In the News for week ending 25 April, 2010

Our In the News feature provides an overview of news stories relating to education over the last week.  We focus particularly on news items referring to significant new developments or reports, issues affecting students with learning difficulties, and issues relating to education more generally.  We hope that this feature will help to keep our members and website visitors informed of current issues in education, and to generate debate and discussion of these issues.  To initiate debate and discussion on news stories listed, comments can be posted on the LDA Discussion Forum.

Residents demand auditing of school building projects
RACHEL BROWNE, Sydney Morning Herald, April 25, 2010
ANGRY residents affected by school building work under the economic stimulus program have banded together to lobby the state and federal governments to investigate alleged abuses of the planning process in audits of the Building the Education Revolution. Under the economic stimulus program, the state government can ''fast track'' building work at a quarter of schools in NSW, bypassing local council planning regulations. Some schools have used new planning laws to gain approval for work previously objected to by residents and councils.

Job woes hold teens in school
STEPHANIE PEATLING, The Age, April 25, 2010
TOUGHER rules on youth support payments and high unemployment have led to the largest ever number of young people staying in school or training after year 10. Young people aged 15 to 19 are more likely to be studying than working or doing apprenticeships than ever before, with a 20 per cent jump in the past five years. ''We've seen in Australia that people who have not completed year 12 are three times more likely to be unemployed than someone who has completed year 12,'' the Minister for Employment Participation, Mark Arbib, said.

Small classes a `costly mistake'
Justine Ferrari, The Australian, April 24, 2010
THE head of the Productivity Commission has attacked the emphasis on reducing class sizes in schools as "the most costly mistake" in education policy in recent years, stealing scarce resources from investment in teaching. Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks also pointed to the waste of money in highly bureaucratic state school systems, with NSW spending more money than Victoria per student to achieve similar results. Mr Banks said the "performance of teachers appears not to have been a priority of education policy" and "if anything, attention to it seems to have been weakened over the years, at least until recently". "Arguably the most costly mistake has been to spend scarce budgetary resources on smaller class sizes instead of better teachers, notwithstanding steadily accumulating evidence that smaller classes, in the ranges contemplated, were unlikely to achieve improved learning outcomes," Mr Banks said.

Too-hot topics out of ethics
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 24, 2010
THE state government made a last-minute decision to remove a hypothetical scenario involving designer babies from secular ethics classes being trialled in public schools as an alternative to scripture classes. A hypothetical terrorist hijacking has also been removed from ethical scenarios put to students. The baby scenario was removed some time between late last week and early this week after the Herald reported the Anglican and Catholic churches had lobbied the Keneally government over the ethics trial as a threat to the future of religious education. Phil Cam, an associate professor of history and philosophy at the University of NSW, who developed the ethics curriculum, confirmed the two scenarios had been omitted, saying they were considered ''age inappropriate''.

City-rural divide hits computer literacy
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 23, 2010
THERE has been no improvement in the computer skills of the country's most disadvantaged students but the skills of higher performers are improving, a new national snapshot of school students in years 6 and 10 has found. The review of student computer literacy reveals a worrying trend for the tail-end of the poorest performers, who are failing to develop vital skills needed for participation in today's workforce. The study shows that there are stark differences in the computer literacy of students depending on where they live. The percentage of year 6 students attaining a proficient standard was 61 per cent in metropolitan areas, 48 per cent in rural areas and 38 per cent in remote regions.

No school building rorts: Pike
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 22, 2010
EDUCATION Minister Bronwyn Pike has pledged that building projects will be under way in all 1253 Victorian primary schools by August - failing ''an act of God''. She rejected claims that the state's rollout of the federal schools' stimulus program had been secretive, promising to release more details on project costings mid-year when all tenders were let. Principals and school councils have complained of a lack of transparency, protracted delays and opaque deadlines, with building on some classrooms and halls scheduled to start more than a year ago.

Hands up all those who want to explore ethics
JACQUELINE MALEY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 21, 2010
THE students of 6C were grappling with life's big issues. Well, one of them. The first class of the controversial ethics trial took place yesterday at Haberfield Public, and children were asked to debate what many would regard as a bourgeois dilemma - one of clashing engagements. You have accepted an invitation to one party when your best friend announces he (or she) is having a party on the same date. What do you do?

