Dyslexia - Dawn Matthews

Many autistic people are gifted and brilliant at one special thing. They perceive the world very differently from the ordinary person and this perception should be thought of as a gift. Like dyslexics they find it hard to learn in the conventional way and can fail at school because of this. It is a great shame if schools try to make them the same as everybody else and treat them as remedial when in so many ways they are much more able than the ordinary person is. I consider that, as with dyslexics, the single most important aspect of their teaching should be to discover what they are especially good at and concentrate on this. There are quite of number of exceptional artists, musicians and mathematicians who are autistic. Dustin Hoffman in the film "The Rain Man" shows a very good example of a severely Austistic adult.

 

 

How to help

 

First be very certain that your child’s diagnosis is correct.

 

There is a very good book available on this very specialized form of teaching and I recommend that any person working with an autistic pupil reads this book. Unfortunately the author of this book, Ron Davis, a self confessed Savants Syndrome Autistic person ( now called High Functioning Austistic, regardless of any tests for high functioning ability).considers his problem to be dyslexic in nature so the book is called, “The Gift of Dyslexia”. He sells them from his web site www.dyslexia.com. Like myself he has analyzed how he learns and has built a learning program around this knowledge. However his way of teaching would not work for the dyslexics that I teach.

 

 

Modeling Clay

 

Ron Davis describes how making words and associated images out of modeling clay helps him to be able to retain that word and read it easily. Several of the dyslexic courses I have attended including making words and numbers out of clay but I never found this activity helped the dyslexics much because they learn letters by the feel of actually writing them or the position of the letter on a keyboard.

However making actual three-dimensional versions of words and visually linking these with three-dimensional versions of the meaning of or some association with words seems to stabilize the way in which autistics visualize words.

Autism can be mild or severe. Many people with mild autism do spectacularly well in life, but they do have a tendency to obsessive behavior and frequently find it difficult to “read” people.

 

 

Asperger Syndrome

 

This is thought to be a kind of mild form of Autism. Pupils with this have particular problems with communicating and imagination, especially regarding how things work and fit together in the world and with creative play. It is not as all consuming as Autism.

 

If you have a student or child diagnosed with this learning difference please also read the pages on dyspraxia.

 

I have had considerable success with paying strict attention to diet and allergies. Often the child will improve or become much worse as a direct result of what he/she has eaten. They appear to be particularly sensitive to toxins, junk food, sugar, artificial colors and sweeteners, gluten and sometimes dairy. For more information please ADHD Drug free Cures available from the side menu bar on the home page.

 

Many parents can remember an exact onset of the disorder, usually following severe illness affecting the intestinal system.

 

 

Routine

 

Like dyspraxic children these pupils often get very upset when routines are changed or broken. They seem to be uneasy with their surroundings and find it hard to make complete sense of their world. The more routine they follow the easier they find life. Try to be consistent; not only with daily routines, but also with the way you handle a situation or a problem.

 

 

Time

 

It is surprising how many adults spend their entire life in care because they are not able to handle time properly.

Understanding time is not the same as telling the time. I have written at length on this in both books, “Dyslexia –

How to Win” and “Dyspraxia – a Guide for Parents and Teachers”. These available downloadable from this web site. ( on the home page)

 

 

Hyperlexia

 

Hyperlexia is a condition that seems definitely to be a mirror image of dyslexia. However when a student displays this condition lecturers and teachers sometimes consider the pupil to be dyslexic because (s)he has problems understanding and remembering what (s)he has read.

 

Hyperlexics can read very, very well. They can read aloud with total expression, and learn very quickly to do this with foreign languages. But they have great difficulty comprehending what they have read. I undertook a case study on one such pupil during my teaching diploma and concluded that the pupil seemed exactly opposite to me.

 

By Year Four she had not done well in any subject at school except for reading and she could read even adult texts virtually fluently but could not answer any questions about its content. Now and again I meet adults with similar, although less serious, problems during my seminars. They complain of not being able to remember what they have read; yet they are fluent and fast readers. They have all been right-handed and right eye-dominant.

 

What seems to be happening with these people is that the information they are reading travels straight to the left side of the brain, which is very good at decoding, and hardly visits the right side of the brain at all. The right side of the brain is very good at comprehension. This is known from studying stroke victims. This is exactly the opposite of what happens with a dyslexic when the information is often decoded in the right brain, which is not good at decoding.

 

Below is a diagram comparing the brain activity of dyslexics and hyperlexics in relation to what seems to be happening when they both read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to Look For within the Autistic spectrum

 

There seems to be a certain amount of commonality between the disorders in the Autistic spectrum. However these particular conditions are generally thought to exist when the child displays the following:

 

• A precocious reading ability that is far above what you would expect for that age.

• A love for and fascination of learning new words, names, numbers, colors etc.

• Strong auditory and visual memory.

• Able to visualize whole pictures and images even when quite young.

• Ability to remember whole passages, books, conversations or TV programs off by heart.

• Combined with some of the following:

• Difficulty in understanding the content of what is said to him/her.

• An intense need to keep routines the same.

• Selective listening.

• Tendency to repeat known phrases rather than inventing new sentences.

• Difficulty answering questions.

• Rarely initiates conversations.

• Difficulty in socializing with other children.

 

I consider this to be more of a problem than dyslexia, although it is not as easily detected in schools because the student appears to be very good at reading. I would like to study this further and work out better how to help these people but I have, as yet, not worked with enough serious cases.

 

If your pupil cannot read at all then consider carrying out further testing for Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. However inability to read these nonsense words is only significant if the pupil can read real words of equal difficulty. If the pupil cannot read at all you have to establish whether the pupil has not learnt basic phonics or whether he is unable to sound out words.

 

In such cases of learning differences I would try to teach both whole, simple words and basic letter sounds and see which the pupil finds the easiest to learn. Both whole word and phonic teaching methods and games are talked about at length in my book “Dyslexia – How to Win“. Not only will this help most pupils, as they will learn one way or the other, but will tell you a great deal about how the student thinks and perceives the world. Correct diagnosis is so important if the student is to reach his/her true potential.