Schlagwort: dyslexia

Corona Crisis – Opportunities and Risks for Dyslexics

Veröffentlicht in Von

In view of the current situation, we would like to look at the opportunities and risks associated with the Corona crisis. Especially for adult dyslexics, challenging times are dawning, but also good opportunities.

No one can say now what impact this Crisis will have in our lives. Dyslexics who have overcome various challenges in life before this current Crisis can draw on positive experiences at this time, because they know that crises also have an end. If dyslexics have overcome their difficulties before the Crisis, they have a good toolkit. They are psychologically more stable and will also get back on their feet more quickly after another internal crisis. They have worked through their difficult school biography and have achieved a good professional standing. There are clear opportunities to be seen here, since crises that have been overcome serve personal maturity.

On the other hand, those who have not overcome their difficulties in reading and writing in the past can now find themselves in massive inner-emotional crises. Crises often expose unresolved problems in one’s life. Problems from childhood resurface. Especially if one has experienced little support in the parental home in coping with one’s weaknesses. Or teachers have humiliated ones with dyslexia and reacted without understanding. This then becomes particularly apparent in coping with the crisis. This current Crisis in society as a whole is nevertheless also individual and personal, because it is closely linked to the biographical experiences of the individual.

Here the opportunities and risks of this Crisis become clear. Dyslexics who have overcome their difficulties have a much better chance of emerging stronger from this new crisis. Unfortunately, there are many affected individuals who have never dealt with their dyslexia through psychological therapies or learning therapy measures. For these affected, the current Crisis, which is not just a medical epidemic, will trigger further difficulties. It may cause the loss of a job, the death of a relative, or financial losses. It is not yet possible to fully assess what will trigger this crisis. This chain of problems can cause great psychological strain.

Unfortunately, in the past there was hardly any help from the state for those affected. Often, only middle-class dyslexics could afford support. Socially disadvantaged people were usually left behind.

The Corona Crisis will highlight many problems in Education, Social Services, Healthcare and Labor. It will become clear that we have not reformed our Education System for many years. The state had very little money left for the systemically important Social-Welfare System. This particularly affects the socially disadvantaged who may not easily overcome this Crisis. This is where civil society help is needed in caring for those affected. That is why the State should better promote and support non-profit initiatives. Otherwise, our community will be even less able to handle these tasks, because too little has been done in this area in recent decades.

 

Die Stärken legasthener Kinder erkennen und fördern

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Kinder mit einer Legasthenie sollten nicht nur über ihre spezifischen, anlagebedingten Schwächen im Schriftspracherwerb definiert werden. Vielmehr müssen die Stärken dieser Kinder bereits in den ersten Grundschuljahren erkannt und entsprechend gefördert werden. Dies kann eine wichtige Prävention vor seelischen Folgeerkrankungen sein.

Im deutschsprachigen Raum orientiert sich die Fachwelt meistens an den Defiziten der legasthenen Kinder. Dabei werden ihre individuellen Stärken oftmals in den Hintergrund gedrängt. Eltern können hier einen positiven Einfluss nehmen, wenn sie die Kinder nicht mit ihrer eigenen schulischen und beruflichen Biografie vergleichen. Auch wenn Kinder gute Lernfähigkeiten geerbt haben, sind sie trotzdem von Geburt an eigenständige Persönlichkeiten, die es zu fördern und zu begleiten gilt.

Eltern, die sich einer Legasthenie in ihrer eigenen Biografie bewusst sind, können oft mit Verständnis und Einfühlungsvermögen auf ihre Kinder eingehen. Dabei spielt die Biografie der Betroffenen eine wichtige Rolle, denn legasthene Eltern sind unterschiedlich mit ihrer Situation umgegangen. Einige konnten ihre Legasthenie erfolgreich kompensieren, während andere ihre Schwierigkeiten nie bewältigt haben. Das spiegelt sich auch in der Erziehung der eigenen Kinder wider.

