Dyslexia-personal experiences and help

I have just found this thread I think I was away at the time. I may have posted it before.
Are there many other dyslexics in their late 60s on here who recognise this condition in themselves?
20 yrs ago (when I was 50) I was diagnosed as Dyslexic when starting an OU course.

I was an early and very competent reader long before Dyslexia was known of so it was never recognised . I could read well but it was found I had issues like “short term visual memory problems" so I could read it but not fully recall what I had just been reading unless I had read it a couple of times. I was constantly nagged at school about my written work.
These conditions did really take a toll on my education in terns of grades .

A few more signs of this condition? Add general disorganisation.

One thing that came to mind today was my general disorganisation. I had left my handbag at a friends house but did not realise until later. I was certain I had taken it home with me . This was a "lost bag crisis" over (a very sleepless) last night which left me thinking I had lost my handbag and contents and I was in a really dreadful panic. It was un-noticed in a friends house and thank fully she arrived on my doorstep with it about 9.30am.

I can leave trails of my belongings behind everywhere and my knitting friends are well used to picking up my belongings and returning them.

Symptoms of Dysgraphia
I have recently found this very accurate description of my hand writing problems due to dysgraphia. I found this article really good for my morale. I can’t do much about it now but I know I am not thick.

"Dyslexia creates problems in reading where dysgraphia, also known as written expression disorder, creates problems in writing. Although poor or illegible handwriting is one of the hallmark signs of dysgraphia, there is more to this learning disability than simply having bad handwriting.

The National Center for Learning Disabilities indicates that writing difficulties can arise from visual-spatial difficulties and language processing difficulties, in other words how a child processes information through the eyes and ears."

Some of the main symptoms of dysgraphia include:
*Difficulty holding or gripping a pen and pencil
Inconsistent spacing between letters, words, and sentences
Using a mix of upper case and lower case letters and a mix of cursive and print writing
Sloppy, illegible writing
Tires easily when completing writing assignments
Omitting letters or not finishing words when writing
Inconsistent or non-existent use of grammar*

Besides problems when writing, students with dysgraphia may have trouble organizing their thoughts or keeping track of the information they have already written down. They may work so hard on writing each letter that they miss the meaning of the words.

I experience all of the above.

I still have dreadful problems hand writing. The wrong words just come off my pen, capitals appear and grammar and punctuation is difficult. I find even writing a simple note to the milkman difficult and usually needs two goes because I make mistakes.
I hope this is useful to someone.

Short term memory loss, not being able to concentrate or make sense of external stimuli are well-known symptoms of depression. I've had diagnosed chronic depression since I was a teenager and a couple of very serious acute episodes, so symptoms have gone on for weeks and months and have affected my life.

I expect it is to do with struggling to stay above water. There are definitely brain changes, but I don't think anybody really knows what they are. Maybe they're similar to the way the brain functions for people with hyperlexia. To be honest, I don't know, but the symptoms sound similar.

Daphne didnt realise that have only called it brain fog, but somedays can look at a page of words and nothing makes sense,thought that was just one of those things that happen due to struggling to stay above water

It's more serious than brain fog. It can go on for weeks and is always related to very low moods. Usually I'm a very quick reader and don't have any problems, but this is looking at a page of words, being able to decode the individual words but not having any idea but not being able to make any sense of them.

Daphne I recognise that having suffered on and off with depression some days I find it harder for information to sink in , I just put it down to brain fog

my GD and OH are not related

My OH is severely dyslexic, labelled as "thick"in the 70's,sent to "special" school in the 80's.Life is full of coping mechanisms with him,unfortunately he still cannot read or spell due to short term memory problems anything learned goes straight in one ear straight out the otherside.Dyslexia was finally diagnosed in 2014 after he was at college completing a practical course on car mechanics...he has always been very practical,however measuring for curtains and carpets produce some strange hilarious results.part of his coping mechanism is to leave things exactly where he has put them, and as a tidy person find that can be frustrating ,it has taken a while to learn how unorganised and choatic life can be with him.
On the other hand E, my GD whom I have brought up since the age of 4 has dyscalculia,which is the equivalent but for maths,looking back both of my children had this number blindness.My OH father is dyslexic it does seem to run in families

This is slightly off topic, but one symptom of depression can sometimes be not understanding what you've read. It's happened to me when I've been really depressed and I usually don't have problems with reading and comprehension.

