Texas yet again is starting the school year off with changes to the operating guidelines. The new moderators and Amy Smith, Region 10 representative charged with diagnostician continuing education, joins to talk about the changes. There's so much to talk about, that we are dividing it into two parts.

Dr. Julian Elliott joins to tell us about his new book: The Dyslexia Debate Revisited, co-authored with Elena Grigorenko from the University of Houston, this book gives a summary of the research in dyslexia and proposes that we use the term dyslexia to describe a persistent problem in basic reading skills rather than as a medical diagnosis.

Nazzie summarizes for the group both proposals for items removed and added to the Texas Dyslexia handbook. Aimee Seaberry also adds a summary of the Dyslexia Academies expected to be provided by TEA. Others also joined to comment. Thanks to Lori Melton for offering the perspective of a dyslexia therapist as well.

See this link for the text of the proposed handbook.

The "Specific" in Specific Learning Disability can be confusing. A number of articles attempt to address this topic. Diagnosticians on Clubhouse examine articles by Mather (2023), Pennington (2015), Wadsworth et al. (2010), and Peterson et al. (2021) are reviewed to explore this term.

Citing research in our FIEs can make us look more professional, help us learn about the research behind the assessments we choose, and support our interpretation with evidence. The tool mentioned in this episode can be accessed through this link. Check back by clicking on the link in the future for updates to the link.

Dr. Ysseldyke and Amanda VanDerHeyden share their vision for the role of evaluators in special education. Together they wrote the 14th edition of Assessment In Special and Inclusive Education, the go-to textbook on evidence based assessment practices. They call on evaluators to make a paradigm shift away from a focus on IQ tests and towards a focus on assessment of the basic academic skills. This is a MUST HEAR, if you haven't listened live, or even if you did, you will want to listen again.

https://www.proedinc.com/Products/40006/assessment-in-special-and-inclusive-education14th-edition.aspx

Here's a link to Dr Rasinski's website where you can read more about his books: https://www.timrasinski.com/index.html

He talks with us about his newest book, Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading.

You can purchase the book here: https://www.routledge.com/Artfully-Teaching-the-Science-of-Reading/Young-Paige-Rasinski/p/book/9781032080864

We wonder why RTI doesn't really take place in schools. Maybe it's because people would rather discredit the system rather than commit to actual school improvement? How do we assess in the context of a system that uses RTI by name only? What are the discussions around how to diagnose learning disabilities?

Dr. Schultz from MSU, Dr. Cavin from Tarleton State, Dr. Rueter from UT Tyler, and Becki Robertson from Region 10 join to tell us about some of benefits various programs offer and some of the challenges they are faced with.

CBM may not be the answer to bringing an intervention frame of mind to education, but they certainly are a step in the right direction! Nazzie Pater-Rov discusses reasons for using CBM in our FIEs, misunderstandings about CBM, and the various types of CBM that are available.

Dr. Nathan Clemens describes the concepts presented in his newest edition of a book he co-authored with his late mentor, Dr. Edward Sharpiro. The book, Academic Skills Problems, demonstrates how a good quality academic assessment has the potential to drive intervention.

Collaboration between the diagnostician and the Adapted PE teacher has the potential to add richness to Full Individual Evaluations. Dr. Linda Hilgenbrinck is a leader in her field at a national level.

Dr. Nancy Nelson leads the National Center on Improving Literacy to support states and districts to provide the information that leads to evidence-based practices and policies for improving literacy. Check out their website with this link. She and Nazzie talk about assessment for dyslexia, the prevalence of dyslexia, and how the role of the diagnostician is challenged by changes in the way we think about dyslexia.

In this episode we talk to Dr. Deborah Speece, a leading researcher in learning disabilities who later went on to be the commissioner of the National Center on Special Education Research under the Institute of Educational Sciences. She is introduced by Dr. Nathan Jones, the current commissioner.

Dr. Cecil Reynolds joins to tell us about how to prevent dyslexia through early and systematic screening and progress monitoring.