Wenn Lernprobleme bei Kindern erkannt werden, ist eine individuelle und wissenschaftlich fundierte Feststellung der Legasthenie sehr wichtig. Dann besteht eine reelle Chance, dass legasthene Kinder ihre Schwierigkeiten gut bewältigen. Dies sollte bereits während der Grundschulzeit geschehen. Je früher die Probleme erkannt und bewältigt werden, desto mehr vermeidet man seelische Lasten bei den Kindern. Hierbei spielt ein stabiles familiäres und schulisches Umfeld eine entscheidende Rolle, welches die vorhandenen Stärken der Kinder fördert. Das können zum Beispiel verschiedene sportliche Aktivitäten, die Kinder-Uni für naturwissenschaftlich begabte Kinder, eine musikalische Erziehung oder kreative AGs sein. Legasthene Kinder sind oft in vielerlei Hinsicht begabt. Das gilt es in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen und zu fördern. Dann wachsen diese Kinder zu seelisch gesunden Persönlichkeiten heran.

Werden die Probleme dagegen nicht erkannt oder gar ignoriert, können emotionale Schwierigkeiten bei den Kindern die Folge sein. Diese Schwierigkeiten können dann ihr Selbstbild und ihre Lernmotivation beeinträchtigen. Deshalb ist es wichtig, dass Eltern die Lernprobleme ihrer Kinder nicht vernachlässigen oder ignorieren. Eine unerkannte Legasthenie kann sich bis weit ins Erwachsenenalter hinein ungünstig auf die psychische Gesundheit der Betroffenen auswirken.

Unser Fazit ist: Eine frühe Feststellung der Legasthenie und die Förderung der Kinder mittels einer individuellen Lerntherapie wirken sich günstig auf die Entwicklung ihrer vorhandenen Begabungen und Ressourcen aus.

 

Can Prenatal Stress Promote the Acquisition of Dyslexia?

Veröffentlicht in Von

Research has not yet conclusively clarified whether or not prenatal stress can promote dyslexia in children. We know from developmental psychology and resilience research that a stressful pregnancy can have an unfavorable impact on children’s development. In the scientific literature. and in interviews we conducted, we found evidence of how severe stress affects child development. These environmental conditions can have a lasting impact on children’s psycho-emotional development and overall learning biography into adulthood. This can eventually foster learning problems such as acquired Dyslexia or concentration problems and social behavior disorders (Schneider, 2012).

Severe negative maternal stress due to partnership conflict, separation from the birth father, or loss of loved ones during pregnancy can pose an increased risk of stress to child development. Approximately 30 percent of families in the United States experience a highly stressful family environment during childhood (Maren Keller, 2020). It is not unlikely that around 25 to 30 percent of children in Germany and German-speaking countries are also born into a difficult family environment.

From our many years of research, we know that prenatal stress affects overall learning development as well as emotional regulation. In individual interviews, we were told that the pregnancy was quite stressful. The following statements support this: „Pregnancy was very stressful because I separated from the child’s father“ or „I had a lot of job stress during pregnancy“ or „The child’s father was an alcoholic and beat me during pregnancy„. We are familiar with such or similar statements about the family situation during the mothers‘ pregnancy. Others conclude very clearly: „My pregnancy was very stressful„. These children then experienced problems in their child development, which varied in severity depending on the situation. For us, such statements are important indications that prenatal stress can have an unfavorable impact on cognitive maturation, emotional regulatory capacity, and language and motor development. This stress may also promote the acquisition of Dyslexia and be seen as an important trigger for it.

Therefore, it can be assumed that prenatal stress can have an unfavorable effect on the children’s written language development. Often, these children also show language and motor impairments.

Many children with acquired Dyslexia (LRS) have experienced prenatal stress with their mothers during pregnancy. We observe these correlations particularly often in children who show very strong difficulties in the acquisition of written language during the early elementary school years. Many of these children, as is common in Saxony, have to attend a special school called an „LRS class“.

In summary, it is likely that prenatal stress has an adverse effect on learning development for children with learning and literacy disabilities in school – although not all causes have yet been identified. There is evidence that prenatal stress promotes learning difficulties in language and literacy acquisition that are related to early childhood development. An important indication of this is the early motor development of affected children. Many children with reading and spelling problems had a less intensive crawling phase, or none at all, which can be an indication of possible problems in later written language acquisition. In addition, there may be difficulties in the psycho-social area, manifested by concentration problems and other behavioral disorders. There is a clear connection here that unfavorable social environmental conditions in the prenatal phase can promote general learning disabilities as well as the acquisition of Dyslexia. However, more research is needed to understand all interactions in detail.