Making sense of written 'code' in the brain and converting that to meaning is a complicated process. It's as though part of a depressive's brain switches off - maybe something similar happens to people with hyperlexia.

MiniMouse This is known as 'hyperlexia' and requires particular input to develop language skills and comprehension (possibly as well as development of social skills).

Yes daphnedill We had a base in a small unused classroom in a local primary school. When we set up a series of information and advice evenings hundreds of teachers turned up and we had to beg the school for the use of their hall. No cash was involved - all was voluntary! On the first evening we asked those teachers to write down what they wanted to know and based all future evenings around those requests. The responses we had were amazingly positive.

Over the next years I watched the same teachers forced to complete innumerable tick lists to reach impossible 'targets' and many of them still went the extra mile to help the pupils for whom this system would never work. Heartbreaking!

Something that I don't think has been mentioned on here (apologies if I've missed it!) is that some people with dyslexia can read almost perfectly, but have absolutely no idea of what they've read. This is the case with someone I know. When reading text, they miss out the odd word here and there, but have no idea that they have because they have not comprehended anything that they've read. It's very easy for their issue to be overlooked because, to the untrained eye, they can appear to be good readers.

I remember those days too Grandma2213. There were teachers' centres, which ran evening courses (so no supply needed) and where groups of teachers could meet and work on specific projects. Local Management of Schools mean that money was no longer available to local authorities and the centres gradually closed. This coincided with the 1988 Education Act and National Curriculum, which placed education firmly in central government's hands, rather than locally, which was the myth 'sold' to the public.

Back in the 80's and 90's I was fortunate enough to work for a forward thinking Local Authority who put support into secondary schools for children with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) including Dyslexia. We were given free (and inspirational) training and also learned from the pupils themselves.

In the school I worked in we developed systems to allow pupils to photocopy legible class notes from friends, gave them a 'bolt hole' area to 'de-stress', developed their touch typing and computer skills (multisensory - visual, auditory and kinaesthetic), lobbied examination boards to allow readers and scribes to demonstrate skills in areas other than English and literacy, personally read books onto tapes to allow them to hear great literature, set up an active parent group, did fund raising to provide spellcheckers, early laptops and dictaphones and much much more, including staff training (by us) which resulted in amazing achievements and raised self esteem of the pupils. They became genuinely respected members of the school community.

We persuaded the authority that support given earlier to these young people would be even more beneficial and cost effective and so were deployed into primary schools. We even introduced peer tutoring so that secondary pupils could go into the primary schools, read to younger children at their own level and help them with writing. The confidence of the older pupils was massively improved as a result.

Guess what..... rationalisation and cuts meant that initially schools were delegated the money that (allegedly) paid for us and we were reorganised (every few years) until the service became unrecognisable and had to deal with the whole spectrum of SEN. We had less and less contact with actual pupils.

Schools were expected to deal with SpLD pupils themselves. For some reason !!!! Behavioural problems escalated. I wonder why?!!!

I apologise for going on.. but I feel so angry that all our hard work was wasted and we seem to have gone backward. Now not only the pupils but the teachers are crying out for this kind of support. It isn't only money. It requires creative thinking - maybe that of a dyslexic!!!!

Ahem! You might guess from the above that I have the same problem.

Try the Dyslexia SOciety for info and possible reading lessons

If you can afford it (like all things in life money talks!) try a specialist optician who can check out responses to different colours and lights.

Specialist typing lessons for children who can't cope with handwriting (also helps with spelling and using a keyboard)

My DGC diagnosed 4 years ago now reads really well but has has an hour a week one to one reading and two hours a week typing course. Not free but worthwhile.

daphnedill - my husband often uses that trick with the ruler.
Another point about assessment - other reasons for reading problems need to be ruled out, eg vision and hearing problems, school time lost from illness, emotional problems etc.
There used to be a lot of children with blocked nasal tubes leading to partial deafness, who eventually switched off in the classroom, either sat in a dream or becoming naughty. This was treated with gromets in their ears.

