Perspectives on Dyslexia

What do Cher, Greg Louganis and Whoopi Goldberg have in common? Surprisingly, the answer is a learning disability--dyslexia. Yet, as dyslexics, these celebrities are not alone. As many as 15 percent of American students may be dyslexic, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Literally, dyslexia means inadequate learning or mastery of verbal language. Dyslexia is defined by the National Dyslexia Research Foundation (NDRF) as a "neurologically based disorder that inhibits orderly acquisition and processing of linguistic information."

Students whose reading levels are two years below those of their peers are often classified as dyslexic. Yet despite this disorder, dyslexics exhibit average to above average intelligence. Brilliant luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Edison, Agatha Christie and Woodrow Wilson are believed to have been dyslexic.

For many adolescents, dyslexia is characterized by slow reading, poor comprehension, poor spelling, hesitant speech and confusing letters and word order.

But, just being a poor reader or poor speller does not necessarily mean that an individual is dyslexic, says Instructor in Psychology David K. Dinklage, a neuropsychologist at Cambridge Hospital. Rather, he says, there has to be a large enough discrepancy between reading and other cognitive abilities for an individual's difficulties to be attributed to dyslexia.

Dyslexics learn differently from other individuals. To learn effectively, they must be taught using multi-sensory instructional methods, catering to their specific needs. According to the NDRF, such needs are not currently being met by mainstream educational methods. Thus, dyslexics often find themselves unable to succeed to succeed within the school system.

William H. Baker Jr, founder and executive director of the NDRF, says that many dyslexic' students are described by their teachers as being bright, but unwilling to apply themselves. Baker adds that he would not be surprised if a fair share of drop-outs were dyslexic.

Yet Baker, among other individuals studying and working with dyslexia, explains that with the proper learning strategies and methods dyslexics are able to "bridge the learning gap" and achieve success in and out of the classroom. Baker also explains that dyslexia should not be considered a disability, but rather a difference.

"Just because they think a little differently in coming up with solutions, doesn't mean it is wrong. It can be beneficial," Baker says.

Educational consultant Nancy Blackmore, diagnosed as dyslexic in her sophomore year of college, shares Baker's view. "That's why we are such a creative group of people, because we can't go the traditional route, we have to go around the back door."

However Dinklage, while he believes that individuals can overcome problems associated with dyslexia, says that he does not see dyslexia as an advantage. People "can do things in spite of it, not because of it," he says. In our culture, centered around reading and language skills, dyslexia is a particular disadvantage, Dinklage adds.

Phyllis Meisel, who runs a teacher training program on dyslexia at Mass. General Hospital (MGH), says that sometimes people don't even realize that they are dyslexic until they get to college or graduate school. Previously able to compensate for their different learning style, it is not until these individuals are placed in a more challenging situation with greater reading loads that they realize they have some sort of problem.

Similarly foreign languages also pose particular challenges for dyslexic students. Alice Garside, Meisel's predecessor at MGH, says, "One of the things that worries me in the renewed focus of education is everyone is going gung-ho about learning foreign languages. But what they have to recognize is that it's going to be extremely difficult for some students."

Harvard was actually the first college to waive its foreign language requirement for dyslexic students. Yet Blackmore, founder of the Harvard Dyslexia Awareness Group (HKDAG) in 1986, does not feel the College has done all that it can to address the needs of dyslexic students.

"Traditionally Harvard has had a very hard time accepting the non-traditional applicant, the non-traditional learner, and accommodating them," says Blackmore, a former resident tutor in Adams House. She attributes this to the College's reservations about interfering with the teaching styles and formats of tenured faculty at Harvard.

Unlike physical disabilities such as dyslexia are not readily apparent and can easily go unnoticed. "You have to be so vigilant, especially because the disability is not visible. People struggle so much with it because it's hidden," says Blackmore. "It's a very true concern for me, and I really wish Harvard would do more because the students really suffer silently there."

Blackmore feels that the disbanding of the HDAG last year and its placement under the control of the Office of Disability Resources has not been as successful a transfer as she would have liked.

Before leaving Harvard, Blackmore had assembled an Advisory Committee to the HDAG on which Associate Professor of Neurology Dr. Albert M. Galaburda, Professor of Geology Stephen J. Gould and Professor of Education Howard E. Gardner among others served. The committee was never contacted by the University, she says.

Despite these complaints about Harvard's handling of dyslexic students, Harvard-based researchers are continuing to make significant contribution to the study of dyslexia.

Margaret S. Livingstone, professor of Neurobiology, and Galaburda, chief of behavioral neurology at Beth Israel Hospital, have developed a way of diagnosing dyslexia through measuring the brain's response to certain visual stimuli. By measuring the speed of different brain waves, known as "evoked potentials," they can detect patterns characteristic of dyslexia.

They plan to go into schools in Boston and diagnose dyslexia in children as young as possible with a modified version of an electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures brain waves using electrodes attached to the head.

With dyslexia diagnosed at the start of a child's education, learning needs can be matched as soon as a child begins learning language skills and reading Meisel says, "Unfortunately, there are many adults who have dyslexia, who did not have it diagnosed when they were Yong and they [have kept] it hidden."

With early detection, Livingstone and Galaburda hope to minimize the obstacles dyslexics have traditionally faced in school.

And Livingstone, like others researching in this area, is confident that dyslexia is not a defect, but rather a difference.

"[Dyslexia] is some kind of spectrum of normal, just at one extreme," she says. Common Symptoms of Dyslexia

Childhood

Difficulty in expressing oneself

Difficulty in learning tasks such as typing shoes and telling time

Inattentiveness: distractibility

Inability to follow directions

Left-right confusion

Difficulty learning the alphabet, math, words of songs or rhymes

Poor playground skills

Difficulty learning to read

Mixing the order of letters or numbers while writing

Adolescence and Adulthood

Difficulty in processing auditory information

Losing possessions, poor organizational skills

Slow reading: poor comprehension

Difficulty remembering names of people and places

Hesitant speech: difficulty finding appropriate words

Difficulty organizing ideas to write a letter or paper

Poor spelling

Inability to write numbers in proper sequence

Lowered self-esteem due to past frustrations and failures