Julian Elliott

Last updated

Julian George Charles "Joe" Elliott, FAcSS (born 27 July 1955) is a British academic and educational psychologist. He has been Principal of Collingwood College, Durham since 2011, and a Professor of Education at Durham University since 2004. He has caused controversy by describing dyslexia as a 'useless term' and a 'meaningless label'.

Contents

Early life and education

Elliott was born on 27 July 1955 in Epsom, Surrey, England. He was educated at Wimbledon College, an all-boys voluntary aided catholic school. He studied at Durham University. [1]

Career

Elliot qualified as a teacher and taught in mainstream and special schools. He then practised as an LEA educational psychologist. [2]

In 1990, he became an academic, and joined the University of Sunderland as a lecturer. [3] He was promoted to professor in 1998 with the award of a personal chair within the School of Education. [4] He rose to be Acting Dean of the university's School of Education and Lifelong Learning. [5] In 2004, he joined Durham University as Professor of Education and the Principal of Collingwood College. [5]

In addition to his university work, he sits on a number of editorial boards. He is the Associate Editor of the British Journal of Educational Psychology and he is a member of the board for the British Educational Research Journal , Learning and Individual Differences , and Comparative Education . [2]

Dyslexia debate

One of Elliott's first papers that challenged the conceptualisation of Dyslexia, co-authored with Dr Simon Gibbs, was published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education. [6] This sparked controversy and has been widely cited. Elliott co-authored a book with Elena L. Grigorenko titled The Dyslexia Debate which was published in early 2014. [7] The book, and his previous work, has argued that there is no difference between poor readers and dyslexic people; dyslexia is a 'useless term' and a 'meaningless label' that should be discontinued. [8] [9] It also suggested that the diagnosis was being misused by middle-class parents to get additional support for their children, [10] and that state schools are much less inclined to make a diagnosis because the pressures it would put on their limited budgets. He supports better funding of literacy education would help to overcome this unbalanced system as the same techniques help both poor readers and dyslexic people, rather than a continuation of the present system. [11]

His research has been controversial. [8] [11] His publications were used by Graham Stringer, a British Member of Parliament, to support his view that dyslexia was 'a cruel fiction'. [12] He suggested that funding should be redirected from targeted support to better teaching of literacy; 'A whole industry has sprung up around creating a medical condition when what is needed is better methods to teach children to read.'. [13]

Professor John Stein of the University of Oxford has disagreed with his conclusion saying that there dyslexia is separate to reading difficulties caused by low intelligence because dyslexia has genetic, immunological and nutritional causes. [11] A joint statement from Sir Jim Rose, a former director of OFSTED, and Dr John Rack, a director of Dyslexia Action, spoke against Elliot's conclusion and supported the current definition of dyslexia. [14]

Honours

In 2010, Elliott is elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). [1] [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dyslexia</span> Specific learning disability characterized by troubles with reading

Dyslexia, previously known as word blindness, is a learning disability that affects either reading or writing. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. Often these difficulties are first noticed at school. The difficulties are involuntary, and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. People with dyslexia have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental language disorders, and difficulties with numbers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collingwood College, Durham</span> Constituent college of Durham University

Collingwood College is one of the constituent colleges of Durham University. Founded in 1972, it was the first Durham college that was purposely mixed-sex. It has over 1500 undergraduate students and just under 290 graduate students as of the year 2023/24, making it the largest college in Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dysgraphia</span> Neurological disorder of written expression

Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder and learning disability that concerns impairments in written expression, which affects the ability to write, primarily handwriting, but also coherence. It is a specific learning disability (SLD) as well as a transcription disability, meaning that it is a writing disorder associated with impaired handwriting, orthographic coding and finger sequencing. It often overlaps with other learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders such as speech impairment, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

A reading disability is a condition in which a person displays difficulty reading. Examples of reading disabilities include developmental dyslexia and alexia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uta Frith</span> German developmental psychologist (born 1941)

Dame Uta Frith is a German-British developmental psychologist and emeritus professor in cognitive development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL). She pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia. Her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma introduced the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited with creating the Sally–Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen. Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Management of dyslexia</span>

Management of dyslexia depends on a multitude of variables; there is no one specific strategy or set of strategies that will work for all who have dyslexia.

