Talk:Alternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilities/Archive 1

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Please read before editing Alternative therapies article.
The main purpose for this article was to improve the Dyslexia article by moving here theories and therapies that do not fit the main article.
Currently, this article looks like a dispute page. It should be cleaned up and made more neutral. The tone should also by more positive towards alternative therapies because many people feel they are helpful, and some of the therapies could later be proven efficient.
--Piechjo 21:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

message: This article seems to be merely the reiteration of opinion pieces taken from sources inappropriate to meet Wikipidia standards -- i.e., a popular web site page defining purported attributes of "controversial therapies" -- and an opinion/review piece from a magazine. This does not seem to be an appropriate topic or approach for a wikipedia article. Armarshall 10:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: References added, and these are first class sources. This article is part of making improvements to the Dyslexia article that has been used as an advert page for controversial therapies and theories. --Piechjo 10:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your "references" are opinion pieces, not researched articles. I do not think mere citation to someone else's opinion does not meet Wikipedia standards, no matter how reputable the person expressing an opinion -- it still is an opinion. It is not the same as a reference to a peer-reviewed journal, or to a body of work. If your goal was/is to improve the dyslexia article, it would make more sense to create an article entitled "alternative" or "nontraditional" therapies to dyslexia, including an introductory, cautionary paragraph, rather than to paint all therapies with one broad brush.  The "characteristics" in the first paragraph simply do not apply to all of the therapies listed thereafter.  "Controversy" means that there is disagreement, not that every "controversial" therapy shares some agreed set of flaws. Armarshall 11:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The fallacy of burden lies on the proponents of these therapies, but sufficient research evidence has not been provided. Therefore these are controversial therapies. Peer-reviewed journals do not normally publish research proving that some therapy is ineffective. For professionals, the absence of evidence is the proof of lack of effect. Unfortunately, this scientific praxis does give an opportunity to any quack to promote their miracle treatment on the basis that "no one has proven it false". This article helps parents and professionals worldwide to find important information on LD treatment. In my professional career, I have encountered about a hundred controversial treatments for learning disabilities. There is room for all here, but not in the Dyslexia article, for instance. --Piechjo 13:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, but many of the therapies listed DO have research published in peer-reviewed journals.    With Fast ForWord, the articles by Paula Tallal and other researchers were published over a period of several years before the program was created; with Davis, there was a peer-reviewed article published in 2001; there are all sorts of peer-reviewed articles about vision therapy - see http://www.visionhelp.com/research/ for examples.  Meanwhile, the articles you cite to are NOT from peer-reviewed journal -- and the method most often advocated by the International Dyslexia Association - Orton-Gillingham, is not supported by any peer-reviewed research at all. So basically this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black -- where is IDA's burden met when they don't have research supporting the methods they don't brand as "controversial"?  Armarshall 03:16, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The dispute

message: Hi both
The real problem is that too many so called learning disabilities are diagnosed by tick box assessements, and not medicla clinical diagnostic testing procedures. This poses real problems when trying to identify the real underlying causes of thse so called conditions. This is partially because as yet we do not have the technology to fully understand the workings of the brain so researchers have to hypothesis and created and develpop theories with the best informationa available to them at the time thye are carrying out their research. And as we develop new technologies so we may understand more, but in other instences it appears we actually understand less as the enormity of the issues are recognised. It is like discussing relative issues of an elephants trunk and then discovering the existance of the rest of the larger body.
To this end until we have developed a full understanding of how the brain works all we have are the besat guesses of the worlds leading research scientists. Because we do not have a full understanding of the full workings of the brain we are not able as yet to define the real reasons why these observed differences of abilites, disabilities and behaviour  exist. Having said this is is part of Human nature for try and find ways to work around the problems we facew on a daily basis.
There are many underlying causes and combinations of underlying cause of dyslexia autism and other invisible disabilities, which are not yet fully understood, and there are also many who worked with relatively small groups of dyslexics who have identified that some remedial programs or techniques can help some groups of dyslexics. Because we are not scientifically able to pin piont the exact causes of these problems we can not scientifically identify the any specific remedy that will work for any individual dyslexic.
I am a member of an adult dyslexia forum in the UK Being Dyslexic,
http://beingdyslexic.co.uk/forums/index.php  which lists even more unproven programs, but we have state that some dyslexics may find these program beneficial some more than others and some who will gain no bnefit what so ever. What is required is to define what causes your dyslexia, and then identify the prograsms that may provide some support for that underlying cause. The important thing to remember is that there inb no one program that helps all dyslexics, the range of potential underlying causes is too wide for that to happen.
So may be controvertia;l is the wrong word, may be we should just call the article "Programs That MAY Help You Work Around Your Disability"
with a disclaimer that this is just a list of programs that have demonstrated that they MAY to help those who have invisble disabilities such as dyslexia etc, work around and cope with the problems they face on a daily basis.
just a few thoughts
dolfrog
"Experimental" could also  be an alternative
:: The problem is that some of the therapies on the list have been around from years so I think it would be misleading to describe them as "experimental". Again - the problem is that a whole lot of unrelated therapies have been lumped together on one list, and about the only thing they share is that advocates of traditional phonics-based tutoring don't like them.  I think it would be more informative to list by types of therapies -- for example, some are geared primarily to auditory training, some to visual, some to addressing balance/motion/coordination (cerebellar/vestibular) - some are cognitive therapies, etc.  The main distinction they have is that they are attempts to address causes or symptoms of dyslexia other than, or beyond, mere instruction in reading.  Armarshall 03:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but never mind the USA point of view. None of us is American anyway. Please read my comments in the Dyslexia discussion page and do some serious studying on the subject. --Piechjo 11:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most Learning Disability Remedial Programs