 

Deutsche Übersetzung:

Kann vorgeburtlicher Stress den Erwerb von Lese-Rechtschreib-Schwächen begünstigen?

 

Literature:

Schneider, Lindenberger (2012). ‚7 Prenatal Development and Early Childhood‘, in Developmental Psychology (7th ed.), Beltz, pp. 160-164. Available at: https://www.beltz.de/fachmedien/psychologie/buecher/produkt_produktdetails/33417-entwicklungspsychologie.html

Maren Keller, (2020) ‚Am tiefsten des U.‘, in Spiegel Wissen Issue 02/2020, Spiegel Verlag, pp. 34-39. Available at: https://magazin.spiegel.de/SPWI/2020/2/

  • pregnancy99 Vorkommen

One Year of the Corona Pandemic – our Experiences and Observations

Veröffentlicht in Von

Today we write in the month of April 2021 and look back on one year of the Corona Pandemic. In this report, we would like to reflect on the experiences and observations we have gathered while working at our Institute.

Who would have thought that after one year of the pandemic, things have not gotten much better? If you trust the statements of some researchers, this phase will continue for some time. Soberly speaking, 2021 will not be much different from 2020. Further forecasts are pure guesswork. We will have to come to terms with the conditions of this pandemic, even if we long for a return to normality. Whether it will ever return, we do not know, but post-Corona normality will probably look different.

We keep asking ourselves these questions: How will the lockdowns affect the psycho-social development of those under our charge? How will the school closures affect the children’s acquisition of written language? Will this increase the percentage of children with reading and spelling disabilities? As an educational and research institution, we face these questions because they affect our field. There is no denying that the Corona pandemic fosters mental health problems. Very likely, many children are developing learning difficulties because of the school closures. We cannot provide generalized answers to this, but we will report the snapshots of this year.

It becomes very clear that the differences between educationally advantaged and disadvantaged families are even more visible as a result of the crisis. Children in socially weaker families experience such times of crisis as more threatening and insecure than middle-class children in which both parents can work. Therefore, it can be assumed that educationally disadvantaged children may develop increased behavioral problems and significant learning regressions as a result of the lockdowns and school closures. On the other hand, families advantaged in terms of education also have to bear a significantly higher burden under the pandemic conditions. However, this can usually be well compensated for by a stable family structure. It will probably only be possible to realistically observe and evaluate the effects of the current crisis on our field in the coming years.

We are seeing early indicators that school closures are having an unfavorable impact, particularly on children with learning difficulties. Many children experience anxiety and significant learning delays in reading and writing. These differences were not as great before the Corona crisis. It is conceivable that the current crisis, with its lockdowns and school back and forth, will favor the acquisition of LRS[1]. Children with predisposed Dyslexia will also have greater problems as a result of the crisis. In summary, the longer this crisis continues, the greater the deficits will become for children with learning disabilities. In homeschooling, it is almost impossible for younger children to compensate for learning deficits in the acquisition of written language, because they lack professional school supervision. Thus, there will be an increase in Dyslexia among students.

These are our initial observations. But there are also positive developments to report, where children with clear reading problems have benefited from homeschooling. This is because they had to read and understand significantly more texts. We also saw good progress among secondary students. Some children have also benefited from individual help with learning from parents and grandparents.

A very large percentage of children clearly struggle with school lockdowns. Most of the children long for a normal school routine. Especially the back and forth between school opening and closing creates uncertainty for the children. Time and time again, we have seen children crying because they were overwhelmed with homeschooling. Parents have also told us of a significant extra burden. Of course, the situation is experienced differently in individual families. Nevertheless, policymakers should draft a clear plan on how to better organize schools under pandemic conditions.

How the situation will develop in the near future, we will continue to monitor and then report.

[1] German for reading and writing disability (Lese-Rechtschreib-Schwäche)