Can Intelligence Testing Inform Educational Intervention for Children with Reading Disability?

Abstract

This paper examines the value of intelligence testing for the purpose of informing us how best to intervene with children with reading disability. While the original function of IQ testing was to ascertain whether a child was capable of profiting from schooling, there are many who now claim that cognitive assessment offers a range of diagnostic and prescriptive functions which can help teachers in delivering effective educational programs. This paper interrogates such assertions in relation to the assessment of IQ, cognitive strengths and weaknesses, executive functions, and the use of dynamic testing/assessment. The paper concludes that current evidence indicates that cognitive measures have limited relevance for instructional planning, and cognitive training programs have yet to show sufficient academic gains. For these reasons, it is recommended that our energies should be directed to the continuing development of powerful forms of academic skills-based instruction operating within a response to intervention framework.

Progression paths in children’s problem solving: The influence of dynamic testing, initial variability, and working memory

“…Within the field of educational psychology, there continues to be significant debate about the value of domain general cognitive assessment for the purposes of informing educational intervention (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, Lambert, & Hamlett, 2012;Elliott & Resing, 2015;Fletcher et al, 2011;Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009;Hale et al, 2008Hale et al, , 2010Reynolds & Shaywitz, 2009). In the eyes of many educationalists and psychologists, psychometric tools and domain-general approaches have proven valuable for the purposes of prediction and selection, yet continue to offer little to help teachers for making informed decisions about how best to help individual children.…”

Is dyslexia real or simply a myth in education context?

“…Julian Elliot, like many other educational psychologists, fails to acknowledge the existence of dyslexia [3]. He however leaves an exception to a few cases among a minority of those labelled as dyslexic in the society.…”

“…This scenario makes it easy to identify the particular disorders and therefore prescribe effective treatment interventions [1]. Also, physicians are able identify the relatively resistant psychological and neurological disorders that are difficult to treat, and for each, identify the corresponding challenges that make them complex [3]. However, unlike those disorders, dyslexia according to proponents of its existence, does not happen to possess clearly defined conditions or symptoms, and neither can it be said to have under its bracket, a finite range of causes that affect the development of language and literary skills among students.…”

“…Recent studies and research by different and prominent academicians and scientists, have prompted inquiry into the ethicality in using the term dyslexia to label the difficulties observed among students with poor language and literary skills in education institutions, at home, and in the various but general learning contexts. According to the findings of most of these researchers, including Julian Elliot's, there does not seem to exist any substantial and significant evidence to provide proof for the existence of dyslexia, as a certain neurological or psychological disorder, that can suitably be used to explain the poor literacy skills among certain individuals, despite having been previously exposed to conventional teaching and learning [3]. This assertions have often been denied a warm reception among a few members of the society who claim to be victims of dyslexia, or to have experienced difficulties in the acquisition of language and literary skills through conventional education systems.…”

“…According to Professor Julian Elliot (2015) and other scholars from Durham and Yale university, dyslexia is a myth, and it is often used as a consolation for students who exhibit poor literary skills simply because they are poor readers, or are simply the unfortunate products of poor education systems that are crippled by poor teaching methods, or the nonattendance to the learning needs of students under such systems [3,4]. This arguments are likely to be reasonably fetched since almost all students or persons who claim to be dyslexic allude to symptoms like; difficulties in reading, writing, pronouncing, and memorizing words.…”