Saturday News

Contents of This Week: Saturday News ▶︎ February 13th / 2016

• Definition: Learning Disability

Learning disability is a classification that includes several areas of functioning in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors. Given the "difficulty learning in a typical manner", this does not exclude the ability to learn in a different manner. Therefore, some people can be more accurately described as having a "Learning Difference", thus avoiding any misconception of being disabled with a lack of ability to learn and possible negative stereotyping. A longer definition comes from Wikipedia. 

• Video: Learning Disability
• What Are Learning Disabilities?
• Learning Disabilities, What Are the Different Types?
• What Is Executive Function?
• What Is Dyslexia?
• What Is Dyspraxia?
• What Is Dyscalculia?
• What Is Nonverbal Learning Disability?
• Strengths of Students with Learning Disabilities and Other Disorders
• Famous People With Learning Disabilities

• Headline Blog: Learning Disability
• Types of Mathematics Learning Disorders
• Neuroplasticity
• App Might Help With Aphasia
• I Failed the Driving Competency Test
• Big Ballet
• Different View from Yesterday
• Spelling Test
• 26 Months
• [#Thingsilove] Music Glove Trials, Week 1(ish): The Learning Curve
• Learning to Live Again
• Not Accepting Everything
• Brain Health Clearing House
• Am I There Yet?!?
• Learning to Ski is like Learning to Dance
• How to Change Your Own Mind, Literally
• A Bisl: Speech Therapy for Aphasia
• Reflections
• If You're over 60, Drink Up: Alcohol Associated With Better Memory

• Weekly Columnists
• Musing: ‘Sticky Synapses’ Can Impair New Memories by Holding on to Old Ones
• Sunday Stroke Survival: Gone Are The Days, BUT It Will Be Again
• Caregiver: Signs
• Jester: Gotta Love this Policeman
• TED Talks - David Anderson: Your Brain is More Than a Bag of Chemicals
• Laid-Back Admin: Simplify Comics

• Eclectic Stuff on Wednesday
• Rick Mercer Report: Resident Doctors & Rogers Ultimate
• Laid-Back Admin: Changed XKCD and Rick Mercer Report from Saturday to Wednesday
• XKCD: To Taste

• Future Topics in SSTattler

     Saturday News | Future Topic
     --------------+---------------------------------------------

     Mar/12/2016   | Speech Repetition
     Mar/05/2016   | Accessible Housing
     Feb/27/2016   | Webcomics
     Feb/23/2016   | Spasticity

Definition: Learning Disability

Learning Disability From Wikipedia,
      the free encyclopedia

People at a Learning Disabilities Month event

SSTattler: Hmmm, most people that have a stroke including a long list of cognition Learning Disability - maybe you have reading (dyslexia) problems, maybe mathematics (dyscalculia), ..., and so on! Please read on...

Learning disability is a classification that includes several areas of functioning in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors. Given the "difficulty learning in a typical manner", this does not exclude the ability to learn in a different manner. Therefore, some people can be more accurately described as having a "Learning Difference", thus avoiding any misconception of being disabled with a lack of ability to learn and possible negative stereotyping.

While learning disability, learning disorder and learning difficulty are often used interchangeably, they differ in many ways. Disorder refers to significant learning problems in an academic area. These problems, however, are not enough to warrant an official diagnosis. Learning disability on the other hand, is an official clinical diagnosis, whereby the individual meets certain criteria, as determined by a professional (psychologist, pediatrician, etc.). The difference is in degree, frequency, and intensity of reported symptoms and problems, and thus the two should not be confused. When the term "learning disorder" is used, it describes a group of disorders characterized by inadequate development of specific academic, language, and speech skills. Types of learning disorders include reading (dyslexia), mathematics (dyscalculia) and writing (dysgraphia).

Video: Learning Disability

SSTattler: Just an introduction to Learning Disability - there is lots of different symptoms for stroke. I think the last YouTubes, "Famous People With Learning Disabilities", you will like.

What Are Learning Disabilities?

Published on Oct 3, 2012

This short video describes the basics of learning disabilities. This video was produced by The Learning Disabilities Association of Alberta and created by Ryan Ewasko of Twine Box Studios. For more information, visit www.LDAlberta.ca, talk to a teacher or principal, or contact a Learning Disabilities Association in a community near you. Watch the other three video FAQs produced by the Learning Disabilities Association of Alberta.


