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10. History of Dyslexia Part 5: Hinshelwood Ch 2 Part 1 · Learn Literacy Podcast

• Cheryl Urbanczyk: Hi 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, this is another episode in our History of Dyslexia series, and we are focusing on chapter two of James Hinselwood's book from 1917 called Congenital Word Blindness. in the last episode, we went over chapter one together, and I read out some highlights and added some thoughts to ⁓ highlights. And basically that whole chapter was a profile of acquired word blindness. And from Hinchelwood's perspective, completely understanding that situation and profile will help us understand congenital word blindness. So today we're getting into the first half of chapter two, Congenital Word Blindness, ⁓ and he moves into discussion that condition. So without further ado, let's just jump in. Okay, chapter two, congenital word blindness. By the term congenital word blindness, we mean a congenital defect occurring in children with otherwise normal and undamaged brains characterized by a difficulty in learning to read so great that it is manifestly due to a pathological condition and where the attempts to teach the child by the ordinary methods have completely failed. Such is the significance of the term as it was first employed by the early writers on this subject, and as it is now employed by the author of this book. The recognition of this condition was the direct outcome and result of the previously acquired knowledge of those symptoms of cerebral disease which we have been studying in the first chapter. The complex processes involved in vision proceed smoothly and harmoniously during health in the region of unconscious cerebration. But when disease disturbs the delicate mechanisms of the brain, there are revealed to us glimpses of its intimate workings, a knowledge of which we could not acquire otherwise. So what he's getting at here is when the brain is damaged, we see ⁓ processes that are affected from that. And you can do kind of like backwards thinking on Okay, if this is now affected after brain damage, this part must be connected to that skill. It is for this reason that we have studied at length the symptoms of acquired word blindness, the knowledge of which will enable us to interpret and explain the phenomena of the congenital form. An adequate knowledge of the former condition is an essential preliminary to the proper understanding of the latter. It is the absence of this necessary and fundamental knowledge which has given rise to much of the ambiguity and vagueness which characterize many recent accounts of this condition. Congenital word blindness is a subject of comparatively recent origin, and in the British Medical Journal of november seventh, eighteen ninety six, Dr. W. Pringle Morgan made the first communication to be found in a met in medical literature on this topic. And we already read over ⁓ letter and learned about Percy in a previous episode that you could go back to for that full paper. It may interest my readers to know that Dr. Morgan, in sending me a copy of his paper, said in a letter enclosed with it, it was your paper, may I call it your classical paper, on word blindness and visual memory published in The Lancet on December 21st, 1895. Which first drew my attention to this subject, and my reason for publishing this case was that there was no reference anywhere, so far as I knew, to the possibility of the condition being congenital. Dr. Morgan's patient was a boy aged 14 years, bright, intelligent, and quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his own age, unless in his ability to learn to read. The greatest difficulty was experienced in teaching the boy his letters. And it was thought that he would never learn them. He had by constant application acquired a knowledge of the letters, but though at school and under tutors for seven years, and in spite of the most persistent efforts, he could only with difficulty spell out words of one syllable. Words written or printed seemed only to convey no impression to his mind, and it was only after laboriously spelling them that he was able, by the sound of the letters, to discover their import. He read figures or numbers fluently and could do simple sums correctly. The boy himself said that he was fond of arithmetic and found no difficulty with it. The boy's schoolmaster, who had taught him for some years, said that it would be said that he would be the smartest boy in school if the instruction were entirely oral. This first recorded case is a satip example of congenital word blindness possessing the two essential characteristics of genuine cases, meaning gravity of the defect and purity of the symptoms. Dr. Morgan's communication was brief, and he made no attempt to analyze or explain the symptoms beyond the statement that, in his opinion, the case was one of word blindness. Evidently congenital and due most probably to defective development in that region of the brain. Disease of which in adults produces practically the same symptom, that is the left angular gyrus. My first communication on this subject, again back to Hinschelwood's thoughts here, he's writing about himself, was a letter to the British Medical Journal in the shape of a critical note explaining some of the symptoms in the case reported by Dr. Morgan in the light of our knowledge of the phenomena of acquired word blindness. My second communication was to the Lancet on May 26, 1900, when I reported two cases of congenital word blindness. This paper was not confined to a simple record of the cases, but gave a detailed analysis and explanation of the symptoms. I claim for this paper that it is the first attempt in medical literature to analyze and explain in detail the symptoms met with in this condition to establish the diagnosis on a scientific basis. And to show that the difficulties encountered