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Tell WA your story- get it published!

Kids in Perth ñ The Parentsí Paper strives to give the parents of Perth a forum to share their ideas and experiences with others. Now we are giving our readers the chance to get their opinions and stories published.

The paper is looking for anecdotes both humorous and inspirational, handy tips or anything else you might think other parents would enjoy reading. Even if you are not a parent, but have worked with children, we want to hear from you.

We are looking for true stories. The competition is open to all ñ mums, dads, grandparents, teachers, childcare workers or anyone else who would like to write about their experience with children.

Stories can be as long or short as you like and can be about any subject of your choosing ñ happy, sad, inspirational, uplifting, cautionary, advisory, your concerns, your hopes ñ anything!

In addition to being considered for publication in Kids in Perth ñ The Parentsí Paper, a compilation of the best of these stories will be published in book or magazine form in the future.

 Please note that it is an expressed condition that ownership and copyright of all submissions to Kids in Perth ñ The Parentsí Paperís will revert to Lasso Media Pty. Ltd. as publishers of the paper and the authors of these submissions will have no further claims on these articles/stories, irrespective of whether the submission is published.

Email your submissions to mystory@kidsinperth.com 

So get writing and let the people of Perth know your story.

Closing the literacy gap
-Dr Julia Solomon

Parent A (not her real name) was angry. She had believed her bright 11-year-old to be keeping up well at school. Every week in second term his spelling marks were 30 out of 30. When his midyear report arrived, it said nothing about the good spelling but had columns of squares, each filled with a ìCî. She found out that a C means: ìItís going to happen. It just hasnít clicked yet.î

Daily spelling results or a nicely presented portfolio of work may conceal the fact that a child of 11 is effectively not reading or writing. When parents find this out, panic overtakes them. How will this child cope with high school? All pupils are expected to enter secondary education with the capacity to read, to comprehend and to write grammatically correct answers to complex and sophisticated texts. Parent A may well ask: if the learning of English hasnít ëclickedí at age 11 in a bright child, when does it happen?

Research findings tell us that automatic reading should occur by the time a child is eight. Pupils with reading delay at eight are likely to continue that way unless special intervention is given. The good news is: a reading gap can be closed.

Successful intervention must be based on an understanding that an estimated 50 per cent of children, who show no other academic difficulty, fail to read competently or simply refuse to read because they cannot cope with the irregularities in the pronunciation of written words in English. Often perfectionist or anxious in personality, these pupils wonít guess or have a go if they risk being wrong. If the child has an auditory deficit problem, having to recall words from memory makes reading an impossible task for the pupil and for the parent who tries to teach it.

To avoid frustration in the parents and child, in the wake of the childís reading delay, intervention must provide a strategy that does not rely on guessing, rules or memory. It must make it possible for all words, new and familiar, to be sounded out; that is, to be pronounced accurately and independently and then decoded for meaning. The essential feature of Reading for Sure is its elimination of the difficulties associated with trying to work out how a written word is pronounced. For the child who is anxious about the unknown, certainty comes with the pronunciation code in Reading for Sure brings immediate visible relief, restored confidence and a new-found self-esteem.

In the main we are addressing the problems of children who have not read meaningfully since the age of six or seven. Some have a reading delay of several years. ëReadingí ceased when they could no longer rely on pictures to guess the words.

In the six to nine age group, using the novel devices provided in Reading for Sure, a measurable improvement is possible after five or six one hour, individualised sessions.

Where the reading difficulties are complicated by long years of failure, by symptoms of dyslexia, by attention deficit or other disorders, a longer, more intensive application is usually necessary. The situation that slows down the progress is where a child is happy to attend session at the Reading for Sure center but is unhappy about work in between.

How much should we coax, cajole, bully or bribe a child into getting started and finished with homework? How can we compete with the childís greater motivation to sit at the computer rather than open a book for reading and writing?

Reading for Sure now answers that question by its production of the whole of its system on CD. It offers the opportunity for the pupil and parents, or the pupil alone, to revise, practice and fast track each segment of the step by step method. To extend attention span, the child is able to slick into ìthe Libraryî where readable books, charts and a host of sequential memory games can be found and downloaded.

