Searching for Answers

For the last several days I have been searching for answers. In the last post, I narrowed my search to the characteristics and accommodations for dyslexia.

Having very little background knowledge, and even less time available, I decided to begin my quest for answers with a general google search using the keyword, "Dyslexia."

Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia was the first result. I decided to go ahead and give it a look, just to gather some general information, and maybe pickup on a few more keywords that I could use. From Wikipedia I learned that there are two types of Dyslexia, Developmental or Acquired. (Although Aiden may have been dropped on his head at some point during infancy, I feel pretty safe in assuming he would fall under the developmental dyslexia category.)

Wikipedia also shared some insight into the history of dyslexia. I assumed that this section would not be of assistance in answering my question related to characteristics and accommodations; but, a quick glance surprisingly gave me a wide range of interesting information on perceived characteristics of dyslexia:

• reading-specific learning disorder
• severe impairment in learning to read and write in spite of showing typical intellectual and physical abilities in all other respects
• congenital word blindness
• the primary disability was in visual memory for words and letters, and described symptoms including letter reversals, and difficulties with spelling and reading comprehension
• similar to stroke victims who had lost the ability to read
• difficulty associating the visual forms of words with their spoken forms
• a brain area associated with language processing, is physically larger than the corresponding right area in the brains of non-dyslexic subjects, but these brain areas are symmetrical or slightly larger on the right for dyslexic subjects
• faulty guidance of the seeing mechanism
• words were not perceived in their globality but required a meticulous analysis of the letters and syllables
• a preference amongst dyslexics towards scanning with the eyes from right to left
• Surface dyslexia is characterized by subjects who can read known words but who have trouble reading words that are irregular

As far as accomodations, Orton-Gillingham was also reffered to in the encyclopedia entry. I have heard this program before and would like to do some additonal research on it.


The next result on my Google search list was Dyslexia.com. The shopping cart icon at the top left corner swayed my interest in the site, but one link immediatley caught my attention: A forum for networking and sharing information about creative thinking, dyslexia, and other learning differences. This lead me to Answers to Common Questions about Dyslexia. I found this site to be very informaional and helpful in answering my questions of accomodations for dyslexia.


The link to What a Dyslexic_Person_Sees_When_She_Reads was very interesting to me; and linked me to the following passage at http://www.dyslexia-australia.com.au/What%20they%20see.htm


At this point I asked my son, who has been following along with me in my search for answers, if this was truly what he saw. He scrutenized the second section, and then concluded that it was close. He went on to explain that to make it more realistic, the bold black words would need to move around as you are reading. Then he drew me his own rendetion of how print looks to him.





Obviously the first thing that hit me was his beautiful message. When I finished reciprocating the message, he continue to stress that the words move when he looks at them. He gave the example that in this picture you can tell that I is bigger than YOU. When he looks at it, sometimes the I is bigger and sometimes the YOU is bigger, and sometimes they trade places.

I also started to notice another pattern in the details. The first example of the Dyslexia.com passage talks about reading pictures (I had not shared this information with Aiden). "As dyslexics are generally picture thinkers, they only see words that they can place a picture to." Notice in Aiden's picture that the large words are the concrete nouns, and the abstract verb of LOVE is almost unseen in the background. I thought this was very interesting, so I decided to continue reviewing this site.


The review lead me to a new curiosity of the of the Davis Methods, hence the shopping cart icon for purchasing The Gify of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis.

After a short period of searching for answers, I now find myself in a state of recursion. My questions have changed. I have gone from the general inquiry of characteristics and accomodations for dyslexia, to a more specific interest in two philosophis for addressing dyslexia, The Davis Methods and Orton-Gillingham.

In my next post, I will share my findings as a go in search for answers to these new questions.