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The worst day of my life was finding out that I had multiple sclerosis… and that I’d get physically and mentally worse for the rest of my life.
When my symptoms went into reverse, I regained my physical and mental health – and my MS specialist had to admit they’d got it wrong.
My multiple sclerosis story ended very happily. Yours will too.
Watch the video below to learn how…
Want text version instead of video? Here is simplified transcript…
I’d heard of it – but I wasn’t sure what it meant. So I just said ‘Okay, what’s that?’
And then my doctor told me. And I was utterly devastated by it.
He explained more about what multiple sclerosis – MS – actually was and it slowly dawned on me: there’s no good news here. None at all.
Instead, a life of deterioration, of relapses, each one worse than the other – and no hope of ever getting better. A process that was, in fact, already under way.
I’d been steadily getting ill for years. My memory had been declining, I was forgetting words. My focus was poor and I often became confused.
And I was always so tired.
I actually thought those other problems were caused by the tiredness.
I just need to stop being so worn out, I told myself. Then everything will be okay.
But once I started losing my balance when walking… I knew things weren’t okay. That day I fell over was a real turning point. It’s why I went to the doctor in the first place.
The specialist confirmed it was MS. He told me it gets steadily worse and there’s no way to stop it.
The end game? Too awful to relive here. The loss of speech, the loss of movement, the loss of memory. In the end, the loss of independence and dignity.
One loss after another, just sitting around waiting for it to get slowly worse and worse.
Of course, I now know he was wrong about all of that. None of this is likely to happen now.
Instead, what was getting steadily worse went into reverse and got steadily better. I went back to work last year and I’m enjoying my life once again. But if I hadn’t acted it could have been so different.
The doctor said I’d probably have some years before I became incapable of self-care – but that was a ‘probably’. If each relapse of my MS was significantly worse than the other… then things could turn nasty very quickly.
I worried about myself. But I worried about my husband, my growing children, my elderly parents… What was this spiteful illness going to put them through?
I even worried about my dog.
But what upset me most was my specialist’s attitude that once you’ve been diagnosed with MS that’s it, it’s all over for you. For them, making you better isn’t an option. Their job is to manage your decline.
But I was panicking. I read about multiple sclerosis success stories where the sufferer had almost miraculous turnarounds.
Mostly diet-led, a few lucky individuals were able to reverse their worst symptoms. One famous case saw a wheelchair bound MS sufferer cast aside her wheelchair and take up jogging, of all things.
Of course, we only hear about the handful of genuine success stories. These people – which include doctors – relied on some knowledge and lots of guesswork.
Their approach was mostly experimental. Hundreds of people try the same thing and get nowhere.
But they proved one thing: MS is not the life sentence we’re told it is. It’s treatable.
Today we know a lot more about MS. To properly tackle its causes requires a very specific three-pronged attack.
Tackle your MS from these three angles and the illness is going to take an entirely different route. Here’s how.
I found this out completely by chance. Some years ago, on an old multiple sclerosis forum a man called Toby was describing how his own MS symptoms were steadily going away.
He’d had MS for 12 years and was once in a terrible condition. Desperation had caused him to try everything. Now he’d found something that actually worked – and he shouted about it from the rooftops.
Some people were sceptical but I heard him out. And I kept tabs on him for a while until the forum shut down. But what he told me turned out to be true. And what I learned subsequently changed my life.
Let me tell you about it now.
Much of what Toby said has since turned out to be medically proven.
These are the three factors that reversed his MS – and which eventually did exactly the same for mine.
First, you’re probably aware that MS is caused by a runaway immune system that just isn’t switching off.
The immune system creates inflammatory agents that course through the body attacking both unwanted foreign particles and toxins – which is good – but also healthy tissue.
For MS sufferers the inflammation is wearing away at the myelin sheath that surrounds and protects the nerves.
And this is a serious problem because that myelin sheath is supposed to keep our nerves efficient and safe.
But as inflammation wears the sheath away, lesions and scarring occurs. That scarring disrupts the movement of nerve signals throughout the body – and within the brain itself. The damage is widespread and ongoing.
It gets harder for our brain and body to communicate. We start to see typical symptoms of MS: memory failure, difficulty focusing, heavy fatigue, loss of balance, difficulty coordinating movement… you know the kind of thing.
For as long as inflammation is constantly attacking our nerves’ protective myelin sheath we will always have MS. Inflammation is our first problem to resolve.
