Dyslexia (1 Viewer)

[sleepy]

My 8 year old daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia yesterday. All I really want to ask is, has anyone here experienced it with their kids? And does anyone have any helpful advice here?

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

Have you spoken to her school?

Given my work I surprisingly havent worked with anyone with dyslexia. But I'll ask on monday

 

[Anthony]

I don't think this is the cross it once was. What Gary said.

 

[egg_]

One of my best buddies has an 18 year old with dyslexia. My understanding is there's a few different manifestations of it ... I think this kid can sound out words fine but struggles with making sense out of lots of words together, especially dialogue. Alas I have no helpful advice, except I think it means you can get an exemption from doing Irish in school

 

[ann post]

Getting a diagnosis is empowerment.

My fully adult relative went undiagnosed with numerical dyslexia for years - till mid twenties, once she was able to understand it, career change, carved out a very cool life for herself.

 

[dunderhead]

Main advice would be to link up with your school’s Special Ed team. Depending on the level of need regarding the dyslexia, the resources needed may vary. Don’t think the Irish exemption, if wanted, is necessarily nailed on for lads with dyslexia but more often than not it should be fine to get. I’m a primary school teacher, from my experience assistive technology (laptops) should be available but school will have to apply for that and get that ball rolling, if necessary. As Anthony said above, it’s definitely not the cross it once was. Have had dyslexic kids in my classes over the years where you’d struggle to pick them out based on their work and reading, if you weren’t aware of it beforehand. Not always the case obviously but it comes in so many different shapes and sizes . Bottom line, so much good shit out there for kids to get by easily now anyway thankfully

 

[GO]

My 8 year old daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia yesterday. All I really want to ask is, has anyone here experienced it with their kids? And does anyone have any helpful advice here?

My daughter! I don't know what advice I have to give but I can tell our story.

Was diagnosed with it in 3rd class ..has it bigtime. We brought her to a psychologist and did it all legit.
She spent the next two years in the Catherine McAuley school for dyslexics over on Baggot Street. 8 in a class and all they do is tackle it. You can't cure it but they get strategies to mitigate it. Anyway she fucking flew in there and can read anything now although she dosent read anything that isnt on a phone screen. She's 16 now.

She's the top of her class in every subject although I never see her open a book.. Super fucking motivated. She doesn't do Irish and can have somebody assist her in exams if she needs it. Everythings on ipads in her school anyway. She's an amazing youngone I couldnt be prouder of her.

Long covid slowed her down a bit but thats getting better now.

 

[flashback]

Getting a diagnosis is empowerment.

My fully adult relative went undiagnosed with numerical dyslexia for years - till mid twenties, once she was able to understand it, career change, carved out a very cool life for herself.

I've experienced it with myself, not the kids though.
I'm completely numerically dyslexic, really bad, like unable to remember own phone number, PIN, birthdays, anything like that. Also dyslexic with characters, and I struggle to even know which character is which at times. Like b's and d's look the same to me.

But that's the thing, knowing is power. I'm still feeling a bit embarrassed about it today even, but knowing what was going on helped me a lot. Up until then I just checked out of any type of subject that involved grading writing. So, languages and a fair number of Arts type subjects. I got annoyed that for example I'd be able to understand English but be unable to spell, so I arranged with the teacher I'd not turn up. Anything else along that kind of line, even Geography or History was just a no go because I'd get dinged for spelling and terrible English. Obviously German / French / Irish weren't great either. If anyone's read my posts I'd say it's apparent. I'd be transposing words around, ordering words strangely.

But you can treat it a little, and the autospellcheck things keep the wheels just about on for me.

The numerical thing is way worse, meaning I'd not be able to remember formulas for anything ever pretty much. So I'd have to derive a lot of stuff on the fly. I learned that once I could derive things, I'd be less panicky, and I became good at doing that kind of thing. I ended up doing a degree in pure maths strangely enough, because maths stops being about numbers almost.