in teaching children so affected to read could be overcome by patient and persistent training. The following are the concluding sentences of the paper. So that I hope to find that paper and get it and read it. It looks ⁓ like it would be a great addition to this series. Okay, so Hinschelwood's quote of the end of that paper. I have little doubt that these cases of congenital word blindness are by no means so rare as the absence of recorded cases would lead us to infer. Their rarity is, I think, accounted for by the fact that when they do occur, they are not recognized. It is a matter of the highest importance to recognize the cause and the true nature of this difficulty in learning to read, which is experienced by these children. Otherwise they may be harshly treated, and he uses some words that wouldn't be used today, but we we know that sometimes children are harshly treated because of their learning. And then he goes on to say that they would be either neglected or punished for a defect for which they are in no wise responsible. Okay. So the recognition of the true character of the difficulty will lead the parents and teachers of these children to deal with them in the proper way, not by harsh and severe treatment, but by attempting to overcome the difficulty by patient and persistent training. To me, that quote is just unbelievable and speaks to how we have come so far in years since the time Hinshawood wrote this, but maybe not so far in understanding. Dr. Linda Siegel wrote a book called Not Stupid, Not Lazy, and it's all about learning difficulties, learning differences, dyslexia. ⁓ that title says it all too, that sometimes these children are seen ⁓ having the problem within themselves as opposed to us understanding their condition, what's going on with them, and this patient and persistent training that Hinschelwood is talking about it is so key. That the child should be the first thing centered in this situation and it's our job to understand them and teach them. Okay, back to the book. In the ophthalmic review from March 1901, Mr. E. Nettleship gave notes from his case books of five cases of great difficulty or inability to learn to read which had come under his observation in the ordinary course of his practice, and which he now regarded as belonging to the class of cases which I had described in my Lancet article by the term congenital word blindness. Mr Nettleship said in his communication, I think we are much indebted to Dr. Hinchelwood for drawing attention to the subject of congenital word blindness. For though this condition seems to have attracted but little notice hitherto, it is, as he points out, not on that account necessarily, nor even probably of rare occurrence. Whilst if even moderately frequent, it has considerable importance. I have myself been familiar with the condition for years, thinking and speaking of it as congenital want of power to acquire knowledge by printed signs. But I have to thank Dr. Hinschelwood's publication for giving me a clear and accurate Conception of its nature. To the ophthalmic review for April 1902, I contributed another paper, this is Hinschelwood speaking, of two other cases which had come under my notice. In that paper, the various points in the diagnosis of congenital word blindness were discussed in detail and especially the treatment of the condition. In nineteen ⁓ three on the continent, and meaning in Europe, when he's in Scotland, so he's referring to the continent as Europe. In nineteen ⁓ three on the continent, Lechner and Wernicke reported each a case. In nineteen ⁓ four, Mr. Sidney Stephenson made ⁓ a communication on the subject to the Society for the Study of Disease in Children and reported two new cases. Mr. Stevenson gave a short sketch of the history of our knowledge of the subject of congenital word blindness and stated that up to that date 14 cases had been reported by six authors, and that to Dr. Hinschelwoods undoubtedly belonged the credit of having been the first to describe the condition scientifically. In July 1904, at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in Oxford, I read a paper on congenital word blindness in which a fifth case was reported. And the various points in the etiology, symptomatology, and treatment of the condition were discussed. Such is the history of the pioneer efforts to diffuse a knowledge of congenital word blindness. Since then, numerous papers thereon have appeared in this country, on the continent, in Europe, and in America. But I think not much of real importance has been added to the knowledge of the subject which is to be found in these early communications. The condition being now generally recognized and acknowledged as one of the congenital defects of childhood, it now occupies a place in the pages of many recent books as a subject of considerable interest and importance, especially from the educational point of view. I think it is well to begin the study of this defect with some records of actual cases, so as to familiarize the mind with the various types of the condition. I have selected for that purpose. 