IEP Michigan Pre-Labor Day Rally in Lansing

Today, disability advocates, parents of children with disabilities, students with disabilities and legislators are gathering on the steps and lawn of the Capitol to express concerns about the conditions under which special education programs are operating.  The organizer, Marcie Lipsitt, is a frequent letter-writer to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, and an advocate in Southeastern Michigan.  Marcie invited LDA of Michigan to participate.

Source:  Michigan Alliance for Special Education

Often, disability organizations are founded to represent the needs of a particular segment of the disability community, or coalesce around a particular issue that affects a subset of the disability population.  Class size, service availability, teacher qualifications, and supports are issues where we seem to hold common ground.  The devil is mostly in the details.

LDA of Michigan's contribution to the Rally is this statement, to be read by Regina Carey, our current conference chair and president-elect (her term starts in 2014):

Statement of LDA of Michigan for the IEP Michigan Rally

August 29, 2012

The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan is a 501 3c Non-Profit organization. Most of our work is done by a dedicated group of volunteers. LDA of Michigan is the statewide affiliate of the Learning Disabilities Associationof America.

The mission of LDA of Michigan is to enhance the quality of life for all individuals with learning disabilities and their families through advocacy, education, training and support of research.

If you think that it's harder to be identified with a Specific Learning Disability under IDEA in Michigan, you're right.  Today, one out of three children with IEPs have Specific Learning Disabilities in Michigan.  In 2001, there were over 95 thousand students identified with Specific Learning Disabilities. Ten years later, in 2011, there were only 73 thousand. Since 2001, there has been a decrease of 22 thousand in the number of students with Learning Disabilities. This isn’t because of an educational “miracle” or a massive drop in population-- it’s because the rules changed. The 2004 reauthorization of the IDEA expressly prohibited all states from requiring the “discrepancy model” to identify students with learning disabilities. So, in 2006, the Michigan Rules were made much more stringent. The official numbers are down but we know that a large number of children are simply falling through the cracks.

Source: Annual Special Education Child Count, 2010--MDE

Most students with learning disabilities are in general education classes of 30 or more students, being taught by one general education teacher. With 21^st Century technology, all children with learning disabilities should be able to use accessible instructional materials—with or without IEPs.  A reading barrier should not determine a child’s achievement in social studies, science, math, or the arts. But new innovations in technology will not solve the problem of large class sizes, or completely accommodate children with disabilities. Teachers in the general education classroom can’t do this alone—their districts need the resources to support smaller class sizes, co-teaching, team-teaching and paraprofessional assistants so that all children can be successful in the classroom. 

The "Michigan Merit Curriculum" requirements place a new burden on teens with disabilities. Although the legislature provides for a Personal Curriculum for students with disabilities, implementation has been challenging. Some districts delay Personal Curriculum accommodations until students have failed many courses, and are nearly 18 years old; some use the Personal Curriculum to reduce requirements to unacceptably low levels; and some refuse to implement a Personal Curriculum altogether. The Personal Curriculum is intended to provide some customization of the requirements for graduation. Withholding or delaying the implementation of a Personal Curriculum is yet another barrier to students with disabilities, many of whom have great potential for success.

We believe that children with learning disabilities are capable and competent. Success starts in the classroom, and continues in the workplace and the community. We cannot give up on our children. Education can make a difference. We want our children to achieve maximum independence—through self-determination, with high expectations, and by working on the skills that lead to self-sufficiency. 

What we know is that the number of people requesting help and direction has increased. What we do is provide a helping hand, a listening ear, and a starting point for families navigating the maze of special education. What we want is for individuals with learning disabilities to be recognized for their gifts, talents, and contributions.

Please join us for our conference on November 11^th and 12^th at the Kellogg Conference Center on the campus of Michigan State University.

Source:  LDA of Michigan, 2012

Finally, if you are able, please consider a membership or a donation of your time, talents or treasures to our organization.

We probably have many more concerns than will fit into a 5-10 minute sound-byte, but these concerns--SLD identification, conditions in the classroom, and preparation for life beyond high school--are the essentials.  Unless education addresses the needs of struggling learners, through individualization and personalization, our children will face less access to bright futures as adults.

COMMENTS ON THE DSM-5

Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan Public Comment

June 15, 2012

The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan is an all volunteer 501(c)3 non- profit organization representing families and educators of persons with learning disabilities. Our offices are located at 200 Museum Drive, Ste. 101, Lansing, Michigan 48933.

Our mission is to enhance the quality of life for all individuals with learning disabilities and their families through advocacy, education, training, service and support of research. Our organization supports initiatives that encompass prevention, early identification, and access to the necessary supports to allow full participation of our constituents as citizens.