Private tutors call for recognition
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 21, 2010
PRIVATE tutoring colleges have reported a surge in demand to help students prepare for NAPLAN tests and are calling for formal recognition as part of mainstream schooling. But principals say tutoring defeats the purpose of the National Assessment Program literacy and numeracy tests, which are designed to identify learning difficulties children need addressed. The principals say tutoring would only mask the problems of students needing extra help from teachers. Mohan Dhall, the chief executive of the Australian Tutoring Association, said NAPLAN tests had opened up a commercial opportunity, with publishers selling books with practice questions for the tests.

School for national progress
Brian Stoddart , The Australian, April 21, 2010
KAPIL Sibal, India's Minister for Human Resource Development, was bound to emphasise the safety of Indian students during his recent visit to Australia, and that captured commentators in both countries. The real significance of his exchange with federal Education Minister Julia Gillard, however, lies within their joint ministerial statement proposing an India-Australia education council. That would cover primary through to university education and include training programs, staff and student exchange, research and policy formation. With India a magnet for education providers worldwide because of its capacity building requirements, this is a significant opportunity for Australia to move beyond the serious and ongoing relationship challenges posed by last year's attacks on Indian students. As Sibal points out, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, passed recently, will revamp India's entire education system by investing in human capital. Some Australian observers have noted that India will need an immediate 800,000 additional primary teachers as this legislation goes into action, seeing an opportunity for provision.

Yarraville school fails to make grade
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 21, 2010
A NEW secondary college has been ruled out for Yarraville after an independent report found there were insufficient students in the area for a stand-alone school. But Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike has pledged to work with parents to identify alternatives for students in Yarraville, Kingsville and Seddon. Parents in the inner-west have waged a vocal five-year battle for a local high school, arguing the area has been hit by a baby boom and there is no co-educational public secondary college within five kilometres of Yarraville. The report forecast that the number of state secondary students in the area would be 6161 by 2021 - an increase of almost 25 per cent from 2006 levels. But Ms Pike said it found the predicted student population did not currently support the need for a new school. She said the report also pointed out there were seven existing state secondary schools within 5.5 kilometres.

Tests 'flawed, lack validity'
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 20, 2010
THE publication of study plans, student coaching courses, low security and a teacher ban on next month's national literacy and numeracy tests have turned the tests into ''flawed instruments'' for measuring school performance, NSW high school principals were warned yesterday. In a letter to the principals, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the teacher ban on the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests would cause disruptions. The tests were becoming ''flawed instruments for measuring school performance'' and done ''in such hostile circumstances would lack validity'', Mr McAlpine said.

Schools in the dark on where money is going
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 20, 2010
JEFF Douma prides himself on knowing exactly what goes on at Carlisle River Primary, a tiny 12-student school near Colac, 150 kilometres south-west of Melbourne. After all, he is the principal. Which is why he resents having no idea where the $250,000 that Carlisle River received under the federal schools stimulus program is being spent. The school has been promised a modest refurbishment, including the reroofing of one classroom, a paint job, new lino and a new kitchen. Mr Douma and his school council thought the $250,000 price tag was ''quite extreme''. But when they asked for a breakdown of the costing, they were told it could not be provided.

Call to cut funds for school fees
DAN HARRISON, The Age, April 19, 2010
AUSTRALIA should consider cutting the funding of private schools which charge high fees to address inequality in the education system, according to a former OECD analyst. Ben Jensen, who now heads the school education program at the Grattan Institute, an independent experts group, said Australia was unusual in its approach. Dr Jensen said while many countries provided public money to non-government schools, the funding often came with the condition that fees are not charged, or if they are, a school would lose funding if it rejected a student because they could not afford to attend the school.

Proposed curriculum could stifle student creativity
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald, April 17, 2010
THE new national curriculum is at risk of inhibiting, rather than encouraging, student creativity, a member of the Board of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has warned. Brian Croke, who is also the executive director of the Catholic Education Commission, said he was concerned that the combination of content-heavy subjects and a strong focus on basic skills testing for literacy and numeracy would take the teacher focus off helping students to develop broader creative thinking skills.

