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ACN: 081 858 344 |
 1. Releasing Mental Energy of Gifted and Talented Children
with Perceptual Deficits 1. Releasing Mental Energy of Gifted and Talented Children with Perceptual Deficits. 2nd National Conference for Gifted and Talented Children, University of Queensland, Austraila, May, 1985. Presentation of proven materials which can be used as self-help home kits or school sets in remediating literacy and numeracy problems causing bright children to under-achieve. A video will be shown featuring successful gifted children formerly troubled by the 3Rs due to perceptual difficulties affecting low level processing of information. Slide transparencies and Overhead Projector transparencies will be used. 2. Report on use of Banana Books in Treatment in 3RS Logitudinal Case Histories. 8th World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, Sydney, Australia, July, 1989. Under the Participation & Equity Programme (Australian Federal Government Schools Commission) a cluster of high schools sent 12 teachers, of many disciplines, to a 12-week numeracy/literacy programme based on the Banana Books by Christina A. Alexander, which evolved from coalface research, one-to-one teaching and writing over seven years with subjects including all ages - bank managers to grade one. Books/kits were published due to public demand. All carry easy instructions, jargon-free, so any close person can assist with books as tools. The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, in two forms, was given at the beginning and end of the 12 weeks fieldwork in which teachers liaised with families in use of books. Results: Test 1 (subjects 12-19 years) averaged R A 8 years 3 months. Test 2: minimum gain: 2 years, maximum gain: 4 years 6 months. All audio taped Minders of G + T groups could adopt this training (using holistic/multi-sensory style), for the gifted enjoy the humour, stimulus, problem solving, challenge. Processing lacks are picked up and overcome. Gifted work smiths lacking spatial relationship ability or gift number-smiths with literacy lacks benefit equally. Numeracy/literacy, blended holistically, allows this. The two weekends of workshops, testing and hands-on training included video, audio and OHP. 3. Dyslexia is a State of Mind, Often a Very Fine Mind. 2nd State Conference on Gifted and Talented Children, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, april, 1991. Dyslexia A walk through the Australian Broadcasting Commission (national independent broadcaster), documentary of the same title. 4. A Boodle of Doodles: 3RS School-Failure-Prevention Kit - G/T Dyslectic Mainstream Kindergarteners. State Special Needs Conference, Coolum, Queensland, Australia, April 1991. Designed for pre-school primary (hereditary), secondary (trauma) dyslexia sufferers so that early schoolroom failure in printing, reading and numbers is greatly alleviated. Two typical cases will be discussed: a brain-damaged opportunity school student ages 8. 5 - injuries in an accident (M A 4. 0 years): an average ability student of 4. 0 years whose family has a history of L D but excellence in the expressive arts (painting & ballet), with severe L D problems in processing. Despite poor prognoses, these and other ABOD users functioned well in the mainstream. Reading, writing and numeracy, predicted to be beyond them, was managed well. The ABOD is a giant drawstring bag containing 3 non-book large-scale components of door-sized cloth pages, cylinders, and scrolls for matching and multi-sensory work with humour and animal themes. Advanced components are book-workbook and a rhyming reader to culminate with. The reader and non-book parts contain vocabulary, which dyslectics commonly confuse. Processing this along with fun caricatures of animals and circus people in a holistic, multi-sensory mode (see/hear/feel/say) focuses and reinforces the difficult things. Prevention is better than cure. Though large, the boodle compresses to accommodate well in large or small spaces. It can be used on lawn or carpet depending on circumstances. It is for creative minders of children in families where spelling, reversals, writing, reading are a problem. Also play schools, kindergartens, teaching colleges et al who would appreciate the applied psychology practicality of the system when world concern on the 3 Rs matches medical science advances in retention of premature and other at risk babies. The paradox of G/T but also L D can be resolves with ABOD. OHP video presentation. 5. Dyslexia: Learning Problem, Teaching Disability - Materials to Solve This GT-LD Impasse. 