Can Dyslexia be remediated?

Too many assumptions therein.

Why are the only two alternatives “recovering” (implying that there’s no discernible difference between the person with dyslexia and the Average Dude”) and leaving the child behind?

The “live with it vs. fix it” question is a complicated one for just about any challenge, handicap or imperfect relative.

For instance, if there isn’t anybody around with the time/knowledge to teach Dyslexiana to read, then trying to force that *issue* could mean that she has the privilege of going to a remediation that doesn’t work, and missing whatever she could have been doing instead of it, and not learning to integrate accommodations into her academic and living routine. She ends up feeling very “special,” with teachers who have low expectations (even tho’ she may have a 120 IQ), without the reading skills to get the knowledge input she could be getting and without the knowledge or practice of other ways to get that knowledge input.

On the other hand, could be that dropping out of school for a year and just working on the language skills could give her the tools to go back the next year and succeed in challenging academic classes.

On the third paw, the time and effort could be invested in accommodative resources such as books on tape and academic support to make sure that language is being developed (both receptive and expressive)…

or if what she *really* wanted to do was become a gardener (to take care of all forepaws and hind pause), then find the resources to make sure she can learn all she can about *that* — not just giving her a shovel and hoping (since we all know people with dyslexia are just so creative and resourceful) that the learning will magically happen, but finding opportunities for mentorships and at least having the literacy skills to benefit from materials in her topic of choice.

Then there are the “not the classic dyslexic” who may not be your deep abstract thinkers who struggle with words… same kinds of complications…

I feel like I’ve stepped into the middle of a conversation… but I’ll give it a shot.

Dad,

Yes, barring any other cognitive problems a dyslexic child can be remediated. Sally Shaywitz’s book “overcoming dyslexia” indicates that in order for remediation to be effective and begin to close the gap it needs to be intensive, in small groups and last for several years. The remediation needs to be explicit instruction ala Orton Gillingham.

I can’t imagine how we as a society could ever find it acceptable not to remediate dyslexia, if that is the only reason someone cannot read.

I’m not sure if Dad means “cure” or improve to as great an extent possible. I don’t think it is curable like some bacterial disease, but I think that someone can be very much improved.

If you read Sally S’s book, she suggests lots of accommodations, so I think she doesn’t really mean that the dyslexic reader will actually function EXACTLY like a non-dyslexic one in every way.

—des

No you are right. She doesn’t. It all depends of course on the severity of the dyslexia and how soon you begin appropriate intervention. My son attends a school with a very good track record of mainstreaming its students. But many of not most still require extended time…

I tell my son that he will always be dyslexic, but that he will be a dyslexic person who can read what interests him. That’s the goal for us.

I will always be a klutz, but I’m a klutz who could ride a bike 150 miles and then swim a mile. IT took more work and some really good teachers to keep me from being “left behind” — lots of people would have opted to “cut the losses” since fitness isn’t exactly a priority in this society. I still don’t jump into situations where my relative inabilities would be a problem — just as my non-regurgitory brother dropped courses that required massive regurgitation, and a well-educated dyslexic would avoid situations demanding skills s/he didn’t have at the appropriate level (whic, of course, depends…) , I don’t do fast descents or mountain biking over ditches & stumps. I’ll be able to fully participate in highly challenging physical events but I’m highly unlikely to finish first; a ‘remediated’ dyslexic can get an advanced degree — again, with a whole lot of pieces in the right place at the right time — but is unlikely to be valedictorian or get those 1400+ SAT scores.
Ironically, it’s because of the low importance of fitness that a klutz could hang out on swim teams and the like. If the teams had been more competitive, I’d have been dismissed, lest I lower standards or keep the faster competitors from achieving. This is what happens in our classrooms, unfortunately.

