By Molly Walsh
Free Press Staff Writer
This Article was found at The Burlington Free Press http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060801/NEWS01/608010314/1009/NEWS05
August 1, 2006
The young Mel Levine was often the last to be picked for teams and the first to try and wriggle out of gym class. It was so bad in middle school that he spent gym period in the nurse's office with cramps -- real ones -- caused by his dread of being the klutzy kid who always fumbled the ball.
Levine is now a best-selling author, pediatrician and graduate of Harvard Medical School. It's safe to assume that the expert on children's learning problems -- who will speak at the University of Vermont on Wednesday -- has recovered from the humiliations of seventh-grade physical education class.
Levine nonetheless describes the sting of his athletic failures in his book, "A Mind at a Time," to underscore a central theme: Most children are not good at everything, and yet schools, parents and society often expect them to be.
The result is that children who are not well-rounded sometimes feel inadequate when they can, in fact, grow up to be successful, Levine said in a telephone interview.
"At the very least, kids with specialized minds deserve toleration and support. And what we find, is, very often their strengths are being neglected while everybody tries to plug up holes or leaks in their minds. And that's a shame because when they grow up they are going to make a living on their strengths."
Problem with labels
Levine lives on a farm in North Carolina and is a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School. He has spent three decades helping children overcome learning problems and is co-founder of the nonprofit institute All Kinds of Minds. It develops programs to help teachers, parents and students pinpoint and deal with learning problems.
The doctor dislikes labels such as Attention Deficit Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome because he believes they are simplistic and stigmatizing for children.
"I think the labels can be a self-fulfilling prophecy -- if you decide you are pathological, you can become increasingly pathological," Levine said.
His stance against labels sometimes riles other doctors.
"I'm very controversial," Levine said, "which is what I always wanted to be. They disagree with me. There are several complaints about me -- the most common is that Mel Levine is right in all of his thinking and he's totally impractical. Schools need labels and insurance companies need labels and we have to lump kids together so we can do research on them."
Levine argues that teachers and others who work with children with learning issues need to identify patterns of brain function and learning more specifically. He calls for a comprehensive diagnosis that shows where memory retrieval or attention controls or sequential task ability or other specific brain functions break down.
Then come suggestions on how to best deal with the problem as well as how to build on strengths -- a critical step that helps children build confidence and overcome the corrosive effect of school failure.
Finding their niche
Perhaps Levine's most powerful weapon is hope -- "A Mind at a Time" is full of stories about children who seem destined to drop out or fade out academically, but with new strategies and renewed determination, make it through school and find their niche.
Take April -- a pseudonym for one of the many Levine profiles in the book. She is a girl with original ideas, nice handwriting and a serious problem with writing composition that threatens her academic progress. It turns out that April has attention problems that are aggravated by chronic insomnia.
To make writing less overwhelming for April, Levine's team suggests she brainstorm her essay ideas into a tape recorder, then take a break, hit play and write down key ideas to gradually work up a draft. They tell her not to worry about spelling and grammar on the first pass, but to go back later, in this way tackling the complex task of writing in stages.
Although tips like this might help April complete assignments and gain confidence, she must also work on broader strategies to improve her attention controls and remedy her sleep problem -- which takes a serious toll on her academic performance. If her pediatrician's non-pharmaceutical suggestions -- a regular bedtime, a fan for soothing white noise -- don't work, Levine writes that April might need medication to get over her sleep problems, but he's generally conservative about medications and, in particular, wary of stimulants prescribed to treat ADD and ADHD.
An estimated 2.5 million U.S. children ages 4 to 17 are taking medication to treat attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorders, according to a 2003 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Too often drugs are prescribed without the proper evaluation and follow-up, and medication is never the whole solution, Levine said. Language, memory or motor function problems are often present in children with attention problems and medication will not solve these underlying causes.
"It's like putting a Band-Aid on a badly infected wound," Levine said. "It's going to look better for a while, but underneath, things are festering."
Contact Molly Walsh at 660-1874 or mwalsh@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com If you go WHAT: Author and pediatrician Dr. Mel Levine will be the keynote speaker at the fourth annual Charles M. Poser, M.D., lecture hosted by the University of Vermont College of Medicine and The Stern Center for Language and Learning. Levine will talk about scientifically supported approaches to help children and young adults with learning difficulties.
WHEN: 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday
WHERE: Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center, South Burlington
REGISTRATION: The Levine workshop is sold out, but the Stern Center is taking names for a waiting list. For information on registration, call Kathleen Tellez at 878-2332, Ext. 320.
