In a viral video shared on our Facebook feed, Truth Theory shared the gist of a recent research report in the prestigious journal Neuron. There may be good reason why researchers’ new understanding of memory might make sense for many dyslexic people and why it may explain the perplexing memory challenges that many dyslexic students experience in school although their ability to grasp the deeper concepts and patterns may put them way ahead of classmates. From Science Daily, “two University of Toronto researchers propose that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time, but to guide and optimize intelligent decision making by only holding on to valuable information.” “It’s important that the brain forgets irrelevant details and instead focuses […]
GETTING PAST ANGER
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...
How to Help With the Social and Emotional Side of Dyslexia
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...
Dyslexic Innovation: GOOGLE (X) CAPTAIN Astro Teller [Premium]
Many of the world’s greatest innovators are dyslexic. These creators with a capital ‘C’, more often than not, arrive at their conclusions through wild leaps of their ideas rather than incremental, step-by-step invention. This pattern, which appears in so many accomplished people in every type of field and discipline, should be telling us what to look for in its raw form in young people, and what the end goal of the educational process should really be. A great case in point in Google’s X Lab Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller. Astro doesn’t talk a lot about his dyslexia, but he did relate this story about his dyslexia at an educational conference: “As a student in school, I fell into the habit of doing things […]
[PREMIUM] Realistic Confidence
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 […]
Screen Children with Reading Problems for Hearing Difficulties
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...
Nobel Prize Winner Carol Greider
Dr. Carol Greider was folding laundry at home when she got the call in 2009 that she had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. She decided to wake up her kids and tell them. "Do we have to go to school?". "No you don't," she said, and she took them in to work with her...
HOW TO HELP WITH ALGEBRA: Positive and Negative Numbers
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
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...
Never Give Up [PREMIUM]
“Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Officers and men alike will put forth their uttermost strength.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu recognized that extraordinary feats of courage and bravery can happen when it seems as if there is no escape. Battles are not all of the military kind, of course. Recently, real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran shared her experience when she first got contacted for starring on Shark Tank: After she had shared the news with everyone she knew, she got a call that said they had changed their mind and invited another […]
The Mislabeled Dyslexic Student [PREMIUM]
“In the course of the 11 years of the family genetics project, many parents whose children had superior or very superior verbal reasoning shared with the research team how difficult it was to convince educators that their child had a learning disability. Frequently they reported being told that their child was bright and the problem was just a matter of motivation and their child not being willing to work hard. “ – Drs. Virginia Berninger and Robert Abbott, 2013 If you have the means to get IQ testing for your student for dyslexia, do it. The biggest reason is that it’s very common to underestimate intelligence in the setting of dyslexia. This sad fact can lead in gross underestimations and inappropriate classroom placements Giftedness can […]
Visual Motion Perception and Dyslexia
From Jason Yeatman's laboratory at the University of Washington comes a deeper understanding of the visual challenges associated with dyslexia. Full report HERE. "It is well established that visual sensitivity to motion is correlated with reading skills. Yet, the...