Remediating dyslexia takes a well trained teacher and a consistent program over a long enough period of time. Not so easy to find, but getting better as schools and teachers accept that they need to teach effectively. While some may not read as easily/automatically as non-disabled, each level of improvement opens doors to education and employment. We should always help every child achieve the most they can, to gain skills that lead to independence, to “be all that they can be”. Nothing made me angrier than arrogant professionals who told me not to bother to teach my son to read. They did not seem to understand that his school had not tried any recognized effective programs. My blind cousin was educated and no one made him sit on a corner with a cup begging for coins. My “word-blind” son will not be kept in classes that babysit and not teach!!

I think minimally the goal must be functional literacy.

Well, I work with kids (and adults) with various intractable reading problems. Since the parents have to search me out and pay cash, I get the ones where every other intervention has failed.

After a while of very hard work on my part they find that they *can* succeed at some other program and they leave me. I don’t mind, in fact that’s my goal, but I do get irritated at the ones who suddenly discover a “miracle” (usually one that rejected them before) and drop me rudely.

A small miracle happened this week; my nineteen-year-old who had/has real problems, suspected PDD, came to my place for a lesson this week, first time in a month because he’s been working long hours (and that’s a miracle too.) He looked around my home library, three thousand volumes, and started *just for fun* reading off the titles he saw! He was interested in the World Picture Atlas, and since it’s such a lovely book I hauled it down for him to have a look. He read several paragraphs on an adult level (I had to help with “viscosity”) about volcanoes, and we had an interesting discussion about Pompeii. Later he started talking about …er… adult topics — he has little idea about appropriateness and I have to spell it out for him when he shoud shut up — and I decided to try him on a genuine unabridged novel, nothing too far out, Paulo Coelho who is very popular now, and he read it!! Just a sample paragraph but I only had to help with two words! This is a youg guy who had been stuck at a Grade 2 level reading, no writing, and unemployable for many years.

So my take is that I don’t care if they all don’t become doctors or professors or much less bookworms like me — although some of them do — but if I can help a truck driver or heavy equipment mechanic or musical performer or whatever get on his road, then that’s effective remediation.

My son is 11 and has had 4 years of various therapies both directly for reading (PG and Seeing Stars) as well as general integration. I don’t know if I would say he has “recovered” as you put it Dad but he does read at grade level. Even his speed is within normal range. But reading is still a lot of work for him and not a pleasurable activity. It may always be that way for him.

However, he does read the weather forecast now in the paper and is starting to read boxes to cook (macaroni and cheese, pancakes, muffins from boxes). The other day we were at a national park and he read one of the signs to me (I had got dreadfully sea sick out on a boat and told him I couldn’t read it). Little things but all his choice.

Beth

My 10-year-old son’s reading speed is not at grade level, and reading is not pleasureable for him, but he CAN read and although he doesn’t always decode accurately, he often will decode surprisingly well (thanks to PG, SS and other interventions). So I do think all the intervention has helped and I do believe he’s on his way to becoming “functionally literate.”

In fact, the told me the other day he likes reading the ingredient lists on food packages!

Laura and Beth,
I find the same situation to be true for my son. At this point, his reading speed and accuracy remain an issue. And he doesn’t enjoy reading at all. So, I guess the best we can hope for is “functional” literacy but not enjoyment? I think that changes as an adult - at least I hope so!

Laura, Beth & KTJ,

My 11 year old sounds much like all of yours. His decoding accuracy and (untimed) passage comprehension are at grade level but his rate is still very slow. We continue to work on that, and are optimistic about it getting better still. So I guess he is being remediated but will always have dyslexia.

But I wanted to say to KTJ, that my son and his very dyslexic dad both really, really enjoy books on tape or CD. So I say that they enjoy literature every bit as much I do, they just access it differently. Maybe this isn’t important, but it seems to me a big misunderstanding that a person has to love to read to love literature. In our family at least, that just isn’t so. So is this just a big “duh” or what do you think?

Peggy,
Great point! In fact, I’m off to the library to pick up some books on CD for my son that we can convert to MP3 so he can listen to them on his IPod.

