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Dyslexics Unite!
September 24, 2008 - 11:07am — Grace Moon
As sometimes happens on this site, we bloggers (Don’t think it's just you commenters.) have a difference of opinion, or experience, shall I say. Kelly’s blog on education got me all riled up. I know her main point was really a critique about the lack of critical thinking and education in our country. Similar to the point, our new blogger Krystal touched on last week in her blog Anti-Intellectualism Is the New Smart, but Moon has a fight to pick with all you people who never had a learning disability. And this is a blog for all of us who have.
I went to grammar school in the 1970s when the education system had just begun to better test and identify students who had some kind of learning disability. I don’t remember the diagnosis anyone came up with for me, being that I was around 8; but I can tell you I was in all the remedial classes throughout grade school and that my mother fretted over this. I went to special classes during and after school with kids like me who just weren’t reading or writing at the level that our peers were. We were the “slow” kids, which translated to being the “dumb” kids in school.
I changed schools and repeated the sixth grade. I was so embarrassed that I was repeating the sixth grade that I kept it a secret from all my new friends at my new school. However, my records and my sucky grades followed me through high school until I finally got to college and majored in Art.
In my junior year I went on an exchange program to study in London. During that year, riding the London Underground, there was a tube stop I passed weekly which I could never pronounce. I would look at the sign as it passed by the window and, in my mind, I would hear the words “hall vox.” But at the same time I knew that it wasn’t right. This silent dialogue in my head went on every time the train went through that station. Finally, during my last week in London, I passed through that station and, in my head, I suddenly heard “vox hall.”
I was never actually diagnosed with dyslexia (because I don’t think they actually tested for it at the time I was in school) but I suddenly realized I had been doing this to words my entire life, mixing up letters to words much more difficult and even simpler that Vauxhall. Now, when the sound of a word in your head doesn’t match the letters that you are seeing, it either brings your entire comprehension to a halt or you mangle it and move on. This includes the arrangement of parts of speech and punctuation, too. I’m trying to explain this to all you people who don’t experience this sensation because from the outside it might seem that someone is just being lazy or uneducated.
D’lexies, you out there? You feel me? If you feel like raising your fist in solidarity, please do.
Here is another example. The word INSTITUTE. For some reason this word fucks me up every time. I can hear it, but when it comes time to spell it, my brain says “Okay, these are the letters in this word: iiinnsstttue, now go figure out how to arrange them in a way that looks right.”
Ironically, I’m an editor for this website and, thankfully, that’s what copy editors are for, which is one of the tasks Kelly has here. But even Kelly sometimes misses a typo here or there and then Julia Watson will pick up the slack.
There's one glitch in our system, however. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve been trying to post more quick and timely stories. So, if I post something at 9 a.m. East Coast time, Kelly won’t see it for another three hours since both she and Julia are in California. And now that Amy Miller (who is on Central Time) has joined our ranks to bring us some breaking gay-ossip, I ask you to please be kind to the type-challenged when you see us cross our “i’s” and dot our “t’s.”
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65 Comments
I'm dyslexic too
for example, i can't tell between Schoenberg and Bergson who's the musician and who's the philosopher i mixed up the sound "berg" "son", "son" "berg". It make me late in school but i'm very good for working 3 dimensional objects.
I had a couple of issues in
I had a couple of issues in school that landed me in the "special needs" class, or more aptly the primitive equivalent that existed in the 1960's and 1970's. I had a speech problem with S's, which sounded more like SH's (still do if I don't concentrate on it hard enough). I ended up held back in the second grade over it.
Then came the issue of how I deal with numbers and mathematical equations. I guess I'm kind of weird, because I literally see numbers, and can process them visually. Despite getting the correct answer every time, and faster than the teachers could using calculators, I would get into trouble because I couldn't explain how I did it to their satisfaction. That got me held back in the 7th grade, and put into remedial classes until I dropped out at 17 and joined the US Army.
We all process information of various sorts in our own ways and in our own time. Some of the most brilliant thinkers and artists I know did poorly in early school years, for no other reason than they see the world differently than most, in a world that craves uniformity and conformity. People thought of me as stupid, because of how I spoke and how I dealt with numbers. Turns out, after testing by the military, that I got one of the highest ever scores on the ASVAB (the military entrance exam at the time), and had a very high IQ to boot.
Today, people still think I'm not the brightest bulb in the string of lights because of how I talk sometimes (still struggling with those damned S's). I just smile, and let them think whatever they want, at least until the timing is right for showing them just how much they've underestimated me. I win more bets that way, lol.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Can't imagine
MedicineWoman, I just can't imagine anyone thinking of you as stupid. Your internet voice is amazing.
:)Taem?
I did the "special" speech
I did the "special" speech class for about 4 grades. Our school district implemented a new speech program and sent speech therapists to test all of us. I was in the second grade. By the fourth grade, I was in a speech program. Not only for my "S's" and "F's" among other sounds, but also because I stuttered with certain words, and couldn't say certain words, like "refrigerator".
I sounded like I forced everything out at once - especially when I was nervous or in a rush - or in an emotional rant. I still do at times. I'm sure I sound like an idiot to my son, when he pisses me off, by doing some stupid shit.
The way I understand, our brains process and send information to fast to our mouths.
I've always had a good deal of patience for others and for situations, but I had to learn to be patient with myself. Because of my speech impediment(s), I didn't like speaking at the front of the class. And yes, some people make me feel like I'm dumb.
Getting into the IQ testing...I've been tested and strangely it comes out about the same the few times I've done it. About 128.
Because of this online debate, I asked a guy I know at my local caffeine hole. I've known him through my dad, but only that they're the same age and small talk - but knew that he was a principal at one time and that he's got 2 masters degree; one in math and one in science.
And I brought up this debate, and he lit up. He said it was right up his alley and could go on and on about it. we talked a bit, and before I say more, I need to go look up the people on the list he gave me.
But I'd like to talk with you about it. Or anyone else wanting to talk about it...
rovermom :)
Life is a 3D puzzle and everyone has a piece!
NEW! OurChart Photo Assignment and My Blog
It's how I am with math
Because my brain handles math very fast, I tend to rush right to the answer. I simply have no need to write it all down, so long as irrelevant numbers are not being spoken aloud or visually presented to me at the same time.
Because of my speech issue (which persists today), many thought me mildly retarded as a kid. In fact, when I went to enlist in the US Army, the recruiter thought I would likely not even qualify for infantry. Now throw in my being intersexed, 17 years old, and a 10th grade dropout to boot. But he went through the motions anyway, because in 1979 not many people wanted to join, and he had nothing better to do.
I got one wrong on the ASVAB, a question having to do with theoretical physics. Not only that, I completed each portion of the test faster than anyone else that year, especially math and verbal. That got me three waivers so I could get into the US Army (age, education, and being intersexed). A few months later, after I maxed my GED test, completing it in 2 hours instead of 2 days, I was subjected to a battery of tests. At 17, my IQ was 189.
To this day, people still underestimate me because of the way I speak. Hence why I prefer forums like this most times, since such irrelevancies do not come into play. Every now and then, though, it is fun to blow someone's mind with just how smart I am, after they've made assumptions about my intelligence based upon how I speak. I'll usually figure out what topic areas they are good at, and then wipe the intellectual floor with them, lol.
Unfortunately, though, I'm still learning how to present things more slowly. It's still hard to see the answer right there in front of me, but having to walk others through it. Being a first responder instructor, giving the occasional lecture in colleges, and explaining my views and ideas here on OC and other places helps quite a bit. It's just that, every now and then, my brain operates like a fully loaded big rig with a stuck throttle and no brakes going down a 10% grade. It's one of the reasons why things that don't make sense logically, like electing a president with an IQ of 78, bigotry, or hypocrisy frustrate the hell out of me.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Learning disorders
I'd just like to add a little voice of caution in this topic, if I may.
Learning disabilities, not just dyslexia, but ADHD, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, nonverbal learning disabilities - today just have have a little too big prevalence, statistically speaking, impossiblly high prevalence (I won't torture you with numbers). Now, I know a couple of people who had dyslexia (one of them now teaches at Johns Hopkins, example of all of you who commented show that it's not impossible to overcome); but we've become too "easy" on these diagnoses; we're practically imposing neurological illness on children, when there is none.
Declaring that people who have trouble calculating as fast as majority of kids have a neurological desease called dyscalculia is equivalent to declaring that a child who cannot run 100 m below 15 seconds has - dysmusculia? Insane. I'm not saying that dyscalculia doesn't exist, it's just that today we use unsecure methods and symptoms with wide range of possible causes to diagnose these "deseases;" that 50 years ago nobody would care about.
