Dyslexia
Well I"ve gotten some replys and I'd have to say that it's a good start in how I want this proect to progress. People are asking questions, voicing support and bringing up things that I intend to talk about in the future such as dysgraphia. For those of you who arn't that familiar with learning disabilities it is an inability to write legibaly. Think about Doctor's handwriting, you know what I mean, that illegibal scrall that seems to be required to enter the field of medicine. But this is getting off my intended topic for this post. I wanted to talk about Dyslexia here today and tell you what that means.
People tend to think they already have an idea what dyslexia means. Looking at a giant red octagon at a crosswalk while driving and seeing POTS. While this is sometimes true, dyslexia is a bit more subtle and often more insidious. Dyslexia covers a much broader area then just reading, it aso includes writing, spelling, mathmatics, language skills, short term memory, processing, organization, audio/visual perception among other things.
What was that? Oh? Examples? Let me see what I can think of to simulate it.
To be perfectly honnest, I can't think of all that much. Oh I could find you a dozen misspellings and cartoons and cute backwards letters online. However, I think that they are poking fun at what is often quite serious for me. I could say try reading that dictionary upside down again, but that's just another misconception about dyslexia. Oh I can do it, just probably no faster or slower then any other person. Ah, I think I've got it now. Pick a word, something sutably long and complex. Here are some exaples of ones I thought of, though it could be anything really: atmosphere, ancient, SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS! The last one's a joke, but use it if you want.
Now say the word, over and over and over again. Take a moment to slow down, feel the word rolling over your tongue and past your lips, think about every sound and where it comes from in the word. Take your time, don't hurry on my account. Can you imagine not being able to do that? Not being able to redily recognize where each sound comes from, what leter produces each tone in the word? Try saying the word quickly about 20 times. I'm not asking as a tongue twister or anything like that. I'm asking you to experiance something I've heard reffered to as a Gestalt Break. You've probably experianced this in the past, where a word you know and use doesn't make sense, where the parts don't add up to a recognized whole. Instead of parsing a word like Atmosphere into Atmo and Sphere, you may find yourself thinking of it as Atmos Fear, or perhaps all together something different.
That best describes my early experiances with dyslexia and learning to read, write, and spell. Can you imagine it? not just a few moments of incomprehension, but years and years of inability. There were other things as well that stemmed from that inability, psychological things. Fear mainly, but also embarrisment, anger and disappointment with mysef for being unable where so many others were excelling in my eyes. It was torturous at times believe me.
Enough of this. If you were going to pity me, or feel sorry for me, forget it. I wouldn't trade my dyslexia for anything. You might be confused now, but here, let me explain. Dyslexia isn't all bad, infact it can be quite good. I tend to see the world from a completely different perspective then a lot of people. You want an example of this? Easy. Ever been to a classical orchestra? Enjoy the music, watch the musicians, have some fun? Ever been able to follow each section of the music from each area of the orchestra? Follow the melody by watching the bows of the violins? Seen the msuical back and forth, competition and conversation and not just heard it? I do, every time, all the time.
My short term memory may not be all that. I may be a slow reader and most definetly slower writer, but I remember the vast magority of what I do read and write. I have a lot of fun with games of Chess, pulling the unexpected move because I don't think like a traditional chess player, I don't think I would be able to if I wanted. I have stories, both good and bad about dyslexia. Perhaps I'll be writing out a few of them on here later this week. I look forward to continuing this.
People tend to think they already have an idea what dyslexia means. Looking at a giant red octagon at a crosswalk while driving and seeing POTS. While this is sometimes true, dyslexia is a bit more subtle and often more insidious. Dyslexia covers a much broader area then just reading, it aso includes writing, spelling, mathmatics, language skills, short term memory, processing, organization, audio/visual perception among other things.
What was that? Oh? Examples? Let me see what I can think of to simulate it.
To be perfectly honnest, I can't think of all that much. Oh I could find you a dozen misspellings and cartoons and cute backwards letters online. However, I think that they are poking fun at what is often quite serious for me. I could say try reading that dictionary upside down again, but that's just another misconception about dyslexia. Oh I can do it, just probably no faster or slower then any other person. Ah, I think I've got it now. Pick a word, something sutably long and complex. Here are some exaples of ones I thought of, though it could be anything really: atmosphere, ancient, SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS! The last one's a joke, but use it if you want.
Now say the word, over and over and over again. Take a moment to slow down, feel the word rolling over your tongue and past your lips, think about every sound and where it comes from in the word. Take your time, don't hurry on my account. Can you imagine not being able to do that? Not being able to redily recognize where each sound comes from, what leter produces each tone in the word? Try saying the word quickly about 20 times. I'm not asking as a tongue twister or anything like that. I'm asking you to experiance something I've heard reffered to as a Gestalt Break. You've probably experianced this in the past, where a word you know and use doesn't make sense, where the parts don't add up to a recognized whole. Instead of parsing a word like Atmosphere into Atmo and Sphere, you may find yourself thinking of it as Atmos Fear, or perhaps all together something different.
That best describes my early experiances with dyslexia and learning to read, write, and spell. Can you imagine it? not just a few moments of incomprehension, but years and years of inability. There were other things as well that stemmed from that inability, psychological things. Fear mainly, but also embarrisment, anger and disappointment with mysef for being unable where so many others were excelling in my eyes. It was torturous at times believe me.
Enough of this. If you were going to pity me, or feel sorry for me, forget it. I wouldn't trade my dyslexia for anything. You might be confused now, but here, let me explain. Dyslexia isn't all bad, infact it can be quite good. I tend to see the world from a completely different perspective then a lot of people. You want an example of this? Easy. Ever been to a classical orchestra? Enjoy the music, watch the musicians, have some fun? Ever been able to follow each section of the music from each area of the orchestra? Follow the melody by watching the bows of the violins? Seen the msuical back and forth, competition and conversation and not just heard it? I do, every time, all the time.
My short term memory may not be all that. I may be a slow reader and most definetly slower writer, but I remember the vast magority of what I do read and write. I have a lot of fun with games of Chess, pulling the unexpected move because I don't think like a traditional chess player, I don't think I would be able to if I wanted. I have stories, both good and bad about dyslexia. Perhaps I'll be writing out a few of them on here later this week. I look forward to continuing this.
posted by Alexander Sobotka | 10:12 PM
1 Comments:
you go boyo!
l,m
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