How to tell if you're Dsylexic

When my youngest daughter was 14/15 she came home with another 'Removed from class' letter.
I asked her what had happened and it was all over a teacher not helping her to spell a word.
It then dawned on me that all 12 times she'd been removed was over her asking for the teacher to spell a word for her and then I remembered the 1000 times she asked me to spell words.
I rang the school, told them my findings, they had her checked out and initial tests showed she was quite bad.
She then went to a proper centre who said that she had severe dyslexia but she was so clever that one cancelled the other out and she ended up getting 14 GCSE's.
It angers me when I see people posting that dyslexics are lazy.
My daughter must spend at least 4x longer on her work than a normal student would because she has to go over it that many times.

However (and you could try this) salvation came when one day she started to use a blue pen instead of a black one and all of a sudden words made sense.
She then started typing in blue and her condition improved considerably.
We got her blue tinted see through paper that she puts over books and she can read with less problems.
The college has given her permission to write and type in blue.
 
dmpoole said:
When my youngest daughter was 14/15 she came home with another 'Removed from class' letter.
I asked her what had happened and it was all over a teacher not helping her to spell a word.
It then dawned on me that all 12 times she'd been removed was over her asking for the teacher to spell a word for her and then I remembered the 1000 times she asked me to spell words.
I rang the school, told them my findings, they had her checked out and initial tests showed she was quite bad.
She then went to a proper centre who said that she had severe dyslexia but she was so clever that one cancelled the other out and she ended up getting 14 GCSE's.
It angers me when I see people posting that dyslexics are lazy.
My daughter must spend at least 4x longer on her work than a normal student would because she has to go over it that many times.

However (and you could try this) salvation came when one day she started to use a blue pen instead of a black one and all of a sudden words made sense.
She then started typing in blue and her condition improved considerably.
We got her blue tinted see through paper that she puts over books and she can read with less problems.
The college has given her permission to write and type in blue and she has way less problems.
Click to expand...
That is quite common actually, colour films over paper can really help.

My dad, and both my sisters are badly dyslexic. My little sister being number dyslexic which is interesting. She had to be retaught how to write numbers. My sisters reacted in totally different ways, one let it rule her life the other wouldn't let it stop her.
I have a lot of problems with spelling and some other basic things and have decided to go and get myself tested through my uni as it is detrimental for me to be penalised for something i haven't really got any control over as i don't see my mistakes.
If you want tested you need to go to an adult learning centre, or if you are at uni to your disability office and they will do the test and then organise for you to see a psychiatrist which costs about £200, my uni contribute £100 other places might too.
 
Phone up the number below for the The British Dyslexia Association.

Tel: 0118 966 2677.

they will point you in the direction of someon who can run the appropriate test to see if you are dyslexic. If it turns out you are would suggest you get in contact with Access to Work who can send an assesor around to your Work to help work out what training/technology may help you.
 
My sister had an assessment carried out at a specialist school, but she was due to start Secondary School.

I would say talk to your local Adult Ed/Learn Direct Centre
 
There are certainly genuine dyslexics, but probably nowhere near as many as some people (especially pressure groups) say. In the OP's case the description sounds a lot closer to someone who simply can't spell. Out of interest, how much do you read? I don't mean textbooks, just papers, ordinary books etc? How easy is it? I would suggest a lot of practice as a first step.


M
 
Mammalian said:
you red it wrong silly billy, he did a software degree which didn't involve much righting, just math and sience, unless i'm being the stupid won and reading it wrong myself
Click to expand...

Maybe once the OP gets details of the dyslexia test centre he should pass them on to this guy? ;)
 
Meridian said:
There are certainly genuine dyslexics, but probably nowhere near as many as some people (especially pressure groups) say. In the OP's case the description sounds a lot closer to someone who simply can't spell. Out of interest, how much do you read? I don't mean textbooks, just papers, ordinary books etc? How easy is it? I would suggest a lot of practice as a first step.


M
Click to expand...
All my reading is text boxs, websites, forums, blogs, etc. Don't read a lot of books, listen to a lot of audio books.
 