There are a couple of reasons for that, I'll name two. First is of course money; second one are deteriorating educational systems.
Money: Golden age of pharmaceutical industry has passed a long time ago (they are registering only 20 new medications per year, compared to 50-100 in the past decades), they don't produce enough new medications to make same amount of money, so they've found solution for making profit in - making up the diseases, and making them easy to diagnose. Why not make advertisements on TV that show hyperactive child taking pills and becoming responsible (pills are usually only vitamin C); so that the parents think their child needs to take the pills and spend 20 dollars on it? It doesn't really help, it doesn't hurt, and they're making money. Why not organize congresses and lectures for psychiatrists, pay them vacations, show them how to diagnose these diseases? Oh, to hell with it, we can have clinics and spa centers for the treatment of learning disabilities. Let them pay!
Educational system: Lack of methodology, lack of attention for every child. Couple of days ago, my 10 years old sister, when I asked her what day did in biology class, said they've learned that life came "from lightning." I laughed at her. I called my mother, and we both laughed at her for saying that, leaving child in tears. Later on I was wondering how could she misunderstand what the book said (it said that electrical discharge in hot salty water with inorganic compounds was necessary for chemical reaction to occur and create organic compounds), I took the book, and I saw that from a perspective of a 10 yo child it might look as if life came from "lightning." But chemistry was cut for 30%, physics was cut for 30% lately, she didn't have a good perspective. And teacher failed to explain it in 45 minutes to 25 children in the class.
But at first, I declared her stupid. If I didn't fix her self-esteem later by explaining her Miller's primeval soup properly (it took me 4 hours); some psychiatrist would probably impose neurological illness on her on his return from pharmaceutical-industry-sponsored-vacation. And we'd accept that, to blame illness for our own lack of persistance, patience and other failiures.
Huh, enough. Hope I didn't choke you. In summary, I just wanted to say, be careful, don't be naive and buy that crap from advertisments (it's biggest scam since IQ test). Diagnosis has to have very, very firm indications. Biochemical, if possible.
P.S. Sorry for my English.
~Dominus Cerebri~
your english is great
learning is process, not just result, a culture unto itself.
gg:
i thought of you this morning when i drove to work & it said VOL-AUX on my stereo. it made me think of london!
dyslexia - the language of my people
I was diagnosed in 5th grade. All of a sudden I was failing my spelling tests. My mother asked to see the list of words I had to spell and of course they were all messed up. I also have amazing problems with math. The spelling is a little bit better now as an adult but don't ask me to spell miscellaneous on the fly. Oh and punctuation totally disappears when I read.
But I did graduate with a degree in journalism.
----------------------------------
http://scoopstheblog.com
Don't you love technology?
Spell check is my very bestest friend. Have you tried altering the language settings on your computer to color code punctuation for you? You can copy and paste, then read it from there. I do it for some of my students. At least miscellaneous is a big word. About half the time I have to write what, want, when, and went in the air before I put them on paper. I also stop to count the letters and make sure they have 4 just to be sure. You obviously compensate very well.
Taem?
I had also learned that
I had also learned that using certain colors, like a see through color film, over papers or computer screen, will help with the processing of the visual information, so things won't be mixed up.
rovermom :)
Life is a 3D puzzle and everyone has a piece!
NEW! OurChart Photo Assignment and My Blog
Overlays do help for some folks.
To anyone out there who wants to try them, rather than go to one of the many highly paid and often quack-tastic Visual Therapists/technicians/diagnosticians, just go to an office supply or scrap booking store and get a multi-pack of assorted color overhead film or velum and try laying it over double spaced text in a sans serif font. If you find a color that works well for you, you can set your computer screen to a similar background color, print on that color paper, use the overlay on anything you can actually lay on a table, or get tinted glasses.
I don't want to sound jaded, but we had a Visual Therapist write the exact same "prescription" for at least a dozen kid in 2 months. The same color doesn't work for everyone.
Also, a lot of us are glare sensitive. Try working in natural light. It may make a great difference. If you work in an office with overhead florescence, see if you can bring in a regular lamp with a shade and put a full spectrum or natural lite bulb in it and turn the overheads off. Another option is to let the bulbs burn out right over your desk and don't replace them. You will probably get enough light from the others and won't be so effected by the glare. You used to be able to buy tinted covers for he ceiling fixtures, but htey were exorbitantly expensive and often fell from the sky. I haven't seen them in years since our district no longer allows them due to safety concerns. If all else fails, try wearing a visor indoors, especially on days when you are not well rested and need to do a lot of reading in harsh light.