Multi sensory approaches are really supposed to be helpful, so seeing the letter/word, saying the letter/word, feeling the letter/word and writing the letter/word can help. Sandpaper letters are used as well. Think this probably ties in with writing in the air. The problem with children being diagnosed at older ages is that they don't want to be seen as 'thick' so are reluctant to engage with anything they consider 'babyish'

dd I was thinking that many dyslexics (sorry that is a bit of a broad sweep) seem to have a high spatial ability so I can imagine placing the letters might help them register but, to be honest, I don't really know enough about the spatial bit.

I don't know. It was something I came cross, when I was teaching my DD (who isn't dyslexic) to write. It seemed to work well, so I tried with some dyslexic pupils and they said it helped. When teaching foreign languages, pupils have to learn some different spelling patterns. I was always quite careful to teach them explicitly and not assume they could do them, based on knowledge of English spelling. I did it with all pupils, so dyslexics weren't necessarily disadvantaged. They were learning and being taught something new.

Different coloured text helps dd. I usually use a mid blue rather than black on a computer and then 'select all' and change the colour for the rest of the world.

My DD's dictation software has us in fits at times. She often uses it to type notes and, while it is great most of the time, we do get the odd really weird word/s when it tries to make sense of some to the academic words relating to what she is doing (I know how it feels) but there is also the odd 'hi Mum, put the kettle on' in the middle of it when she forgets it's listening

dd I wonder if the writing in the air helps by working with, rather than against, the brain - I can imagine it might.

A couple of little tricks I learnt were to give pupils a ruler when reading to stop lines 'jumping' and make sure worksheets were uncluttered. I can't imagine what a person with dyslexia makes of an average computer page with side bars, pop up ads, etc. Different coloured paper and coloured overlays can help with reading.

When teaching blended phonics (syllables) I used to encourage pupils to close their eyes and 'write' with their fingers, which seemed to help by getting them to concentrate on the shape of the letters and avoid distractions.

My DS uses a spell checker on his laptop that suggests words by context rather than by the first few letters. So helpful because his spelling guesses are sometimes very bizarre!

I think there is a bit of 'getting past' the three Rs bit WW. I wish I knew all the details but I think, on my DDs work for her Masters it says they may not penalise for spelling errors, etc. She still gets extra time in exams too and has had since her GCSE days when she got the maximum available but it has become just part of what happens now. That sort of thing has certainly helped her get to a stage where what she knows seems more important than how she writes - would that is was like that for everyone but, of course, this spreads across the IQ spectrum and includes children with other problems as trisher said.

My son who rights loads of reports at quite a high level, totally relies on the computer. He occasionally asks me to proof read if it is of the highest importance. Makes interesting reading sometimes Goodness knows what his work colleagues must think. It doesn't seem to phase my son remotely though!! And it certainly hasn't prevented his progress in his chosen career. I suspect there is a large element of problem solving concerned, and imaginative solutions.

That is my memory of the teaching we helped my daughter with TriciaF but she also did seem to get lessons in what I suppose were general coping strategies - she still uses a lot spidergrams and mind mapping when starting a project and she teaches them within her standard classes I think. I could be wrong about this but I think that she learn some of this (it's quite a long time ago at our local Dyslexia Institute. I know how lucky we were to a) be able to afford the lessons and b) have this virtually on our doorstep. She has picked up things about how people 'read' what you write and the assumptions they may make. Learning to write longer sentences is one thing I can remember her commenting on for instance.

One thing that always makes me smile is that both DD and myself have often been asked about a spelling 'because you'll know'. This is by people who have no idea of the dyslexia. Of course we don't and I am blessing the computer as I type this and see the correct letters pop in - as long as I have got it nearly right. What we are good at is find out the correct spelling (if we know we need it) and giving the time to do so and also in lots of proof reading and proof reading for each other or asking other to do it if there is a need. It is hugely time consuming though.