9th World Conference on Gifted & Talented Children, The Hague, Netherlands, Jul/Aug, 1991. Longitudinal case histories of LD but gifted students now involved in or graduates from tertiary studies in music, science, computers, humanities. The rescue operations mounted to enable them to overcome processing problems expressed in failure in multiplication tables and numeracy problems through reading difficulties or language arts, writing, written expression, spelling, comprehension, limited vocabulary, short term memory problem, concentration span shortness, uncoordination. All or some of the above afflicted these students in early schooling. All had had extensive remedial help with small gains. Knowledge was acquired and then forgotten. School reports reiterated that more effort was required, that carelessness, laziness and lack of concentration should be attended to. Remediation consisted of gently taking the students below their frustration levels to easier work but with the same learning techniques as before, but these bright students felt patronised by work several grades below their chronological age. Yet they had failed on class work according to their ages. Guidance officers and educational psychologists concurred that the children were gifted but apart from vague recommendation that remedial work be undertaken no structured programme was offered desperate students and parents. Earnest, caring parents could no bring themselves to help with dumb down homework which insulted their children and was forgotten as fast as the regular class work had been, for the approach was the same. These early referrals caused me to devise materials, which they would enjoy and which would stretch their attention span to allow them to recall, write and spell long words. The method will be illustrated at various literacy levels. What the problems were of a cross section of students and what they are now doing will be explained. 6. Dyslexia Lessons with Billy, Dicky and Christine, Part II, Numeracy. 9th World Conference on Gifted & Talented Children, The Hague, Netherlands, Jul/Aug, 1991. The numeracy strand comprises one third of the 3000-page Banana Books programme and audiotape by Christina A. Alexander from Turkey Tracks Press. It echoes the Literacy Part 1 sector VAKT methodology of Maria Montessori and Grace Maxwell Fernald. Features: - Stepped for years 3 12 *problem-solving to help focus concentration and -poetic devices to deter reversals, transpositions, jumbled word and
number sequences Paradox: Learners struggling with numeracy or literacy or both numeracy
and literacy all benefit. Themed titles speak for themselves: -You Don't Say 7. Speech Improvement While Topping up the 3Rs. 9th World Conference on Gifted & Talented Children, The Hague, Netherlands, Jul/Aug, 1991. A literacy system designed for intelligent dyslectics of all ages, with lateral thinking, humour and top black and white art in X-ray-olde worlde/discovery style (to aid and stimulate visual perception) is now widely used in hospitals, homes and private speech therapy clinics. When someone, of whatever age, sustains a mild stroke or head injuries to the left hemisphere of the brain in the processing area, symptoms in language loss or secondary dyslexia follow. That is, syllables are transposed or omitted, resulting in faulty and slow reading, sometimes with tracking difficulty, i. e. , missing or backtracking the next logical line on the page. At times, phrases are read with incorrect word order. Spelling is chaotic even if perfect before. The reason this programme is appropriately adopted by speech therapists is that the multi-sensory, simultaneous, holistic mode encapsulates auditory/speech/visual and motor aspects of processing. In a sophisticated way spelling, comprehension, tracking, written expression, and punctuation are dealt with so that a helper is easy to locate. Storybook numeracy similarly helps. A concomitant of suffering these problems is depression, so the humour is a benefit. Many gifted people meet with these problems at all stages of life and professionals like journalists need to overcome these deficits as soon as possible in their work and life. Quality of life is greatly affected when such problems arrive suddenly. Gifted and talented children with processing or basic 3 rs or primary and/or secondary dyslexia, may have faulty speech which is helped along with the other school difficulties using this method. 8. Materials for Dyslectic Children of High Ability. International Psychology Conference: The Differential Psychology of Learning, its Fundamentals & Applications. (as invited speaker, international symposium), Martin-Luther-Universitat, Halle, Germany, Sept, 1991. Responding to a short supply of researched custom written materials to appeal to all ages and thus ensure helpers in administration of literary tools, the author devised a three-tier system of holistic multi-sensory material. Humour was used because many users had had many years, sometimes of failure. Though with often, superior reasoning ability they failed to acquire C A reading skills vocabulary written comprehension. Frequently middle and end syllables of words were omitted, transcribed or substituted. Letter combinations such as or and ro were reversed so that form and from were confused. In early days of school, mirror writing, reversal of letters and numbers and dysgraphia (wonky printing/writing) marked their school experiences so that their behaviour had become withdrawn or overtly obstructive. A short-term memory problem exacerbated things so that laboriously rote-learned spelling lists were disremembered in hours or days so tests produced very poor scores in these. Moreover, a vocabulary was not being built but was learned and lost. By year three the combination of poor writing, bad spelling, faulty reading and comprehension, numerals and symbols out of sync and speed below the others so that they never finished or received credit for work known in class work (written) or examinations all added up to school blues or even school phobia in some cases. Resigning from high school teaching, the author spent the next decade with bright (often from the top 2%) DL