Dr. Ed Schultz tells us about the important features of C-SEP that we need to keep in mind to be sure that we are implementing C-SEP with fidelity.

In their book: Related Services in Special Education: Working Together as a Team, Dr. Bateman and Goran give guidance on making sure that related services are provided with good justification. Dr. Hope McCarroll, OT, gives her reflections as well on how to use our related service specialists to help all students in the school.

Dr. Mehta from TWU tells us about a study she's conducting using imitation therapy to help nonverbal children learn to talk. She also discusses issues around assessing these students.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Feifer explain that trauma can impact brain neurology. Children who experience trauma over experience changes in their attention and emotional regulation. The slightest triggers can remind them of the trauma that they experienced.

Dr. Russell Skiba joins to talk with us about the way disproportionality is measured, what it says about our society, and how it can be improved.

Some countries around the world have less resources but better outcomes than the US. Disproportionality resulting from inequitable funding in education is a big reason for this outcome.

Dr. Byron McClure joins us to talk about the impacts of disproportionality in special education and how we can make a difference by focusing on what's strong, not what's wrong.

Sarah Holman is tells us how various questions from the referral can help to influence our hypothesis and choose the tests we want to use to verify that hypothesis. We talk about what resources to refer to for a standard referral, how prevalence of referrals and disability identification relate to the quality of systems of supports, and the barriers to receiving good information in our referral.

Joe Torgesen and Richard Wagner, authors of the CTOPP II describe the challenges related to direct assessment of dyslexia and their proposal for using statistics to evaluate risk. Dr. Torgesen shared an article that summarizes the LD summit of 2001 that is mentioned in the discussion. Dr. Wagner also shared an article about the Constellation Model.

Robbi Cooper is one of the parents who pushed HB 3928 through the legislature last spring. She joins to tell us why this legislation was important, what the parent advocates hoped to achieve, and all of the work that went into creating the bill.

Dr. Miller uses correlations to create profiles of strengths and weaknesses of WJ IV cognitive and achievement subtests for various ages for each disability area. He answers questions about how he uses scientific statistical methods to achieve the evidence of these patterns. He cautions against not using IQ tests and explains how neuropsychological studies and psycho-educational have started to overlap. He wants us to understand the theory behind the tests we use and go beyond the standard scores to interpret the results.

Special Education was built on the vision of Evelyn Deno. She wanted us to fully realize separate is not equal and had a vision of an inclusive education system that saw special education as a safety net that would bring up the rear of those who fall behind in general education. However, there are those who blame her vision for issues in special education like defining LRE and what makes special education special. Nazzie shares the commentary the article by Hoffman, Where Special Education Goes to Die and the reaction from Norena Hale, a long time friend and coauthor of Deno's book, Dogged Determination.

Dr. Martin Bloomfield from Dyslexia Bytes and Dyslexia Compass tells us about his mission to create discussion and awareness regarding the challenges that various countries and cultures present when faced with the challenge of literacy and dyslexia. Candace Vielma joins to help with the interview.

Representatives from Region 10, Region 11, and clubhouse regulars put our heads together to find a way to summarize the new legal updates resulting from the last legislative session.

12 new courses are available on the TEA website to help you be in the know about DBI and it's role in MTSS. We talk to Deanna Clemens, the Director of Integrated Special Programs at TEA about these.

Tammy says people often don't understand why we decide to be diagnosticians, and we often forget ourselves. Our profession is in a crisis from the increased numbers of referrals. We struggle to focus on the child's story and put too much focus on scores. We've been through a lot of changes and we can go through these changes over time. CSEP was a lead in making the changes that TEA is now making. She'd like to create a book of our stories and why we chose to be diagnosticians.

Dr. Katie Maki does research on the elements that influence our decisions as evaluators and how consistent we are in our decisions.

Dr. Erica Lembke is pioneer researcher, creating CBMs and developing RTI research at the University of Missouri. She tells us about her work with the NCII to bring better RTI to Texas. Texas is one of 9 states taking on the DBI system of interventions and support for our students.