So, yeah, she might pre-emptively give up on stuff because it can feel pointless to try. Knowing what's happening is good, because I guess the markers know you're not taking the piss? Technology is a life saver.

And because of the fact that you're missing whatever mechanism other people have to remember stuff, you're forced into having to figure out certain types of things quickly, all of the time. And this can become useful. I do coding and maths for work now because I don't struggle with the concepts underneath, I think partly because I spent so much time trying to work out how to get around difficulties.

I was late to reading, but eventually I did learn to read obviously, and i did end up reading a lot of books until I learned to feel comfortable with the way words look if they were correctly spelled, while being unable to spell them. So I'd just go over the permutations on a bit of paper until the word stopped looking uncomfortable. Presumably everyone gets this feeling? I dunno, but a spare piece of paper was always used for me to be able to write anything.

One more thing would be panic, which I still get all the time now, will nuke everything. I locked my PIN this weekend for example. I'd forget how to write if it got bad. So, maybe something trying to address this, if she's prone, would be useful.

 

[egg_]

She spent the next two years in the Catherine McAuley school for dyslexics over on Baggot Street.

My brother taught there for nearly 10 years. Seems to help people a lot

 

[flashback]

one more thing I remembered @sleepy - because I wasn't able to spell, or read etc for a while, I'd memorize other things to get around this, to make it *look* like i was able to read just enough to get people off my back.

Like, I'd hide things, avoid, or demote the importance of things, because they seemed impossibly hard. But I'd give the impression of being able to read certain things. I think this kind of covering up for yourself is common.
Fundamentally kids normally want to blend in, and pass for being like the other kids. If there's difficulties, they'll often hide them and they'll pop up in other strange places which might not even look related to the primary issue. For me it was I just didn't see the value in reading, because the books I was being asked to read were shite. I wasn't going to want to do all this work to figure out how to read shite books.

I remember this logic.

Learning how to actually read I remember working out that a sign said "Funderland" was coming, and in that moment I was converted to how useful this reading craic potentially could be. So, providing her with serious, proper, visible reasons to bother with this level of effort was the tipping point.

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

I didn't get to speak to anyone with experience today. To be honest I think you're pretty well covered but I'll still see if I can find out anything more.

Just remember,any extra assistance the school can provide will likely take time,so get on everything right away.

 

[sleepy]

Have you spoken to her school?

Given my work I surprisingly havent worked with anyone with dyslexia. But I'll ask on monday

My wife spoke to her teacher today. Truth be told, she was pretty non-committal about extra classes. It looks like it’s going to be something we’re going to have to keep at with them. In fairness to them thought, they did actually provide us with the details of the woman who did the assessment last week.

At the moment, we’re just trying to get in extra reading with her and she has been doing really well. She’s definitely improved a lot over the last while. It doesn’t appear to be overly severe with her but at the same time it is going to be an extra challenge for her as she goes through life

Thanks a million everyone for the advice and the stories shared ye’ve shared so far. Everything ye’ve said has been really helpful

 

[Burgerbarbaby]

My partner is dyslexic, I had to do a bit of reading about it to be more than vaguely sympathetic. There's a great book called The Gift Of Dyslexia (one of the two books my efforts to empathise extended to) which gets right inside what it actually feels like to be dyslexic, might be useful to have that understanding, for one or two of the infinite inexplicable situations that kids put in front of parents from time to time.

Also: "Dyslexics are often good at other things, it will help a lot to focus on those rather than entirely being focussed on a remedy for the condition. Dyslexics often suffer severe emotional stress, and things involving movement, (if they are good at that) empower the child and help them manage their stress" (quote from my dyslexic partner who has a first class masters degree and is a dancer, information she asked me to include )

 

[sleepy]

My partner is dyslexic, I had to do a bit of reading about it to be more than vaguely sympathetic. There's a great book called The Gift Of Dyslexia (one of the two books my efforts to empathise extended to) which gets right inside what it actually feels like to be dyslexic, might be useful to have that understanding, for one or two of the infinite inexplicable situations that kids put in front of parents from time to time.

