If you meet Henry Winkler today, one of the last words to come to mind would be the word "anger." Yet anger is what Henry battled with for years because of his experiences in school before dyslexia was recognized.... Henry wasn't allowed to graduate with his class at...
Dr. Michael Ryan is a Michigan Clinical Psychologist who developed one of the first clinical programs for LD students at Colorado State University and he spoke at our first Dyslexic Advantage conference. From his writing at LDOnline and the IDA: How can parents and...
![[PREMIUM] Realistic Confidence](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/sailing-boat-scaled.jpg.webp)
We know that confidence can make a huge difference in course of people’s lives, but the question is how to avoid the extremes of underconfidence, which might lead to avoidance and underachievement, and overconfidence, which can also result in going off the rails. It was Albert Bandura, a founding father of scientific psychology who found that the best predictor of an individual person’s success is whether or not they believe they will succeed. But there’s an important caution here. There’s a difference between believing you will succeed and believing you will succeed easily…or to put it another way, there’s a difference between an unrealistic optimist and a realistic optimist. A realistic optimistic (or what some call a pessimistic optimist) anticipates that the path to success […]
Children with dyslexia should be screened for hearing problems, says a UK researcher, after her research team found that 1 in 4 students had significant hearing problems that were not suspected by parents. Their study also found that 1 in 3 children with a hearing...
![[PREMIUM] Big Picture and Dyspraxia](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/sunflowergirl.jpg)
The good news about dyspraxia is that there are many positive strategies that can significantly improve functioning. #1. SELF-AWARENESS – Self-awareness is the most important tool of children and adults with dyspraxia. There are many everyday classroom and real world tasks that can be extremely difficult or even impossible for a person with dyspraxia. Without being aware that something being asked of you is impossible, it’s easy to slide into negative thinking and self-deprecating behaviors which can pull you away from things that could actually help, like self-advocacy, technology, or training. #2. COORDINATION AND STRENGTH TRAINING – Coordination and motor strength are highly trainable, so it’s important to recognize that there’s a lot one can do to improve symptoms of dyspraxia. A common mistake is […]
Math Tips for Dyslexia: Some students have difficulty using a number line because of right-left difficulties and the fact that there are some counter-intuitive principles when dealing with positive and negative numbers (the negative of a negative number is a...
Resilience is a popular topic among today’s educational leaders, and for good reason. If you grow up with significant academic, social, or socio-economic stress, you’re more likely to still grow up as a happy, successful, and adaptive adult if you are resilient. Many external factors support resilience, like a supportive family or caregiver and stable home life, but individual factors are also important – and importantly there is substantial evidence that these can be learned. Studies of dyslexic children and adults almost universally show the significant degrees of stress that dyslexia can have in the school setting. In general, the period leading up to a formal ‘diagnosis’ or identification is especially stressful as individuals don’t know why school tasks are difficult or they are underperforming. […]
![How to Encourage Dyslexic Students in Engineering [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-12.07.59-PM.jpg)
1. PROTECT THEIR TIME. The best time to introduce students to engineering and technology is when they’re young – but young dyslexic students are often overwhelmed by academics which may leave them with little energy or time for building and making. Often active efforts must be taken to protect relaxing downtime, family time, and time for hobbies. 2. THINK LIKE AN ENGINEER. Encourage students to ask good questions and propose different solutions – in the process, you’ll also encourage resilience and productive responses to failure. Ask good questions of your student – like “What’s the problem with this?” and “How can you make it better?” 3. TAKE THINGS APART. Grace Hopper (a pioneer in computer programming) took apart alarm clocks when she was a kid, […]
![Processing Speed & Writing [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-10.47.06-AM.jpg)
Question: I know my son’s processing speed is slow from his testing, but how slow should his speed on something like writing take? My son has slow processing speed, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and a loose attention control system – but how long should it take him to write a 5 paragraph academic paper… after which the paper still needs revisions? It takes him hours to complete assignments. This is a great question…but of course, the answer depends on a lot of individual factors regarding your student. When essay or paper writing takes so long, it’s good to try to troubleshoot ways to make the process quicker. If the delay occurs at the beginning, before any ‘writing’ occurs, then maybe he doesn’t have a template in which […]
![[PREMIUM] Gifted with ADHD: How We Asked for Extended Time & a Better Schedule](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-12.24.34-PM.jpg)
The road to advocacy has many twists and turns so if your student has moderate to severe difficulties with processing speed, be prepared to be nimble and responsive to challenges that arise. In our previous newsletter, we mentioned some of the advocacy that Laura and her son John took on his path as a 2E (gifted, dyslexic, dysgraphic, and ADD) high school student. Here are some additional problems that arose and ways Laura and John responded: PROBLEM: LOW GRADES WHEN DENIED ACCOMMODATIONS D’s in AP English Class (no accommodations for tests) although a strong score on the AP exam. Although John’s dyslexia has been identified since elementary school, the school suggested he no longer needed accommodations. SOLUTION: ACCOMMODATIONS Laura and John appealed the zeroes given […]
![Organizing Tips for the Dyslexic Academic [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-8.50.54-PM.jpg)
A request came through from one of our Premium subscribers. What strategies are helpful for the dyslexic academic or working professional who needs to organize and synthesize from large quantities of information? The first step is SIMPLIFY. Argument Mapping As Dyslexic PhD Dr. Emma Jeffries says in her video below, looking for the key points in an argument helps her map the essence of what a journal article or paper is presenting. When she has a big text or paper that she has to read, she uses key questions to focus her reading. Sometimes a mentor or professor can also focus your reading on key topics or questions. Emma describes how she sketches notes that help get the gist of data that she is analyzing. […]
![The Remediated Student – WHAT TO EXPECT [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-8.33.17-PM.jpg)
For the overwhelming majority of dyslexics, early intervention helps with the decoding step of reading. Usually 2-3 months of intervention is enough to see a measurable difference, and at least in our experience, 1-3 years to bring most children from failing their grade to being able to keep up in diverse subjects at grade-level with appropriate accommodations and sometimes modifications in place. What Should a Teacher Expect with a Remediated Student? Remediated students can vary a great deal depending on whether they are gifted, dysgraphic, dyspraxic, dyscalculic, have attention or working memory difficulties, or English as a Second Language. In general, though, students who have successfully been remediated are able to decode text on grade-level, but may still have slow and inaccurate reading, difficulty reading aloud, […]