Verbose! I know. Sorry
Taem?
I-CHING spreaddSSS
I-CHING spreaddSSS AROUND!!
我爱你格雷斯！！！
NOTHING BUT LOVE LOVE & LOVE
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
I feel you Grace!!
....well not literally!! But yea, was diagnosed with dyslexia a few yeas ago and know what it feels like. Very frustrating at times...and I know the ... I hear the words but I know it doesn't match "look" !!! as for the OK...have the letters (I think) but now for their order!!!! This can be interesting too!!
School is always fun too!!(NOT)
I hear you.
My apparent 'disorder' is that I have major problems with pronouncing certain words. It takes a lot of practice, but still there are quite a few words that I just can not say. I hear them in my head, but they just won't come out right. I've been made fun of my whole life for this. I was put in a special class at a young age... everyone just called us the "sped" (stupid) kids.
Thankfully, since I was younger have gotten much better, but still... It does hit me in the face here and there. Its quite embarrassing when you are having what seemed to another person as an intellectual conversation and then all of a sudden, you look like a complete idiotic for mispronouncing a word.
I also have a tendency to skip a lot of words when I'm writing or typing because I get too far ahead of myself. Oh, have I gotten in trouble for that at school.
So, on some level, I can see where you are coming from.
My best friend is a severe
My best friend is a Severe Dyslexic and the school system failed her.
She spent most of her time in remedial classes when the school(s) decided she had a 'Learning Disability,' but couldn't pinpoint what it was. It was only after she graduated high school and when she was unable to get into 'traditional' post secondary education, that she underwent testing. She called me the day she received her results - her spirits exceptionally high, because she was finally able to validate that she wasn't the idiot that people always treated her as throughout school.
She is probably one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and is extremely technologically savvy. She also has outstanding critical thinking skills.
On the flip-side, taking directions from her is a bad idea and I won't ever do that again! The last time, I ended up at the Canadian/USA border, completely unprepared, had my car stripped and those "dumb-asses" pulled on their rubber gloves. That's a story for another day though...
*** ***
"The most important quality essential to success is perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."--Unknown
Don't ever take directions
from someone with VD! The border had me chuckling until I got to the gloves.
Taem?
Yeah...
You just know they mean 'business' when they pull out the rubber gloves! ;) Don't worry, they weren't for me...
*** ***
"The most important quality essential to success is perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."--Unknown
I'm with you...
I'm 51 and found out I was dyslexic when I was around 30ish. Never could understand why my friends seemed to be so much smarter than me and why they wrote so well. Also, I'm left-handed and back in the early 60's when I was in a Catholic grade school the nuns used to smack me on my hand with a ruler until I changed writing hands. My right-handed writing is much worse than left-handed. It still pisses me off to this day. Sorry for the rant but thank you for sharing. It made me feel better anyway.
Dixie,
My father, brother, and sister were all lefties. They used to tape my sister's hand to the desk so she wouldn't use it. My brother was younger and Dad insisted that he become ambidextrous at home so he wouldn't suffer at school. He was also a very badly behaved genus, so he gave the teacher at least as good as he got. I got lucky and only had to survive CCD classes.
That which does not kill us... has not yet been overtaken by the Catholic church.
;)Taem?
yikes
it was bad enough growing up in the 70's can't imagine the crap you had to put up with in the 60's. yeah well we got the last laugh... err, i think :)
Don't let me be misunderstood...
Nina...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T3FXFnoTzE
rovermom :)
Life is a 3D puzzle and everyone has a piece!
NEW! OurChart Photo Assignment and My Blog
Grace
Thank you for this blog I have had ppl on this site make FUN of me because of this very thing you have just blogged about .It took me 4 years to do at collage what should have only taken 2.Ppl sometimes can be very ,well not to nice.
Thank you
DeeDee
yo lexic sister,
and yeah, kelly and erin make fun of me! i still like them though, whatcha gonna do... ;)
Grace :) but hasn't your
Grace :)
but hasn't your friendship/ co-worker relationship slipped off into reality, beyond the internet? I assume you speak through many means, such as phone, email, and maybe even in person?
