Thursday, June 15, 2006

LD dyslexia screening in first grade?

Thanks to the LD Blog for the news out of Misssisssippi that their legislature is discussing possible mandated screening of all first grade students for possible reading disabilities (dyslexia)


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a relatively new school psych, I have to say that several of my previous supervisors did not support giving kids in first grade a reading disability label...what are your thoughts on that? Also, I am wondering if one potential outcome of this is that once you screen all of these kids and identify those in need, do the schools have the resources to then offer services? I'm not suggesting this is a reason to NOT screen kids, but as someone who attended schools in MS, I cautiously suggest that the schools may not have these resources...then what?? Very interesting legislation.

Kevin McGrew said...

I tend to be a proponent of early screening, but not labeling or classification. That is, I like some of the special education reform proposals that have been advanced that suggest screening kids in grades k-3 on sensitive "markers" that will identify kids that are "at risk." Then these non-labeled kids would receive services and be monitored with continuos monitoring systems to ascertain their response to intervention. Only after grade 3, and only in the presence of severe lack of responsiveness to instruction (high quality of course), and only after an in-depth assessment, would more traditional classification and labeling occur for special education services.

JohnL said...

Kevin, thanks for the tip of the hat. After I wrote my post on Mississippi's sage potential action, I located the e-mail address for one of the state legislators listed in the story and sent him a thank-you note. Think I'll hear back from him?