Latest / Learn Literacy Podcast / 26. History of Dyslexia Part 13: Orton Part 3
Transcript
- Cheryl Urbanczyk: Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Learn Literacy Podcast, where we focus on language for life by teaching literacy through language and structure. So we are focusing on Dr. Samuel T. Orton right now in our History of Dyslexia series, and we have done a few episodes learning about him as a medical professional, where he did his training, the kinds of things he did, that kind of thing. We are currently reviewing an article from volume 25, issue number one from January 1975, from the Bulletin of the Orton Society. And the article is Samuel T. Orton MD, who was he? the article started off with some biographical sketches from his wife, June Orton, and then with some commentary from other people who knew about him. So last episode we stopped about halfway through the article. We'll finish the article today. we pick up where we left off with June Orton taking over. And sharing more of her life and understanding of her husband, Dr. Samuel T. Orton. Dr. Orton's work with children with specific language disabilities began at the Iowa Psychopathic Hospital with his organization and direction of an experimental mobile mental hygiene unit and his subsequent identification of a specific reading disability. In a 16-year-old boy MP in the clinic he held in Green County, Iowa in January 1925. The finding of reading disabilities in various degrees and 14 other children referred in this one county because of educational and behavioral problems impressed Dr. Orton with the extent and significance of this learning disorder. He arranged to study MP intensively at the hospital. Sought out other cases and in May produced his landmark paper, Word Blindness in School Children. This was followed by Dr. Orton's proposal to the Division of Studies of the Rockefeller Foundation for a comprehensive research program on the physiology of the brain, to include an extension of the mobile clinic services throughout the state and a broad investigation of reading and speech problems in a large group of children. A grant of $60,000 was awarded for a two year period with prospects of renewal thereafter. Unfortunately, this extension did not materialize. However, over 1,000 patients, mostly school age children, had been seen by the traveling clinic during 1926-1927, and a valuable part of the reading disability program was completed, including a six week summer school at the hospital. There, various remedial techniques were tried out with a group of children with specific reading problems, and a diagnostic schedule of tests was formulated The IOTA test among them. Speech disorders had been studied throughout the research program. A speech therapist was a member of the clinical teams. Physiological studies of stutterers were carried on by Dr. Li Yi Travis and Dr. Orton with some successful applications to treatment. Two years, obviously, was not long enough for much of a beginning in the basic research programs in neurophysiology. Neuroanatomy and cerebral dominance, which Dr. Orton had planned. One project which he initiated, however, involved a year's study in a hospital laboratory in Holland, which was carried out by Dr. Loretta Bender in 1926. Loretta Bender had come to the University of Iowa as a third-year medical student, specifically to work with Dr. Orton, because she has said he was the outstanding neuropathologist in the country at that time. So let's just pause for a minute and think about that. So Dr. Orton, who developed this approach to support kids with reading disabilities, in his time was the outstanding neuropathologist of his community. So that should impress upon us the knowledge he had about brain structure and function for his time and how he was using that to support students in their remediation. Okay. She became his top assistant in neuropathology at the Psychopathic Hospital and was one of his students in whom he had occasion to take great pride as he followed her eminent career in child psychiatry and research through later years. Following the cutting off of funds to continue his basic research in brain functions underlying the language processes and because of certain unrelated events at the university at that time. Dr. Orton resigned from the Psychopathic Hospital July 1st, 1927. As a widower with three teenage children, he spent the next year at the home of his brother in Columbus, Ohio, completing his research reports and looking into available professional opportunities for a quote, neuropathologist with a special interest in children's language disorders and recent experience as a hospital director and a professor of psychiatry. End quote, and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. His decision was to go in the fall of 1928 to New York City with his recent bride, the former June F. Leide, as his psychological assistant and quote Grill Friday to open an office for the private practice of neuropsychiatry. Time did not permit a review on this program of Dr. Orton's accomplishments during the following 20 years prior to his death on November 16, 1948, at the age of 69. Many who had worked with him in those years became members of the Orton Society founded in his memory and named in his honor in November 1949. Several were present at this 