12 cases from my case books and the five recorded in the present chapter were the very earliest that I came under the very earliest that came under my observation. These 12 examples will suffice to illustrate the various symptoms met with and to convey to the mind of the reader a general picture of the condition. So he's stating here that he's presenting in this book different cases from his own medical practice. And he's going to share with us five in this chapter. So we'll dive into these cases. So case one. In March 1900, a boy aged 11 years was brought to me at the Glasgow Eye Infirmary by his father, who gave the following history. This boy had been at school for four and a half years, but was finally sent away because he could not be taught to read. His father informed me that he was a considerable time at school before his defect was noticed, as he had such an excellent memory that he learned his lesson by heart. In fact, his first little reading book he knew so well that whenever it came his turn, he could read from memory and repeat his lesson, although he could not read the words. His father also informed me that in every respect, unless an inability to read, The boy seemed quite as intelligent as any of his brothers or sisters. His auditory memory was excellent and better than that of any of the other members of the family. When a passage was repeated to him aloud, he could commit it to memory very rapidly. When I first saw the boy and his father at the eye infirmary, I asked them to call at my house and I wrote down the address on an envelope. A few days thereafter the father could not find the envelope, but the boy at once told him my address correctly and Having remembered it from hearing me state at once. When I examined the boy, he seemed a smart and intelligent lad for his years. He knew the alphabet by heart, repeating it rapidly and correctly. He could recognize by sight, however, only a very few letters and those not with any degree of certainty after being four and a half years at school. He could spell correctly most simple words of one syllable, such as cat, dog, man, boy, etc. But he could not recognize by sight even the simplest and common words such as the, of, in, etc. He had no difficulty in recognizing all other visual objects such as faces, places, and pictures. On each page of the little primer in which I tested him, there was a picture of some object which he which was followed by some simple letter press about it. He at once recognized and named the picture, for example, cat, a dog. I would then ask him to spell the word, which he nearly always did correctly. On asking him to pick out the word cat on the page, he wasn't able to do it. I repeated this experiment with the same result on page after page of the little primer. On testing him with figures, I found that he could repeat from memory fluently and correctly numbers up to 100. He could also perform mentally simple sums of addition. He could not, however, recognize all the figures or numbers by sight. But he knew them better than the letters and recognized a great deal of them. Okay, so what's interesting about this case? the compensatory strategies that the student had, right, was able to ⁓ and remember things to compensate for not being able to read. So his auditory memory was excellent, strong verbal skills, able to do many things except read. So, we know that many of our dyslexic students, students with learning disabilities, come up with all kinds of compensatory strategies to work around their skills. ⁓ And ⁓ this had great strategies of ⁓ strong memory. Okay, two. A boy aged 10 years was brought to me by his father in January 1900 to see if I could discover the reason of his great difficulty in learning to read. The boy had been at school for three years and had got on well with every subject except reading. He was apparently a bright and in every respect an intelligent boy. He had been learning music for a year and had made good progress in it, his teacher expressing great satisfaction at the end of the year. In all departments of his studies, where the instruction was oral, he had made good progress, showing that his auditory memory was good. His father, a medical man, who had read my papers on word blindness, thought that his son's great difficulty in learning to read might be due to some visual or cerebral defect, and therefore brought him to see me. It was soon evident, however, on examination of the boy, that the difficulty in learning to read was due not to any lowering of the visual acuity, but to some congenital deficiency of the visual memory of words. He knew and recognized by sight all the letters of the alphabet, but his stock of word memories was very limited so he could not read by sight alone, but required constantly to pause and spell out the words letter by letter. Such short, familiar words such as the in, on of to, etc., he recognized at once, but more uncommon words, even of one syllable, such as tub, rug, he was unable to recognize by sight alone. until he had spelt them out loud, letter by letter, and so appealed to his auditory memory. His father has noted that the boy never reads for amusement. As his father expresses it, it seems to take a great deal out of him. Figures he reads very fluently, both in simple and in complex combinations. The boy himself says he find he says he reads figures much more easily and with little effort. He performs simple sums quite correctly, and his progress in arithmetic has been regarded as quite satisfactory. He has had no difficulty in learning to write, and his visual acuity is good. Okay, what do we know from case two? We know from case two that the challenge of learning to read is very difficult for this student. he does not read for pleasure because it takes so much out of him. And we see this as a constant thread in kids with dyslexia or learning disability. The mental effort it takes them to do this task is is very hard. And so, reading might not be something they do ⁓ for because of the effort involved. We know he has great oral expression and people around him see this student as ⁓ very smart always accept the ability to read. So again that discrepancy concept that something seems off compared to the other skills that he has. So if he has a great intelligence, then what's the disconnect with learning how to read? Okay. Case three is that of a girl. And we're seeing kind of a trend of around age 10 years. And we know even in schools today that that's kind of around the age where com compensatory strategies stop working, text and reading gets harder, and so you know you're moving into reading and writing practices that are much more complex. ⁓ case three. ⁓ girl aged 10 years, healthy