Unprepared: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning helps parents to understand what executive functioning is and how to provide support at home. According to Cooper-Kahn and Dietzel, these skills can be broken down into eight distinct functions:
- Inhibition—the ability to control one’s impulses.
- Shift—the ability to transition easily from one activity to another.
- Emotional Control—the ability to regulate emotions based on reason.
- Initiation—the ability to begin a task.
- Working Memory—the capacity to hold information in one’s mind long enough to do something with it.
- Planning/Organization—the ability to plan and organize.
- Organization of materials—the ability to impose order on work, play, and storage spaces.
- Self-Monitoring—the ability to monitor one’s own performance and measure it against an expected standard.
If your child has weaknesses in any (or all) of these areas, then he will probably continue to need strong parental support throughout high school; we highly recommend this book as a way to help you help your child. Children with weak executive functioning need considerable assistance with organization, time management and with learning how to deal with frustrations. The aforementioned book includes a chapter for each executive function that is devoted to strategies you can use to help your child in the short-term, while helping him/her to gain independence.
Quote of the Month
Quote of the Month
“Science has moved forward at a rapid pace so that we now possess the data to reliably define dyslexia. For the student, the knowledge that he is dyslexic is empowering… [it provides him] with self-understanding and self-awareness of what he has and what he needs to do in order to succeed.”
-Sally Shaywitz, M.D. (Author, Co-Director of Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity) from her Testimony Before the Committee of Science, Space and Technology, United States House of Representatives
Contact GISD Dyslexia
Assistant Director, Dyslexia
Garland ISD
Email: MEisinger@garlandisd.net
Location: 501 S Jupiter Rd, Garland, TX, USA
Phone: 972-487-3300
Twitter: @gisd_dyslexia