The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 87

The Courier-Journal, Sunday morning, June 6, 1982 Almanac Speaking Features Weddings Caring mom gives hope to others itfii 47 srW Jl fit W' By SHIRLEY WILLIAMS Courier-Journal Staff Writer EMMALINA, Ky. Lois and Bill Weinberg bave three sons. Two suffer from dyslexia, an impaired ability to read, spell and write. The youngest, at 4, "looks like he's not, but," Mrs. Weinberg observes, "it does run in families, although heredity is not the only cause." The end result of Mrs.

Weinberg's intense concern for her sons and for other dyslexic children is a tutoring program at the Hindman Settlement School, for which she was the catalyst In addition to tutoring sessions that have already taken place on a limited basis, a six-week session will be offered this summer at the settlement school, a few miles up Troublesome Creek from her home in Knott County. It will be six weeks of accelerated cdncentratlon on the written word. Mrs. Weinberg, 37, whose fragile look masks an iron determination, talks freely about herself and her children's learning problems. Her youngest son, Tomas, copes well and his language development is good, she says.

This gives her hope that he will not follow the pattern set by his two brothers. However, until he begins school, she feels there is no sure measure. Mrs. Weinberg ran head on into the problem of dyslexia at the end of the first school year for her oldest son, Jed, who is now 10. She says After they were married, the Weinbergs lived briefly in Washington, D.

then settled at Alice Lloyd College, also in Knott County, where Weinberg taught political science and worked on an oral-history book. "We started having children," Mrs. Weinberg says, "and he kind of got itchy and we took the law degree down from over the commode in the bathroom and hung it up downtown." They also bought their house then. It was known on Troublesome Creek as a "ghost house" because its owner only lived there in the summer and it hadn't been painted for 40 years before the Weinbergs moved in. It's ready for another coat now.

They settled in, the house became a home, and Mrs. Weinberg once again confronted her frustration about reading. She simply didn't have the time to work her way slowly through a book. "You can't do that once you get into families and politics; you don't have the time." Politics began for her at 16, when her father was elected governor and the family moved from Prestons-burg to Frankfort. Her reaction was a typical one, Mrs.

Weinberg says. It was exciting, but she didn't want to leave her school and her friends. Her mother "kept everything kind of on a low key and minimized the whole falderal and so life went on." Her sons faced the same sort of uprooting at a younger age when Weinberg was elected to his first term as a state representative. The family moved to Frankfort in January each year for the General Assembly, and stayed until April. The term ended last December and Weinberg returned to private law practice full-time in Hindman.

Mrs. Weinberg says her husband has not decided if he will continue in politics, but Weinberg says he is "seriously considering running for attorney general in 1983." "Politics are taken seriously around here (Knott County). I mean, everybody gets all heated up and they fall out over it it's just a real drama," Mrs. Weinberg says. She talks about the importance of big families in Eastern Kentucky politics.

In addition to her kinship to the widespread Combs families "It doesn't hurt to be a Combs" she points out that her mother was a Hall, another family well entrenched in this part of Kentucky. due i 11 iiii urn 1 minium, Photo by Frieda Mullins Lois Weinberg with sons, left to right, Zack, Tomas and Jed on a section of the wraparound porch of their East Kentucky home. "It's just hill except for the bottom down here on the other side of Troublesome Creek. It's great to hike on and the kids just love it," she says. In tackling the problem of helping her sons, Mrs.

Weinberg has learned enough about dyslexia to conclude that she has the same disorder. However, "Bill won't let me use that as an excuse. There are those in both of our families who have suspicious tendencies," she explains. "I do have a cousin who was diagnosed on the Combs side" (she is the daughter of former Kentucky Gov. Bert T.

Combs). Her brother, a slowly, you have to have vast quantities of time, and I don't have that any more. I had it in college and loved it, thrived on it, lived in the stacks." College was Randolph Macon in Virginia, and she majored in biology and religion. She would have preferred an English major, but knew she would have difficulty with the reading "and I didn't have any confidence in writing at all." She met Weinberg in Virginia later on, when he was working in a poverty program for Legal Aid in Roanoke and she was working in a poverty program in Lynchburg. three sides of their rambling frame house on a hillside overlooking Troublesome Creek, she breaks off in mid-sentence from time to time to sight a bird in the back yard: "This is the most exciting time of the year, it's Just like an aviary.

