Latest / Learn Literacy Podcast / 6. History of Dyslexia Part 3: Hinshelwood 1
Transcript
- Cheryl Urbanczyk: Welcome everyone to this episode of the Learn Literacy podcast, where we support the cause of language for life by teaching literacy through language and structure. So here we are today with our history of dyslexia series part three. We've learned so far about how dyslexia was named due to brain injury and losing the inability to read. And we learned about Morgan Pringle Morgan writing his profile of Percy. And now we're moving ahead to Hinchelwood. So James Hinchelwood is a contemporary of Morgan and he wrote a response to Morgan's letter, the letter that we read together in episode two. So let's get started with that. Okay, so here's a picture of James Hinchelwood. He was a Scottish ophthalmologist and he lived at around the same time as Morgan. And he started to see cases of people or children with symptoms like those from dyslexia or brain injury. And I'm guessing because he was an ophthalmologist, families brought children to him because they were concerned that there could be an eyesight problem and that could have been a link between why the kids were not being able to read. So Hinchelwood, through his career, sees many of these cases and documents them. But he really believes that there's something in the brain that is causing this, that there's a brain difference. And that is what is causing the inability to read as opposed to brain defect or intellectual concern or anything else like that. ⁓ He also advocates specific ⁓ practice and that phonics. So we're going to learn a lot about Hinshelwood and spend ⁓ time in a dive in one of his books. But first we're going to look at his response to Pringle Morgan. So he publishes in ⁓ the British Medical journal two weeks after Morgan's paper. So this is November ⁓ ⁓ So let's dive into that. Okay. So it's called the visual memory for words and figures. And he says the case of word blindness reported by Dr. Pringle Morgan in the British Medical Journal of November ⁓ is one of great interest. The patient in his present condition affords an example of a rare recognized form of word blindness in which the individual, though able to recognize the individual letters, cannot combine them into syllables and words. So he says his patient, however, is still young and just ⁓ as persevering practice he acquired the visual memories of letters, it is possible that by further perseverance he may gradually overcome his present defect. and learn to combine these correctly into syllables and words. So, he starts with an introduction about that this is an interesting case. ⁓ And he also about the reading process here, he talks about the child learning the letters, and then combining those letters into syllables and words, which really kind of speaks to ⁓ approach to learning to read as opposed to memorizing whole words. So he's seeing the stepwise progression here and is hoping ⁓ because he said the is still young and hopefully by persevering he'll move from letters to combine those into syllables and then words and be able to sound things out. Okay. All right. There is one point, however, back to what Hinchelwood is saying, to which I wish to direct the special attention of your readers, namely that Dr. Morgan's patient could read figures fluently. So remember, figures are numbers. So in a paper read by me before the Glasgow Medico-Cherogugical Society, I hope I pronounced that correctly, but ⁓ that's like a medical surgical society and subsequently published in the Lancet of December 21st, 1895, I discussed in detail a case in which the patient with normal visual acuity was unable to read any printed or written characters with which he was previously familiar with the exception of Arabic numerals, which he read fluently. So what he's doing here is connecting an example of loss of skill due to brain injury to what Morgan is documenting ⁓ ⁓ the student is possessing from birth. ⁓ So Hinshelwood saying, ⁓ I saw this case of a person with brain injury who lost the ability to read, but was able to read numbers in the same way that this boy, Percy, ⁓ could not but was fine with numbers. So he's making that connection. I have there quoted five additional cases, meaning Hinshelwood is quoted in the Lancet, five additional cases where with word blindness, the power of reading figures was preserved intact. So these cases would be cases of brain injury where the ability to read was lost, but not the ability to read figures or numbers. Professor Gerdner of Glasgow has since informed me of a similar case occurring in his own experience. So he's just, referencing other cases. Okay, Dr. Morgan's case lends additional confirmation to the remarkable fact that the visual memory for words and letters is completely independent for that of figures. And so, he's adding this angle then of what this boy Percy could do from birth as opposed to brain injury, and that whatever is happening in the brain for reading words and letters is different than for numbers. clinical experiences already taught us that the one form of visual memory may be completely lost, whilst the other remains intact. And, he's referring back to those cases he saw of brain injury where one skill like reading was lost, but not the skill of reading numbers. Dr. Morgan's case supplies the additional fact that the visual memory for words may be congenitally defective, whilst that for numbers, presents nothing abnormal. Okay, two different skill sets. Experience further teaches that either form of visual memory may be developed to an abnormal degree without the other manifesting any corresponding development or even with the other remaining below