It's me again!!!!!

Have you ever seen Leonardo DaVinci’s writings? Elaborate, all in mirror writing.

Sadly, schools are mush less enthused about this amazing ability. What I tell my son is that you have an insight that is so amazing, you have to learn “the old way” so you can share what you know with people because they can’t grasp “your way”. I tell him the world needs what he knows.

How much less enriched we’d be without Leonardo.

I did some searching on the internet on this topic and this is some information I came up with. It sounds like they are stating it is a problem with one eye is not taking the lead.

www.moddrc.com/Information-disabilities/FastFacts/LearningDisabilities.htm

Visual - Spatial Dyslexia involves trouble recognizing letter symbols and sight words. Individuals with this disability sometimes confuse similar letters or reverse letters. Some people recognize mirror (reversed) letters more easily than correct ones.

They learn to sound out words more easily than those who have auditory linguistic dyslexia. Their spelling errors tend to be phonetic (“wuz” for was) or reversed letters “hwy” for “why,” or confused letters “dab” for “bad.” People with this disability are very slow in building a sight vocabulary.

http://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/vision.htm
C Lack of a fixed reference eye.
Identification of this condition can only be done with a synoptophore by an Orthoptist. The Dunlop test indicates whether or not the child can consistently associate the information about what is seen, with where it is in space, always to the same eye. If the child uses first one eye and then the other, letters may appear to move in space and become mirror reversed. Mirror reversals are due to the way in which information is transferred from one side of the brain to the other. Only if a Dunlop test has been used to identify this problem can occlusion (covering) of the left eye be suggested for reading, writing and number work only using special glasses.

Reading age improves as the confusion is overcome and the child develops a fixed reference eye, after 3/6 months of treatment. (Stein & Fowler 1985, Stein et al 2000).

http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/teachers/newsletter03c.html
The Reference Eye (Dunlop et al 1973)

The eye chosen to lead in situations where both eyes are used in binocular activity. In reading, the eyes assume a disjugate visual direction (because the eyes are converged) and it is important that one eye takes the lead so that the eyes can scan easily and accurately across the page.

Thanks for the info, reading that made me think of something else, when my son was first learning to shoot a gun, it used to drive my husband crazy….because he would sight in the gun with the opposite eye. He overcame that, and now is a deadly shot.
As a matter of fact, one of his ambitions is to be a sniper. Of
course that’s only if he can’t make it as a pro baseball or football player. LOL

My husband sights and shoots with the opposite eye. Deadly shot as well.

My child would write from right to left, mirror image when she was 5. I corrected her every time I saw her do it, so I haven’t seen her do it lately. She writes with her left hand, but is actually mixed dominance. How about your son?

Janis

Hey Osi, nice to see/read you again.

The mirror deal is quite interesting. Our son went through a spell where he was quite intrigued by the same deal. In fact, in about 7th or 8th grade (I think I’ve posted about this before), he did a science experiment that blew everyone away. Particularly sceptical teachers etc.

H took a piece of plywood about the size of a legal pad of paper, but a little longer. He put a mirror up at the end of it and supported it with some brackets etc., and a piece of wood behind it. Then took two arms (for lack of a better word) and put them up at the front of the deal, about 12 inches off the board. Then put a piece of cardboard over the two arms, and made it so you could see the legal pad on the board, but only thru the mirror, and not be able to look down at your hand when you are writing.

Then, he prepared a little experiment for all to try. He had stored up all the prompts teachers and other kids had used on him in the past. He had a couple parts to the experiment. First was writing a sentance that he dictated. Then do a couple of math problems, simple addition/subtraction but with a few columns. Then he had a free drawing of a picture.

Then he pulled out a stop watch, told all who dared, they would be timed, and proceeded to unleash his humor.

As someone was trying to write, while looking in the mirror (only), without seeing their hand or pen, he would say some of the following:

“come on, aren’t you trying?”
“that’s awefully sloppy, you can do better, can’t you?”
“hurry up, we don’t have all day”
“my little brother/sister can write better than that”
“are you really trying? Is that the best you can do? Really???”
“if you can’t form the letters properly, you are going to have to stay in from recess/be pulled out from class… so you can practice”

Anyway, you get the picture. For added emphasis, he had a pair of very heavy rubber, gloves to offer to anyone who wanted to increase the challenge.

Then, he showed them how easy it was for him to write, do the math, and stay in “proper order”, while looking in the mirror. The point made here was it was abundantly clear you would have to practice a long time to get good at this activity, and since that is how he interprets things, he’s been doing it his whole life. So technically, the dyslexic must work much harder to switch from mirrro to non-mirror all day long in class.

His teacher was severely blown away. What was most interesting is much of the scratch pad that was used by all the others had work samples that looked very similar to some of our son’s work. Needless to say, the teacher was a great guy, very compassionate, but became far more aware of how tough it is for a dyslexic to try and survive in the non-dyslexic aware world of education.

You can try this at your bathroom counter, and just have someone hold a book over your hand while you try to write by looking in the mirror.

Pretty wild stuff, anyway.

Andy

ps/ at work, I was writing our company name on some tags we were marking for some huge trees for a large job. The company name has 2 “n’s” in it. I swear, at one point, one time, I could not make the “n” the proper way after trying about 5 or 6 times. I finally gave up and had the “n” go in reverse. Yet, the 2nd “n” gave me no problem. Go figure???

Another facinating tidbit. I am severly left handed, after some confusion as an amidexterous little kid. I am not a hunter or anything, but given certain opportunities, I cannot shoot rifle or bow and arrow as a lefty, must do that right handed. Same goes for shooting pool. Right handed only. When bowling, if my left hand shot goes bad, I switch to right handed for a few frames, and that helps true in my left and I switch back again. I use a hammer in my left hand only, but can swing a sledge or pick axe either way. Doubt I’d starve if I broke an arm, utensils with either side. Don’t golf, so can’t tell you about that :)

Andy

Been there done this! I am left handed,have difficulty playing any activity in which you use an object to hit a ball,it is even uncomfortable. I LOVE bowling,I am not wonderful at it,but if I am using my body to move the object,I seem to enjoy this more.I too wrote in perfect mirror image as a child,will still do this if I am tired,or rushed. My youngest writes this way,but has greatly improved,much less,but he will still do it now and again.Have to try the mirror thing with him. Here is what I want to know;

1.Do any of you get almost motion sick? If I try and focus through a miniblind that is part way open,it makes me dizzy?

2. Read the book gift of dyslexia,and tried the 3d cake exercise,and I got dizzy?

3. Do certain colors hurt your eyes? Give you a headache?

no to motion sickness, unless very rough seas fishing (don’t do it often enough to merit comment).

no to color issues.

just my .02 cents.