My son gets books on tape from the Talking Books Library which supplies books to the blind and dyslexic. You have to have a physician signature to qualify but it is absolutely wonderful. The tape recorder was supplied to us and the tapes come in the mail. He loves listening…this summer he has gone through tape after tape. It was recommended to us by the neurologist.

So, although my son may never love reading, he does love literature.

Beth

PS I have a sister who has no trouble reading but as an adult does not hardly read at all. My other sister always has her head in a book. From the same home—surrounded by books and magazines. It is all hard to predict.

My son too gets great enjoyment from audio books. We use the library collection and RFBD for texts. The RFBD tapes are hard to use. I am thinking of trying the CDs. Has anyone tried that? Is it easier to find your spot? Are the Talking Book Library tapes of commercial quality? I am interested in the MP3 (?) iPod route, but am not sure what I’m dealing with. MP3 is a format for downloading off the internet? and iPOD is a playing device?? I am interested in Bookshare.org for downloading copyrighted text, but I’m not sure if that works with the MP3 player. Guess that is my next phone call/email, but if you experienced folk have any suggestions, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

Much great literature is *meant* to be appreciated orally. Shakespeare, for example, never published his plays — they were meant to be heard and seen, and he only wrote down the parts for the convenience of the actors. In Dickens’ day, a great family entertainment was to get together for someone to read aloud the latest installment of one of his novels. Appreciating language and literature is a great thing. Personally I don;t care for tapes, but I’ll happily read aloud to anyone who will listen.

That said, there is a difference in how people take in information by ear versus by reading. I have always thought this, and found a real proof a couple of years ago.
I was working as an assistant to a blind friend, scanning books etc. This man has an engineering degree and decided to go for a law degree on top of it; he is highly gifted. He is able to read Braille and would like Braille books, but he tells me that with the new technology unfortunately everyone is going for the speech synthesizers and Braille is becoming less available.
In one of his last law classes there was some discussion of communication with clients. The class was assigned a reading written by a professor of medicine to help medical students understand and communicate better with their patients. There was one sentence in it that my blind friend simply could not get. This was pretty high-level stuff and the author was getting pretty philosophical. The sentence had a number of subordinate clauses and all sorts of qualifiers. My friend listened to it with his Kurzweil 3000 several times and couldn’t figure out at all what it was saying. I read it aloud to him several times, as a whole, as separate phrases, with commentary, and he still didn’t get it.
With most other students I would assume that they just got lost in the complexities, but with a person who has both engineering and law degrees that cannot be true. Finally we just let it pass. I came to the conclusion that in reading you learn to break up these multiple complexities *both* visually and verbally, and to file away parts of ugly sentences in memory so as to relate them later. But working only orally, you are trapped in analyzing in a linear fashion only, and there is a limit to how far you can go. I have also seen this limit with less gifted people at a much lower level, but there it is hard to see definite proof.

I always recommend that you try everything possible to teach students to read, and take the time it takes.
If a kid has gotten to Grade 5 without learning the basics, you aren’t going to make up five years of prior work in a couple of weeks or months; it may take years to get up to the same level as others who started earlier. Getting up to grade level is a nice goal when it’s workable but can be a distraction and counterproductive when you really need the most work. But when you’re twenty-six years old, the differences will have pretty much levelled out — it won’t matter whether you learned to read when you were six or sixteen.

Angela,

The CDs are supposed to be easier to find your spot. There was another mom who posted here who said that. We are happy with the tapes because my son uses them just for enjoyment. But he could not use them if he needed to listen to specific chapters to assist in his school work.

Victoria,

I don’t see tapes as a substitute for reading but rather as a supplement. It allows him to enjoy literature the same way his academically gifted sister can. And his tapes have helped the whole family through many a long car trip!!

Beth

This is PeggyinOrlando, I forgot to sign in.

Victoria,

I too don’t see listening as a substitute for learning to read. I’m the drill sergeant in the family as far as keeping on with the remediation/instruction for as long as it takes!

Beth and Angela,

Thanks for the tip about the Talking Book Library, I didn’t know anything about it. We’re always on the lookout for sources of books to listen to.

Cheers.