Dyslexia Question (sorry for so many questions!)

[MicheleB]

My sons' dx is dyseidetic dyslexia/visual processing disorder (severe impairment).

 

What on EARTH do you do for this? The only thing the n.p. suggested was perhaps vision therapy (and I've read all your great posts on it.... seems sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't) and doing single-letter flashcard, working up to a sequence of five-letter flashcards, then going on to reading.

 

Here are some things the neuropsych. email to me today, in answer to some of my questions (bolded are my questions). Maybe it will ring a bell with someone here. I feel lost. I feel like we're just *hoping* these things (VT, flashcards) will help, but who knows. The np said he felt bad "passing me off" to yet another person, but that honestly, he could not help us further as far as working with the dyslexia.

"Is this also called a visual-processing impairment (or disorder)? Would this be what was in the past called dyslexia?" Dyslexia referes to a disturbance (dys) of reading (lexis)... so "dyslexia refers to a disturbance of reading... which they both have. There are two classes of "dyslexia".. dysphonetic (disturbance of phonics or speech sounds) and dyseidetic (disturbance of the visual image). They have characteristics of the dyseidetic type. and.. yes... it would be called a visual processing disorder.

 

"can I expect that they will learn to read and do math fairly well?" My guess is that they will learn to read and write... but it likely will be more effortful... probably will never be totally automatic (like for most readers).

 

 

"Any thoughts on how much time we would be looking at as far as moving from one letter to two letters, and so forth?".... When they approach 95% accuracy... then move to adding two letters.... and again when they are at 95% accuracy, add another letter in the string. Just my thoughts.

 

... about the alphabet learning... and days of the week. Children tend to be able to memorize the song... so obviously he can memorize... but right now the letters are sort of like Greek symbols that have no meaning... if I asked you to memorize the Greek alphabet... it would be very hard (try it)... you may be taught a song to recall the letters... but actually memorizing the letters is very hard... because the letters are essentially meaningless symbols... well... for them our letters are relatively meaningless on their own... so... its OK right now.

 

... our memories contain both auditory-verbal (words we used to encode the event) and pictures or images (visual)... have a weakness in one and both are affected... sort of like if the peanut butter cup is missing the peanut butter or chocolate... in either event it is no longer a peanut butter cup. If you have difficulties in using the visual component, then memories are lacking part of the process. Interestingly, people's faces are almost impossible to encode... and, as a result, when there is a visual processing problem, children tend to not have any visual images to "hang their hat on" (to label with words).

[Paintedlady]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeartofReading/

 

My suggestion is to join this Yahoo group immediately. These are homeschooling moms dealing with dyslexic (and other LD problems) kids and are the single best group I've found in helping sort through all of the different treatments, curriculums, therapies, etc...

 

My dd is dyslexic and this group saved me from insanity. Trying to figure it all out was a nightmare at first, but they helped by telling me their experiences and what worked and didn't work, not only based on their personal experiences, but what the research says as well. hth!

[LizzyBee]

There is also a yahoo group for homeschooling kids with dyslexia.

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HSDyslexicKids/

 

And another for kids who are right-brained dominant (This group includes kids with dyslexia; most people use primarily the left side of the brain for language-based tasks, but brain scans show that people who have dyslexia use primarily the right side of the brain).

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschoolingcreatively/

 

The owner of this group is Cindy Gaddis and she has a great blog:

 

http://applestars.homeschooljournal.net/

 

If you look at the right side of the blog, there are links to posts about teaching right-brained kids. She also sells 2 of her talks on CD. I'll admit that I'm not brave enough to take her approach to homeschooling, but it does help me keep things in perspective. At least once a day, I remember one line in particular from her talks: Listen to your kids; they will tell you how they need to learn.

 

And have you seen Susan Barton's website? It's the best dyslexia website on the internet, imo. She has numerous free videos and handouts on the site and just a wealth of practical, helpful information. You can call or email Susan and she will answer your questions. She will also refer you to dyslexia specialists in your area.