Of course, the body can repair damaged myelin sheath – and it does. But once inflammation’s ability to destroy it exceeds our body’s ability to repair it… we’re fighting a losing battle.
That’s the second problem.
Restoring the myelin sheath requires lots of energy from our body’s cells – way more energy than those cells are used to supplying.
If we’ve got MS the damage to the nerves is never-ending – and our struggling cells cannot generate enough ‘repair energy’ to ever complete the job.
Put bluntly, the repair cells are exhausted. They can never catch up with the damage that MS is causing.
Third, as well as energy, the repair of damaged myelin requires specific raw materials. Repair obviously can’t be done from thin air and it’s the food we eat that supplies the materials for the rebuilding of damaged myelin.
The problem is that the standard western diet just doesn’t provide enough repair nutrients.
But if we eat plenty of the right food the myelin certainly can be repaired. And if the inflammation has also been handled then the myelin sheath stays repaired.
Instead of managing symptoms – which is all my MS specialist ever tried to do – we can directly address what’s causing MS in the first place. We need to:
As Toby was finding out then – and I can confirm now – we already know how to handle all three of these steps.
And it applies no matter how your MS shows up. Toby’s MS was what’s known as ‘primary progressive’. He didn’t have relapses and remissions. He just slowly got worse and worse.
Until, one day, he started getting better and better.
Whereas I had ‘relapsing-remitting’ MS – periods of steady, unchanging symptoms followed by horrible, upsetting flare-ups. When the symptoms finally steadied they were noticeably worse than they had been before.
Either way, it’s MS. If we address all the factors that make us ill then we prove the doctors wrong and everything changes for the better. Which is exactly what we do.
By the way, every specialist I spoke to told me: there’s no MS gene and MS isn’t hereditary.
There might be an array of genes that make MS a little more likely in a person. Maybe.
But my specialist told me two important things:
First, identical twins have extremely similar genes, so if one twin gets MS, you’d expect the other stands a much higher chance of getting it too. But the statistics show the second twin has no more chance of getting MS than anyone else. So the genes effect is weak or non-existent.
Second, whether there’s a genes effect or not, genes at most only increase the possibility of MS. To actually have MS you have to be exposed to the ‘risk factors’ of MS before those genes come into play.
And here’s where the reality of MS hits us.
MS doesn’t pop into existence out of thin air. Something causes it.
‘Risk factors for MS’ are the set of circumstances that have to exist in your body in order for MS to happen. You get MS because you have the risk factors for MS.
If you don’t have the risk factors you simply cannot have the disease.
What I found shocking was that medical science’s long list of multiple sclerosis risk factors – things that will cause MS – contain almost nothing but lifestyle habits and choices.
I thought MS would be caused by some crazy malfunction in the body somewhere. Some weakness in my brain or spinal cord or a chance breakdown in some vital organ. Not so. In fact, at its root, the causes are very ordinary.
MS comes from things we do and choices we make in our everyday life habits. Lifestyle choices provoke the immune system – the immune system then causes the runaway inflammation that’s decimating our nerves.
Tragically, we’re literally giving ourselves the disease – and we don’t even know we’re doing it.
Scientists and medical researchers agree that what makes the immune system go wrong – and so causes all that inflammation – are mostly environmental and habitual. Such as:
When immune systems go wrong there’s a cause. A combination of the above factors is where all the problems start.
So what we’re doing in our ordinary lives is maintaining those causes. All those errors that we didn’t know we were making… we’re still making them. So MS carries on as before.
If we corrected those errors one at a time… if we were to swap out the damaging activities and behaviours for ones that do not support the existence of MS
….what would happen to the MS that they were causing?
Remember, I didn’t need drugs and meds to get MS. Instead, I had to lead a normal, everyday western life and just get a few small but important things wrong along the way.
If meds didn’t cause MS then they aren’t going to correct it either. We need to reverse what’s causing MS instead.
And it works. Not just for a few high profile doctors but for ordinary people like me who have regained sight, the ability to walk properly, energy and mental health – having originally lost it to the ravages of MS.
Toby learned how to treat his MS from a program written by a lady called Jodi Knapp.
Jodi is well-known for her pioneering health work and has an enviable reputation for reversing chronic diseases – simply by paying strict attention to what’s actually causing them in the first place.
I got a copy of her program – it’s called ‘The Multiple Sclerosis Solution’.
In a series of phases Jodie explains how to handle the inflammation that’s destroying my nerves – and then how to supply the cells with the energy and nutrients needed to repair and restore them.
You move through each phase carefully. When you can feel the improvement at one phase… move on to the next. .
Stay in the current phase until you know you’ve improved and then move gradually to the next. It’s gentle, straightforward – and effective.
This phase is very easy but so important. It’s focused on two elements:
settling the immune system and reducing inflammation
getting the body into a fit healing state
The first part of settling the immune system is to restore our gut health. Our gut turns the nutrients in food into the chemicals the body needs to function properly. Most westerners have fairly poor – or plain awful – gut health.
If the gut isn’t doing that properly then, over the years, the body slowly starts to malfunction.
In particular, a weakened gut lining leads to ‘leaky gut syndrome’ – a highly inflammatory condition in which particles of food escape into the bloodstream, causing the immune system to switch on to attack them.
This common gut condition is a primary cause of a permanently ‘on’ immune system – and therefore the chronic inflammation that creates MS.
It’s not the only source of chronic inflammation that Jodi addresses – but it’s such a major one that we deal with it from day one.
In Phase 1 we also introduce the repair energy and nutrients the body needs to start healing our damaged nerves.
The supplements are much cheaper than meds, have absolutely no side-effects and, later, at the end of the program they can be dropped altogether.
Is similar to phase 1 – I added a couple of extra supplements from my supermarket. I also had to reduce some of the other supplementation now it had done its job.
Phase 2 also goes a little deeper into handling the immune system and its never-ending inflammation.
That mainly involves identifying – and then removing – some of the domestic toxins that find their way into our bodies, firing up the immune system… and setting off that catastrophic tide of inflammation.
I spent some time looking at the long list of items in my house that caused my immune system to switch ‘on’ and create inflammation.
There’s lots! It’s shocking how so many ordinary household items directly provoke our immune systems.
I replaced a few household items that were direct sources of toxins for safer versions – which was easy. You stop buying x and start buying y. Replace an unhelpful habit with a helpful one.
After a couple of weeks you can literally feel in your body the benefits of making these simple changes.
Phase 2 also included some slow exercise movements coupled with deep breathing.
It’s vital we do this because movement – even the gentlest – delivers nutrients and oxygen to all parts of the body – and MS sufferers especially need to get nourishment to damaged nerves wherever they are.
The movement stuff was actually very nice. That was a surprise because I am naturally lazy – and MS left me tired most of the time. But it’s so gentle and the effect is so pleasant that once the habit is started I just kept doing it.
But what’s really important is that a relaxed mind and body is the ideal state for cell repair.
The breathing patterns were incredibly relaxing too. Tension and stress release hormones that work directly against cell repair. That deep relaxation was exactly what my drained, damaged nerve cells needed.
My food choices were expanded in this phase. They’d been a bit tight in phase 1 because we were so focused on getting the gut back into good health. But now the menu was much wider and I had lots of freedom to choose what to eat.
By Phase 3 inflammation is significantly reduced. For the first time in many years the nerves are no longer under such heavy attack – and so we go hell for leather now at rebuilding myelin and protecting those nerves.
As I entered phase 3 I was already feeling different. I’d been feeling steadily better over the previous weeks – more stable when walking, better balance and a whole lot less tired.
Officially, I was still ill. But now things were really starting to happen and my optimism was sky high.
Phase 3 featured another temporary increase in supplementation.
The idea is for the nerves to get back the protective myelin sheaths that MS had worn away.
This gradual return of those protective myelin sheaths will already have started in the earlier phases but now we’re picking up some supermarket vitamins to go heavier on rebuilding those shattered nerves.
After phase 3 I was walking properly and thinking clearly. I reduced supplements – a couple of good meals each day were now enough.
The ultimate victory was going back to work for the first time in 4 years. Every area of my life had improved beyond recognition but that was the point where I could honestly say I’ve finally got my life back.
My MS specialist, by the way, is delighted, impressed, a tiny bit disbelieving at how all this turned out! He’s also very happy for me.
My summary of the whole experience? Just pay attention to the program, follow the rules but also go easy on yourself and the improvements really do come.
Even though MS shows up in different people in different ways, its underlying causes are the same. There’s nothing special about what’s going on in the body. It’s just biology.