That might be the problems - most of those sort of things are hardly havens for correct spelling and grammar. I'd suggest a bit of proper reading - i.e. books. Doesn't have to be great literature, but the idea is to get the words fixed in your head.

My old Uni used to run "English" courses for the science undergrads because their standard of English was so poor. Rubbish English lessons at school combined with hardly any actual reading reap the obvious result. And little has changed, except for the worse. Read. Read. Read - that's my best advice. Made me the eccelennt speeler I am taday.



M
 
You say you're fine with text books. There are a lots of books about dyslexia for teachers which could have some useful techniques. Might be worth having a look at the TES forums, someone there might be able to advise.

I know how frustrating it is to reed back an email and relise what I've writen makes no sense what so ever.
 
Both me and my younger sister have bad dyslexcia. We're were both statemented my a child psycologist. I still have all the paperwork from my assesment. According to that I have an IQ of 135. What annoys me the most is narrow minded pillocks that stereotype dyslexics as lazy. Ive worked bloody hard to get to where I am now, a well paid job, PPL with ME and IR. But working for a company that provides computer kit to dyslexic students there is an awful lot of lazy people paying to be assessed to get free kit off the governement who blatantly arent dyslexic. Anyway end of rant, everyone have a good weekend?
 
Sm1ffy said:
What annoys me the most is narrow minded pillocks that stereotype dyslexics as lazy. Ive worked bloody hard to get to where I am now, a well paid job, PPL with ME and IR.
Anyway end of rant, everyone have a good weekend?
Click to expand...

That really annoys me too, if those ignorant idiots spent some time reading at half the speed they are used to and not being able to write a paragraph of every email/forum post/letter/exam without quadruple checking it then they would soon change their tune.

And I had a great weekend thanks. Buttoned Down Disco at Koko, Camden last night :)
 
Sm1ffy said:
What annoys me the most is narrow minded pillocks that stereotype dyslexics as lazy.
Click to expand...

What annoys me is blatantly lazy, stupid idiots who claim to be dyslexic when they have problems stringing two intelligent words together. As I said before, I'm not pointing at anyone in this thread because I don't know them but there are many people who use dyslexia as an excuse. My thick as two planks cousin being one of them.
 
Dyslexia isn't a disease or illness. It's part of the modern social trend towards compartmentalising every aspect of human behaviour and ability. Sometimes that's useful, sometimes it becomes a self-perpetuating industry which is as much of a hindrance to progress as an aid to it. I think these days we might be in danger of using the dyslexic label as a smokescreen to hide all sorts of issues which shouldn't really be included.

People's language and learning abilities are just like everything else human beings do... they exist on a spectrum of ability from rubbish to excellent. Some people are natural runners, others are natural learners, some are Mother Teresa, others are mass murderers. There's nothing exceptional about any of that, it's just part of unique nature + nurture package we travel through life with, and there's a limit to how much help we should all get for the things we're not naturally good at. I'd love to be an astronaut, but investing millions training me would be a complete waste of limited resources.

As someone with a truly awful memory, which always made life tricky when it came to learning, I sort of object to not having a label I can wear as well. Instead I just had to learn to sit for hour after hour every evening forcing knowledge into my head until some of it stuck. Along the way I learned how to check my work repeatedly to make sure I was spelling correctly, and saying what I think I'd said. So I'm all in favour of the education system spending more time teaching all children the best way to manage their particular skills and abilities.

I'm not, however, in favour of labels. Especially those which tear when you try to peel them off.

Andrew McP

PS Sorry if any of this sounds unsympathetic. Perhaps struggling with my own limitations in a pre-dyslexic era has made me less tolerant of the modern trend towards nannying everyone. I may be completely wrong.
 
Feek said:

What annoys me is blatantly lazy, stupid idiots who claim to be dyslexic when they have problems stringing two intelligent words together. As I said before, I'm not pointing at anyone in this thread because I don't know them but there are many people who use dyslexia as an excuse. My thick as two planks cousin being one of them.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.

However looking at the structuring of the OP's post I would say he may have a mild problem (assuming this isn't a mild troll of course :p )

~S
 
I;m not looking for sympathy, i'm not lazy or any of that. I am just wondering what the problem is becuae it's hard to find solutions when you're not sure what the problem is
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom