Re: Breaking it Down: Types of Cognitive Disabilities

Re: types of CD

I came across a beautiful analogy in a class this week.

Non of the clients new of vowels and consonants.
though one recalled the use of the words in a panel came on TV.

They all know the names for the letters but not the sounds.

So I asked them each to make the noise a dog, a cat and a duck make, and
they all agreed that this was different from their names.

letters don't speak but this was concrete enough an analogy to get over the
idea of phonetics.

I don't say they will have learn't this.
However it is a huge block on reading if you learn your ABC and expect words
to follow that pattern.

Most of my students that  are learning to read have got stuck on this. And I
spend many hours on it.

Others fail to appreciate the importanceofbreaksbetweenwords, and believe me
I have terrible typing and yet every word gets a space, i had to rub them
out, even though i knew what I wished to achieve.

Most can copy and nearly all can illustrate.
This is why it is important to them to use images.
Symbols they can copy, whereas only a few could copy photographs.
Most can copy text, unfortunately it does not in all cases indicate
understanding.
We all know of the reader who has not understood.

CD is complex and whilst i could write more, i am not convinced its in our
best interests.
It is important that they also succeed.

Before I was on the web I developed a small vb application that allowed
users to author sentences by selecting pictures, the words came with them.
It was well recieved by my colleagues. However about that time the web
arrived, and i am still trying to get back there.

jay@peepo.com

special needs teacher
web accessibility consultant

Received on Wednesday, 5 April 2000 09:30:30 UTC