dyslexia question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the PP whose son reads poetry. I am dyslexic as well. My family knew "something" was wrong, and I was assessed in the early 80's for a learning disability. My parents eventually stopped the assessment for fear of having me labeled. Since they didn't really know what to do for dyslexia then, and because diagnosis was so different, not sure whether it would have made any difference. I eventually learned to read, but didn't understand until learning about dyslexia for my son that you COULD segment words into little tiny sounds. I learned to read by recognizing the shapes of words. And spelling? I have already had to retype four or five in this paragraph that spell check caught. I wanted to write the work "odyssy" to describe my son's journey up above, but spell check won't recognize any of my attempts to spell it, so I wrote a different sentence. My working memory is very poor, so math is very difficult. I can't remember phone numbers or other strings. BUT. I went to a very good college, and a stellar graduate program. I devour books for the pure joy of it. I have a job I love and am very good at. Clearly, I have compensated. My hope for my kid is that the early training in reading helps rewire his brain enough that he isn't limited in his life choices by his dyslexia, the way I was. I wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't memorize and do math well enough to get through chemistry.

OP here. Thank you so much for this. I'm sorry you struggled in school, but if you've have so much success without support, imagine what our children can accomplish with support! My child has some other diagnoses to complicate things, but supporting her academic learning will make everything else easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fortysomething year old who has dyslexia. I didn't have all the care and attention you all put into helping your children and back in the day they didn't know as much about how to help kids too. (FYI - I did well through school, went to Ivies and am a professional writer). Just my two cents, by I find that when I'm tired I have trouble reading and 'mess up' when writing (which can manifest as mixing up my "p" "b" and "d" letters) when I'm tired.

Thanks for the supportive "success story"!

I'm not the OP, BTW. We think my daughter's dyslexia comes from my FIL's side. He also went to an Ivy League school and got a PhD in Engineering (more common for dyslexics than writing, obviously ). He also had no support and mixes letters and reads slowly. He believes that if he were born now he still would not have been diagnosed because it didn't actually effect his school progress. I also have a friend who says that the diagnosis "hits home" because she also has some symptoms of dyslexia. However, I'm pretty sure my daughter would have just been thought to be stupid if she were going to school in the 1950s. The problem with it is....she's NOT doing well. I mean, she is, but only because the school is aware of her problems and is working with her and assessing her accordingly. Dyslexia, as PPs have stated, is such a HUGE umbrella. Did you have issues with math? When did you realize you were dyslexic?

I'm hoping that, like you, my daughter will excel in College. I think for the people I grew up with it seemed to get a little easier once they were able to have more of an option as to which classes they took and College was a lot better than grade school.

I'm also hopeful that spell check and things will make some past issues dyslexics faced a thing of the past.

BTW, since this is DCUM and people always yell at each other, I'm concerned that my questions in the 2nd paragraph sound "rude". Because they're at the end of a paragraph! I'm really just asking. I'm wondering how pervasive the different symptoms are in different people as they get older.

I'm the 'fortysomething' PP -- don't worry, not taken as rude at all - I did pretty well school-wise but definitely struggled with spelling, handwriting and reading comprehension in elementary school. I remember getting criticized A LOT for my spelling as though it was a major character flaw. In high school, in retrospect, it clearly impacted things like geometry for me - and even standardized testing (mixing up b's and d's! and not having the benefit of extra time for those types of tests with an LD). I didn't know until recently that I actually was diagnosed with dyslexia in 3rd grade but my parents never told me -- and I suppose it was a different time when there weren't really any particular services in the school then anyway and I guess there were more concerns then about being 'labeled' as not as smart then about getting any resources for help. Didn't really 'realize' I was probably dyslexic until sometime in high school when I would take notes fast and realize I would consistently mix letters up and go back and fix them and a friend of mine's mother who was a teacher also at some point noticed it said 'oh yea, you're dyslexic". I mentioned something fairly recently to my mom about being dyslexic and she mentioned that they had identified it in 3rd grade and they she said "but you did just fine anyway." I (obviously) wish I had the access to help and the knowledge they have now about it. Sorry your daughter is having difficulty in school - I know it is a big umbrella and everyone is different - it's such a challenge to see your child struggle and it's so hard to keep pushing against the system to find help - so just sending my encouragement and support as you continue with it. She's lucky to have a mom who is committed to helping her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the PP whose son reads poetry. I am dyslexic as well. My family knew "something" was wrong, and I was assessed in the early 80's for a learning disability. My parents eventually stopped the assessment for fear of having me labeled. Since they didn't really know what to do for dyslexia then, and because diagnosis was so different, not sure whether it would have made any difference. I eventually learned to read, but didn't understand until learning about dyslexia for my son that you COULD segment words into little tiny sounds. I learned to read by recognizing the shapes of words. And spelling? I have already had to retype four or five in this paragraph that spell check caught. I wanted to write the work "odyssy" to describe my son's journey up above, but spell check won't recognize any of my attempts to spell it, so I wrote a different sentence. My working memory is very poor, so math is very difficult. I can't remember phone numbers or other strings. BUT. I went to a very good college, and a stellar graduate program. I devour books for the pure joy of it. I have a job I love and am very good at. Clearly, I have compensated. My hope for my kid is that the early training in reading helps rewire his brain enough that he isn't limited in his life choices by his dyslexia, the way I was. I wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't memorize and do math well enough to get through chemistry.