And from overseas...

Two teaching unions confirm boycott of tests for 11-year-olds
Greg Hurst, Times On Line, April 21, 2010
Two teaching unions will press ahead with a boycott of tests next month for children in their final year of primary school, it was confirmed yesterday. They have advised head teachers and senior staff not to open the test papers when they take delivery of them. Heads taking part in the boycott should lock the papers away and return them in their sealed envelopes when requested to do so, the unions said. Many heads and teachers say that the tests for 11-year-olds put undue pressure on schools and stigmatise those, often in poorer areas, with less able children. About 7,000 heads — representing a third of England’s primary schools — may take part in the boycott, union leaders say. They believe that such a number would be enough to undermine next year’s primary school league tables, which are their real target. The tests in English and maths are scheduled for May 10 to 13.

Should there be a boycott of the SATS? Join the debate
Times On line, April 20, 2010
The Key Stage 2 national curriculum tests are due to take place on May 10th, just four days after the election. But they are now in jeopardy. Two major unions, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) have voted in favour of a boycott of the tests. Executive members decide later today whether to actually call the boycott. Sats have long come under fire (something true of standardised tests all over the world). There are accusations that children are "taught to the test" and that their final year of primary school is not enjoyable as so much time is spent learning by rote for these assessments. And, above all, there is the emphasis on school league tables - the results of the tests matter because of how they are used to rank schools nationwide.

In the News, for week ending 18 April, 2010

Play improves social skills in kids with autism: study
SARAH WHYTE, Sydney Morning Herald, April 18, 2010
CHILDREN with autism who attend weekly playgroups have improved development and social skills, a study has found, supporting the inclusion of children with autism into mainstream education. The study, by national peak body Playgroup Australia, shows 80 per cent of the families who took part in the groups designed for autistic children reported an improvement in their children's social development. It found a lack of play can aggravate social isolation for children with autism, hindering their transition to school. The study was funded as part of a federal government grant, announced in 2008, of $190 million. Playgroup Australia chief executive Karen Merange said playgroups provided an environment that was autism-friendly and where children were shown how to interact with each other in preparation for school.

Furore over 'inaccurate' schools index
ANNA PATTY, Sydney Morning Herald,  April 18, 2010
PUBLIC school principals have identified flaws in the way the federal government compares school performance and social disadvantage on its My School website. The comparison will help dictate the way all schools – private and public – are funded in the future. Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said data from the My School website would be used in measuring the funding needs of schools from 2013. Independent analysis commissioned by The Sun-Herald shows that the government's measure of social disadvantage is broadly accurate in determining how well schools perform in the NAPLAN tests. However, high school principals and teachers have criticised the use of the index of community socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) as a basis for like-school comparisons, because it has directly compared small schools in remote areas with large city high schools.

State ministers back Gillard on strikebreakers for tests
Jodie Minus and Patricia Karvelas,  The Australian, 16 April 2010
STATE education ministers have backed Julia Gillard's plan to hire strikebreakers to ensure national numeracy and literacy tests go ahead next month. But the Deputy Prime Minister has abandoned her push to deploy parents to oversee the controversial tests. Ms Gillard said parents would not be used as strikebreakers after the Australian Education Union refused to back down on planned boycotts of the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy testing. It is understood Queensland will today follow NSW and take the union to the State Industrial Relations Commission. At a ministerial council meeting in Sydney yesterday, Ms Gillard was backed by all education ministers in calling on the AEU to change its position and "turn away from this destructive path".

Victorian tests will go ahead: Pike
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 16, 2010
VICTORIA has ruled out a provocative suggestion by federal Education Minister Julia Gillard to use parents as strike breakers if teachers boycott exams next month. But Education Minister Bronwyn Pike told The Age that departmental staff would supervise the national literacy and numeracy tests next month if teachers refused to do so. The Australian Education Union has voted to ban teachers from conducting the tests because it says the results published on the My School website could be misused to name and shame schools. At a meeting of education ministers yesterday, Ms Pike said she made it clear to Ms Gillard that Victoria would not be using parents for the tests.