That big horse-apple tree out there has warblers and topees. Just everything likes it out there in that old apple tree." It's a fine place for the boys, Mrs. Weinberg says of their 100 acres, which are also home for a sheepdog named Pluto and a cat named Frodo, well on the way to being a mother. little younger than she, is retarded, but not necessarily a dyslectic. She thinks that her family and Weinberg's had some dyslexic tendencies "and it got together in Jed and he had a double dose.

Zack (who is 8) got a mild dose and I hope Tomas has escaped. They are coming along fine. Zack will never know he had a problem." Both boys now attend Emmalina Elementary School. Her own feeling of having dyslexia stems from reading difficulties. "I read like a turtle, which just frustrates me no end," she says, "because I love to read.

But if you read that recognizing dyslexia in a child is impossible until he starts school. "You can speculate. You can guess. You can line up the signs and the non-signs, but until they are school-age you really don't know what they are going to exhibit," she says. Many dyslectics, she points out, can cope fairly well, until they run into reading problems.

It took the Weinbergs six months "to figure out what it was and to accept it and admit that the diagnosis was on target." Sitting on the back section of the wraparound porch that embraces The disorder is called 'word blindness' chances are about 9 in 10 that he has dyslexia. The major problem for dyslectics is that, although the ailment can't be prevented or cured, it frequently goes unrecognized by parents, teachers, doctors and judges when they are dealing with problem children. Dyslectics frequently are put in classes with retarded or emotionally disturbed children. Some of the dyslexia symptoms are: Spotty IQ-test performance (high achievement in some areas, low in others). Difficulty telling left from right.

Lack of left-right dominance. Hyperactive' (cannot stay still; one part of the body is always large muscle movement) as well as seeing, hearing and speaking. On the average, there will be a year's gain in reading ability for 50 hours of instruction. The parent becomes a volunteer tutor in the program, not for his own child but for another. The association periodically sponsors workshops for volunteers and teachers to learn the methods used in teaching dyslectics.

Each semester it sponsors a 13-week after-school tutoring program at the settlement school, using parents and volunteers tutoring on a one-to-one basis. The accelerated six-week program this summer will have 25 to 30 students. Screening tests are given before a child is admitted to a tutorial program, and each parent is required to submit a written request to the screening committee. Hindman Settlement School for its program that begins June 14, was developed by the late Dr. Charles L.

Shedd and is based on 20 years of research. Shedd held his first workshop in 1960 at Berea College, where he was on the faculty. He continued summer workshops at Berea after he moved to the staff of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. He left Kentucky in 1967, but continued to conduct the Berea workshops until 1971. The Kentucky Association for Specific Perceptual Motor Disability sponsors the tutoring at Hindman.

Shedd's manuals were designed to teach the child by seeing, saying, hearing and feeling. Beginning with the alphabet, he learns to cope with written language. The system develops all the senses, including that of touch and kinesthesia (sense of Attention disorders (inattention, short attention span). Cannot reproduce given geometric patterns. is Awkwardness (will have many small accidents).

Dysrhythmia (lack of rhythm). Has trouble organizing work. Slowness in finishing work. Mild speech irregularities (reversals in numbers and letters beyond age level). Impaired concentration ability.

Variability in performance. All these symptoms must be present, or have been present prior to remedial work with a child, before he can be diagnosed as dyslectic. The method for tutoring dyslexic students that is being used in Kentucky, and that will be used at the losopher William James described dyslexia, frequently called "word blindness." It is a complex disability caused by a breakdown in the central nervous system that results in problems with reading, writing and spelling. Dyslectics have little visual memory of words; they tend to spell by ear, and to reverse letters and numbers for example, becomes and dog becomes god. Ten to 15 percent of the population of the United States suffers from dyslexia.

Six times more males than females have it. As many as 25 million Americans may be afflicted, according to the March 22 issue of Newsweek. Dyslexia may be an inherited tendency or it may be the result of brain damage or disease. If a child is normally intelligent but is seriously retarded in reading, By SHIRLEY WILLIAMS Courier-Journal Staff Writer I am myself a very poor and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall leave any distinctness at all.