Standard YouTube License @ LDAssocAb

Headline Blog: Learning Disability

Definition: Blog (noun). Add new material to or regularly update to a blog. (≃1990s: blog shortening of weblog)

Types of Mathematics Learning Disorders

Bill Yates
Brain Posts

Posted 4th June 2014

Learning mathematics is a complex process that forms a key element in modern education.

Significant mathematics learning difficulties emerge in 5 to 10 per cent of all elementary and secondary education students.

Struggling to acquire skills in mathematics is more than a single deficit and appears to involve multiple cognitive skills.

Giannis Karagiannakis and colleagures recently summarized what is known about mathematics learning disorders and proposed four subtypes. I will summarize these subtypes based upon his manuscript:

Core number subtype: This subtype represents a key early skill for learning mathematics.  It denotes the ability to accurately generate an internal representation of quantity and understand different representations of quantity, i.e. analog-verbal-Arabic. It also includes difficulty understanding basic symbols of arithmetic operation symbols.

Memory subtype: This subtype reflects a deficit in working memory and semantic memory. Children and adults with this type of mathematical learning disorder have problems retrieving numerical facts, performing mental calculations. Additionally, because of memory deficits, this subtype struggles with keeping track of steps in a multistage arithmetic problem.

Neuroplasticity

Amy Shissler
My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

May 11, 2012

A stroke is a brain injury, not a muscular injury.  It may seem like your muscles don’t work anymore but they do, they’re still there and just as good as they once were, well at first that is.  Soon atrophy starts and that’s when your muscles will look less developed.  But the actual stroke doesn’t affect the muscles.  You just have to work a hell of a lot harder to use them and learn to use them again because the signal to them from the brain is messed up.  That’s why the physical therapists make you do all those weird exercises.  They want to make those signals work again, or make new signals.  They’re trying to neuroplastically change the brain.  You know the phrase “use it or lose it?”  It’s true.  Before the stroke, I could just move every direction, every way, upside down and forward without thinking about it.  It was second nature to me.  After the stroke, I had to ‘learn’ how to move again.  This is called motor learning.  I wasn’t learning how to move in the traditional sense, I knew HOW to move cognitively, my muscles just didn’t cooperate.  I had to ‘learn’ to use them again.  So now I don’t really weight train, well sometimes I do, but I try to do everything I can by myself.  Every time I do a ‘new’ movement, or ‘old’ movement, I’m helping to rewire the brain.  Neuroplasticity takes a lot of repetition.  You know how athletes get better?  Lots of repetition, they’re ‘rewiring’ the brain.  Use it or lose it.  Love this.

See the original article:

Neuroplasticity

in

My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

App Might Help With Aphasia

Jeff Porter
Stroke of Faith

Thursday, March 20, 2014

My speech stopped then garbled on the day I had my stroke. It took me quite some time to get back close to normal,  thanks to speech therapists, family and friends.

Now, there's something that might help supplement speech therapy - a new app that puts speech therapy in patients' pockets:

▶ Patients can use the app to practice matching pictures and associated words, according to Dr. Stephen Hughes, who helped build the app.

▶ “So we’re looking at the kinds of things that they’re doing already with paper and pencil and saying, ‘Can we use the technology to help them manage that experience better?’” Hughes said.

▶ The Name That! app isn’t meant to take the place of traditional treatment. Rather, the creators hope that it will supplement what speech therapists already do in sessions. Hughes and Burda are currently working on expanding the app’s simplistic design in order to fit more needs of aphasia patients.

I Failed the Driving Competency Test

Barb Polan
Barb's Recovery

Posted 2nd June 2011

It was for a specific reason: I did not have adaptive equipment installed in my car to compensate for my one-handed driving. I need a knob on the steering wheel and a device that allows me to control the blinkers without taking my hand from the wheel. Now, if that's a requirement, why did every Mass. RMV employee (including in the Medical Division), my driving instructor, and all my OTs and PTs I talked to not know that? All of them said I "could" get the equipment if I wanted to, not that it was required. How could none of them know? The closest was the suggestion that I have a driving evaluation by a post-stroke driving specialist to get his/her recommendations - it costs $300, which I didn't want to spend on someone who could say exactly what everyone else was saying. In fact, my driving instructor told me that the RMV "has to accommodate my disability," implying that if I use my right hand to do what my left hand is incapable of, I could still pass. My tester today, though, said that he really could not pass me because I MUST have the adaptive equipment. That's pretty "accommodating" of them, no?

