The number of children in Louisiana identified as dyslexic could grow dramatically thanks to legislation racing its way through the Legislature, though it’s unclear how dramatically and there’s no academic consensus on how many children suffer from this reading disability.
The proposed legislation has the strong backing of Dr. Laura Cassidy. Cassidy, the wife of U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, is a co-founder of Louisiana Key Academy, a growing charter school network that focuses on children with dyslexia; it operates two schools now, with a third opening this fall and plans to open more in the future. The Cassidys became prominent dyslexia advocates after their daughter Kate was diagnosed with the malady.
About 1% of the nearly 700,000 students in public school in Louisiana have been identified as having dyslexia. Rep. Joe Marino, Independent-Gretna, argues that number is a severe undercount, as many as 20 times too low.
“Nationally, we know that one in five students has dyslexia, which is 20% of the population,” Marino told the House Education Committee when it met April 18.
“That to me screams that we are not catching these students, and we are not educating them and we are failing students in that respect,” he asserted.
Reaching 20% would increase the number of dyslexic children in Louisiana from about 9,000 currently to about 137,000.
Marino’s House Bill 69 would require all kindergarten teachers, at the start of the second semester of that year, to screen every one of their children — more than 50,000 in all — for dyslexia using a specially purchased screener. And that screener can’t be just any screener, but has to meet certain criteria, including that the instrument is one “developed solely for dyslexia.”
The Legislative Fiscal Office says such screeners cost between $1.30 and $5 a test. That would cost schools in the state an additional $65,000 to $250,000 a year overall, depending on which test the state goes with. Advocates say the cost will likely be about $1.50 a test.
Currently, Louisiana law gives schools a four-year window from the start of kindergarten to the end of third grade to test all schoolchildren for “for the existence of impediments to a successful school experience.” That includes dyslexia, but also attention deficit disorder and “social and environmental factors that put a child at risk of dropping out of school.”
Children in those grades also are screened annually in Louisiana for their literacy levels. It’s a process that can flag children who are at risk for dyslexia, but since those tests aren’t designed for that purpose advocates say they miss many dyslexic children.
Speaking to the House Committee, Dr. Cassidy said that the second semester of kindergarten is the earliest to test children for dyslexia and get a valid result.
HB69 is supported by the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and has 58 coauthors. It was approved unanimously by the House Education Committee and six days later was approved unanimously by the House. It now awaits action in the Senate Education Committee.
How common is dyslexia?
Louisiana’s current rate of dyslexia, about 1.3%, is likely an undercount but it’s not clear how much.
One estimate, dating from 2004, suggests that less than 3% of children suffer from dyslexia. Other estimates are typically in the single digits.
The commonly cited 20% estimate comes from an influential longitudinal study of about 400 children in Connecticut conducted by the husband and wife team Bennett and Sally Shaywitz, professors at the Yale Medical School and founders of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.
Richard Wagner is a professor of psychology at Florida State University and is an associate director of the Florida Center for Reading Research. He has published several academic papers examining dyslexia prevalence.
Wagner said the different estimates often stem from both how one defines dyslexia, how bad a child’s reading needs to be before it’s considered dyslexia, and the statistical dividing line that researchers set for such determinations.
“It’s probable that 3 to 5% of children have a severe problem (with dyslexia) that will impact their life,” Wagner said.
Wagner, however, said he’s not a fan of hard-and-fast estimates which draw a line at who has dyslexia or not, favoring instead more of sliding scale.
“You can understand why people want a number, to know what the size of the problem is, but it’s really more of a distribution,” he said.
For instance, dyslexia is often defined as children who read poorly despite having average to above average listening skills or general intelligence. Wagner, however, said in his research he’s found children who have a notable gap between their reading and listening skills but still do at least average in reading and consequently don’t get much help in school but could still use it.
“Accommodations and using assistive technology can get kids like that through college,” Wagner said.
Differing definitions
In her April 18 testimony to the House Education Committee, Cassidy said it’s important for the state to use a screener that measures a student’s general intelligence as well as their reading and listening skills.
Cassidy said at Louisiana Key Academy children arrive performing behind their peers in reading and often have internalized wrongly the idea they are “lazy or stupid.” But in truth they are above or above average intelligence, she said.
At Louisiana Key Academy, students are screened using an intelligence test known as Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test. Cassidy said she’d like such a screener used in Louisiana because it would show children that their intelligence is not the reason they are having problems reading.
“This is current science,” Cassidy said. “Because what the IQ test shows to the parent, to the teacher, to the student is that they are smart, and the reading test shows that they cannot read.”
IQ testing in dyslexia screening, though, has its detractors.
Wagner prefers a different approach, which focuses on the gap between listening and reading comprehension in children. He said an IQ-based approach may miss some children.
“It makes more sense to refine it a bit to find people who can’t understand as much when they read as when they listen,” Wagner said.
Other dyslexia schools
Louisiana Key Academy is not the only school in the state that focuses on dyslexia. Others include The Brighton School, a private school in Baton Rouge with about 200 students, and The Max Charter School in Thibodaux, which has about 100 students.
Leaders of both schools say they support the general aim of the HB69 in raising awareness of dyslexia and the chances that more children will get the help they need. Both, however, have concerns.
Cheryl Ollmann, Brighton’s principal, said she worries about whether schools will have sufficient staff trained to handle to a potentially big increase in dyslexic children.
“The training is going to be the biggest issue,” said Cheryl Ollmann, Brighton’s principal. “We spend a lot of money on this campus on training.”
She noted that educators certified in teaching dyslexic children need a lot of hours of additional classwork and they must pass a national exam to get that certification.
At the Max Charter School, which works closely with nearby Nicholls State University, one worry is whether kindergarten is too young to test for dyslexia for many children.
“In kindergarten they are just learning their sounds,” Ollman said.
Cassidy has staunchly advocated for testing children as early as it’s viable so that dyslexic children don’t fall farther behind in school.
Jason Talbot, director of the Louisiana Center for Dyslexia & Related Learning Disorders located at Nicholls, expressed concern about diagnosing children wrongly with dyslexia if they haven’t been in school very long.
“We need to really ensure that the kids that are identified are identified for the right areas of need,” Talbot said. “We need to make sure we are identifying kids reliably for dyslexia versus those who might have ADHD and emotional disturbance.”
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