Our stakeholders represent a diversity of perspectives regarding the particulars for educating students with learning disabilities, but are unified by the conviction that, despite the range of learning problems subsumed under this category, these problems share the common trait of appearing to be breakdowns in the neurological processes of executive functioning which affect listening, oral expression, reading decoding, reading comprehension, written expression, mathematical calculation or mathematical reasoning resulting in evidence of unexpected underachievement in one or more of these areas.

Picture source: http://www.rainbowreaders.com/

The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan welcomes this opportunity to publicly comment on the proposed revisions related to Specific Learning Disabilities in the DSM-5.  Although many of our concerns are related to the early identification of these breakdowns in the context of early childhood academic settings, we also recognize that these breakdowns extend into adulthood and affect life activities beyond educational settings.  Therefore, we recognize that a DSM-5 diagnostic code reflects broader parameters than those observed solely in school settings.  Further, we recognize that although these breakdowns exist, the function of diagnosis is to identify these breakdowns while offering beneficial insights about the external and environmental barriers that exacerbate the expression of these neurological breakdowns. Therefore, if medical diagnosis is to be useful, some attention needs to be paid to the educational and functional implications of the existence of these neurological breakdowns. In our society, where a high level of literacy is considered essential for individual success, it is important that we understand and help to improve access for those people identified with “dyslexia”. Access includes early intervention, as well as the provision of alternative forms of access, especially to text, for those identified with “dyslexia”.

In the United States, much of the research on Specific Learning Disabilities has focused on “dyslexia”, which is a specific learning disability that encompasses language processing, multiple aspects of the processes involved in reading, and also may include processes involved in spelling and written expression. Of the roughly one in seven people identified with Specific Learning Disabilities, 70 percent are thought to warrant a diagnosis of “dyslexia” (Lyon, 2001; Lyon, Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2003; International Dyslexia Association, 2012).  This means that in Michigan, of the over 73 thousand children identified with Specific Learning Disabilities, one can estimate that more than 51 thousand are dyslexic (Michigan Compliance Information System for 2010-2011).  Or, in other words, roughly one out of every four children with special educational needs (n=217 thousand) in Michigan may be considered “dyslexic”.  In the education context, accessible text providers prefer a quasi-medical diagnosis of “dyslexia” as opposed to the more generic term, “specific learning disability” when authorizing the use of their services. Most notably, Bookshare, the largest provider of accessible textbooks, recognizes the term “dyslexia” as a qualifier for its’ services.

A large community of researchers in the neurosciences (c.f.: Bennett and Sally Shawitz, G. Reid Lyon, Jack Fletcher and others) have focused their attention on the causes, traits, interventions, and outcomes for persons with “dyslexia” and attach special meaning to the term as a separate set of conditions from other forms of reading failure because of its’ prevalence and intractability (see for example the comments of Michael Ryan, Ph.D. at http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/, and the statement of the International Dyslexia Association, http://www.interdys.org/).  Internationally, too, the term “developmental dyslexia”, as found in the ICD-10 (WHO, updated 2011), holds special significance.  In order to compare incidence of various disorders and diseases internationally, common terminology with common meaning is required.  To remove the term “dyslexia” from the DSM-5 is to put the U.S. data-reporting out of step with the rest of the world.  Increasing global interdependence requires that we be able to communicate using common terminology in order to share scientific findings, and to work toward overall improvement in the education and lives of all humankind.  

In summary, the use of the term “dyslexia” holds significance as a diagnostic term, in research on its’ causes, characteristics, interventions and outcomes, and as a shared descriptor in the international community.  Therefore, the Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan supports the continued use of the term “dyslexia” in the DSM-5.

Submitted on behalf of the Board of Directors of LDA of Michigan,

Florence Curtis, Acting Executive Director

Board of Directors

President—Byron Vorce, Bellevue

President Elect—Regina Carey, Okemos

Secretary—Betsy Schrage, Grosse Pointe

Treasurer—John Carter, Ann Arbor

Past President—Lori Parks, Plymouth

Newsletter Editor—Kathleen Kosobud, Ann Arbor

Healthy Child Director—Amy Winans, Lansing

Dawn Bentley, East Lansing

Linda Clark, Novi

Renee Craig, East Lansing

Edna Felmlee, Williamston

Glenda Hammond, Lansing

Delia Laing, Ann Arbor

Judith New, Ann Arbor

Annette Puleo, East Lansing

Rosanne Renauer, Lansing

Mary Rivera, Lansing

Kristen Toadvine, Mulliken

Kendra Tobes, West Bloomfield

Annette Lalley Trautz, Lowell

Vicki White, Lansing