teacherken wrote an excellent diary titled KosAbilities: living with my dyslexia. Please read his diary on this subject. My experiences are quite different than his. I will also take some time to discuss what dyslexia is and what the causes may be. I too will share my experiences and I hope others can learn more about this fairly common condition. I also believe dyslexia is both a curse and a blessing. I will explain more.
KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
Dyslexia is a complex disorder. Please read the following from The International Dyslexia Association (IDA), formerly known as the Orton Society:
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person’s life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special education, special accommodations, or extra support services.
What causes dyslexia?
The exact causes of dyslexia are still not completely clear, but anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way the brain of a dyslexic person develops and functions. Moreover, most people with dyslexia have been found to have problems with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds, a key factor in their reading difficulties. Dyslexia is not due to either lack of intelligence or desire to learn; with appropriate teaching methods, dyslexics can learn successfully.
What are the effects of dyslexia?
The impact that dyslexia has is different for each person and depends on the severity of the condition and the effectiveness of instruction or remediation. The core difficulty is with word recognition and reading fluency, spelling, and writing. Some dyslexics manage to learn early reading and spelling tasks, especially with excellent instruction, but later experience their most debilitating problems when more complex language skills are required, such as grammar, understanding textbook material, and writing essays.
People with dyslexia can also have problems with spoken language, even after they have been exposed to good language models in their homes and good language instruction in school. They may find it difficult to express themselves clearly, or to fully comprehend what others mean when they speak. Such language problems are often difficult to recognize, but they can lead to major problems in school, in the workplace, and in relating to other people. The effects of dyslexia reach well beyond the classroom.
Dyslexia can also affect a person’s self-image. Students with dyslexia often end up feeling "dumb" and less capable than they actually are. After experiencing a great deal of stress due to academic problems, a student may become discouraged about continuing in school.
If you have a child who you suspect is dyslexic then I highly recommend that you read the book Can't Read, Can't Write, Can't Talk Too Good Either: How to Recognize and Overcome Dyslexia in Your Child by Louise Clarke. I didn’t read the book until I was an adult, yet I found the book fascinating.
In addition to being dyslexic I am tone deaf, I have no sense of rhythm, I have poor hand eye coordination, and I am obese. I may write more about the obesity in another diary. All of these conditions play a role in who I was and who I am. To separate them is difficult and sometimes impossible. But today I will write about my dyslexia and the impact that dyslexia has had on my life.
While I did not know I was dyslexic until I was an adult in graduate school, I was actually diagnosed as dyslexic when I failed fourth grade in elementary school. At that time my parents hired a person from the Orton Society to test me at my house. I distinctly remember the test. I was asked many questions ranging from which hand was my right hand, where did the sun rise, who discovered America, what was 10-4, how would I find my way out of the woods, and on and on. I was never told why I was tested. The result was my parents took me out of school, after much argument with the school system, and I was home schooled in the Calvert School, a school frequently used by military families.
What I remember most was having to constantly read aloud and in particular reading Shakespeare’s plays out loud. My parents also bought any book I showed the slightest bit of interest in. I was encouraged to read, read, read. I also had great difficulty with directions. When we traveled, I was made the family map reader. To this day if I am driving in an area I am not familiar with, I will first study a map and memorize the route I am going to take. GPS be damned, I trust maps. My wife goes by a sense of direction, I go by map.
What also stood out for me was that my parents always stood up for me. Obviously they home schooled me in fifth grade. They also helped me memorize my math tables and then anything like a poem that I needed to recite in school. When teaching machines were created in the early sixties my parents bought one for me. My parents taught me to type and how to balance a check book. I still hate check books, now I do my banking electronically. What a relief. In junior high may parents tried to enroll me in private school, trusting that I would do better in private school. I was rejected. My parents made certain that I went to the best public high school in Pittsburgh when we moved there. When I had trouble with a high school English teacher my parents advised me on how to get another English teacher. Again with difficulty from the school, we managed that. When I had trouble with German, my parents sent me to Germany for the summer to live with my German relatives. I went to German high school, and then was shown all around Germany, hardly ever speaking English. I came back with a fantastic vocabulary, poor German spelling (German is mainly phonetic) and terrible grammar. I could understand German and Germans could understand me, but I still did poorly in German class in high school and later in college. Thank heavens I only had to pass a translation test in graduate school.