For those who are not sure if they are facing a literacy problem, and those who are sure but have no answer, the Reading for Sure website www.worldliteracy.com provides a free consultancy service, and information on Reading for Sure products and centers. Alternatively phone 9276 9060 or email wli@arach.net.au

The link between ear infections and Central Auditory Processing Disorder

Ear infections are the main reason for the worldís pre-schoolers to visit a doctor. Ear infections have been on the increase over the last decade, yet many episodes go undetected by parents, which means that the rate could be even higher than we can estimate.

One long-term effect of these ear infections, or ìotitis mediaî (OM), may be Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). Children with CAPD are the ones in the classroom who typically appear to daydream, canít concentrate, are easily distracted; some have problems with reading, writing and spelling and others may be disruptive. 

The causes of OM include cross-infection from other little kids (eg at day-care centres), passive smoking, allergies to foods and dust, environmental health factors like dust and sanitation, viruses and bacteria, and immunity disorders. Babies and toddlers are especially prone to these infections.  The reason for this is found in the eustachian tube ñ the airway from our nose and throat up to the middle ear, which briefly opens to let in fresh air and drain fluids.  The ìpopî you hear when you yawn or descend in a plane is your eustachian tube at work.  The younger a child is, the more likely this tube is to work poorly, or not at all, as it is narrower and flatter than in adults.

Congestion or blockages of the eustachian tube can occur along with colds, runny nose, tonsillitis, allergies, hayfever and in turn can become acute OM in the middle ear.  Children who tug at their ears, are irritable, sleep poorly or whose hearing seems to go ìoffî, may have an ear infection. Examination by a doctor is recommended if this occurs.  If the bouts of ear infection are frequent, effective treatment may include the insertion of 2 tiny plastic tubes, or grommets, into the eardrums, to act as temporary eustachian tubes.

Dr Renee Shilkin is a well-known Perth GP with a special interest in OM.  Dr Shilkin says acute OM may clear up completely of its own accord in a short time or can leave behind fluid known as ìGlue Earî.  This can cause distorted and/or reduced hearing, which can in turn lead to CAPD. Not all bouts of OM are picked up, which puts many children at serious risk of developing CAPD. Just as important is the child whose OM is obvious and treated, yet persists for much of his or her critical speech and language development period of 0-4 years.  This is because children with OM have reduced loudness and clarity of sound just when they are most ready to map out the speech they hear onto the language centres of their brain.  By the time a childís OM and hearing have improved, a potentially devastating calling card may remain ñ CAPD.

CAPD generally reveals itself in environments where auditory processing is most needed ñ such as the classroom, where there is competing background noise.  They can experience difficulties like hearing what is said in the presence of other noise; limited concentration after a short period; limited short-term memory for speech; disruptive behaviour, and their awareness of speech sounds can be affected.  Reading, writing and spelling are often subjects these children find difficult. Maths can become difficult once word questions begin to replace basic numeric questions.  When jokes are told, they are often the ones who ìdonít get itî.

CAPD can be effectively addressed by speech pathology computer games called Fast ForWord.  These were developed to reinforce the sounds of the English language on the language centres of the brain.  Fast ForWord starts off by extending sounds such as ìpî and ìbî, ìtî and ìdî so that the brain has a longer time for processing.  Once the brain has detected the miniscule differences between these sounds, and after hundreds of presentations, the amount of extension of the sounds is gradually reduced.  By the end of training, the participants are far better at hearing clear differences between the sounds. 

The benefit of their firmer ability to hear sounds is most apparent when children are in less than optimal listening situations, such as the classroom environment.  The games rely upon repetition and intensity to achieve a physiological change in the size and structure of the language centres of the brain.  Some of the outcomes children find after completing the games are increased reading and spelling ability; greater auditory memory; better concentration; a greater ability to hear what the teacher is saying; completion of work within required timeframes; participation in discussions; and improved self esteem.

Professional staff at Sonic Hearing are Brad Hutchinson, audiologist and speech pathologist, Ian Henderson, audiologist, and Claire Hutchinson, occupational therapist, who are available to assess children for OM and CAPD and to recommend strategies for remediation.  The telephone number is 9271 7711.