I've always liked Dee Dee - even after all this time, I still take the time to engage with her. I accept her writing style - as I have with many who've come and gone.
Though ALL CAPS IS A BIT....trying. all caps do hurt my eyes. I think our personalities come out through the style...
and I like that...
rovermom :)
Life is a 3D puzzle and everyone has a piece!
NEW! OurChart Photo Assignment and My Blog
No
I try and keep those two at a distance... we only communicate here! ;)
and i'm not sure we even communicate here
she's right, R-Mom...absence rounds the edges
make fun of you, MoonBeam?
you *are* fun
still got
my eye on you blackwell... even if you look backwards and upsidedown.
LOL :)
She's MADE of words! But such an inexplicable temptation. Like that sore tooth that you just can't resist running your tongue over, or the novel you can't put down when you're really too tired to read and the letters keep swimming no matter how hard you try to focus.
;)Taem?
Yay for learning disorders!!
I have mild dyslexia which I have been told is in part due to an auditory disorder that I have. When I was very young I had a speech impediment which everyone thought I would grow out of. And when started grade school they wanted to put me in the "special" class because I would right numbers in the wrong order and I couldn't spell. My mom took me to a hearing specialist who discovered that I couldn't always compute auditory messages. I know this sounds weird and its hard to explain. The best way to explain it is to say that when sounds are similar I have a hard time differentiating them. So if someone said "It's time for school." I would hear "It's time for stool." Which is very confusing for a kid.lol. So instead of being put in the "special" class I was given speech therapy which really helped. School was very hard even after the classes. I ended up teaching myself mostly, especially when it came to math. I did everything in my head up until grade 6, when I would do long division without showing any work and would get in trouble but for me the fewer numbers on the page the easier it was. I no longer have a speech impediment and I have moderately good spelling, I sometimes have trouble understanding everything people are saying but I'm good at coping with that. Thanks for reading my story, know I got a little long winded there.lol.
~Azuria~
Azuria,
Thanks for sharing. I generally find it harder to help my students with auditory dyslexia than those more like me with the visual strand. I never know whether this is just because I have had more practice developing strategies for myself with the visual type, or if it is because our society is so dependent on oral language. I do know what you mean about the numbers. I could compute in my head before I could read numbers. I was very lucky to have a wonderful 6th grade math teacher, Mr. Gravini. He was born in Italy and I still hear him with a strong accent, "I nee, to see, da wor! Essep for T. She do it allll in her head." Every time he said it, it was a blessing, a validation.
Curious, do you also have trouble with sequencing and keeping track of time?
Taem?
...
No I don't have a problem with sequencing and keeping track of time...at least I dont think so. I'm sure your students that are like me appreciate that you try. Many of my teachers just thought that I wasn't paying attention to them, they couldn't understand that I just couldn't understand them. For instance, my French teacher, for my final exam it was 50% oral and 50% written, I got a 96% on the written part but a 42% on the oral.
~Azuria~
Thanks Grace for sharing how
Thanks Grace for sharing how dyslexia looks from the inside. I appreciate the insight. My Dad is dyslexic, but was never officially diagnosed in school because they didn't know or care about learning disorders back then. It wasn't until my sister took a course in college about identifying students with learning difficulties, that we finally understood why Dad's letters to us were so jumbled.
Dad was from a poor working class family in the UK who hoped for a university scholarship. He was top of his class in math, but the school required that he pass his english exam (longer and more horrible than modern dumbed-down tests) or he would get no credit for any other subject and so not graduate. It took him three tries to scrape a pass. He went on to get his master's degree in Statistics and become a computer software engineer - so definitely no lack of brains or industry as some supposed.
Along the way, he asked a sweet Canadian secretary to help proof read and type his thesis. They are still married, so I harbour no ill feelings when I have to work to decipher his latest letter!
Dad also wrestled with colour-blindness and being left-handed in a right-handed system. Despite all this he has worked hard to be able to compete in the business world. I respect that many cannot manage this because of severe disability or situations preventing them getting help. I also understand that many kids with no learning disabilities get no chance for a decent education.
However, there are folk who, gifted with education, opportunity, and smart computers, are unwilling to make any effort with their written communication. They instead expect everyone else to make extra efforts to understand when reading their messes. If I were to act this way, it would seem to me as if I was insulting my Dad and all the effort he has put out over the years, given how comparatively easy the same thing is for me.