Dr. McGill wrote When Theory Trumps Science in 2016, an article about the lack of statistical reliability for our assessment methods. Since then, he's written similar articles examining the reliability and validity of cognitive assessments for predicting academic performance.

Nazzie provides a summary of the book: Identification of Learning Disabilities from Research to Practice, edited by Bradley, Danielson, and Hallahan (2001), which is a compilation of 9 white papers that resulted from the LD Summit of 2001 and led to the reauthorization of IDEA in 2004. She also shares a summary of email conversations with Jim Walsh regarding WBFWR (Way Behind For Whatever Reason), in an attempt to understand the context of his reference to that initialism.

Anise Flowers, Ph. D, has moved on from Pearson learning and now works for Presence. Presence uses telecommunication technology to match evaluators with districts who need evaluations. She tells us about the benefits of the platform and the validity of using it.

Dr. Monica McHale-Small tells us about the position of the Learning Disabilities Association of America's position on identifying a learning disability and the work of the LDA to bring awareness to the issues surrounding learning disabilities.

The Texas Educational Diagnostician Agency celebrated its 50th Anniversary and became golden this year. Many didn't get to go because the conference was quickly sold out. I share my take aways from the conference for those of you who didn't get to attend.

Dr. Sarah Brasiel joins for Educational Diagnostician Week to tell us about the Institute for Educational Sciences.  The organization offers lots of information and services to teachers and evaluators. Because they encourage the science of education, their work provides hope that one day, we will use science to find ways to prevent learning disabilities.  In recognition of Educational Diagnostician Week, she wrote a blog about our Clubhouse and the researchers that have been interviewed through this project who have also been awarded grants for research from the IES. 

Marnee Loftin is has had the unique position of being the LSSP for the School for the Blind.  She tells us about the special considerations we should have when testing children who have significant visual impairments.  She also shares her view on co-morbid diagnosis for children who are visually impaired.

Dr. Mark Shinn could be considered one of the Founding Fathers of special education. He led the way in research to find ways to measure progress for children with disabilities.  His work on developing CBMs lead to the development of DIBELS and AIMSweb, both of which are widely used in schools today.  Together with other pioneer researchers, he and others helped influence the federal IDEA and its revision in 2004. He sees interventions as the tool to closing the gaps between the haves and the have nots, but he feels like strict adherence to giving IQ tests stands in the way of the adoption of intervention practices and therefor our ability to truly realize social justice through education. 

Dr. Schultz tells us about the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education report from 2002.  The recommendations in this report drove the revision of IDEA in 2004.  At the time, SLD identifications were reported to have grown by 300%.  The recommendation was to include Response to Intervention.  The question here would be, with the lack of focus on good RTI practices, is our rise in referrals a sign that we are Repeating History? Dr. Schultz argues that CSEP is the answer in the context of the state of RTI at this time. 

Allison Hollis joins to tell us about all the special considerations when managing a transition assessment.

Nancy Mather tells us about the Test of Dyslexia and how to assess for dyslexia. 

The Law Dawg tells us about the Texas Legislature and we discuss what we can look forward to in this legislative session. 

Dr. Steve Elliott is one of the authors of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS). Check out free resources on his website: https://ssiscolab.com/. He also shares that https://developingchild.harvard.edu/ describes the impact of stress for young children. Elizabeth Shanley also joins to tell us about free training resources from Pearson related to the SSIS. Use this link to get to one of those presentations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fujeO-QhMOA.

Dr. Fletcher explains how he attempts to establish that Learning Disabilities are real. Likewise, he also describes the hypotheses in research surrounding subtypes of dyslexia.  

Meet our OSEP director.  Hear about recent cases heard in courts regarding child find and LRE, and get ready for subtypes of dyslexia!

According to the NAEP published on October 23, 2022, 66% of fourth graders are not reading proficiently to make good scores on college entry exams by the time they get into high school.  Covid reflects low scores across the country.  This begs to question: are our norms still valid?

Last year the number of AU identifications surpassed the number of OHI identifications.  What are some the reasons for rising numbers of AU identifications? Is this a good thing or should be concerned?