School for special needs sees red over loo blue
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 16, 2010
A SCHOOL for children with special needs was told it may not be able to get disabled toilets because of the one-size-fits-all projects imposed under the federal schools stimulus program.
In what one parent described as a Yes Minister episode, Frankston Special Development School was told the template for the three classrooms and multipurpose area to be built at the school did not come with toilets. And despite growing enrolments, the school is still in the dark about when the classrooms will be built - more than a year after the stimulus program was announced.

Fair Work probe on teachers' ban
DAN HARRISON, The Age, April 15, 2010
THE Fair Work Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the Australian Education Union's threatened boycott of national literacy and numeracy tests next month. The union, which represents 180,000 public-school teachers, has banned its members from supervising the tests, which are due to take place next month, because of concerns about the results being used to ''name and shame'' struggling schools.

Disheartened school resembles 'Guantanamo Bay'
JEWEL TOPSFIELD, The Age, April 15, 2010
THIS time last year, the tiny community of Woorinen South, near Swan Hill, thought it would have a new school by now. What it does have looks more like Guantanamo Bay, quips school council president Deanne Earle, referring to a couple of fenced-off portable classrooms. ''It's very disheartening for the community as a whole,'' Ms Earle said. ''We've worked so hard and, finally, the government said we'll build you a new school, but we've had to wait and wait and wait and no one can tell us when it's going to start.'' Woorinen and District Primary School, which has just 52 students, was awarded $1.5 million under the federal schools stimulus program. It was promised three classrooms, a student and administrative area and a staff room.

No room for principals in Building the Education Revolution program
Milanda Rout, Victorian political reporter, The Australian, April 15, 2010
VICTORIAN Education Minister Bronwyn Pike says principals have been given too much autonomy over construction work at state schools, and the lesson of the Building the Education Revolution program is that her department should take more responsibility for the work. In an interview with The Australian, Ms Pike yesterday defended her department against complaints by principals that they had been kept in the dark over financial details, progress and even control of their BER projects. She said the schools knew broadly "the amount of money being spent on their project" and the "project they were getting". But specific costings would not be released due to commercial confidence issues as the tendering process had not ended. Ms Pike said that although the modus operandi of principals in the past was absolutely hands-on in any construction at their schools, they were not trained architects or builders and should not be "burdened" by it.

Watchdog has skills boycott in its sights
Patricia Karvelas, Political correspondent , The Australian, April 15, 2010
DEPUTY Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Fair Work Ombudsman has taken on teachers planning to boycott the national literacy and numeracy tests, warning their industrial action could be unlawful. The Ombudsman has ordered the ACT, Victorian and Northern Territory branches of the Australian Education Union to produce documents on the action planned for May 11-13. And the NSW Industrial Relations Commission has warned the NSW Teachers Federation not to join the boycott. The AEU has ordered teachers not to hand out the tests, which will provide information for the My School website comparing schools' academic outcomes.

A test the teachers must pass
The Australian, 12 April, 2010
National literacy and numeracy assessments must go ahead
WILL the leaders of the Australian Education Union ever understand they have no right to impose their political opinions on families who use the public school system? We will learn this today when they decide whether to order members not to administer literacy and numeracy tests next month. Union officials are threatening the ban because they oppose the test results being published on Education Minister Julia Gillard's My School website. The threat is part of the union's ongoing campaign against the site, which provides parents with all sorts of information on how their children's class compares on national literacy and numeracy measures. It also allows parents to track the school's performance year on year. The biggest benefit is it enables parents to look up other schools -- an enormous advantage for everybody wondering how their children's teachers rate.

Taking research to the top of its class
CAROLINE MILBURN, The Age, April 12, 2010
IN 1928, an American, James Russell, reputed to have created his country's finest teaching college at Columbia University, came to Melbourne on a reconnaissance mission. Russell, recently retired from his position as dean of the college in New York, had a new job. He was an envoy of the fabulously wealthy Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic organisation whose $US125 million endowment fund had been established 17 years earlier by steel baron Andrew Carnegie. The corporation was set up to promote knowledge among American citizens, with a portion of its fortune to be spent in Canada and the British colonies. Russell arrived in Australia to assess its education system and help it thrive.

