Dyslexia

Okay, this is kind of a strange but good story. We spent most of last week at a conference. There were lots of people there that we did not know that well. Over the supper table one evening I happened to mention that I am dyslexic, it turned out that five of the six of us at the table were dyslexic. It was the first time that I had ever discussed the complexities of living with dyslexia with other people who share this condition. We had fun as we shared our horror stories and laughed a lot as we explored who had what symptoms.

Afterwards one of my supper guests asked if he could pray for my dyslexia. I was unsure, because I thought he might have asked God to heal it. I am not sure if either God or I want that. I am not sure how much of my artistic and social justice gifts would be lost if God took the dyslexia away. Anyhow he prayed that God would take away the condemnation and low self-esteem that most dyslexic people suffer from as a fruit of a lack of understanding from authority figures and peers.

For me this supper was the highlight of an excellent conference.

This picture I painted this morning. Because of my dyslexia I find it very difficult to fill out forms under pressure. When I have to write in boxes, I find that both the boxes and the words start moving on me and often in different directions. This picture is a good example of how I see letters, words and boxes. They just keep moving.

The painting was strange to paint because I was painting out of my weakness, the boxes were moving as I was trying to paint them.

Anyhow that is me. Drop me a note if you are dyslexic and reading this. Cheers

2018.01.08

I have not read all of this website and cannot take responsibility for it, however it looks good and looks as if it is worth a read. Please check it out. https://dopasolution.com/what-is-dyslexia

This is a copy of the message I received from the people at this website, it is interesting.

Hello,

I just came across the Out for lunch piece, “Dyslexia.” Nice job! As a heads up, you linked to Wikipedia.org which is not WC3 accessibility compliant for people with serious dyslexia or cognitive disabilities.

I launched a website, Dopa, about reading and writing that is fully accessible. My new version of the Wikipedia piece has the needed accessibility html/code and design elements.

Would you mention my article on the Out for lunch page for those that with dyslexia that rely on web accessibility? The URL is: https://dopasolution.com/what-is-dyslexia

Best wishes,
Tina Richardson
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@tinarichardson
Dopa

4 thoughts on “Dyslexia

  1. Your story today is so much like part of Ron Davis’ story—he’s the founder of Davis Dyslexia Association International. You’ve got to check out the Davis Dyslexia website at http://www.dyslexia.com
    Love your painting!

  2. Well I wouldn’t suggest that anyone lose a gift , but if you would like the words to stop moving when you read you could try See Right Dyslexia Glasses available at http://www.dyslexiaglasses.com.

    When you remove the glasses everything will return to your normal condition.

    Here is part of an article that I read today that is not about dyslexia but very well may describe why some think dyslexia is a gift. While the discussion is about age differences and the brain the slower reading and different connections made seems similar to dyslexia in some ways.

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    “It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

    For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.

    When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.

    “For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”

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    Just an observation.

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