students in one- to- one teaching. Scarcity of books meant writing programmes. Parental contracts obtained whereby a parent or surrogate supervised work for half an hour daily on acceptance of the client. There will be a read lecture, without jargon, on the evolvement of the programmes to publication. Outline of strategies for providing spelling and reading and creative writing skills without lists or rote learning and including ploys for punctuation and mastery of long words like photographic paraphernalia per holistic multi sensory mode. OHP with fun art, which does not disclose the story as used in the programme- will be shown. Video clips, with permission, from regional and national TV will be shown in which users and minders discuss the method. This is vol 1 (7kg) of The big fat beaut book in 13 parts, boxed, of the Banana Books by C A Alexander. 9. Lateral Thinking Kits for Gifted and Talented Children. 2nd Asian Conference on Giftedness, Taipei, Taiwan, R O C. 24-27 July, 1992. World shortage of suitably stimulating material for gifted under-achievers who were diagnosed dyslectics, led to pioneering of graded, sophisticated, humorous kits and kit-books. The intellect was challenged by the lateral thinking inherent in misleading information in the problem-solving tasks to stimulate critical thinking. This applied in language, numeracy and picture clues. Pictures of complex, fine discovery art, to stimulate visual perception, did not disclose the story. Hand-lettered text was extremely varied and large enough to allow tactile finger-tracing at the beginning level so a multi-sensory style to reinforce memory, recall and retrieval was possible in processing. This also allowed more efficient encoding in the short-term memory to overcome the sieve syndrome. Monitoring, as it evolved, on dyslectics of all ages since 1978, in both numeracy & literacy, proved the method is 100% effective in empowering dyslectics to realize their potential, as longitudinal case histories attest, in both primary and secondary dyslectics, if the holistic approach is implemented, as will be demonstrated with samples and visuals. 10. Recovering Communication Using Holistic, Multi-sensory Techniques. Seminar: Stroke the Third Biggest Killer, Practicalities of Coping. (as invited speaker). Stroke Support and Self-Help Inc. Pine Rivers Respite Services Council on the Ageing, Queensland Inc., 9 oct 1993. Instead of concentrating on one part of a re-learning chore, or monomodal, Christinas method brings in four at once. Multi-sensory Learning was shown as the mobilisation of the sense memories we use in learning and remembering and processing information. In the seminar demonstration, the pupil does the easy parts first, working towards achievable goals. There is the promise that it is going to get harder, but not hard enough to put her off trying. Working with Christinas charts, the pupil identified objects she saw in front of her, spelling out each letter as she traced her hands around the objects outline. In Christinas works we feel/hear/see/say together. This allows a total sensory experience and one, which builds or rebuilds the capacity of the brain. 11. The Christina Alexander Dyslexia Vacation Schools and Publications. 21st National Conference of the Australian Reading Association. Darling Harbour, Sydney, 12-15 Jul, 1995. The integrated programme has parallel stepped systems including essential literacy aspects, as well as numeracy. The numeracy shares the same techniques with additions. Dense black for operations, hollow lettering for contrast. Tables tape to Baroque Music with a fun story serial between batches. double trouble: gifted and learning disabled a multisensory solution FOR ALL ages. 12. Documentary on K-12 Banana Books Literacy-Numeracy Program. Combined Associations Conference 2000, Wilston, Brisbane, Australia, 3-4 July, 2000. The banana books evolved when the author could not find effective remedial material for the multi-age, multilevel clients using multisensory (VAKT) methodology after Fernald and Montessori. The need arose when, after teaching Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Special needs classes in Australia and New Zealand, she wished to explore why so many students floundered on the 3Rs despite opportunity. (2. 6 Australians 1998 Census). Humour, large format, poetic devices and harvesting most frequently troublesome words for text inclusion and VAKT proved effective in texts. Her doctorate is nearing completion in which a quantitative evaluation of the work is the object. 13. Aspects of Banana Books: Designed for Dyslectics but Successful in Mainstream Use and to Complement or Replace Reading Recovery. British Dyslexia Association International Conference, 18-21 April, 2001, York University, UK. The Banana Books kits designed to overcome lags in literacy and numeracy in dyslexia sufferers. The term dyslexia is used in the generic way to include ADD and ADHD et al. The kits comprise large format book and non-book holistic multi-sensory, -age, -level, programmes of 3,000 pages, audio-visuals and innovative devices. They comprise two kits: A Boodle of Doodles 60 components. Pre-school to Year 3 level. The Big Fat Beaut Book 9 volumes B2 to A3. Year 3 to superior adult standard. Statistics and
Pertinent Factors: -Currently the subject of master and doctorate theses |
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