Channel 4 Programme Entitled The Dyslexia Myth

Channel 4 Dispatches programme entitled ‘The Dyslexia Myth’ ¹ was aired in September 2005. The purpose of the documentary was to inform society of the proposed misconceptions and myths of the condition which affects 1 in 5 people. The programme details how the common understanding of the learning impairment is not only false, but how this particular diagnosis makes it harder for children with reading difficulties to receive help. The director of the documentary clearly wants to get across the message that dyslexia is a myth. The documentary has since faced a lot of backlash from the media and families affected by the developmental disorder. The most recent definition of Dyslexia was published in the DSM-52 as a specific learning disorder; ‘a pattern of difficulties characterised by problems with accurate or fluent word recognition, poor decoding and poor spelling abilities. Dyslexia is understood to be a genetic disorder as many family risk studies on dyslexia have proven3; there is a 50% risk that a child will develop reading difficulties if they have a parent with dyslexia. However within the documentary there was no definition of dyslexia given; instead the documentary focused on dyslexia as a ‘myth’, stating that the term was coined hundreds of years ago because puzzled doctors could not understand why intelligent children failed to learn to read. The documentary focused on dyslexia as mainly an ‘emotional’ construct which is far from what current research suggests.Show MoreRelatedEducation response Essay example43180 Words   |  173 PagesUniversity Challenge: How Higher Education Can Advance Social Mobility Contents Foreword and summary 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 11 Chapter 2 Access all areas 19 Chapter 3 Making the grade 27 Chapter 4 Getting ready – reaching out to potential applicants 33 Chapter 5 Getting in – university admissions 45 Chapter 6 Staying in – student retention 59 Chapter 7 Getting on – student outcomes 67 Chapter 8