 

http://www.dys-add.com/

 

I have this book checked out from the library, but I think I'm gonna have to buy my own copy so that I can highlight and write in it:

 

The Everything Parent's Guide to Children with Dyslexia, subtitled All you need to ensure your child's success, by Abigail Marshall.

 

At the GIFTSNC (Giving and Getting Information for Teaching Special Needs Children) conference in August, I went to a talk by a woman whose son has the kind of dyslexia where everything around him seemed to be in motion, letters on the page stacked up or marched off the page, etc. I know she said her son has visual perception problems - his brain does not see what his eyes see. She said the methods taught in The Gift of Dyslexia by Ron Davis were the only thing that worked for her son. She used a facilitator who came to her house for a week and taught her the method. When she talked with the facilitator on the phone, the facilitator said she didn't know whether she'd be able to help, because this boy's dyslexia was so severe. Five minutes after arriving at their home, she said that P.'s son is just like Ron Davis. If this sounds like your son, you might want to check into the Davis method.

 

The website is: http://www.dyslexia.com/

 

The yahoo group for GIFTSNC is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GIFTSNC/

 

And the website for GIFTSNC is: http://www.giftsnc.com/

 

Take a deep breath and don't panic. The above book starts out by describing a study of 60 very successful people who have dyslexia - people who became leaders in fields requiring extensive reading such as medicine, law, business, and sciences. The average age they began to read? Age 11.

 

Just yesterday, I met the 14 year old son of a friend. My friend had told me it took her 2 years to teach him the alphabet and letter sounds. At 14, he is confident and articulate. He volunteers at the state History Museum as a docent, so he talks in front of groups all the time! You would never guess how much he struggled to learn.

 

I hope something here helps.

[AngieW in Texas]

My 10yo has dyseidetic dyslexia with visual processing delays and did have some significant visual efficiency issues as well.

 

We got the visual efficiency issues taken care of when she did vision therapy at 6yo. That corrected her tracking, sweeping, double vision, focusing, eye suppression, and focusing problems. It didn't make her able to read, but it did make her able to actually recall the sounds of the letters quickly enough that she could tell me what word it was after she sounded it out.

 

Before VT, my dd could tell you the sound of each letter. She could also sound out 3-letter, basic code words. She sounded the words out correctly, but then couldn't tell you what the word was. If you sounded out a word, she could always tell you what the word was. If you gave her a basic code word, she could spell it with letter tiles, even though she had great difficulty reading the word after she finished spelling it.

 

After VT, she could sound out basic code words and knew what she had sounded out when she was done. However, if you printed the same word over and over on a sheet of paper, she couldn't just look at the paper and tell you that it was all the same word. She had to sound it out each time to figure out what the word was. She would get more and more frustrated as she realized that it was the same word, but she really couldn't tell that the word was the same until she heard it. She couldn't compare the words visually.

 

We did Headsprout and that turned a corner for her. There were visual processing exercises that got her over the hump of sounding out all words one letter at a time. My dd thought it was kind of young looking at 7yo, so your ds is likely to think so also. I could see a big difference in my dd's reading ability by the time we got to the end of the 30 day money-back guarantee period, so we did the whole program.

 

My dd is in 5th grade and is now reading at grade level.

[katalaska]

I used Dianne Craft's Brain Integration Therapy (she now has a DVD called Understanding & Helping the Struggling Learner http://stores.diannecraft.org/Detail.bok?no=5) to help my dd (now 8.5) get over the visual-processing "hump." We also did vision therapy on a home computer program prescribed by our pediatric ophthalmologist.

 

This year, I'm going to do a couple more things with dd.

1. I just purchased Reading Pathways because although we FINALLY got through Phonics Pathways, dd's reading is still not fluent and she skips words or guesses.

2. I want to purchase Dianne Craft's Teaching the Right Brain Child DVD http://stores.diannecraft.org/Detail.bok?no=53 and I plan to take her class on it because I think some of the techniques she uses to help kids retain information may be helpful for my dd. My dd is a very poor speller and has auditory processing problems as well. I'm not sure how much of her troubles are due to differences and how much of them are due to dysfunction.

 

Here's an article from Dianne Craft about dyslexia:

http://www.diannecraft.com/article-006.htm