Please Help Me—I’m Dyslexic

(From the Archives)

The other day, I struggled with the meaning of “waist.” I couldn’t come up with the correct spelling, “waste.”

Reading is hard. Even after years of practice, I still have trouble with words, and I still read numbers reversed in order. Reading every day has helped, as has understanding the problem.

It has been a long word to this awareness, and along the way, many people robbed me. Ruby W__ was one of the first. She taught kindergarten and started me on a journey that would end on a psychiatric ward. She sat me in a wastebasket with a dunce cap on my head. ¹ 

 

 

 

Then came Sharon Z__, a third-grade teacher who at least had the foresight to hold me back a grade. Unfortunately, Sharon came to this conclusion only after hitting me on the head with a book.

Like many young people with dyslexia, I figured I was stupid. That’s what Ruby and Sharon had told me. And for a time, I believed them. If not for the efforts of other teachers and my parents, I would have been lost. Acceptance is one of the most important factors in helping children who struggle with printed words or numbers.
 

Unfortunately, few knew about dyslexia when I was growing up. Not until college did I become aware of the real problem and finally realized why I had trouble. Through hard work and sheer effort, I learned to read better and study. I even took advanced statistics.

The truth revealed itself when I “forgot” calculations. I could do the problems well enough but had trouble on tests. Whole areas of my mind went blank, and I often left things unfinished. I remember losing points on a calculation—a reverse-like ratio or problem I had solved—simply because I’d passed over part two. ²  

I felt like a dunce as my new teacher pulled her hair in an effort to help. I constantly wrote “И” instead of N.

Soon, the disorder began showing itself to me regularly, and I did not continue in statistics. I did challenge myself in other areas, though, and read a lot of psychology and philosophy. I read Sigmund Freud and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the French philosopher. It was like the third grade all over again. I had trouble reading.

I remembered some of the things I’d done in the third grade. Once, for example, a teacher called me to the front of the room to write the capital letter “N” on the chalkboard. I stood there—feeling like a dunce—as my new third-grade teacher pulled her hair in an effort to help. I couldn’t do it. I constantly wrote the reverse figure “И.” Neither of us realized I had a reading disorder, nor could we understand I only wrote what my mind saw.

Dr. Samual Orton, a neurologist and a pioneering authority on dyslexia, first identified this problem to the public in 1937. In his book, “Reading, Writing, and Speech Problems in Children,” he named it “static reversal.” A problem most commonly revealed in letters that are alike, except for their orientation, such as “p” and “q.” He also identified what he called a kinetic reversal (more than one figure) and theorized everyone “saw” mirror-like images along with the correct ones. For example, a word like top reads both “top” and “pot” in a person’s mind. People with dyslexia cannot see the image as it is written.

Dr. Orton discovered this without the benefit of modern technology. Brain imaging scans show the problem lies in how the brain processes information. Dyslexia readers process information using their brains differently. They use parts of their brains that normal readers do not. Typically,  good readers develop a left-hemispheric specialization. Frequent findings in the neuroimaging of dyslexic children reveal they fail to establish a similar pattern. Instead, they use an altered circuit involving greater reliance on the right hemisphere and frontal lobe areas. Because of this, it takes more effort to read.
 

Recognizing phonemes, the basic sounds of speech, Kidshealth.org said, becomes laborious for dyslexic readers. These atypical readers struggle to connect the sounds and symbols of the letters. Even short, familiar words take more time or come out wrong. Without the brain development of a good reader, dyslexic readers take longer and need more focused concentration. Throw in a lack of understanding and the stress of being seen as stupid, and the verdict is incontestable: a dyslexic reader has trouble reading and learning.

For individuals and especially young readers, the inability to control or understand what the mind is doing is usually taken in stride—however difficult. But the old name for the disorder, word-blindness, is appropriate. And for me, most definitely includes numbers and calculations.

In graduate school, I came to understand this, and I left my studies to go to work for a while. However, the disorder didn't go away, and I found this out the hard way in a psychiatric hospital—a job I took as a psychology student.

Thousands of people are going through similar frustrations. With training many will gain new and revealing insights.

I had worked at the hospital for several months when a patient on my ward became violent. He ran from his room, pushing people and had to be physically restrained. When it was all over, I had to write the report. The experience had so unnerved me I had trouble writing it. I spent an hour on a single paragraph. The stress made it difficult to put sentences together. When it quieted down, I finished and continued writing entries in the weeks and months ahead.
 

Still, my mind continued doing what it did. And does to this day. For example, a week or so before posting this, I struggled with the meaning of “waist.” For some reason, I couldn’t come up with the correct spelling, “waste.” Easy, right? Waist versus waste? Not for a dyslexic mind. Even one of my first Google searches said I’d used the right word, as if, for example, I wrote, “waist not, want not.” Yes, I figured it out, but it took time, and I have an advanced degree.

Today, thousands of people are going through similar frustrations. With training and study, many will gain new and revealing insights. If caught and corrected early, some will beat the disorder altogether. Please help me—and those like me—fight the pain and confusion this problem brings to so many people. Dyslexics still face a terrible stigma. It’s a stigma that can be corrected with awareness, training, and understanding.

Editor’s Note: A detailed list of “symptoms” is shared here.  It comes from the Winona Dyslexia Group, and lists problems that may include:

1. Reversing letters like b and d or p and q
2. Inverting letters like n and u, M and W, d and q
3. Mirror writing letters/numbers like on/no and won/now or 71/17 and 35/53
4. Putting letters in the wrong order like form and from or felt and left
5. Writing or reading words in the wrong order like are there for there are
6. Spelling words how they sound like rite for right
7. Spatial Orientation Problems (Trouble with Left/Right, North/South/East/West)
8. Poor, inconsistent or illegible handwriting/unusual pencil grip
9. C“an count but has difficulty counting objects or dealing with money
10. Can do math but has trouble understanding algebra, word problems, or other more complex math
11. Seems to “Zone out” or daydream often, has trouble sustaining attention
12. Can have difficulty telling time on a traditional clock
13. Reads and rereads with little comprehension

These are just some of the many signs of dyslexia, a simple test can be done to tell whether or not a person has this or any other learning disability.
    
 
Footnotes:
¹ This is a vague remembrance, but two of us spent time in Ruby’s wastebasket (if memory serves me). Unfortunately, I was the only “dunce” and earned the honor of the hat at the beginning of the year. It subsequently disappeared.
² I have long forgotten the problem, but whatever it was, I saw the mistake when I got the test results back during the midterm.