OP here. Thank you so much for this. I'm sorry you struggled in school, but if you've have so much success without support, imagine what our children can accomplish with support! My child has some other diagnoses to complicate things, but supporting her academic learning will make everything else easier.

PP, thanks for your BRILLIANT description of how difficulty spelling affects you and why predictive spellers don't always help. We have been fighting DC's IEP team who keeps saying his spelling is "fine" but won't acknowledge that his work is far too simplistic for someone at his IQ. His inability to spell the words he can say makes his writing very basic -- just as you describe writing a different sentence when you realized you can't spell "odyssey". And, the IEP team insists that they don't actually have to teach him how to spell -- he can just use technology to get around his terrible spelling. But, of course, he has to be able to get the start of a word close enough that the predictive speller would recognize it -- and often he can't get close enough to make the technology useful.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the spelling thing is very frustrating. Spelling for me, at least, was complicated by two things (still is) - the inability to understand what makes up the "innards" of a word - usually the vowels in the middle - and the lack of working memory that would allow you to memorize how to spell a word. I remember feeling so bewildered by how other people could study for a spelling test, or any test, really. It seemed magical to me that other people could read something a few times, and poof! It would be available to them an hour or a day later. Not for me. And so my teachers implied, all through elementary and high school, that I must be lazy, because I sure wasn't stupid and yet I couldn't remember stuff. And since I wasn't lazy it was just crushing. The suggestion that I should just "look it up" in a dictionary with spelling was crazy making. People who can spell don't even think about the fact that you have to have a good guess as to how to spell a word in order to look it up. Try the word "chaos." I remember wanting to write about something in third or fourth grade and not being able to find the damn word anywhere in the dictionary, try as I might. Technology is WONDERFUL, and spell check has actually taught me how to spell. Its a great teaching tool for dyslexics. But it doesn't help when it doesn't recognize what you are trying to say. One thing that might help your son is speech to text - lots of different ways to do it, but simply saying a word into Siri will do, or the mic button on the Samsung phone keyboards. It doesn't recognize some things, but it does pretty well. Good luck! I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I know that my struggles with school are part of who I am. I have terrific empathy for others who struggle, for the underdog, and it has shaped what I do for work, what church I go to, etc. And I have seen my son go from a light-hearted jokester to a sad boy to now a content boy who holds his shoulders a little straighter with pride at what he has accomplished. He isn't as light hearted, but his humor is back, and it has a delicious wicked streak in it. I'm not saying what your child is going through is GOOD for him, just that its probably unavoidable that he struggles through this...and he will probably come out the other side one awesome young man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the spelling thing is very frustrating. Spelling for me, at least, was complicated by two things (still is) - the inability to understand what makes up the "innards" of a word - usually the vowels in the middle - and the lack of working memory that would allow you to memorize how to spell a word. I remember feeling so bewildered by how other people could study for a spelling test, or any test, really. It seemed magical to me that other people could read something a few times, and poof! It would be available to them an hour or a day later. Not for me. And so my teachers implied, all through elementary and high school, that I must be lazy, because I sure wasn't stupid and yet I couldn't remember stuff. And since I wasn't lazy it was just crushing. The suggestion that I should just "look it up" in a dictionary with spelling was crazy making. People who can spell don't even think about the fact that you have to have a good guess as to how to spell a word in order to look it up. Try the word "chaos." I remember wanting to write about something in third or fourth grade and not being able to find the damn word anywhere in the dictionary, try as I might. Technology is WONDERFUL, and spell check has actually taught me how to spell. Its a great teaching tool for dyslexics. But it doesn't help when it doesn't recognize what you are trying to say. One thing that might help your son is speech to text - lots of different ways to do it, but simply saying a word into Siri will do, or the mic button on the Samsung phone keyboards. It doesn't recognize some things, but it does pretty well. Good luck! I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I know that my struggles with school are part of who I am. I have terrific empathy for others who struggle, for the underdog, and it has shaped what I do for work, what church I go to, etc. And I have seen my son go from a light-hearted jokester to a sad boy to now a content boy who holds his shoulders a little straighter with pride at what he has accomplished. He isn't as light hearted, but his humor is back, and it has a delicious wicked streak in it. I'm not saying what your child is going through is GOOD for him, just that its probably unavoidable that he struggles through this...and he will probably come out the other side one awesome young man.

Thanks so much for your encouragement! We will try speech to text. It didn't work at an early age -- way to frustrating and son had an articulation disorder -- but now that he is older and articulation disorder has been remediated, we should try again.