Week 2 and 3: Many Things

Greetings Everyone!

Week two and three of SRP is complete! YAY!

       Last week, I administered several CTOPP-2 tests on 5 and 6 year olds. That of in itself was interesting. So to get you all onto the same page. The CTOPP-2 test is designed to assess the phonological awareness processing abilities related to reading in students from 5-24 years. It is a standard norm exam so that means that it compares your level to see whether you are very poor, poor, below average, average, above average, superior, or very superior to other people your age. There are ten areas that are tested in the CTOPP-2 exams: Elision, Blending Words, Sound Matching, Memory for Digits, Non-word Repetition, Rapid Digit Naming, Rapid Letter Naming, Rapid Color Naming, Rapid Object Naming, and Blending Non-words. The goal of all ten areas are to see the strength of your phonological awareness and memory.  

       So the CTOPP-2 takes about 45 minutes to administer and it consists of me asking the questions to the child and he/she responding with the answer. Well in one of the cases, it took me 2 hours to carry through with the test. My experience with that kid was very interesting. To describe this kid in one sentence, he was a very sweet kid with an abundant number of stories. Every question that I asked him would remind of another story that he wanted to tell me. He was also very squirmy. Several times throughout the test, I was worried that he might fall off the chair. (Luckily, he never did!) I don't think it helped that he had drank a huge glass of soda before coming into the doctor's office:). But after all the troubles, we ended the exam and he left with a great score on the test and two lollipops in his hand. (I low-key had to bribe him to finish a little faster.)

      Another incident I had with a patient was the complete opposite from the prior. This patient completed the exam fully within 35 minutes and at times rolled his/her eyes at me saying that all the questions were super easy. I found this entertaining because he/she would smirk a little right before they would answer the question. But luckily, I was able to get on their good side by offering them a lollipop. 

       My experience with the kids is great, I get to learn their personalities and observe their strengths and weaknesses. Most of them are 5, 6, and 7 year olds who are in school and are discovering who they are. This has also taught me how important it is to have patience even when the child is being one tough customer. Overall, I love what I have done so far!

       Besides the CTOPP, I did other things as well. Last weekend, I went to a conference held by Dyslexia Pros. Extremely Educational!! I learned about what has been implemented so far to help people with dyslexia out. I was introduced to many apps and services that provide great help to the dyslexic community. The conference also helped me to discover more about how a dyslexic's mind works in a classroom environment. One example I was given was how a dyslexic reads. **Note to readers: Please keep in mind that there are different levels of how dyslexic someone can be** The example I was given was of someone with a medium level of dyslexia. 

Please read the following:

Deisxyla is crieeactazhrd by dffilticuy wtih lennraig to raed flteinuy and with aactucre cromheopisnen dsitepe normal icltienegine. 

(Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence.)

        How did that go? For sure, it gave me and my spell check a headache. Now imagine what a dyslexic person goes through when they are required to read a book for school or read the instructions at the top of their homework. It's frustrating and nevertheless hard. Many of the kids get discouraged and don't finish their homework because they simply don't understand what they have to do. And if they do know what to do, it takes them twice as long to finish it. Laura, the speaker at the conference, explained that with some tweaks in the educational system could help make it a nearly perfect learning environment for kids with or without dyslexia. Some fixes such as allowing kids with dyslexia to use I-pads or tablets at school and allowing them to type up their homework and use audiobooks to help them finish their work faster. This by no means would make the child addicted or dependent on technology, but instead would help aid the child to gain their success in learning. 

         I also learned from the conference that Steve Jobs was dyslexic. Therefore, he required all the Apple products to come preloaded with functions to help aid people with dyslexia. Most of the added functions can be found in Settings>General>Accessibility. Another thing that I found fascinating was that many companies that hold dyslexia tutoring are pushing for legislations to be passed to make sure that all school require their students to get tested for dyslexia. 

Certificate for Dyslexia Conference

         I am so happy that I got this wonderful opportunity to learn so much about dyslexia. Shoutout to Dr. Khurana and Becky. Thank you!! 


Can't wait to share more with you all!

Until next time, 
Ritika Gupta :)