Also: "Dyslexics are often good at other things, it will help a lot to focus on those rather than entirely being focussed on a remedy for the condition. Dyslexics often suffer severe emotional stress, and things involving movement, (if they are good at that) empower the child and help them manage their stress" (quote from my dyslexic partner who has a first class masters degree and is a dancer, information she asked me to include )

Thanks a million for this. She does love gymnastics! That’s one thing that definitely makes her very happy.

I’m going to check out that book.

 

[dudley]

The little I know from friends with dyslexic kids in school is that there are great resources and methodologies in place for schools to help, but the parents have to fucking fight tooth and nail to get them. The schools do everything they can, but they're just not given the resources.
Fingers crossed your little one gets all the help needed!

 

[sleepy]

The little I know from friends with dyslexic kids in school is that there are great resources and methodologies in place for schools to help, but the parents have to fucking fight tooth and nail to get them. The schools do everything they can, but they're just not given the resources.
Fingers crossed your little one gets all the help needed!

Thanks @dudley

 

[Burgerbarbaby]

Thanks a million for this. She does love gymnastics! That’s one thing that definitely makes her very happy.

I’m going to check out that book.

That's awesome Good luck to her! In general Katherine sees dyslexia as a positive thing (you'll see why when you read the book), although growing up in the 80's with it has left some scars. She's great at reading, it just takes longer than some other folks, and she's very self-conscious about it. From the outside though, it seems to me that she retains way more of what she has read than most people.l, certainly me.

 

[Jill Hives]

one more thing I remembered @sleepy - because I wasn't able to spell, or read etc for a while, I'd memorize other things to get around this, to make it *look* like i was able to read just enough to get people off my back.

Like, I'd hide things, avoid, or demote the importance of things, because they seemed impossibly hard. But I'd give the impression of being able to read certain things. I think this kind of covering up for yourself is common.
Fundamentally kids normally want to blend in, and pass for being like the other kids. If there's difficulties, they'll often hide them and they'll pop up in other strange places which might not even look related to the primary issue. For me it was I just didn't see the value in reading, because the books I was being asked to read were shite. I wasn't going to want to do all this work to figure out how to read shite books.

I remember this logic.

Learning how to actually read I remember working out that a sign said "Funderland" was coming, and in that moment I was converted to how useful this reading craic potentially could be. So, providing her with serious, proper, visible reasons to bother with this level of effort was the tipping point.

Late to this, but I’m also dyslexic and I’ve never heard anyone describe it so well or so close to my experience. Reading all you wrote was refreshing and actually comforting. Thanks.

Sleepy, I hope your daughter is getting all the help she needs.

 

[sleepy]

Late to this, but I’m also dyslexic and I’ve never heard anyone describe it so well or so close to my experience. Reading all you wrote was refreshing and actually comforting. Thanks.

Sleepy, I hope your daughter is getting all the help she needs.

Thanks a million @Jill Hives , she’s been getting on great. She’s been getting extra reading classes in school which have been really helpful. Also, her teacher is really sound. And her and my daughter really like each other, which is great.

We’ve been trying to read up as much as possible about it and did a few courses with the National Dyslexic Association so we could find out what supports are available. We read that Gift of Dyslexia book, it really helped us understand a lot of things.

I think the main lesson we’ve learned is not to push her too hard when it comes to reading and not turn her completely off it. And we’ve been looking at things like audiobooks so she gets to keep up with what her friends are reading.

Also, she’s still mad about gymnastics. And she’s been getting big into GAA over the last couple of months. So we’re doing what we can to encourage that. I got to bring her to her first game at the weekend - Offaly and Meath. Offaly won. Up Offaly.

Anyways, it’s all being going good.

 

[Jill Hives]

I love audiobooks! They are so much better read these days. Not all monotone and sleep inducing. The public libraries have tons of them you can listen to off your phone. Glad things are going well.