25th anniversary meeting. Some of the Orton Society members had known Dr. Orton. Through his language research project at the New York Neurological Institute from 1932 to 1936, where Dr. Paul C. Dozer was his research associate and Miss Anna Gillingham was the outstanding psychologist teacher, or they had personal consultations at his office for which he always seemed to find the time. Others probably met him only once or twice during his visits to schools or at the talks, lectures, seminars, etc., which filled his busy schedule. But they always remembered those special occasions. The activity of Dr. Orton's office had soon required a second assistant there, and the one who came along in 1939 and with a graduate degree in reading problems was Mary Helen Robinson, who prepared the following reminisces for this occasion. And so here's a narrative from Mary Helen Robinson. The invitation from Roger Saunders to speak briefly tonight about my experiences working with Dr. and Mrs. Orton in New York in the early 1940s happened to arrive on my birthday. Since this particular birthday made me automatically a pre-medicare senior citizen at the local drugstore prescription counter, Roger's charming words, we feel that you can speak as a young person who gained insight and inspiration from his leadership in your field of education really brightened my day. So I will try to think young tonight and tell you how Dr. Orton and June Orton and the Orton Society, beginning when I was young, have given me not only inspiration and leadership, but a continual challenge to give of myself and my training, no matter where I lived, to help the language disabled child find success, not failure, as a pattern for life. My husband and I drove from Seattle to New York back in 1939. He was headed for graduate work at Columbia University and I was headed for Dr. Orton's office, though Dr. Orton was definitely not expecting me. My own graduate work was in psychology at the University of Washington, specializing in the field of learning and language problems. An earlier summer spent working with Dr. Grace Fernand at UCLA with her program for non-readers had really steered me into this field. Why were intelligent Children failing in the classroom, especially in language areas. I read Dr. Orton's book, Reading, Writing, and Speech Problems in Children before going to New York, and was excited by his theory relating specific language difficulties to a faulty pattern in brain functioning and his important conclusion that these children could be taught by an approach and methods specific to their needs. In other words, they needn't fail. With high hopes, I went right to the Orton's office in the Croydon Hotel to see if they would let me work with them. Fortunately for me, their assistant was just leaving at that time and I became a member not only of the office team but of the Orton family. In their wonderful, warm way, they included this young couple and many a weekend at Whimsey, their rustic retreat near Poughkeepsie. Dr. Orton loved the outdoors and loved to work with his hands. He designed and built their home. Complete with an outdoor swimming pond and strong enough for a bomb shelter. I include this bit of nostalgia because Dr. Orton was not only a brilliant pioneer in his profession, but a builder craftsman and a warm, sympathetic human being, keenly aware and interested in everything and everyone. Dr. Orton felt deeply the problems of each child, parent, teacher, and headmaster who came to him for help. His quick mind, his vast experience, His understanding of the crippling blow that language disability deals to the image and self-confidence of the specific language disability child all gave him the strength and inspiration to keep on with his research and his practice long after his health was failing. That is just neat. We have seen a common thread throughout many of the historical documents we've looked at. How these researchers care for these children. We saw it with Morgan and Percy. We saw it with Hinchelwood and his care for students. We are seeing it mentioned quite a few times now about Orton, that the care was there for these children, the respect for them as individuals. The desire to help them, to have hope, to know that you can support them to learn to read was always there. So it's neat that this is continually reinforced. Okay, moving on. He wanted to establish the clinical scientific basis for language disability, to promote understanding of its importance to the medical and educational professions, to create the educational procedures and materials necessary for these children based on sound neurological principles. And to train teachers, many parents who came to his office at that time with their children had no tutors available in their areas. So seriously, these are goals we all have today to do all of these things. Awareness, teaching, support, all that stuff. Fast forward a hundred years, we're still working on that. Dr. Orton taught me to respect the uniqueness of each child and to teach to his intellect, to have a sensitivity to children. To observe and learn from each child how he learns, what are his areas of strength and weakness, and then to plan the training with flexibility and creativity to meet his needs. That little paragraph, the main point can't be stressed enough. The