normal. So he's just separating what is happening for reading from math. Okay. I think we are compelled to infer from such complete functional independence of these two groups of visual memories and anatomical independence. So what he's saying is reading and math has two different areas associated with it in terms of anatomy. We can as yet only localize the visual memory of words and letters. ⁓ But from the frequency with which the visual memories of words and numbers are simultaneously lost, we can infer that the regions affected, though not identical, are probably close together. ⁓ ⁓ trying to figure out, ⁓ what's happening terms of brain structure and function. We can localize the visual memories of words and letters ⁓ and know that when the cases of when words and numbers are both lost, he's assuming a similar or close location in the brain because the cases he's talking about are those due to injury, due to disease ⁓ injury itself to the brain. So he's assuming a close location, which, I guess makes sense, right? If you lose one, you might lose the other if they're close together. although he's saying that they are two separate things. So moving on. He's going to talk now about his goal for writing this letter. ⁓ object in writing is to call your particular attention to this little known fact of clinical experience in the hope that a more widely diffused knowledge may increase the number of accurately observed cases of word blindness. And thus, when in some of these opportunity arises for pathological examination, additional light may be thrown on some of the difficult problems of cerebral localization. So what he's trying to do is raise awareness. He's like, we have this interesting stuff going on. We know we get just word blindness from brain injury. And we now have a case of word blindness from birth. He wants to bring forth a plea that people document cases so that ⁓ they can out the cerebral localization or the anatomy ⁓ of ⁓ is what, what part of the brain is for reading, what part of the brain for numbers, ⁓ that kind thing. So, ⁓ he's being intellectually curious wants to ⁓ figure it out. and get an answer by asking his peers to document cases and note them and send them in and publish them, which is pretty cool. his letter is quite short and he's wrapping it up. ⁓ would suggest to Dr. Morgan appoint a very great interest which he has not mentioned in his report. ⁓ interesting sentence really setting us up here as a reader. Can his patient recognize at site musical notes? Or if he has never yet attempted to learn music, is it possible to teach him to recognize musical notes by sight? ⁓ ⁓ is very interesting. When people were looking at this inability to read, they looked at it from a general point of view of reading different things, right? We have reading words, reading figures or math numbers, and now reading music. So these three things kind ⁓ of are forms of of language, if you will, right? And so Hinshelwood is very curious if ⁓ musical notes is affected. And if the student was not taught music, could he be, is it possible to teach him music to see if that skill is affected as well? And so he ends with, although word blindness is generally accompanied by inability to recognize musical notes by sight, Yet cases are on record in which the patients, though word blind, still retain the power of reading musical notes. So again, he's putting forth curiosity. Like these historical documents are so cool and that we really see the thought process of the authors who are writing them. He's saying word blindness is generally accompanied by the inability to read musical notes as like a general thing. But he says, although There's cases where people can't read, but they can read musical notes. So there's kind of a smattering of cases of all kinds, right? Losing reading and losing math, losing reading, but not losing math numbers. Losing reading and losing reading music and losing reading and not losing reading music. And I guess we could put all of them together and get different combinations there, but he didn't really do that here. So, he wants to understand all this and figure it out. And I think ⁓ that's neat. he kind of wraps up and is wanting to get at comparing this acquired word blindness through brain injury to this congenital word blindness and figure out what connections might be there in terms of brain structure and function, ⁓ in terms of the skill presentation. and ⁓ he has that interest to want to see more cases to gather that information. ⁓ It also gives us insight into they consider reading and how they might test for that skill. Whereas I think, a lot of times I think in the modern context today when we think about inability to read, we really just think of words and reading. kind of don't generalize that to other forms of reading. And I think that's an interesting thing to think about how they looked at other forms of reading then. And maybe we don't take that into consideration today in terms of the skills students have. moving for our next session on the history of dyslexia, ⁓ we're going to go through book that James Hinchelwood wrote called Congenital Word Blindness. and he wrote that in 1917 and it is his treatise on a bunch of case studies and thoughts on what congenital word blindness is that he gathered over part of his career. So we're going to dive into that and work through that chapter by chapter. Okay, thanks for joining today. As usual, if you want to learn more about Learn Literacy, go to my website, learnliteracy.com or at Learn Literacy One. and please share this information, like, subscribe, all that good stuff. And I look forward to seeing you on another episode very soon. Thank you.