looking. And well grown for her age, she was brought to me at the Glasgow Eye Infirmary in April 1901. She had always enjoyed excellent health, with the exception of a severe illness six years previously when she suffered from measles complicated by whooping, cough, and pneumonia. She went to school four years ago and has experienced the greatest difficulty in learning to read. After four years' laborious effort, she only reads now the book of the first standard and that with the greatest difficulty. It took nine months of hard labor before she learned the letters of the alphabet, and even at the end of nine months she knew it only imperfectly. So great was her difficulty in learning it that at times it seemed an impossibility, and on several occasions her mother abandoned the task in despair. She, however, returned to it again and again, and after nine months' labor she learned, although imperfectly, the letters of the alphabet, and even yet she makes occasional mistakes in naming the letters. Since then, she has not got beyond the book of the first standard, which she reads with difficulty, having to spell out most of the words except the very small familiar ones, such as the of, in, to, etc. These small common words are the only ones which she recognizes by sight alone. The others she has to spell out either aloud or silently, in the former case appealing to her auditory memory. And in the latter to the memory of speech movements or glossokinesthetic memory, as it has been called by Bastion. So that's pretty interesting. I looked up what this glossokinesthetic memory by Bastion is, and what Google AI told me is that it's the unconscious sensory memory of the speech movements required to articulate words, specifically stored impressions related to movements of the tongue and vocal cords. And this is fascinating because this is a hint to me that even at this time at Hinschelwood's writing, that they're understanding the role of articulation and that multisensory feel of what's happening in the mouth with your ⁓ teeth, tongue, and even your vocal cords, that they're having ⁓ this that ⁓ these movements can be connected to ⁓ learning and to helping you understand the sounds that you're making ⁓ connecting that to the various sensory input in the brain. So I I find that fascinating. Okay, continuing on. ⁓ In her education, difficulty in learning to read by sight has been the only one encountered. Her general intelligence is good and her memory good in all other respects. Her auditory memory is excellent and she learns by heart passages rapidly and well. She spells well and has no difficulty in spelling at once words which she cannot recognize by sight alone. She writes fairly and there have been no difficulty in teaching her to write. She has had no difficulty in keeping up with the other children in her arithmetic, and no difficulty has been encountered in teaching her to read figures, which she does with fluency. She has learned addition and subtraction. And is at present working at multiplication. Her vision is good. So by the end of case three, we're seeing consistent patterns ⁓ intelligence, compensatory strategies, ⁓ difficulty learning to read, ability to work with numbers to some extent, recognition of little words, spelling out words as a way to try and understand them. So we're seeing a lot of consistency from case to case. Okay, case four. A boy aged seven years, a healthy and in other respects intelligent child, has now been three years at school but cannot be taught to read. At the request of the schoolmaster, the boy was brought by his parents to the Glasgow Eye Infirmary in September 1901 to see if the difficulty in learning to read was due to any ocular defect. His vision was found to be normal and his eyes healthy. He does not even know all the letters of the alphabet, but if gently told when he is wrong in given time, as a rule he can name the correct letter correctly at last. Notice his use of the word gently told, right? He is really respectful of these students and understanding them and understanding that they're not at fault for what's happening and they needed to be treated with kindness, with respect, with support. I I love that choosing probably intentionally of the word gently told. He can repeat the alphabet rapidly by heart. He can scarcely read a word without spelling it out letter by letter. Even such short words as on, cat, rat must be spelt out aloud letter by letter before they are recognized. I observe repeatedly whilst examining him that after spelling out and naming a word, if he comes to the same word a line or two lower down, he does not recognize it. And we all know that to be true. I've seen that with my own daughter and with many students I've worked with, just because they've seen it, it's not there. There's been no difficulty in teaching him orally and his auditory memory seems excellent. He was pushed on for a time with the other children because he successfully concealed the fact of his inability to read by learning to read by learning his reading lessons by heart. Again, compensatory strategies, trying to cover up like any shameful feelings by figuring out what to do so nobody can d know, right? His mother says that he is a smart, intelligent boy, even smarter and quicker in many respects than her other children, his one defect being that he cannot be taught to read. He can spell fairly, he can form all the written characters well, figures he reads correctly and fluently up to 20, but beyond that, he is somewhat uncertain and makes mistakes. Case five. A boy twelve years of age was brought in March 1902 to the Glasgow Eye Infirmary by his mother to see if there was anything wrong with his eyesight. The boy had been seven years at school, and there had been from the outset the greatest difficulty in teaching him to read. The boy should have been in standard five. But was now, after seven years, only