Soooo, it is because my Dad is dyslexic and because I "raise my fist" as a dyslexic ally, that I have no problem with Kelly M. picking a fight with lazy english students and an educational system that promotes that. (I don't blame teachers - we are too often caught in the middle!)
Thanks again.
PS. I are only a science teechur: everyone feel free to point out my own grammar screw-ups!
here's to
fighting the good fight.
algebra,trigonometry and calculus
when it comes to these subjects...i don't how else to explain it but i experience brain fade..when someone begins to recite any numbers involving one of those three my eyes glaze over and i can only hear a distant murmur of sound like they are at the other end of a tunnel. oddly, the sensation only lasts as long as the sound of numbers being recited.lol
everything else is a piece of cake.
thankfully, everyone has their own gifts and together we make a whole.
write on grace,write on.....
I was diagnosed...
with AADD. I would be listening to a conversation when my mind would wander. I thought I just found people boring, but, alas, AADD. To top it off I started printing/writing left handed in elementary school. My parents were under the impression that left handed people had tendencies towards psychological problems and forced me to learn to write right handed. Like that helped!!
Peace and love!
I was diagnosed with ADD as
I was diagnosed with ADD as well, and like you I thought I was just bored with people. Then when I found I had a hard time following tasks to completion because I'm so easily distracted I knew something was up and got tested. I always thought ADD was a childhood disorder, but I've learned it's common with adults as well.
Aren't lefties supposed to be smarter than everyone else? ;-)
Really, lefties ?? P/K......
What about those of us who are ambidextrous??..........
Multi-tasking, not a problem. ;)
I think
barack obama is left handed.
check it out the next time you see a clip of him signing something.
The Dreadful D Word
Grace, I feel your pain. I am very affected by visual dyslexia, and fortunately free of the auditory variety. At the end of 2nd grade, I could not recognize or write my name. According to my dad the school wanted to put me in a class for the mentally retarded. Fortunately, he was a university professor who could not deal with the idea of having a retarded daughter. He took me to the university to be tested. Back then they called me Minimally Brain Damaged, MBD. Isn't that a lovely label! They also did an IQ, which gave Daddy-O a big grin. As a result, our town got its first reading teacher. After that, it was only a matter of months before the light finally went on in my reading brain. I see reflections, rotations, reversals, etc. and never realized that there was any visual continuity to these things they called letters. I also do not consistently perceive spacing and line. I got it when my wonderful reading teacher brought in foot tall sandpaper letters and had me feel an e with my eyes closed. She then rotated it and had me feel it again, and again, and again. Bing! There it was. After that, all I had to do was learn all the things and e could possibly look like, and 6 is one of them.
People who have never experienced this do not tend to "see" the many things that look the same to we of the Dreadful D. They think, "That idiot doesn't know the difference between a letter and a number." In their least sensitive moments, the shout their ignorant perception of our ignorance. A couple of them actually lurk around this site.
I was lucky; Once the light went on, I caught up quickly and became proficient at standard tests. Over that 2nd grade summer, my dad also put quite an effort into making sure no one would ever mistake his daughter for dumb Irish again. I finished high school with 3 times as many English credits as were required, because I had developed a massive love of language. You probably guessed that from the verbose nature of my posts.
I still have to finger scan numbers to get the digits in order, to the frequent amusement of my friends and amazement of my Special Ed. students. I also sometimes amuse folks by verbally processing signs as I pass by; Proper Nouns, especially of the more nonsensical variety, can be a challenge. On the plus side, I can do those word scrambles in a hot second. These days, I use the D Word to my advantage. When I get a new 4th grader who tells me, "Miss, I don't do reading. I'm Special Ed." I respond with a big smile, "Welcome to the club. Let me tell you about the D Word."
Taem?
uhmmm
you got me thinking...
becuase i think that d'lexic ppl are very spacial.
I wonder, do you think you percieve symbols 3 dimesionally? I mean becuase it seemed that in order for you to understand the letter E you needed to perceive it from all angles in every direction.
i sort of think that dyslexia is a kind of orientation to space... or perceived space.
wait what the hell did i just say?
