Learning Disabilities

FAT City video is the best resource I know of and it has many examples but hte video itself is much better than anything I’ve seen done “live.” It not only conveys the cognitive challenge — simulating closely the way different kinds of tasks are made harder — but also conveys the Frustration, Anxiety and Tension that happens along with it. Watch it — and decide whether to try to copy it, or just show it ;) Lots of libraries have it.

Read this.

Thrim drut ced fuhs.

How do we read what we can’t decode properly? When my dyslexic son reads, he sounds like that sentence.

I agree that Fat City offers insight. It might also help them to be given a book in a foreign language and told to read it.

Thank you for the information, Sue.

Excellent suggestion! Thank you.

Just remember that probably the majority of people with reading disorders have problems with blending and segmenting sounds in words as opposed to seeing things backwards or wrong. I think that is a common misconception that dylexia means a visual processing problem (it might, but more often it is probably a decoding problem).

Janis

Don’t all dyslexics also have some form of APD?

Leah,

There are some children with dyslexia who have visual processing problems instead or in addition to auditory. I think the vast majority are felt to be a result of auditory processing problems, though. I think there is a common misconception out there that dyslexia means that a child sees words or letters backwards when it is usually not that at all. I mentioned that because of the way the original question was worded. I thought she possibly wanted samples of how words would look distorted to an LD child.

Janis

Not necessarily. The term “dyslexia” is very broad and covers a multitude of learning patterns. That said, APD is far more common than the supposed “letter reversals” which I have always seen in combination with bad teaching practices, never in a student who had actually been taught to write.

There are some groups that have tried to specify “dyslexia” as being auditory, and giving different names to other problems, but I don’t think it’s going to carry over to the general public. I think (but I’m not sure) that school systems which have an “approved program for dyslexics” work this way — they’ll do a phonetic, multisensory program with officially “dyslexic” students, so if your child’s problems were visual, you’d want to make sure that was addressed.

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If you contact the ABLE Program at Longview Community College in Lee’s Summit, MO, the Director—Mary Ellen Jenison—may be able to fax or send some other LD simulations. She does a workshop on it. She’s a terrific resource.

Just do a google search for “Longview Community College” and then look for the ABLE Program within the website.

Also, you might contact LDA of St. Louis. Go to www.ldanatl.org on the web and look for state chapters section. You’ll find a link to the St. Louis chapter. They had some nice workshops using FAT City and more.

Only wondering b/c my evaluator doesn’t like the term dyslexia. Although, when adopted, my daughter had “a family history of dyslexia”, she also has processing problems, etc., so those are all in addition to the “dyslexia”?

I’m just interested b/c there doesn’t seem to be any real clear cut answers.

Leah,

My understanding is that the terms “dyslexia” or reading LD indicate the presence of a processing disorder. That is part of the definition of LD. Your daughter has a reading disorder (or dyslexia) because she has an underlying processing problem. Is that what you were asking?

Janis

Yeah, I guess that’s it. So basically, dyslexia is just a term that is used to say a person has an APD or VPD, or both, correct? Maybe I’M the slow processor :-).

Actually, dyslexia is a term which means reading problems or disorder. The underlying cause of a true learning disability is a processing disorder. There are also children with reading problems because they were not properly taught.

Janis

Thank you, Janis.

Yes, Leah. I have decided to share a page of Arabic writing with the group. I will ask them to summarize the paragraph for the class. (of course with a straight face) It should be an interesting opening to my presentation on helping adults with learning disabilities. I have also contacted a university ie the video FAT City. I am very excited about this video…even though I have not viewed it yet. I have heard that it is very good. Thank you all of your good suggestions.

D.B.

Thank you, Susan.

Thank you for the information!

The word “dyslexia” literally means “difficulty/problems” (dys) with “written words” (lex).

The original definition was a diagnosis by elimination — the student was supposed to be checked for intelligence and NOT be below average, checked for hearing and NOT have a physical hearing problem, checked for vision and NOT have a sight problem, checked for educational background and NOT have missed excessive school or have been moved around a lot, and so on. If a child was otherwise apparently capable of learning to read and was properly taught (in a time when phonics was common in most areas), but still did not learn, then the child was determined to be dyslexic.

However the word dyslexia has over time taken all sorts of other social and political connotations. Over in the IDA there is a large group of people, some from the Davis organization and some others who have jumped on he bandwagon, who absolutely insist on being called dyslexic and nothing else will do. It means to them that they are in some kind of special group. Any discussion of varying kinds of learning disabilities is often met with open hostility.

Then there are bizarre legal fights over insurance in the US; in some cases courts have found that “dyslexia” is a medical condition and is covered by insurance, as it is on the list (forget the exact term — DSMV??) used by doctors for official diagnosis. So teachers and school officials are warned not to use it, as they would be practicing medicine without a license; doctors are worried about using the term since they are not educators and are afraid of opening an insurance can of worms; and parents and older students are insisting that the term dyslexia and nothing else be used, partly for the insurance and partly for the feeling that they now have a “gift” as Davis puts it.

Over in Britain, the term dyslexia has for some time been strangely overused, all reading problems often being lumped as “dyslexia” whether from real processing problems, slow learning, bad teaching, or any other reason. Then what is called a math LD or dyscalculia here has been called “math dyslexia” by some people there. Once I saw non verbal learning disability referred to as “non-reading dyslexia”, a contradictory term which struck me as quite odd.

So we have a term that means different things to different people, that some people are very aggressive and hostile over and others are very defensive about using, and that means everything and nothing in different places. No wonder many responsible people avoid the word and try to use terms that are more clearly defined!

Sorry to but in. Processing problems could be visual or auditory or others. Lots of processing sections in input, storage, retrieval, and output.

Not directed at you, but if we spent as much time fixing it as we do trying to label it, kids would be reading way more.

dyslexia refers to a person whose reading problems are not based on cognitive, emotional, social, or ESL issues, but who has problems with word recognition which affects that person’s abilities to comprehend what they read.

Now, I’m looking for the International Dyslexia Association definition. Maybe someone else will find it before I do. I would say that I’d go with whatever definition they’ve agreed upon.

Susan, I’m glad you weren’t directing the last comment at me. I am one of the prime people around here who says, “Who Cares!?” whether we use the label dyslexia! Some parents get all in a tizzy because the school won’t call their child’s disorder dyslexia. “Reading Disorder” works just fine for me! (And I’m not talking about you either, Leah. I know you just wanted clarification on the terms).

And yes, there are several types of identified processing disorders. If anyone is curious, I have a nice little outline which lists and categorizes the primary ones. Email me if you want it.

Janis

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AA,

I’d bet money on the working memory aspect. I’d say that was the first sign that something was amiss with my child’s language at age 2 or 3. She couldn’t remember simple children’s songs, etc. She completed first grade last year with real difficulty with decoding longer words. I am having her repeat first grade. I am just about 100% sure that working memory is her primary problem with other associated auditory probems.

Janis