in standard two, and he could not get out of it because of his reading. He had made no complaint whatever about his vision, but his mother had brought him to the eye infirmary in order to discover if his eyesight had anything to do with his difficulty. His mother stated that he was in every other respect a sharp and intelligent boy. He had no difficulty with arithmetic and could keep up with the other scholars easily in this department. He was now working at Compound Edition. His mother said the other boys laughed at him in class and that when he became excited, his reading was worse than ever. He concealed his defect for a time by learning his lessons by heart so that when it came to his turn and he got a few words at the beginning, he could repeat the lesson by heart. So, you know, we start to see the i in this profile the emotional tool, right? The other boys laughing at him. When he became excited, probably means when he became nervous. Or upset, his reading was worse, because all the emotions and the mental effort, it's a lot, and a compensatory strategy of just that oral memorization or hearing it and memorizing it. So when he heard the beginning words of the passage, he could just ⁓ it out loud without reading. His auditory memory, therefore, was evidently very good. On examining him, I found that his reading was very defective for a boy who had been seven years at school. He could rarely read by sight more than two or three consecutive words, but came to a standstill every second or third word, and was was unable to proceed unless he were allowed to spell out the word aloud, thus appealing to his auditory memory, or to spell it silently with his lips, thus appealing to his memory of speech movements, or the glossokinesthetic memory of Bastion. The words he stuck at were chiefly polysyllables, but this was not always the case, as he often failed to recognize by sight even simple monosyllabic words. He spelt very well, and when asked to spell the words which he had failed to recognize by sight, he nearly always did so without any difficulty. And we see this sometimes in our current tutoring practice or in school, where kids can just memorize words for spelling, right? They're not trying to do sound symbol correspondences for spelling or anything like that. It's just their visual memory is enough that they just know how to spell it, but have no idea of the sound symbol connections. He ⁓ all combinations of figures with the greatest fluency up to millions. I made him do several sums up to compound addition. All of these he did smartly and correctly. His mother informed me that he had a splendid memory and can learn things by heart very easily. I wrote to his schoolmaster for information about the boy. he replied that the lad had experienced his whole career in the school the greatest difficulty in learning to read, which had kept him very much behind in his progress throughout the school. He was strong in arithmetic. Good at spelling and average in other subjects, including geography and history. I have never, said his master, seen a case similar to this one in my 25 years experience as a teacher. There is another boy in his class who is quite poor a reader, but this other boy is all around poor, showing no signs of ability in anything else. So, you know, the schoolmaster is comparing the disconnect. or the discrepancy between ability that he sees but extreme lack of ability in learning to read. Okay. After reading the records of the cases in this and the following chapter, the first thing that will strike the reader is their strong similarity to the records of pure cases of acquired word blindness given in chapter one. So he's connecting what he's seeing in children to the cases of word acquired blind word blindness. in fact, the symptoms manifested in these two classes of cases are practically the same. Meaning inability to recognize by sight printed and written characters, but with all the other cerebral powers unaffected. The difference between the two classes of cases is that in acquired word blindness, the visual memories of words and letters, the result of years of past training and education, have been completely lost. Well, in the congenital form, Children with otherwise normal brains and intelligence are unable to acquire these visual memories of words and letters, at least by the same process of education and training as other children. That sets us up for something coming up, right? Do these children need a different way to learn? Right? Because whatever way is working for everybody else is not working for these children. It was thus that doctor Morgan, on meeting with the case of a child unable to read after seven years training, but with intellectual powers otherwise unaffected, saw at once the striking similarity to the cases which he had read a year previously in my paper in the Lancet on word blindness and suggested that the inability of the child might be due to a congenital form of this condition. The knowledge of the one condition led directly and naturally to the recognition of the other. All right, and we will stop there on this first episode of Chapter two in Hinchelwood's book Congenital Word Blindness from 1917. And so it'll be interesting to see moving forward where we go next. He shares some thoughts ideas about How reading, writing, other things are affected, and other parts of the book deal with prognosis, remediation, and things like that. ⁓ Okay, thank for tuning into this episode of the Learn Literacy Podcast. ⁓ If you like more information about learn literacy, please go to my website, learnliteracy.com, or look at social media at learn literacy one or share lervanzik one. I have upcoming trainings and structured literacy in Orton Gillingham and there's other great information to be found on my website about what I do. Okay, thanks for tuning in and exploring the history of dyslexia with me. Thank you.