dyslexia and deafness

[noninice]

A quick note on dyslexia as I find we are not being told the truth about it, especially by the people who know better. I nearly walked out of cambridge science festival lecture on this and dyscalculis condition. Because what dyslexics are not being told is that a simple hearing imbalence can be responsible for a major part of this problem. The inability to differentiate between similar sounding words makes it difficult for us to sound out a word and spell it correctly. If you don't know what a word sounds like, how on earth are we expected to spell it out! So here is a little tip for the experts, maybe if you found out why this hearing imbalance happens in the first place,a solution could be found. Treat the cause and not the symptom when will the medical profession learn. As a dyslexic with dysfracia and dyscalculis whoes teachers refused to recognise my disability, I'm cross that much of my life has been wasted battling this condition. Yet it gave me strengths Which I would not other wise have. It also seems to me people's do not want to find a solution as it gives them an excuse to carry out experiments into the working of the mind and I'm fed up of being a human guinea pig, so don't let them play with your child's mind.

Ummm the first thing the school told us was go to the gp and get a referral to get her hearing checked it took 3 years to actually get them agree there was any problem at all but at the very first meeting we were told to get her a hearing a test so it is obviously now recognised that hearing the sounds is related to spelling didnt help the words jumping about the page though

Really good dyslexia testing should measure visual and auditory processing memory to differentiate the problem between the two. You clearly have an auditory processing disorder meaning that you need to use visual methods to learn to spell.
This is not true of all dyslexics, my DD has a visual processing disorder so needs to use auditory (listening methods) to learn. She does also have hearing difficulties, but her dyslexia is a visual problem for her and she wears coloured glasses to correct this.
It is now being recognised that dyslexia is a global term given to cover a variety of processing disorders. Dyslexia research is working on narrowing the processing disorder to provided very targeted help.

Also as a dyslexic (visual processing too) and the mother of a dyslexic. The most important thing to being able to achieve what you wanted in life is acceptance of the fact that it's bloody unfair that as a dyslexic you have to work sooo much harder than other people to achieve the same.
However, if you accept this fact and use your energy to work with the dyslexia the vast majority can achieve pretty much anything you want to achieve.

My dd used to be so bloody exhausted coming out of school but didnt appear to be learning anything, she is now 3 years behind, as it took her so long to work out the words on a page that she didnt understand the content but with the overlays recommended by the specialist at the hospital and people reading things out to her she is not so tired.

We are quite knew to dyslexia that I am trying to take in every bit of information i come across to try and make her life as easy as possible it is such a vast subject.

How is your DD managing with wearing the glasses, my DD is 12 and due to start high school in August and I can see this being a major issue, she already wears glasses but the tinted ones I can see being a problem as they are not cool.

Claimed DD's glasses are not Irlens ones they come from a research project at Oxford Uni. She mostly wears them, but she is 11 so we do have same cool issue. However, prior to the glasses she had horrific migraines with projectile vomiting ( no warning) the fact that the words now stay still on the page means the migraines attack much less frequently.
Plus even DD is aware of the dramatic improvement in reading and spelling age since starting to wear the glasses. We have a long way to go before they are anyway close innate ability (from CAT scores and auditory processing memory), but she is much less frustrated.

All this is still only tackling the symptoms, but not the cause. I wonder did your children react badly to their vaccinations,and develop allergies or eczema asthma or hayfever as I did. Or suffer badly from the usual childhood diseases. Because I was a lively talkative child, with above average vocabulary, until something set me back.

I wonder did your children react badly to their vaccinations,and develop allergies or eczema asthma or hayfever as I did. Or suffer badly from the usual childhood diseases

My breastfed child suffered/suffers all these except asthma. He is highly intelligent no issues with learning what so ever.

Because I was a lively talkative child, with above average vocabulary, until something set me back

This is my dyslexic formula fed child, she is always physically been much more well, she was a better earlier talker, walker far more independant.

Both children have the same genes, both were easy births no trauma.

We have been told that the cause of dyslexia is unknown and the specialist we saw recently at the hospital says the main aim at the moment is to find out what works for my child not why she is the way she is.

I'm a strong believer in prevention is better than cure. I would not want any child to suffer needlessly, if this problem could be prevented in the first place. But it seems there is no distinct pattern to follow, except I was bottle fed when my mother was in a nursing home. Good luck with this problem.

You are right prevention is better than cure but I think in the case of dyslexia they dont even know where to start to try and find a cause as the scale is so wide, both my babies had their hearing tested within hours of being born and interestingly my dd who is dyslexic had perfect hearing straight away where as my ds wasnt responding to the hearing test and we were called back when he was slightly older he doesnt have dyslexia.

It is a minefield, I have gone over and over in my head if there had been any signs, had i dont anything differently could i have done anything different...I have slowly learned that dd is how she is and we just have to do everything to help her move forward.

The link with hearing difficulties is well known - see for instance www.amazon.co.uk/Glue-Ear-essential-teachers-professionals/dp/1843123525 - but of course it isn't the whole story. There have been studies showing distinct differences in the brains of dyslexic people.

Yes I quite agree, you must never blame yourself for something you couldn't have prevented. I just wish doctors would understand the importance of supporting parents, rather than dismissing their concerns,at least today children get support, unlike in my time when we where simply ignored. Also remember many dyslexics can out perform others, if only you discover the things they are good at.

I must admit we have had the greatest support from all medical professionals the school has been where the problems are, they still are not giving dd support and going against the advice from the hospital :( thankfully she leaves this school in June and I hope high school will provide the support she needs.