This is a list of artistic depictions of dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a reading disorder wherein an individual experiences trouble with reading. Individuals with dyslexia have normal levels of intelligence but can exhibit difficulties with spelling, reading fluency, pronunciation, "sounding out" words, writing out words, and reading comprehension. The neurological nature and underlying causes of dyslexia are an active area of research. However, some experts believe that the distinction of dyslexia as a separate reading disorder and therefore recognized disability is a topic of some controversy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Characteristics of dyslexia</span>

Dyslexia is a disorder characterized by problems with the visual notation of speech, which in most languages of European origin are problems with alphabet writing systems which have a phonetic construction. Examples of these issues can be problems speaking in full sentences, problems correctly articulating Rs and Ls as well as Ms and Ns, mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words, problems of immature speech such as "wed and gween" instead of "red and green".

Dislecksia: The Movie is a documentary film. It was released in 2012 by Captured Time Productions, LLC, a production company based in Litchfield, Connecticut. Dislecksia is the company's seventh film. It is directed by Emmy Award-winning director Harvey Hubbell V, who is a dyslexic himself.

Special educational needs (SEN), also known as special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the United Kingdom refers to the education of children who require different education provision to the mainstream system.

Kate Griggs is a British social entrepreneur best known for her work in the field of dyslexia. She is the founder of the dyslexia charitable organisation, Xtraordinary People. Her public speaking has ranged from the Conservative Party Conference to appearances on television and radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dyslexia Action</span> Nonprofit organisation in England

Dyslexia Action is an organisation based in Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, England, founded in 1972.

The Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils (CReSTeD) is a charity which maintains a register of schools for dyslexic children in the United Kingdom. The use of upper and lower case letters for the acronym CReSTeD is an attempt to graphically represent the difficulties a person with dyslexia experiences when trying to read.

Margaret Jean Snowling is a British psychologist, and world-leading expert in language difficulties, including dyslexia. From 2012 to 2022 she was President of St John's College, Oxford and Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. Snowling was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2016 for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia. She was born in South Shields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judit Kormos</span> Hungarian linguist

Judit Kormos is a Hungarian linguist. She is a professor and the Director of Studies for the MA TESOL Distance programme at the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is renowned for her work on motivation in second language learning, and self-regulation in second language writing. Her current interest is in dyslexia in second language learning.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to dyslexia:

Margaret Byrd Rawson was an American educator, researcher and writer. She was an early leader in the field of dyslexia, conducting one of the longest-running studies of language disorders ever undertaken and publishing nine books on dyslexia.

References

  1. 1 2 "ELLIOTT, Prof. Julian George". Who's Who 2017. Oxford University Press. November 2016. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Prof Julian Elliott". Dialogue Society. 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  3. ↑ "Keynote Speakers". ERAS 2006 Conference. Educational Research Association of Singapore. 2005. Archived from the original on 17 June 2006. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  4. ↑ "Chairs". Times Higher Education. 19 January 1998. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Prof Joe Elliott". Staff. Durham University. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  6. ↑ Elliott, Julian (2008). "Does dyslexia exist?". Journal of Philosophy of Education. 42 (3–4): 475–491. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00653.x.
  7. ↑ Julian G. Elliott; Elena L. Grigorenko (2014). The dyslexia debate. ISBN   9780521119863.
  8. 1 2 "Is dyslexia just a myth?". The Guardian. 7 September 2005. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  9. ↑ "The Dyslexia Debate – Prof Julian Elliott, Durham University". Driver Youth Trust. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  10. ↑ "Dyslexia 'is used by parents as excuse for slow children'". The Times. 28 May 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 "Why Dyslexia Does Exist". dysTalk. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  12. ↑ "MP brands dyslexia a 'fiction'". BBC News. 14 January 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  13. ↑ "Dyslexia is 'a cruel fiction', says Manchester Blackley MP". The Guardian. 13 January 2009. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  14. ↑ "Dyslexia Lobby unites behind dyslexia diagnosis" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  15. ↑ "Member Academicians". Academy of Social Sciences. Archived from the original on 23 July 2013. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
Academic offices
Preceded by Principal of Collingwood College, Durham
2011 to present		Incumbent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.