individualization, teaching with creativity to meet needs, supporting the student as unique. little one is a unique individual and an understanding how to meet them where they are. Orton Gillingham as an approach is creative, it's exciting, it's fun. We have a body of knowledge to teach and some guiding instructional principles. But it is certainly not, based on rote structure or lack of interaction or creativity or anything like that. In fact, the exact opposite. To really support the student in their profile, we need a lot of knowledge and a lot of creativity in learning how to support students. Moving on, I'm sure that if Dr. Orton could be here tonight, he would feel deep joy, not just for himself, but for the hundreds and thousands of children who have become solid, contributing, happy citizens through the touch of the Orton Society and its dedicated members all over the world. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have known him personally and to have watched this society grow in strength and impact and influence over the past twenty five years hope that the future holds even brighter successes for all children. Tonight is a fitting tribute to a great man, and I'm proud to be here. So back to Mrs. Orton. It is appropriate that these reminisces should be closed by Paula Doger Rome. because hers is a special link between past and present. As niece of Dr. Orton's friend and associate, Dr. Paul Dozier, she will tell you of how she came to know Dr. Orton. Her many years of successful experience in her Remedial Reading Center here in Rochester, and her co chairmanship of this twenty fifth anniversary conference of the Orton Society, the World Congress on Dyslexia, attest at once to her ongoing interest in the work with with which Dr. Orton began and her role tonight as, in a very personal sense, our hostess for this occasion. So this paper ends then with the narrative reflection of Paula Doger Rome. Mine is probably last on the list of memories because I suppose it was appropriate to have someone who had met Dr. Orton only a few times late in his life and yet one whose life was changed by the influence of knowing him and knowing his work. My uncle, Dr. Paul Dozier, who was a neuropsychiatrist, was Dr. Orton's research assistant at the Neurological Institute of Columbia University from 1932 to 1936. Then, on Dr. Orton's recommendation, he was appointed as head of the Language Disability Clinic of the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, which Mrs. Orton mentioned earlier. It was there that As a student, I learned how to teach a child using the techniques of teaching based on Dr. Orton's neurological concepts and amplified by the practical material in Anna Gillingham's manual. So that's a neat way to put things. the Dr. Orton's neurological concepts and Anna Gillingham's practical material. And that's why Orton Gillingham, when it was started, was so interesting and unique. It had that medical side to it, the knowledge of the brain, structure of the brain, what was happening from a medical point of view. And it also had the practical education point of view to it. And so those two belong together. It represents science of reading, but at that time, right? that spirit of science of reading, it was surely alive when Orton and Gillingham were working together. When one day my uncle said, I'm going to New York to confer with Dr. Orton. Would you like to come with me? You can imagine my excitement. I expected to meet an austere and distinguished professor ensconced in a large, elegant office and barricaded by secretaries. It was so different. Instead we walked into a wonderfully warm, crowded Beehive Benoff Of an office lined as I remember it with a welter of office files. Dr. and Mrs. Orton were working busily in the midst of these. There was such an air of informality and warmth that anyone would have felt at home, as I am sure the children and parents who crossed the threshold did. During subsequent years I had the delightful experience of being invited on two occasions to Whimsey, the Orton's summer home. Although Dr. Orton was, it seemed to me, a quiet and retiring man, his warmth and concern for people was always evident. He was able to make me, the youngest member of the group, feel at ease. He was a great man devoted to his concern with helping those with language disability problems. His concepts, as he provided them to me through the printed word or at meetings, guided me toward devoting my professional life also to helping children with these problems. I wish you were here to share this occasion. So that's a neat ending. It it really focuses on his care for helping children, his life work and goal in making people comfortable, in teaching kids to read, and these kind of personal reflections give us a feel for his personality and character. And it it's one thing to know him as a medical professional and his list of accomplishments, but it's also something to know about his personality and character and that warmth and care that he had in his work. as usual, please share this information with people, like and subscribe. go to my website to learn about what I do and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode and please carry forward the cause of language for life by teaching literacy through language and structure. Thank you.