I firmly believe dyslexia is genetic my family history would back this up.

It is a processing disorder this will a result of genes producing a different neural pathway so dyslexics are born wired differently.

My other half has one auntie who we presume is dyslexic shes in her 60s and has never been able to read or write but never had any formal testing but her writing is the same as dds and dd can read it perfectly fine in birthday and xmas cards, very strange.

I have two dyslexic DS's one is a typical dyslexic poor reading/spelling, the other has very significant processing/working memory problems but is an excellent reader and a pretty average speller. Both write slowly. One reads every word 3 times and when telling my DM she said she also does this and just assumed it was normal. I like one can't spell at all, struggle to copy of the board etc or remember written instructions e.g. recipes but am an excellent and fast reader including a skim reading. My grand mother was a walking calculator, as am I and I can remember numbers effortlessly, I card count naturally (see movies 21/ Rainman) I assumed all could do this and did it automatically until I saw these films, in fact when I saw Rainman I couldn't understand what was so special about what he was doing, whereas my DH is rubbish at simply maths although excellent at algebra and geometry, one DC is brilliant at math and one rubbish. One DC has an IQ in the top 0.25% of the population one in the top 5% both my DM and I were told we were average at school or worse!
The more I learn about my DS's dyslexia the more I see their various problems/abilities in either my DH and I or my DM or even my DGM and the more I can see that it's inherited. This is also what we've been told by experts. I understand that to put it crudely the brain in just wired up not incorrectly but simply differently.

I have 2 DSs with dyslexia. Also, their father has mild dyslexia and his Dad is a bit ambidextrous. DS1 has high verbal IQ (top 99.5%), very good memory, muddles left & right, has visual problems (also has the glasses from Oxford), gets muddled with maths, hopeless speller, disorganised, poor short term memory, eczema, nut allergy (difficult birth - any connection?). DS2 I think is probably more average intelligence, has auditory dyslexia, muddled language when speaking, hopeless speller but much better at maths.

Did anyone's child exhibit a change in their charecter after attending nursery or infant school,becoming quiet and withdrawn, due to loss of confidence. The realisation they are different from the rest and find simple tasks much more difficult to complete must have some effect.

My DD's dyslexia only became obvious in year 5. Up until then her coping strategies had enabled her to keep up. It never knocked her confidence in general just teachers felt she didn't want to push herself.

I firmly think they're born who they are, so dyslexia, etc is pre-disposed and there is definitely a strong genetic link.

fwiw, my son has Irlen's glasses. They make a massive difference to him. His hearing's fine.

Teaching seems to me to be so prescribed at point A your child must X and at point B Y, I suspect that many cope but dyslexics definitely struggle to reach these points. Teachers seems to be short of patience with this kind of things and quickly let their pupils know that they are falling behind and dyslexics pick this up. They also pick up the fact that their classmates are "further ahead" than they are, generally dyslexics assume this because of lack of intelligence. Results significant loss of confidence.
Of course dyslexics have lots of other things they can offer instead. They are usually exceptionally creative, articulate and passionate people but these things the are rarely measured or appreciated by the teaching profession, young children in particular are not test ed for this kind of thing. There also seems to be one size fits all box, dyslexics will never fit this box. For example one if my DS's could not learn to read/spell phonetically, he just could not get it, eventually he taught himself whole world recognition. This is particularly useful for spelling "he cannot get to grips with things like "silent G's or long E's" as he says "it doesn't matter why word is spelt how it is he just has just learnt that this is how it's spelt end of.
As my Ds's come to their end of their school life looking back I feel that frequently they've been poorly catered for most of their school lives, particularly DS1 he's met repeatedly with couldn't care less teachers who are very quick to criticise but very slow to praise.
One said to me once a long time ago on DS1's last day at this particular school in response to my comment that I thought she thought he was as thick as a brick:
"oh no I don't think he's thick in fact I think he's actually very bright but he's got something wrong with him and frankly I haven't got the time or the inclination to find out what the hell it is!" At least she was honest all since (in both sectors) I suspect have taken a similar view.
It's hardly surprising that dyslexics repeatedly under perform and have low levels of confidence when you repeatedly come up against this sort of thing.

My DD has AP issues. She didn't fit into the 'classic' dyslexia mould and honestly we didn't understand why this bright articlate child was battling so much.

Eventually we discovered the AP issue through private assessment.

We found a system called FastForWord which retrains the the brain to hear the sounds correctly. It helped a lot. We also put her into a specialist school for a year where she learnt strategies to aide her and that she is completely normal. It was simply the teaching methods that were failing her not her ability.. We could not afford more than that 1 year. She will tell you it was the tipping point for her. And she would advise any dyslexic child that a special school for a short time is the best solution.

So basically we found that 18 months of intensive help in the right environment has made an incredible difference.

Dd has gone from low confidence, being at the bottom of the class to being on track for B's at Gcse. If she works she could get some A's. She is now at an enormous London State school and I have no concerns for her future.

Now obviously I realise that we cannot all do what we did. However it does make me think that the popular British philosphy of teaching everyone together in one environment, whilst allowing for differentiation, is fundamentally flawed and detrimental to dyslexic children.

Like many dyslexic children DD got no state help because she was not dyslexic enough... The provision and help in the state sector is simply not good enough and we are failing bright kids.

I also don't think the teachers can do any more. I do not understand who thinks a teacher can be expected to successfully cater for the needs if every child in a class regarless of ability during a single lesson and still expect every child to get the best education.

It seems delusional to me...