On the Coast – Families Issue 94 I June/July 2018 | Page 8

Dyslexia and Evidence-Based Intervention:
What’s
effective and
what’s not!
By Alison Flood
I
remember sitting on the end of
the bed in my daughter's room
confused; she is curled up on her
bed crying, the reader she has
brought home has been flung
across the room.
What have I done? Am I putting too
much pressure on her? Is this normal?
At the time my daughter was not even
six, she was in kindergarten and had
been sent home with a blends booklet,
sight words booklet and a reader and this
was just the reading component of her
homework! It was the beginning of her
second term of school; it also marked the
beginning of my journey into dyslexia.
Scared and confused I organised a
meeting with her teacher who expressed
the same apprehension as I did. After
months of testing, reports and specialists
among many things, she was diagnosed
with dyslexia.
I am a researcher, always have been.
If ever there was something wrong with
any one of my three children I would
want to know everything there is to
know about that particular condition.
8
KI DZ O N T H E C OA S T
Thankfully this has saved us lots of time
and money on failed approaches and
voodoo doctor treatments. I get it, I am
a mother of three beautiful children
who have all had their struggles, and
I would do anything to help them,
BUT, I wanted to know that it was the
right thing for them. One of the most
common misconceptions of dyslexia is
that it is a problem with vision. In a joint
statement from the American Academy
of Paediatrics, the American Academy of
Ophthalmology this has been proven to
be a myth;
“there is no adequate scientific evidence
to support the view that subtle eye or
visual problems cause learning disabilities.
Furthermore, the evidence does not support
the concept that vision therapy or tinted
lenses or filters are effective, directly or