[AAACE-NLA] Genetic vs. developed "LDs"

[HKerr at aol.com]

Hi  Michael, 
You ask three  questions. I would like to offer answers as follows: 
1. When would you  say LD is genetic, such that no imaginable intervention 
will produce  results? 
We should be  sceptical, or at the very least careful. (It’s a moral duty.) 
To attribute  something to ‘the genes’ is to say something very definite, 
very powerful. We  should be absolutely, utterly sure of our facts first, 
because a ‘genetic’  deficit is an innate, and permanent one. Such a ‘
diagnosis’, or attribution, is  deeply negative and profoundly disheartening. It is 
maladaptive. It tends  absolutely to imply that ‘no imaginable intervention 
will produce  results’.   
And the fact is that  (if we are talking about dyslexia) the condition 
itself, and its genetic basis,  remain controversial. A much fuller, and better, 
exposition of these ideas is in  chapter eight of my online book on the 
website below. Genetics is a fearsomely  complicated area, very new and very 
fluid, and we are often guilty of very  casual use of its apparent results. 
Findings are very much open to abuse. The  ‘dyslexia literature’ often makes 
wild claims on small and shaky evidence.  
2.  Does it really matter? 
Yes. Lack of  scepticism (or gullibility) always does, but maladaptive 
attributions do too,  very much. A ‘diagnosis’ of a ‘disability’ is a 
maladaptive attribution if not  based on truth. It will, if accepted, have a large 
(and rather obvious) effect  on affect, and poor or negative affect very 
powerfully influence learning and  performance, IMO. 
3. Is the  distinction meaningful or useful? 
Yes, and no. A  ‘diagnosis’ takes our eyes off the ball. It is too 
convenient. We end up blaming  the victim, or at any rate the victim’s nervous 
system. We oversimplify and  reduce. Fragment a holistic complexity into 
simplistic parts. There are so many  reasons for poor literacy, and for ‘odd’ 
behaviours around literacy. People, and  their histories, are so complicated. If 
we opt for ‘diagnosis’ of a simple  ‘deficit’ early on, we will probably 
get a positive result and then we will stop  looking for alternative 
explanations. If we don’t look, we won’t see them. The  ‘diagnosis’ will greatly 
impoverish, or absolutely block, our observation and  our thinking, bypass 
our common sense. So the distinction you pose has a  meaning, but it is not 
useful, indeed it can be positively (but rather subtly)  harmful.  


Hugo


at: _http://www.hugokerr.info_ (http://www.hugokerr.info/) 

"We're here to help each other get  through this thing - whatever it might 
be." (Kurt Vonnegut) 
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