How disabling is mild dyslexia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have about eight very severe learning disabilities and I went to college (although it's a two year degree) (although it took me five years because I had to go part time so I wouldn't kill myself) and have a fruitful career.

Here's an example of my life: I'm 44. I went to a place set up where you could drop off your absentee ballot. I got lost. It was on the same street I lived on, but a mile away, and I got lost walking. I wandered around the area. I considered just giving up and going home before I thought of all the people waiting hours in line to vote. I had to ask four people for help before one pointed me in the right direction. While walking I thought "Am I really smart enough to vote if I'm too dumb to find the place to bring my ballot?"

Things like that happen to me multiple times per day.

You're smart enough to:
1) make the effort
2)ask for help when you need it
3)keep persisting until you get it done

A lot of people throw in the towel long before you.

[Anonymous]

My husband has mild dyslexia, self-diagnosed. He never received any support as a child and his ES teachers tried to put him in Special Ed until my MIL intervened. He excelled at math and went on to college and grad school for CS and now works for a big tech company. But he still can't read aloud well, and it's painful to hear him read Dr. Seuss to our kids. He has also worked very hard to get better at writing.

[Anonymous]

Relative with dyslexia and adhd is a very successful general surgeon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, people with dyslexia go to college. My son has profound dyslexia and dysgraphia and he is currently a senior in college. He is currently applying to graduate schools. He is at a top 20 school for his major.

You need to ameliorate the dyslexia to the extent you can. Accommodate what you can’t. For example, my son gets audio textbooks and uses a software program that reads PDFs as well as uses word prediction. He has an electronic reader for tests.

You also need to support your child’s strengths, because that is how they find their niche.

Sally Shaywietz’s “Overcoming Dyslexia” is a great place for you to start.

This is very encouraging, and thank you for this information. Would you be willing to post the name of the software program your son uses? Is the electronic reader for tests through the school, or something that you also purchased? My HS senior was diagnosed with dyslexia in 10th grade but refused any tutoring or intervention. We are in MoCo and with distance learning, it is becoming apparent to him that he needs some help and seems more willing to accept the diagnosis. Hopefully he eventually will agree to a tutor or other personalized help, and I thought that maybe starting with the software would nudge him towards this. I am just now starting to look into software like Dragon, but any recommendations from personal experience would be really helpful.

There are other more up to date software, but my DC uses Kurzweil. It was provided by FCPS from the end of 6th grade through the end of 12th grade. Now, his college provides it. Dragon did not work well for him. He also uses Word- spell check and word prediction.

If you are in MCPS, do you have a 504 or IEP? If so, you can ask the school team to ask another office in MCPS called HIAT for a technology evaluation. Kurzweil is a helpful reader program. On the chrome browser you can also download text to speech and speech to text add ons so that your DC can have something read to him or can dictate notes, english essays, etc.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/hiat-tech/

For books, HIAT can qualify you for Bookshare, which provides free ebooks of pretty much everything that was ever printed. Some dyslexics find that manipulating font size, type, color and background can help with reading.

Also look at Learning Ally, which provides unlimited access to audiobooks read by human readers. There is an annual fee of around $150/yr.

You might also try MCPL for audiobooks - the Libby app provides access as well as Hoopla. The latter has a smaller selection of audiobooks but does provide instant access (no holds or waiting)

[Anonymous]

30% of entrepreneurs have dyslexia, so yeah, I think even with severe dyslexia you can be successful. I have mild dyslexia and have 2 Bachelors and a very successful career. My daughter's is more severe since she got a bit from her dads side as well. She's very bright and will do awesome things.

[Anonymous]

Of course, my 80 year old father in law had a long, successful career and is currently still going strong in his second career.