When people think of dyslexia, they frequently focus on the =lack of language skills. What many fail to realize is that dyslexic people are often quite bright and in the case of Einstein brilliant. While dyslexics are frequently also quite musical, my tone deafness, lack of rhythm, largely prevented me from playing any music. My parents tried, and failed. However in mathematics and in particular in Computer Science I am quite intelligent, maybe not brilliant, but as Yogi might say better than your average bear.
I didn’t realize my love of mathematics until 9th grade in high school, when I took algebra. The love blossomed in 10th grade with geometry. After 11th grade I went to summer school so I could take AP calculus. I was in the mathematics club in high school and received an honors award at a county wide mathematics fair where all we aspiring mathematicians had to present original work we had done. Despite having a 2.7 grade point average I was accepted at Carnegie Mellon University and graduated with honors in mathematics – computer science option. I got work at RCA, David Sarnoff laboratories and enrolled at Rutgers University.
I believe my dyslexia played a role in all this success. The reason is that I believe I see the world differently than others. In mathematics the core is in the method of getting an answer or a proof. Seeing the world differently meant I approached computer science and mathematics with different eyes than everyone else. In order to understand mathematics or computer science, one must read slowly. I remember as a freshman being told that a mathematician should spend half an hour on each page of mathematics. For someone with dyslexia, this makes mathematics much easier than English literature. Further, memorizing detail is unimportant; understand the method is critical. This made my life in mathematics and computing. Because I saw the world through different eyes, I found myself applying methods differently than others. This enabled me to write programs others couldn’t write and to develop proofs others couldn’t develop. My different eyes in other words my dyslexia gave me this creativity.
Viewing the world through different eyes has also led to social awkwardness. I never dated a girl until my senior year in college. Even then I felt I was in love with someone who would not have me. These loves continued all through graduate school. As long as my love was unrequited, then I was safe. I finally fell for an older woman who "loved me back," but she was married. Even then I was safe. I just could not read visual clues. I still cannot read those cues today. I see the world through different eyes. I disappointed several women who loved me, but I never interpreted their cues properly. I didn’t learn of their love, until it was too late and almost always from someone else.
If dealing with the visual was not bad enough, I had difficulty dealing with visual cues from men. Typically my awkwardness would arise in the form of a sarcastic joke. For example, I was leading a project to build a multiprocessor computer system that used what at the time was a high speed high capacity synchronous bus. The bus was not used much, but when the bus was used capacity and speed were important to the success of the system. A department head asked why average speed and capacity were inadequate. I explained that in a football stadium, one did not design a sewer system for average capacity, one designed the system for when the stadium was being used and all the toilets were being flushed during half time. The sarcasm led to much laughter and the question was dropped. It also led to the department head disliking me. If I had answered the question properly, then I would not have made an enemy.
In graduate school my misreading of visual cues led to my failure to understand that my thesis adviser had developed a strong dislike towards me. Eventually I learned he thought I was having an affair with his wife which I wasn’t. It turned out to be a serious misunderstanding on his part, which he was able to recover from once he realized there was no affair and that his wife and I hardly ever spoke. If I had picked up on the visual cues, then that would not have happened. I also failed to pick up the cues from my graduate school department head that he wanted to have a major say in my thesis research and how my thesis was written. I did my research and writing with no input from my committee. I just handed them the finished product one day and waited. I waited close to two years with only minor changes to the writing. I never wrote a proposal. I just did the work. I had managed to avoid social contact. I saw the world through different eyes.
While I was waiting for my thesis to be reviewed by my committee, my mother explained that I was dyslexic. She suggested that I see a testing psychologist and be re-evaluated. I went to Towson Maryland and spent two days being tested and one day with the evaluation. I learned that my intelligence levels varied from slightly below average, to so high they were off the scale. (The scale went to 150). There was no in between. Also I used those areas where I was intelligent to compensate for those areas where I was stupid. So which is it, intelligence or stupidity? I am both.
So is my dyslexia a curse or a blessing? The answer for me is that my dyslexia is more of a blessing than a curse. Seeing the world through different eyes enables me more than it disables me. Without catching the dyslexia earlier and having the strong support of my parents, then it would be a curse.
To this day the dyslexia shows up in my writing and in my talking. I tend to speak slowly with long pauses. My daughter and wife speak rapidly without pausing. I find that I have difficulty getting a word in between them. When I pause they start talking before I have completed my thought. However, I listen and enjoy their talking. The awkward speaking is a curse. The listening is a blessing. I earned my wife’s love by listening to her. I’ll take the listening over the speaking.
I hope I have changed your view of dyslexia. May the force be with you.