Dyslexia

Watching the 2005 film “In her shoes” with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette reminded me of dyslexia. My daughter showed signs of dyslexia when she was around 6 years of age so I have been quite close to it. Many parents usually ask me how we navigated through it. Here are some ideas for them. 

Dyslexia is a common reading disorder that affects nearly 5-20% of school-aged children. And… it is not caused by brain damage. It can be treated but no cured. Children can learn to compensate for this weakness in reading the written language.

What I thought would be useful today is to share some of my experience with dyslexia as I ventured into this uncharted territory. When I found out that my daughter disliked reading, inverted the letters “b” for “d” and took a few seconds longer to comprehend what she was reading I started to pay attention.

I was totally unaware that some people have this difficulty in processing words. And that the brain of a dyslexic person has to work up to 5 times harder than a non-dyslexic brain –according to some recent research at the University of Washington. It was then, that my own education process started…

As she commenced school and came back disappointed in how slow she was reading I took her to be assessed. I discovered bit by bit that one of the most important things to do to help your dyslexic child is to be patient yourself and help him/her to navigate their own feelings of frustration when they are treated differently by teachers and classmates. This has a direct impact on their self-esteem as they will feel less confident as soon as others notice they are not fast enough or they may make mistakes when writing.

She also had to attend remedial dyslexia classes (outside school hours) for 3-4 years to learn to identify the phonemes (which are small distinctive speech sounds) and be able to read the words better. Those classes made a world of difference to her future.

Recognising the early symptoms of the learning difficulty is important. This short video shows what to look for to detect dyslexia.

Today, at 21, my daughter Relmi is a talented photographer and designer. And she also writes great essays and proposals. So... to parents with dyslexic children, do not despair, it may turn out that your child becomes a celebrity or an entrepreneur!!

Look for this video from NBC – Successful Entrepreneurs with Dyslexia. You will find out that from Richard Branson to Tom Cruise, they all suffered from dyslexia. This pushed them to use their brains to compensate for this deficiency in reading skills.