Luke Waites is an American physician who specialized in pediatric and child neurology training. He was born and raised in the state of Mississippi (USA). He completed his medical education in the University of Tennessee. After gaining fellowship at the National Hospital in Queen’s Square in London in 1957 he then embarked on teaching in Oklahoma Medical School. In the course of his teaching tenure he started evaluating children with dyslexia. He then was considered by many to have pioneered in studying this learning disability that affects a considerable number of people.

Dyslexia is a disability in the learning process that affects a person’s reading and writing skills, short-term memory, basic arithmetic, sequencing and thought organization, language, and visual and auditory processing. The cause of dyslexia is primarily genetic, probably inherited from generation to generation within families. It may vary from mild to severe levels. People afflicted with dyslexia are usually creative and highly intelligent people. Some famous people who are said to be dyslexic are Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Ann Bancroft, Pierre Curie, Erin Brockovich, Agatha Christie, Henry Ford, William Hewlett, Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Hans Christian Andersen, Tom Cruise, and the list goes on and on.

In the early decades of the twentieth century dyslexia was considered by many physicians to be a myth. But further studies show that dyslexia is purely neurological (which means it affects the nervous system) and not because of laziness or apathy towards learning, low level of intellectual abilities, or poor education. These factors may have an impact in learning skills but they do not indicate that a person is dyslexic. Diagnosis of dyslexia requires a qualified diagnostician’s expertise. The cause of dyslexia is primarily genetic, probably inherited from generation to generation within families. Additionally, dyslexia is not considered a disease. It is just a learning difficulty that needs special attention of experts, moral support of families and friends, and the right educational program.

Dr. Luke Waites’ efforts have paved way for the development of other researches on dyslexia and have discovered methods that can correct the disability’s impact on afflicted children’s academic progress. Dr. Waites was believed to be a pioneer in the development of therapeutic strategies in helping dyslexic children. Applying the right therapy in correcting dyslexia can help the dyslexic unleash their talents that have been hidden by the learning disability, which in turn giving them confidence and helping them reach their goals in life.

His legacy is now being continued through the erected Luke Waites Child Development Center (LWCDC) at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in 1995. The LWCDC provides educational assessments and evaluations for dyslexic children and adults. The center run tests on the different abilities of a person’s intellect, speech and communication, phonological processing and academic skills with the stress on reading skills. Moreover, the center also conducts more researches to understand more of what other things might lay behind learning disorders. Researches are not only carried out in discovering more about these disorders but they also find more advance and effective ways of correcting them. The center also provides the best health professionals that collaborate in helping client and family needs by providing them with consultations in planning services for the client. Thus, this promotes understanding and collaboration between the family, client, and the health professionals.

Babies undergo crucial stages of growth in their development. Raising a child is never easy, because you need to be watchful and you must be aware of the different stages that your kids will go through and see to it that they pass through them with relative ease. In child development, there are a series or stages of growth. Do you want to know what these child developmental stages are? Read the article and find out more about child development.

Infancy starts from the date of birth up to the 12/18 months. This is the most critical stage of growth. You need to be observant to practically all the developments happening to your child. This is a stage where his hands become his toy. He will always be playing with his hands.

From 4 to 6 months, your child will learn to play activities. He will be fond of reaching out for objects. You have to be careful with this stage because your kid might be in danger of choking. He might ingest the object because everything he touches, he inserts in his mouth. This stage is commonly called as the oral stage.

At 8 months, your child will feel two different types of anxiety, the stranger anxiety and the separation anxiety. Infants are anxious when you try to get away from them. They will cry and ask you to carry them when they feel that you are too far away. This is called separation anxiety. An infant only trusts the people he is familiar with. He does not just let himself be carried by any stranger or any person he has just met. He feels insecure whenever the person he knows is not present on his sight. This is called stranger anxiety.

When the infant reaches 12 months or 1 year, you will see that he is starting to utter words like “mama” or “dada”. He also learns how to communicate by using symbolic coordination. He learns how to smile or cry when needed.

At 2 years, your kid is now ready for special mental combination. In this stage, a child is into imitation. Whatever he sees, he imitates. This is why you need to be careful about the behavior and the words you are saying within the radius of the child. If your kid is oriented with these unhealthy thought, he might grow old doing all that. In this stage, the kid is having a sense of negativism. His favorite word is “NO”. This is because they are grasping for independence. This particular stage is called the toddler stage.

From 3 to 6 years is called the pre-school age. Your kids will be ready to be sent to school. This is a very crucial stage as well. Never attach yourself to much to the kid as they may develop “Elektra” or the love for the father and “Oedipus”, which stands for love to father.

From 6 to 12 years is called the school age. This is the time where your kid is beginning to be conscious about the way they look. Problems may arise regarding self esteem but you need to support your kid as a parent. Child in this level is tapering off the biological energy.

Now you know what to expect from your growing kid, you need to have the knowledge about child development when you raise your own kid. Learn more and never be satisfied by only one source. Read more books and magazines so you can learn how to grow a child effectively.