Big Ballet

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

June 15, 2014

I love dance so I watched a mini-series called Big Ballet on the Ovation channel. The show is about overweight women and men learning to perform the ballet Swan Lake. My intuition told me watching them struggle would help me with a dilemma in my stroke recovery.

Who made this project possible? Wayne Sleep choreographed the ballet. He is a 5 foot 2 inch man who refused to leave professional ballet because he was too small. Monica Loughman who trained the dancers is a retired ballerina. The cast had to gain strength, flexibility, and endurance, learn the steps in the ballet, and express the emotions of characters in a classic story of love and betrayal. Watching a brave group of people triumph over fear of failure and rejection was thrilling because everyone has struggled with these emotions.

How does Big Ballet relate to my dilemma? Occasionally I see people staring at me with a look of horror on their faces. They are imaging something that has nothing to do with me, but it is hard not to take their negative reaction personally. I have thought of several nasty things to say but never followed through because this would intensify the negative feelings I have at that moment. What I learned from watching large men and women dance is they can be graceful. The next time people stare at me I will try to remember the satisfaction I felt when I learned to push a garbage can to the curb. This is not a small thing. You cannot live alone in your home if garbage piles up.

Different View from Yesterday

Diana Smith
In Sync With The Universe

December 2, 2013

The snow is pretty falling on wordpress, but not in real life.

Today our snow started to melt some more but not all the way. I sold a few things on Ebay, that was a big surprise to me. Some were big and or heavy, so a chore to pack. I think I am finally starting to learn to stick with the smalls. I hope in the next few days to get some more pics to get rid of my hoard pile of unexciting ebay junk. I am hoping to group things together for higher dollar amounts instead of making a dollar or two.

I saw on facebook a video about getting in and out of a bathtub. That is my next goal, since I have not had a bath since my stroke. (almost three years ago) I long for a bubble bath soak. First order of goal is to clean out the tub. The new stuff I bought to clean did not work very well. I found a partial bottle under the kitchen sink of the old stuff.

Second hurdle to taking a bath will be bending my knees far enough to get my ass in the tub without having to fall in. I think if I hold on to my grab bar I might be able to do it. Fear is what stops me from living the life I want. I am learning to overcome fear.

See the original article:

Different View from Yesterday

in

In Sync With The Universe

Spelling Test

Grace Carpenter
My Happy Stroke

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Our little girl starts kindergarten on Monday.

On visiting day last week, she got her first "homework" assignment: draw a picture of her family, and write down--with help, of course--one thing she would like to do in kindergarten.

"Don't stress about it,"  her teacher said to the parents.

In the spring, I was still struggling with spelling things out loud. So I thought we would to do the homework--with Neal--this weekend.

But my girl was already to start homework by Friday afternoon. When I asked her what she wanted to do at kindergarten, she had a ready answer: play with the toy food. She wanted me to spell it, out loud. The whole phrase.

I took a deep breath, and starting spelling. Very slowly.

"Mama, I can hear you saying the alphabet before every letter," she said.

But I did it. We're ready for kindergarten.

See the original article:

Spelling Test

in

My Happy Stroke

26 Months

Peter G. Levine
Stronger After Stroke

Friday, February 4, 2011

In my book I talk about "super survivors" defined as a survivor who is “…so unwilling to let go of their career, their independence, or a personal passion that they are compelled to recover. They intertwine recovery with what they love to do.”

When somebody can use their life's passion to drive recovery everything is made easier.

• It's easier for the therapist because they don't have to work so hard to motivate.
• It's easier for the stroke survivor because they have a cherished task on which to focus.
• It's easier for the survivor’s brain because when it comes to driving plastic changes "the power is in the focus.” And we tend to focus on what we care about.

