Do you have a child or student with poor listening skills?

At home you might ask your child to do something like, "go and put on your school clothes, get your jacket and put your library book in your school bag". He or she may look confused or just say "huh", or actually go and just get one or two of the three things done.

In the classroom, the student with poor listening skills will have trouble keeping up with classroom discussions, following instructions and learning information when it is presented to them by the teacher's voice.

Some teachers and parents can mistake a dyslexic child for someone who is lacking intelligence. But the truth is dyslexia has nothing to do with a child’s level of intelligence.

In fact many very intelligent people – like Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group of companies and Charles Schwab who pioneered the discount stockbroking industry – are dyslexic and had trouble learning to read.

Do you have questions about Dyslexia? 
What is it? What are the causes of this challenging condition?

How are brain scientists and researchers progressing in their quest to understand Dyslexia? And most importantly what are the latest interventions making a difference for people with Dyslexia?

Dr Martha Burns answers some of your questions here:

Do you know what this means?:
"Brain wave oscillation bands appear to be a major mechanism co-ordinating billions of nerves across different brain regions to perform even basic cognitive tasks such as paying attention to someone who is talking and understanding what they are saying."

It's about brain science, language learning and reading, and it may help your children or students.

What is the best treatment for my child’s dyslexia? How can we improve his/her progress learning to read?

To get answers to this question, LearnFast recorded a video interview with speech language pathologist and dyslexia specialist, Devon Barnes.

Key points from this interview include:

LearnFast provides the Fast ForWord program to schools in Australia and New Zealand.

A teacher from one of the schools using Fast ForWord sent us an email saying:  “ One of the students has dyslexia and the mother will not let the child do Fast ForWord because of  this Blog from an official publication of the International Dyslexia Association.”

It is difficult for parents to source objective and informed opinions to help them make decisions to help their child. How sad for them when incomplete information like this International Dyslexia Association blog from 2011 makes them fearful.

An article in the Melbourne Age newspaper titled “Children with learning difficulties need programs based on science, not anecdote and neurobabble”, makes some valid points but misses key information about how the neuroscience-based program Fast ForWord helps with Dyslexia.

The author focused on children with reading difficulties, including dyslexia.

A team of academics from Auckland University’s Centre for Brain Research and School of Psychology has produced an objective overview of 15 computer-based and group or whole class behavioural intervention programs that are designed to remediate learning disorders.

They point out that advances in the scientific understanding of disorders such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have paved the way for the development of programs aimed at helping the  estimated one in five students with these disorders.

"What's the new research on dyslexia", asked Dr Martha Burns in a recent presentation.

Dr Martha Burns is a neuroscientist, author of over 100 journal articles and multiple books, and a leading expert on how children learn. 

She explained, "Well, this just came out in the journal 'Biological Psychiatry' this year on the disruption of functional brain networks in dyslexia. It's from Dr Sally Shaywitz 's laboratory.

Neuroscientists are trying to figure out what distinguishes a child with dyslexia from a typically developing child. Is there a way we can identify dyslexia based on understanding the brain? What is it about the brain that's different? 

If you could look inside the brain of a struggling reader, you would notice it is not the same as the brain of a child who finds reading easy.  How do we know this?

Well, thanks to advances in neuroscience and brain imaging technology, scientists can actually "look inside" brains. Here is a really good infographic (courtesy of We are Teachers & Scientific Learning Corporation) which explains the key differences.  

Includes four tips for teachers (and parents) to help overcome dyslexia in children.