Yes
Given that the big D is a bit of a chameleon and rears its head in different aspects for different people, many of us do think in that way. For me compensating has become so automatic that most of the time I am unaware of how I do it. But when I am particularly tired or stressed, I will find myself closing my eyes and trying to "feel out" the problem text. In this state I tend to "see" things as large wooden or granite sculptures floating and turning in space. If I am really frustrated, I may imagine myself initially beating on, throwing, or even smashing these images until they are tamed and reconstruct themselves in meaningful ways. Similarly, I tend to mentally catalog my life events, especially the stressful ones, in little boxes stored in a warehouse in my mind. I know; I'm a freak.
I also do better if I do not look at my writing as I scribe it. I can remember literally getting nauseous in 6th grade when my teacher insisted that I recopy cursive that I had spent hours on the night before, tearing up page after page. She would stand over me and hold my head tightly to make me look at what I was doing. Every time I did, the script would undulate on the page like a heaving ocean. In this case, imagining complete darkness serves me best. I never managed anything better than a typical 2nd grader until I learned to teach cursive with the Herman Reading Program for the Remediation Of Dyslexia. It uses a gross motor tactile approach that is very close to the way I learned to read.
Some of my kids tell me that they think in cartoons or movies. Others say they see themselves becoming the letters, also often suspended or floating in space.
Many of us also have trouble imitating scripted movements. For instance, we may find it hard to watch and then imitate a dance step. Yet, in a relaxed state we can respond well to a good lead and often enjoy physical activities with repetitive motions that build motor pathways in the brain. Other individuals with dyslexia, especially those with the auditory or overlapping forms, may have a natural grace and excel in most physical activities, scripted or improvised.
So, all of you D's out there, bring on your images. I figure it is probably about as personal as our finger prints.
Taem?
PS: Grace, do you hear and differentiate sounds easily? Or do some of he sounds seem too similar to easily decide which one you are dealing with? Just curious.
Those 4th graders are LUCKY to have you Taem!!!
Find the silver lining...
~HUGS~
S&S, Thanks for the fuzzies!
:) Taem?
i had very poor hand-eye
i had very poor hand-eye coordination (still not that great) and motor skills so my hand writing looked like carp. when i was in grade school we still got "grades for handwriting" took a lot of slaps on the hand and practice for me to write within the line or legibly or whatever.
kudos
kudos grace for not letting your dyslexia stop you from writing, being an editor and your degree.
i don't have dyslexia but it might seem that way from the way i type.
my brother had learning and reading difficulties too, i think he might have a some degree of dyslexia and he's seriously smart, studying engineering and has an IQ of way above average. dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence as I'm sure you know :)
I'm not dyslexic but my girlfriend is!
My father and brother have a reading disability. So does my girlfriend. When we first started talking over the internet, I noticed a few misspelled words but for some reason I dismissed it (unlike a few others who I wrote back "you sound nice, but could you at least use some punctuation marks?" to which they never wrote back again). Of course she did write she had a limited amount of time and it was quicker to tell me that than to go over what she wrote. Later she told me she was dyslexic.
She’s been mad at me before, she did something that I thought was cute but it isn’t to a dyslexic. She was writing down an address to which she was told 9th street. When I read it, it said Pth street. Her dyslexia sends letters and numbers every which way (d, b and p are the hardest), she’s learned to compensate most of time, and it helps to write on a computer that will warn you or fix it automatically when letters are switched. It is frustrating to me when I edit her papers though, I fix the spelling errors (like when she used a different but legitimate spelling of a word) and don’t see any grammar squiggly marks like when I write. Okay so I write like I talk and I don’t always talk proper, but I don’t believe I sound dumb, I just word things differently than most people. Either way it is an improper sentence according to the squiggles… And she doesn’t get that, even when she uses the wrong spelling.
So she’s got me beat on that I guess. Numbers are actually the biggest problem, which is surprising because she is really good at math and berates me for using a calculator. But again she learned to compensate. At the eye doctor recently, while being asked the letters on the board she said “3”, to which the doctor gave her a look like she was dumb, “There are no numbers up there.” She of course had to explain the situation.
So I watch myself now when she mixes stuff up, not just in writing but also in speaking… (<-- if you could see this now it has grammar squiggles! [I sometimes write in a document to check these things]) And try to be kinder when (and if) I correct her.
Funny
I thought your title said
Dyslexics Untie! I'd be Mensa if it wasn't for ADD...
∞ Reach out and touch somebody ∞
Where Rocket Pops
Here are a few others with dyslexia...
Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Woodrow Wilson.....Not a bad Posse to have!!!
BUBBA LOVE
LAKE