There are other things that motivate survivors towards recovery. Things like career (and by extension money), fear (i.e. falling), friendship (many survivors talk about friends who have "ditched" them after their stroke), the need for independence etc. etc. All of these can be extraordinarily important, although I would suggest that they may be somewhat less important than the goals of the "super survivor" focused on a cherished task.

[#Thingsilove] Music Glove Trials, Week 1(ish): The Learning Curve

Pamela Hsieh
StrokedUP

27 September, 2015

My time so far with the Music Glove has been interesting.

When I first received my glove, I filmed an unboxing video and wanted to try it out right away — but I had to charge the tablet overnight first.

Once I tried it, as I’ve mentioned before, it was really challenging. (That is, of course, to be expected.) The difficulty of stimulating my affected hand with all this new information turned out to be the hump I needed to get over before really committing in a full way — as the adage goes, “The hardest part is starting.”

The hardest part is starting

I found myself discouraged at how difficult it was at first. But, you know, asante sana squash banana. I had to remind myself not to send myself messages of animosity or frustration. It was difficult like this for that first week.

Learning to Live Again

Leslie
Living After Stroke

Trapped

The stroke didn’t just create a bump in the road. It permanently closed many doors.

when-one-door-closes

I’ve always been well aware that when one door closes, another door opens. I’ve experienced it too many times to count. I just never knew there were hallways. I also never realized that the new doors could lead to such hateful situations. Yet for nearly a year and a half, I was trapped in some very dark hallways!

Darkest place I’ve ever been, blacker than I could ever imagine.

Leaving the hallways was hard on many levels. After all the meds were out of my system and I created a comprehensive exit strategy, I was finally able to think clearly. I asked myself, “Now what & Where do I go from here”?

Not Accepting Everything

Andrea
A Year of Living In My Head

Sunday, July 15, 2012

So I am almost to the point of looking for a position that more fits my training. My concern is I could be a bit delusional that I can still produce the same quality of work as pre-stroke. I just don't know. I know when I started my garden job that absolute crazy feeling in my head when my boss gave me run on instructions as in : Do This, Do That, Move This, Look for This, etc etc. I could feel my brain actually scrambling and freezing and locking... it did not know (or that part of my brain is "gone") where to put a series of quick instructions -- so it would just go blank and not remember any of them. My short term storage has been impacted, and it feels as though it has been misplaced.  It is very wierd being in my head when it is missing something. You ever have that? It's like there is some sort of memory of what was, what I could do, but there is no way to touch it. I have a memory of being very competent and accomplished, but I feel kinda bumbling and floaty sometimes. I also cannot trust my "gut" as much, as I have discovered errors in my instincts -- and I am a very "gut instinct" person!  With work over 3 months my memory has changed & improved so that I actually can remember a string of instructions (at least the first 3 or 4).  Last week I made a appointment with an occupational/speech therapist to work on memory. I also notice the muscles on the left side of my body have a different consistency than others. They are always very flaccid-loose-relaxed as if I just had a year long massage and they are jelly.  I am not really complaining, just noticing. Pre-stroke I always loved learning new things, and new ways to see things. I thank the lovely heavens that my appreciation of the diverse ways we can navigate through a life is not diminished.

See the original article:

Not Accepting Everything

in

A Year of Living In My Head

Brain Health Clearing House

Tim Seefeltd
Brain Health Clearing House

Posted May 14, 2015

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog, but I’m back with a different state of mind.

Some travel set me behind. Then, interviews I was planning for a few posts on concussions were delayed. I didn’t want to just tell my story all of the time. I felt I’d hit a wall. And it was compounded by that personal issue I wrote about a few blogs back.

Then I got an email from fellow ex-reporter, Ron, that set my mind right.

Ron’s wife had a stroke 18 months ago. He’s by her side at their home just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Ron read about my story while doing some research on the National Stroke Association’s website (http://www.stroke.org/) where I’d posted a piece on their ‘faces of stroke’ page.  He tracked me down.  Reporters, even us ex-reporters, are good at this stuff.  Now two ex-newspaper guys — one from the South Eastern US and one from Western Canada – were connected.

Am I There Yet?!?

Sas Freeman

August 5, 2014

Naively I went into this with my eyes tightly closed. It is now four years since my first stroke and the intention was to get my book written and published to help fellow survivors and their families. And it isn’t yet, quite on the shelves.