And from overseas...

Inside the box: a cautionary tale of skipping around Europe with your school-aged kids
School Gate, April 13, 2010
Soon after School Gate launched I ran a piece by a mother who had moved to Germany. She had misgivings about the school system there. A year and a half later, and her misgivings have grown. Her son, Jamie*, has had real problems. And she has had to decide how important her principles are to her. Here's her story.... "We moved to Germany in 2007, and Jamie began kindergarten, picking up the language quickly. He would be 6 that October and, whilst the German system allows children to begin school aged 5, our local primary tried to discourage us, saying they would consider him ‘underage’, even when we had him certified as a *‘kannkind’ by an educational psychologist. The first grade was indeed hard. His class teacher remained consistently critical of our mistake to send him to school a year early, but she considered him academically capable to follow her to the next grade.

In the News, for week ending 12 April 2010

Gillard stands by strike-breaking plan
The Age, April 11, 2010
Education Minister Julia Gillard has refused to back down from a threat to use parents as strike breakers as teachers consider a boycott of national exams.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) will meet on Monday to decide whether to boycott the tests in protest of the government's plans to publish the results on its My School website.
Ms Gillard said the government was considering a range of options to ensure the tests take place including asking parents to step in if teachers follow through with the boycott.

State siphoning school funds `to fight fires'
Gavin Lower , The Australian, April 10, 2010
THE South Australian government has been accused of using the Building the Education Revolution to pay for school bushfire-fighting water storage tanks that parents say should be a state responsibility.
The governing council of Yankalilla Area School, 75km south of Adelaide, is angry the school has had to spend $103,191 of its BER funds on water tanks demanded by the state government as part of building conditions for schools deemed a high fire risk.

Revolution cloaked in secrecy
Milanda Rout, The Australian, April 10, 2010
There is a whiff of Jeff Kennett in the way John Brumby is spending federal funds on education
ONE of the key platforms Labor used in Victoria to wrest power in 1999 after two terms of Jeff Kennett was to get rid of the "secret state" and be more open, transparent and accountable.
Victorians were sick of the Kennett administration's increasingly autocratic style. Steve Bracks campaigned on the promise his government wouldn't hide behind closed doors.
But what a difference a decade makes. What would Kennett think of how the Brumby government is handling the rollout of Kevin Rudd's Building the Education Revolution program?
It is far from open and transparent. The Victorian Education Department has received $2.5 billion for hundreds of schools in the state. But what happens with the money after that is anyone's guess. The department is refusing to release details about the costs of the projects, even to the schools themselves.

665 school rankings adjusted
The Age, JEWEL TOPSFIELD, April 8, 2010
THE social disadvantage rankings of 665 schools were changed before the launch of the My School website after an internal review revealed they had been wrongly categorised.
Documents show 7 per cent of the nation's 9509 schools had their rankings adjusted after consultations with the states revealed they did not accurately reflect the schools' demographics.

Millions have poor language skills
Phillip Hudson, Herald Sun, 6 April, 2010
AN astonishing four million Australian workers have poor language, literacy and numeracy skills and cannot understand the meaning of some everyday words. And their inability to following basic instructions and warnings is causing a safety and productivity nightmare. Most are in labour-intensive and low-level service jobs. Among the terms that are too difficult for some workers are "hearing protection" and "personal protective equipment is required", according to a report by Skills Australia for the Rudd Government. The words that many do not understand include: immediately, authorised, procedure, deliberate, isolation, mandatory, recommended, experience, required and optional. Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout told the Herald Sun 46 per cent of workers had substandard literacy skills and 53 per cent had numeracy below the expected benchmark. "It's really worrying when people can't read or write," Ms Ridout said.

School building shapes as a bigger debacle than batts
The Australian, April 01, 2010
Auditors must comb the program for gouging and waste
FAR from being the "miracle come true" for schools, as Labor's Maxine McKew claimed last week, the $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution stimulus is proving a blessing for building contractors, management consultants and state governments gouging the public purse. Day by day, school by school, new details are revealed by The Australian in a process that NSW Director-General of Education and Training Michael Coutts-Trotter says is "like having an internal auditor with a very well-read newsletter, which is a good thing". The wastage is so extensive that if the oversight of the BER had been up to scratch, a third more school buildings could have been built. Nobody is being accused of anything illegal, but federal and state mismanagement has allowed managing contractors to charge high fees on projects - up to 3 1/2 times the rate suggested by the federal government. This has added more than $500 million to costs in NSW alone. The debacle serves as warning of the problems the Rudd government can expect in delivering health spending.