And biology is almost totally influenced by what we eat, the way we breathe and move, the nutrients we’re missing out on, the stresses we’re under, the household pollutants that we didn’t realise were doing so much harm…
These are the underlying causes of many western chronic diseases – MS included. Address them and your body cannot help but to change. Start removing the causes of MS and the damage they cause starts to fade away.
The time taken to see improvements varies according to the severity of your MS.
Improvement is always relative. People have corrected their MS to the extent that not only can they stop using a wheelchair but they can walk or trot a couple of miles. They didn’t do it overnight – but they did it.
I never claim to have got rid of multiple sclerosis. But can I now walk, move and coordinate myself in ways I couldn’t before? Yes, I can.
Is my thinking, focus and memory now noticeably better than it has been for years? Definitely.
Do I go weeks, months and – now – years not really aware that I am an MS sufferer? You bet!
I’m not the first to be able to walk properly again, I won’t be the last. And you could be the next.
You can start the same program as I used today. Click here and they’ll send it to you in about 90 seconds!
My relationship with MS is entirely different today.
Of course, I wish I’d never got the disease in the first place. But that was out of my hands.
What I’m grateful for is that not only is it not getting worse but there are so many ways that it has become better.
Jodi showed me what to do to settle and calm the immune system, to substantially reduce inflammation and to give the body the energy and repair nutrients it needed to start undoing the awful effects of MS.
I followed her program… and it has paid off in ways I – and my doctors! – never dreamed possible.
Now it’s your turn. Become one of the thousands of people who are quietly turning around their illness in wholly natural and healthy ways. Click here, get Jodi’s program and start correcting your MS today.
If we don’t settle the inflammation that’s ravaging our nerves then our symptoms will get progressively worse.
That’s a medical certainty.
If we don’t supply the body with the building material and repair energy it needs to restore damaged nerve sheaths then those nerves are unprotected and vulnerable to attack and damage every second of the day.
The end game of MS is horrific. You already know how this can end for you – so I won’t labour the point.
The causes of my MS started years before I finally got my diagnosis. So did yours.
Which means that ravaging illness was already well underway once we found out we had it. Even though it’s a slowly progressing disease it’s imperative we address the problem now.
You can start the process of restoring your health, getting back your physical and mental capabilities in the next 90 seconds – by getting a copy of Jodi’s program and taking step 1 today.
Click here, they’ll send it to you right now and you can start your recovery today!
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The Multiple Sclerosis Solution vsl cb | Blue Heron Health News is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
Skinstitut Holiday Gift Kits take the stress out of gifting
Toronto, October 31, 2024 – Beauty gifts are at the top of holiday wish lists this year, and Laser Clinics Canada, a leader in advanced beauty treatments and skincare, is taking the pressure out of seasonal shopping. Today, Laser Clincs Canada announces the arrival of its 2024 Holiday Gift Kits, courtesy of Skinstitut, the exclusive skincare line of Laser Clinics Group.
In time for the busy shopping season, the limited-edition Holiday Gifts Kits are available in Laser Clinics locations in the GTA and Ottawa. Clinics are conveniently located in popular shopping centers, including Hillcrest Mall, Square One, CF Sherway Gardens, Scarborough Town Centre, Rideau Centre, Union Station and CF Markville. These limited-edition Kits are available on a first come, first served basis.
“These kits combine our best-selling products, bundled to address the most relevant skin concerns we’re seeing among our clients,” says Christina Ho, Senior Brand & LAM Manager at Laser Clinics Canada. “With several price points available, the kits offer excellent value and suit a variety of gift-giving needs, from those new to cosmeceuticals to those looking to level up their skincare routine. What’s more, these kits are priced with a savings of up to 33 per cent so gift givers can save during the holiday season.
There are two kits to select from, each designed to address key skin concerns and each with a unique theme — Brightening Basics and Hydration Heroes.
Brightening Basics is a mix of everyday essentials for glowing skin for all skin types. The bundle comes in a sleek pink, reusable case and includes three full-sized products: 200ml gentle cleanser, 50ml Moisture Defence (normal skin) and 30ml1% Hyaluronic Complex Serum. The Brightening Basics kit is available at $129, a saving of 33 per cent.
