(Comment on this article)Three Simple Signs of Dyslexia (or LD)Article Topics: Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Reading, Visual/Spatial,
Article types: Personal Experience, Editorial, Point of View,
Submitted By: Ann Thompson View Submitter's Profile (annja) Three Simple Signs of Dyslexia (or LD)
It took me thirty-five years to break away from mainstream blundering about Dyslexia - or Learning Disabilities. It has taken another six years of reading educational and medical research, and of talking/listening to the actual children/adults involved, to make some sense of it all.
These are personal observations only. They are based on a forty-year teaching career spanning field work in Ontario, Jamaica, Quebec, and in two International Schools working with struggling students from around the globe. A random, broad-based, longitudinal study, one might say...
The "atypical learner" (aka "the dyslexic") will exhibit any or all of the following three traits - traits that do not identify him/her as in any way inferior:
1. Mixed lateral dominance or ambidexterity. Elsewhere I have noted that ambidexterity also seems common among those who are labeled "genius"; it may indicate exceptionality, not necessarily "learning difficulties". (M.K. Holder, specialist in handedness in primates, speculates that there may be a correlation between lateral anomalies and human variability. Robert J. Doman was the only expert whose thinking matched my real-life observations when the "laterality factor" fell, unexpectedly and uninvited, into my lap.)
2. Visual anomalies. Enough cannot be said about the critical importance of eye function. It really is not just a matter of 20/20 vision. I have met children who can wiggle their eyeballs or hold one eye steady while the other wanders. They have been to optometrists who have assessed their vision as 20/20. Yet, these same children cannot hold the binocular focus necessary for sustained reading, they skip words or syllables, or lose their place when changing lines. Science is constantly learning more about vision. The time should come when visual anomalies will be assessed before psychological testing is done; too many test components are dependent upon visual acuity and visual transport skills.
3. Double-jointedness (medically known as "hyper-mobility of joints"). This can be observed in many who have difficulty with penmanship. It seems the natural grip we apply to objects is highly variable; some students have hands that cramp, others can't seem to maintain firm, even, pressure on a pencil. Wide-bodied writing tools, especially fat gel-pens, seem to help both groups. I can only speculate on the degree to which hyper-mobility exists among our struggling students; it has only come to my attention during the past two years. It seems amazingly common, but I cannot be as definitive about this as about the lateral dominance factor. In one student's medical report a visual expert linked generalized looseness of joints to possible eye motor-function also, claiming it might account for good peripheral vision - great for the playing field and the stage - but possibly interfering with the sustained binocular frontal focus required for reading.
Only when we recognize the neuro-physiological roots of "dyslexia" (more acturately, of "exceptionality") can we begin to respect the individuals involved and, only then, can we begin to look for meaningful solutions - solutions which may motivate us to change the nature of the expected task rather than trying to change the child. |
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