Despite my difficulties learning to read again, following stroke and having to limit the time I am able to look at a computer screen. The writing was somehow easy, possibly because of the passion involved, the desire to help others and hopefully prevent them making the same mistakes by learning from mine.

Sas Front Cover2

This has been written for nearly three years, the difficulty for me, new to this world has been finding an editor, having done that, the cover design and finally getting published which as I type this, still hasn’t happened.

Addressing each of these issues one by one, I eventually found an editor in the states. Why I couldn’t find one closer to home, I have no idea but delighted to have found one and a good one too, who also agreed to take me on. I didn’t question further.

I was suddenly on cloud nine, not realising at this stage how far away I still was from being published. I had yet another excitement to come when told by my editor, it was so well written it wasn’t going to cost as much as initially quoted as it wouldn’t need so much editing.

In my mind, this meant I would be published within a few months, this incidentally could be twelve months ago. I lose track now of what happened when. Excitement builds as we reach the final edit. I hadn’t taken into account despite all the track changes made and returned somehow between the UK & the States the different software reverted words back from British to American spelling and language and visa versa.

Learning to Ski is Like Learning to Dance

Alex Dixon
A Stroke of Luck

January 2, 2015

Skiing and dancing are very similar; they are both hard and take a lot of skill to do. Some people say you have the skill or you don’t. But for me, I’m the opposite, I can’t dance to save my life but I learned that I am not that bad at skiing. I still think the athletic ability skipped a generation though. I learn over time that it doesn’t matter what people think, if you like doing it just do it such as dancing for me. My family went to Colorado for skiing and my parents found an adaptive skiing program for me. The instructors and the volunteers were great with me. I enjoyed laughing at my “mess ups”. I learned to ski and I just had fun doing it.

Wow! I learned to ski five years after having a massive stroke. I needed the support of an adaptive ski instructor and the volunteers and my skis needed to be connected at the tip to control old righty but I skied! That should make anyone dance …

See the original article:

Learning to Ski is like Learning to Dance

in

A Stroke of Luck

How to Change Your Own Mind, Literally

Joyce Hoffman
The Tales of a Stroke Patient

Sep 15, 2013

"You can't be too skinny or too rich," said my old college buddy back in the 60s. But now you know the truth. Skinniness sometimes is related to anorexia or bulimia. And you've heard stories about the deaths of lottery winners who blew their money on drugs or died from being poisoned. My friend got it wrong. She should have said, "You can't be too brainy."

The brain controls everything, like our emotional outbursts to pain, our nervous eating, our ability to pee regularly, our resistance to confront people, our neurotic tastes. But what was thought prior to the 1970s--that the brain was fixed and couldn't be changed after early childhood--was wrong. The brain can process new experiences, like having a stroke, by creating neural pathways to accommodate them. Welcome to neuroplasticity, the game changer.

A Bisl: Speech Therapy for Aphasia

Mark A. Ittleman
Teaching of Talking

June 6, 2015

Malka and I are in London to teach others The Teaching of Talking Method. Yesterday we met with one of the gentlemen who helped make this trip possible.

His brother had a stroke and had great difficulty finding a speech language pathologist who spoke Yiddish. It is a language that is combination of German and Hebrew. In todays culture, only the very ultra-religious speak it as their native language. Therefore there are two challenges for me as a speech language pathologist. Learning and utilizing this language to help others.

London Bridge; Why is it when
I see or hear “London Bridge,”
I think of an old childhood song
about London Bridges Falling Down!

My new friend in London bought the Teaching of Talking book over a year ago and knows the book almost almost verbatim. He poured over every page and has a good grasp of the information, except two areas. Do you know what they are?

The number of words to use when stimulating language. He is now helping other families and persons with aphasia and making good progress. We discussed them one by one. He is stimulating longer sentences and could probably get faster leanring if the phrases or utterances were simplified to an initial 2 word level.

The other critical factor as I see it, is the necessity to use a voice that is full, loud and clear. When one gives a model that is full, loud and clear, it not only sends the message of the verbage to use, but also provides the individual sounds that make up each word. When words are presented loudly and clearly with the sounds of each word clearly modeled, it is so much easier for those with aphasia to imitate and say accuracy. A strong speech modeled voice also gives ENERGY.