Almost pissed enough to put this in the pit

[Litoris]

Apparently, even with a “genius-level” IQ, I am just covering up for my stupidity. At least that’s what Julian Elliott thinks.

“There is a huge stigma attached to low intelligence,” he said.

"After years of working with parents, I have seen how they don’t want their child to be considered lazy, thick or stupid.

“If they get called this medically diagnosed term, dyslexic, then it is a signal to all that it’s not to do with intelligence.”

WTF? This guy is supposedly a “leading educational psychologist at Durham University” and claims that there is no such thing as dyslexia. It’s just a diagnosis that parents like to use to cover up the fact that their kids are too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time. This is news to me.

The ignorance of this man is amazing.

He added: “There are all sorts of reasons why people don’t read well but we can’t determine why that is. Dyslexia, as a term, is becoming meaningless.”

So, this guy is a psychologist and thinks that dyslexia only presents as a reading problem? This whole article reads like some redneck conversations I have had “oh, junior can’t read, so’s I be havin’ him tested fer dyslexia cuz he’s got good schoolin’, so’s I know’s it ain’t no problem with him’s intelligence.” Seriously, Whiskey Tango Fargo? I know that the unwashed masses seem to think that dyslexia is about not being able to distinguish between a b and a d or a 7 and an L, but are there really trained (PIAD?!?) psychologists who think that as well?

I have to point out that most dyslexics are noted for having a higher than average IQ (cite).

I read this article at work and it ticked me off then, but I figured what the heck, there’re are other morons in positions of trust – look at dubya. But then, on my way home, I noticed a sign in front of a real estate business. The sign said “History of Robert Brown” and I wondered for a moment who the heck Robert Brown was and why a real estate company would have such a strange sign out front. It was about that moment that I realised the sign actually said “Realtor Robert Brown.” So, did my eyes see “realtor” and tell my brain “history of” because I am stupid? I guess so, according to the esteemed Julian Elliott.

What really makes this so funny to me is that I went undiagnosed until adulthood because the majority of my dyslexia presents as auditory cognitive issues. I learned to adapt to the visual cognitive issues early on – I was reading and writing at a 4th grade level when I entered Kindergarten. But, wait, that must be because I am stupid, right? My second grade teacher (Mrs. Norman) actually called my mother in for a parent-teacher conference when I was in her class. She was convinced that I was dyslexic and wante dmy mother to approve testing. Mrs. Norman’s reasoning for believing that I was dyslexic was that I had taken to writing everything in total mirror image. My mother laughed in her face and said “she’s not dyslexic, she’s bored. Give her more work and I promise she won’t have the time to do everything backwards.” Her advice worked – once I was given three times the workload my classmates had, I didn’t have time to do the perfect mirror image writing.

ARGH! Honestly, I want to kick this guy in the nards. While I could understand if there is a sudden rash of parents trying to get their kids tested for dyslexia to try to cover up the fact that the kids are just idiots him saying something along the lines of “this sudden increase in testing is just a cover up for stupidity” I can not understand him saying that everyone with a diagnosis of dyslexia is just a stupid person in hiding. I’d be more than willing to go up against him on an IQ test – even with my dyselexia

I often ask “why can’t I just kill stupid people and save Darwin the effort?” This is one of those times that someone is showing his own stupidity by trying to appear smarter than those around him.

[Mindfield]

I read that earlier today, and I really couldn’t believe what I was reading. All I kept thinking of was, “What manner of sanctimonious bullshittery is this?” I mean, I’m no psychologist, and I don’t even play one on TV, but even I know crap when I see it. In reading the article, it seems like Mr. Elliott suffers from a bad case of confirmation bias; I’m sure I could pick a hundred cases of challenged and/or lazy children where only one of them might genuinely have dyslexia – but because the overwhelming majority don’t and may even exhibit the same symptoms, I could just as easily draw the armchair conclusion that the whole lot of them are just lazy and unmotivated.

I am curious as to how many of his papers were peer-reviewed.

[Hung_Mung]

Insane. I’ve worked in Extended Resource classes on the elementary level. They mainly deal with the low IQ and reading-difficulty kids. We just figured out the other day that one of the hardest working and sweetest kids we’ve got has dyslexia. His math and science are top-notch, the little bastard just couldn’t read.

What a maroon.

[Nava]

OK… so my Mexican coworker who’d obtained his Licenciatura and two Masters’ but who mixed up “o” and “a” among others was “making up for his stupidity” when he tried to help his non-dyslexic son (who could read better than Papi) with his reading?

It took a nosy Spaniard to point out that when they read things differently it was actually the son who was getting it right, therefore Papi wasn’t the best person to help Son review his classnotes (you know, by asking questions from the notes); this caused a problem since Mami is illiterate. But if Papi was stupid I’m St Pete.

[Sattua]

One of the few things I remember from my degree in neuroscience is that, in an average person’s cortex, the pyramidal cells are all lined up the same way, with all of their axons heading in the same direction. It’s very orderly and soothing, in a biological kind of way.

And in the cortex of a person with dyslexia, they go every which direction.

Apparently he’s never seen those slides, or he knows something about them that the rest of us, including the professors and textbook writers, don’t.

I’m frankly amazed that ya’ll can think at all