William James This is how psychologist and phi- Near-death experiences: Mindbody split or hallucinations? psychologist Ronald K. Siegel, however, has found that survivors of near-death situations often describe the experience as frightening, although they often do report calm rather than panic in the face of death. What is more, Siegel insists that such near-death experiences are "absolutely identical to drug-induced hallucinations" that Siegel and his colleagues have been able to produce in subjects with such drugs as ketamine, an anesthetic agent that is a chemical kin to PCP or "angel dust." Lifelike visions and hallucinations also appear to people under extreme stress, among hostage victims and people locked up in vaults during bank robberies, and have been reported by persons claiming to have been abducted by UFOs, Siegel said. "They have not died, and they are not viewing the 'other Siegel said. "My impression (of Sabom) is that he is naive and has been fooled," Siegel said.

"I don't think he really understands how vivid and truthful hallucinations and fantasies can be." Siegel insists that Sabom's reports do not constitute a scientific study, but are simply "descriptions of beliefs." "I think skepticism is the best attitude to hold toward these experiences," said Kenneth Ring, a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, where the association has its offices. Ring, Sabom and John Audette, a sociologist, from Peoria, 111., founded the group in 1979. Talking about the possibility of life after death Is using "religious phraseology," said Ring, who has also published a book, "Life at Death," based on his interviews with 102 patients who survived a close brush with death. "As long as I say these are experiences, I'm on solid ground," he said. Dr.

Bruce Greyson of the University of Michigan, director of research for the association, is focusing on the effects of such experiences on patients who have survived suicide attempts. He has found that the survivors in many cases do not "romanticize death," but often become less materialistic and more open people. These researchers say their patients recall their encounters with death as pleasant experiences and report that they faced death with a kind of detached calm. University of California at Los Angeles In his book, Sabom has emphasized the accuracy of the accounts of resuscitations by several patients whose medical records he reviewed. These individuals described rising out of their bodies and viewing the frantic proceedings below.

In one case, the patient was able to describe in remarkable detail the workings of a defibrillator a device that uses electric shocks to the chest to restore normal beating to a heart that is twitching uselessly or has stopped completely. There was no way that the patient could have seen the equipment at the time it was used to revive him, Sabom said in an interview. But he admitted that it would be difficult to rule out the possibility that patients pick up a number of details of their resuscitation from what they can see and hear at the time and from later conversations with hospital staff or relatives. "I don't believe his accounts," said Siegel. Other physicians and psychologists are as skeptical as Siegel.

Dr. Nathan Schnaper, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, See EXPERIENCES PAGE 9, Col. 5, this section i nothing about the existence of a split between mind and body a claim more in the language of religion or medieval metaphysics than modern science. The most skeptical scientists point out that similar sensations of the mind splitting away from the body have been reported by people in a variety of situations and can be induced by powerful hallucinogenic drugs. Sabom, an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, admitted in a recent telephone interview that the near-death experiences he has reported may have nothing to do with death at all.

But he is much more insistent that the splitting apart of mind from body that he found in 33 of the 116 patients he interviewed is a real phenomenon. "There's always a possibility that there is some physiological (explanation) that hasn't been discovered," he said. Sabom's belief in the reality of the mind-body split and the possibility of life after death places him at one extreme of a small band of researchers, several of whom have joined to form the International Association for Near-Death Studies. I By PAUL JACOBS Lei Angelei Times Increasing numbers of physicians and psychologists have been publishing accounts of the near-death experiences of patients who have been rescued after almost dying. At least some of those patients vividly recall observing their rescuers from the vantage point of the emergency-room celling.

Others report moving through a dark runnel, usually toward a brilliant light Several say they found themselves in an idyllic landscape, where they were greeted by dead friends and relatives who appeared miraculously alive. Accounts of these near-death experiences have prompted an unusual debate among medical and psychological professionals. An Atlanta cardiologist contends that such near-death experiences suggest that the mind may be able to exist independently of the body and that life may continue even after death. The heart specialist. Dr.

Michael Sabom, analyzes a large number of such cases in his new book, "Recollections of Death." Critics of such research, however, argue that such experiences, while interesting, say.