Hydration Heroes is a mix of hydration essentials and active heroes that cater to a wide variety of clients. A perfect stocking stuffer, this bundle includes four deluxe products: Moisture 15 15 ml Defence for normal skin, 10 ml 1% Hyaluronic Complex Serum, 10 ml Retinol Serum and 50 ml Expert Squalane Cleansing Oil. The kit retails at $59.
In addition to the 2024 Holiday Gifts Kits, gift givers can easily add a Laser Clinic Canada gift card to the mix. Offering flexibility, recipients can choose from a wide range of treatments offered by Laser Clinics Canada, or they can expand their collection of exclusive Skinstitut products.
Brightening Basics 2024 Holiday Gift Kit by Skinstitut, available exclusively at Laser Clincs Canada clinics and online at skinstitut.ca.
Hydration Heroes 2024 Holiday Gift Kit by Skinstitut – available exclusively at Laser Clincs Canada clinics and online at skinstitut.ca.
LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?
It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.
Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:
Apple
The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.
For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.
You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.
Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.
Google
Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.
When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.
You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.
There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.
Facebook and Instagram
Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.
When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.
The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.
You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.
TikTok
The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.
Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.
X
It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.
Passwords
Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?
Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.
But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.
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Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.
The Canadian Paediatric Society says doctors should regularly screen children for reading difficulties and dyslexia, calling low literacy a “serious public health concern” that can increase the risk of other problems including anxiety, low self-esteem and behavioural issues, with lifelong consequences.
New guidance issued Wednesday says family doctors, nurses, pediatricians and other medical professionals who care for school-aged kids are in a unique position to help struggling readers access educational and specialty supports, noting that identifying problems early couldhelp kids sooner — when it’s more effective — as well as reveal other possible learning or developmental issues.
The 10 recommendations include regular screening for kids aged four to seven, especially if they belong to groups at higher risk of low literacy, including newcomers to Canada, racialized Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. The society says this can be done in a two-to-three-minute office-based assessment.
Other tips encourage doctors to look for conditions often seen among poor readers such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; to advocate for early literacy training for pediatric and family medicine residents; to liaise with schools on behalf of families seeking help; and to push provincial and territorial education ministries to integrate evidence-based phonics instruction into curriculums, starting in kindergarten.
Dr. Scott McLeod, one of the authors and chair of the society’s mental health and developmental disabilities committee, said a key goal is to catch kids who may be falling through the cracks and to better connect families to resources, including quicker targeted help from schools.
“Collaboration in this area is so key because we need to move away from the silos of: everything educational must exist within the educational portfolio,” McLeod said in an interview from Calgary, where he is a developmental pediatrician at Alberta Children’s Hospital.
“Reading, yes, it’s education, but it’s also health because we know that literacy impacts health. So I think that a statement like this opens the window to say: Yes, parents can come to their health-care provider to get advice, get recommendations, hopefully start a collaboration with school teachers.”
McLeod noted that pediatricians already look for signs of low literacy in young children by way of a commonly used tool known as the Rourke Baby Record, which offers a checklist of key topics, such as nutrition and developmental benchmarks, to cover in a well-child appointment.
But he said questions about reading could be “a standing item” in checkups and he hoped the society’s statement to medical professionals who care for children “enhances their confidence in being a strong advocate for the child” while spurring partnerships with others involved in a child’s life such as teachers and psychologists.
The guidance said pediatricians also play a key role in detecting and monitoring conditions that often coexist with difficulty reading such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, but McLeod noted that getting such specific diagnoses typically involves a referral to a specialist, during which time a child continues to struggle.
He also acknowledged that some schools can be slow to act without a specific diagnosis from a specialist, and even then a child may end up on a wait list for school interventions.
“Evidence-based reading instruction shouldn’t have to wait for some of that access to specialized assessments to occur,” he said.
“My hope is that (by) having an existing statement or document written by the Canadian Paediatric Society … we’re able to skip a few steps or have some of the early interventions present,” he said.
McLeod added that obtaining specific assessments from medical specialists is “definitely beneficial and advantageous” to know where a child is at, “but having that sort of clear, thorough assessment shouldn’t be a barrier to intervention starting.”
McLeod said the society was partly spurred to act by 2022’s “Right to Read Inquiry Report” from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which made 157 recommendations to address inequities related to reading instruction in that province.
He called the new guidelines “a big reminder” to pediatric providers, family doctors, school teachers and psychologists of the importance of literacy.
“Early identification of reading difficulty can truly change the trajectory of a child’s life.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