Education revolution has become a rort
Ray Hadley, The Australian, April 01, 2010
THE alleged rorts involving the federal government's Building Education Revolution have virtually taken over my morning on 2GB over the past five weeks.  I'm not too concerned at the denials from the Education Minister and Deputy PM Julia Gillard and the support she gets from the likes of the slipper-wearing head-kicker Mark Arbib. We got the same treatment from about August last year when we started to talk to people about the now ill-fated insulation rorts. Environment Minister Peter Garrett suggested a number of times I get in my padded cell and remain in the fetal position because everything my listeners were telling me about the batts scheme made me as delusional as them. History now dictates who was actually delusional. With the BER it's not about four young Australians dying, so it's certainly not as important, but it is about spending $16.2 billion of our money and getting value for it. Three week ago even the NSW Teachers' Federation was bravely screaming the joint down about the alleged rorts involving COLAs (covered outdoor learning areas), school halls, classrooms and libraries. Now they are strangely silent. I wonder if they got the obligatory tap on the shoulder from some Labor mates about the need to be on the same page on this issue.

Too much pressure on children to perform in school tests
The Daily Telegraph, Edith Bevin and Bruce McDougall, March 31, 2010
CHILDREN as young as eight are being coached by private tutors in how to pass the tests that form the basis of performance ratings on the My School website. The pressure to do well in the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) has spawned cramming courses designed to help students pass. Alpha Omega Education, one of the groups running a NAPLAN boot camp, offers one-day workshops or term-long coaching. The tutoring group, with more than 300 children on its books, hires NAPLAN markers and examiners to teach courses on how to answer specific questions likely to be included in the May exams. Books designed to lift results are also on sale across the state.

Gender games at play in classroom
Sydney Morning Herald, March 29, 2010
Understanding the differences between the sexes in the early school years can prevent the classroom becoming a battleground, writes Ainslie MacGibbon. Boys will be boys. Girls are easier to teach. Boys can't pay attention. Girls listen. We might like to think that access to education has nothing to do with gender any more but these perceptions linger.

Truants cause halt in welfare payments
The Age, DAN HARRISON, March 29, 2010
THE federal government has for the first time suspended the welfare payments of parents because their children were not attending school. The suspensions took place near the end of the past school year in the Northern Territory under a trial that links school enrolment and attendance to welfare. The Age believes fewer than 20 people had their payments suspended for a week. The payments were reinstated at the start of the summer holidays.

Value fears spark rethink on school tendering
Roseanne Barrett, The Australian, March 29, 2010
QUEENSLAND has turned to the process of competitive tendering for its stimulus-backed school building after more than half the quotes provided questionable value for money. In the first phase of construction early last year, 55 per cent of quotes were "necessary to query", independent auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report to the Queensland government last year.

And from overseas …..

No Link Between Dyslexia and a Lack of Musical Ability, Study Finds
ScienceDaily, 10 April, 2010
There is no link between a lack of musical ability and dyslexia. Moreover, attempts to treat dyslexia with music therapy are unwarranted, according to scientists in Belgium writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology. Cognitive neuroscientist José Morais of the Free University of Brussels and colleagues point out that research into dyslexia has pointed to a problem with how the brain processes sounds and how dyslexic readers manipulate the sounds from which words are composed, the phonemes, consciously and intentionally. It was a relatively short step between the notion that dyslexia is an issue of phonological processing and how this might also be associated with poor musical skills -- amusia -- that has led to approaches to treating the condition using therapy to improve a dyslexic reader's musical skills. Morais and colleagues demonstrate that theoretically this is an invalid argument and also present experimental evidence to show that there is no justification either for the link or for using music therapy to treat dyslexia.

To access our In the News archive for March 2010, click here.