message: The statement that was in the chart re Davis, "practically no research", is not contained in the article cited.  The text in the article cited is actually:
:: "There does not appear to be literature to support the orientation  disorientation theories. As Davis says, the exercises can do no harm except make one a little dizzy. Available reports at this time are largely anecdotal. Research is being done with the "Davis Learnng Strategies." The results are to appear in the Reading Improvement Journal and on a web site."  
I corrected the chart to reflect the actual content of the article. Armarshall 08:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Available reports 

message: Modern medicine sees all mental illness deriving only from the brain - primarily from neurotransmitter imbalance and nothing else - the truth is that in many cases there is often an underlining physical cause (eg: infection, celiac disease, etc) and this is often never investigated,  and so its no wonder today we are faced with the current tragedy that the Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average. 
Psychiatrist Dr Reading Chris reading knew this and treated hundreds of patients with mental illness including autism and found a common link - infection, celiac disease, auto-immune tendencies and malabsorbtion, after treating patients with dietry modification, antibiotics and nutritional supplementation many patients recovered, yet current day medicine does not accept this.
'Enterocolitis discovered in the majority of children with Autistic spectrum disorders'   
see GUTandmental illness  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.235.237 (talk) 06:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see a problem with any valid research. If there is evidence for a link between a physical and a mental condition, it should be taken seriously. It is not easy to cure mental illnesses or autism, so I bet Dr Reading Chris is a good psychiatrist. He writes on his website: I am a holistic medical detective, "Dr. Watson" with the honed intuition of Sherlock Holmes. I use family health trees as the key to medical genetics and orthomolecular nutrition. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. Psychiatry, genetics and nutrition. That's a great combination. Piechjo 13:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Medicine, as with all science based perspectives, deals with cause and effect, rather than correlation. Its one thing to state a correlation between mental illness and life expectancy, and its totally different to make claims about what is causing what. If the correlation perspective was used in application, then we would probably end up with doctors prescribing a third world famine diet for cancer treatment. Basically doctors don't ignore causes. They actively seek them. What they do tend to put in cautious perspective is correlation. Its only an association, not a causal link.  Pseudoscientists will make as many correlations as they can though, between what happens in their life, and whatever they want to sell. Dehydration is a killer, lots of homeopathy is the cure:) Spoctacle 15:15, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why do we ignore the physical causes? 

message: I undid the deletion of the section Proven benefits. What the section says is that alternative therapies may have some advantages, and I believe most scholars agree with this. The Sunflower example is there to show how it can work: the therapy wasn't helpful as a treatment to dyslexia but, according to this published study, it was beneficial for the students' self esteem. This Wikipedia article has been accused of being biased, and I think that different views should be included. It is about alternative therapies, and all relevant information is useful for anyone who wants to understand its problematics. The Sunflower example does nothing to prove it's not a matter of pseudoscience, but counter-critics as well as scholars might agree that mainstream studies have not yet presented all aspects of LD/DD treatment. This question has grown more and more crucial in the treatment with the appearance of postmodernist thinking as a means of changing the policy, but there is little empirical research to undermine or support the politically correct claims. Piechjo 09:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proven benefits

message: Alternative therapy in "disability" is a pseudoscience? Hardly. I agree that there are some therapies that are correctly labeled as a pseudoscience (AK and Homeopathy), but the article itself is not about a pseudoscientific concept. To tag it as so is nothing but WP:POV and I propose to have the article completely reworked and renamed. "Disability" is vague and would be better termed as a "mental disability". --travisthurston + 17:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overhaul