A Dyslexia Story

Once upon a time in Education Land there was a wise king named Success. He wanted above all else to have his subjects succeed in life and be happy. After much thought about how to gain this goal, he came upon the idea that having a good educational system for his subjects would be a good place to start. Gathering all of his advisers together a plan was developed to build the best educational system possible. The future looked bright for Education Land.

Word went out to find the best teachers , the best builders and the best book makers and soon the books were printed and the schools were built and teachers made their lesson plans. All of the kingdom's children were required to attend because the king wanted all to succeed.

Time passed by and it was many years before the King went to inspect the schools and see how well his plan was working. At first he was very pleased because the teachers brought out the best students to show him what they had learned. He soon noticed that some students were not included in the demonstrations and asked the teachers why.

The teachers explained that some students kept falling behind because they wouldn't learn to read. Those students are slow or lazy and have refused to put out the effort to learn to read the teachers said. With their poor reading skills they can't learn their other subjects. It is not our fault if they won't learn.

The king wanted to believe the teachers. He had never heard of children who had trouble learning to read but he also wanted all the children to succeed so he took all those children back to the castle to talk to them.

After talking to the children he found that they didn't seem to be slow or lazy and they were really trying hard to learn to read. The King didn't know what to do so he called in all his advisers and asked for suggestions.

Maybe all children can't learn to read the same way said one. Maybe if we ask them what makes reading difficult for them they can tell us said another. Maybe if we can determine how they are different from the children that read well that might help said still another. All good suggestions said the King . I want you to start an investigation immediately.

The advisers called the condition dyslexia . The investigation is still going on.

What Is Dyslexia ???

As simple as the question appears, a totally correct answer is not yet available. Dyslexia can best be considered as a syndrome that exhibits several different problems that make reading much more difficult for an individual. In a syndrome, each individual may or may not have any particular problem from a list of minor problems but must have the major defining problem of the syndrome. The major problem that defines dyslexia is difficulty acquiring the skills to read in a normal manner.

While dyslexia has not yet achieved an accepted medical status of being a syndrome it still is the best way to understand what dyslexia is. Conditions that are considered syndromes have a fixed list of minor problems and usually require that a particular minimum # have to be present along with the major problem to be diagnosed with the syndrome.

The reason dyslexia is not yet considered a syndrome is that there has been no agreement on what particular minor problems need to be included in the list or how many need to be present to define the syndrome. Most people reading this have seen the lists of problems associated with dyslexia and noticed that no two lists of problems are the same. Only time will tell what the final medically accepted list of minor problems will be or how many of those need to be present before a diagnosis meets the standard.

Each individual minor problem also needs to be defined and measurable before dyslexia will finally be considered as a syndrome. Minor problems like delayed speech and poor short term memory ( as examples ) are possible useful ideas associated with some dyslexics but what what does that mean. How delayed is delayed and to what degree are questions that will need to be answered or what standard will measure short term memory problems.

Media reports of researchers that study dyslexia factors typicaly report that they have found the cause of dyslexia at the expense of ignoring all previous studies. This causes much confusion among anyone looking to understand "What is dyslexia?" because the answers seem to keep changing.

Reading dyslexia studies rather than media reports of dyslexia studies builds a different better picture of what is known about dyslexia. Considering that the value of each individual study is that they actually investigate specific minor problems of the dyslexia syndrome makes understanding the results easier. What dyslexia research is doing is building the minor problem list by the determination of whether the aspect studied is actually associated with dyslexia.

I am not comfortable with the conclusion that is widely reported that only high IQ people may be dyslexic. That statement only becomes true if diagnosed is added. Diagnosed dyslexics generally have average or above average IQs . It is likely that some disadvantaged poor children with more limited language exposure and lower IQs may very well be dyslexic also and would benefit from dyslexia intervention also. Basically, without even a suggested mechanism for dyslexia only occurring in high IQ individuals I don't think it can be very productive to eliminate lower IQ individuals from consideration for dyslexia.

Here are some factors that can cause reading problems for dyslexics. (Using a generalized approach as each can be broken down to smaller specifics.)

1) phonological problems- difficulty hearing the difference in the sounds that make up words.
2) language processing problems- difficulty processing sounds as language.
3) visual processing problems- difficulty seeing the page in a clear, focused and stable manner.
4) mental processing problems indirectly related to the above such as short term memory and executive decision making problems and others.

Back to the question, dyslexia is a syndrome that, for an individual, can have different amounts of reading dysfunction caused by a combination of the above problems. The severity and impact of each problem will vary from individual to individual.Some individuals have as their cause 1 predominate problem and little effect from others.

New dyslexia research that is promising for understanding dyslexia is that many dyslexia problems may be initially caused by a generalized problem with filtering out extraneous information or noise. Noise is usually considered as sound but visual noise is a valid concept as well. Looked at another way it may be better to replace the idea of poor filtration of noise with higher sensitivity to noise.

The observation of dyslexics having more difficulty hearing what is being said across a noisy crowded room than non dyslexics was the basis for the development of experiments to determine if poor noise filtration may be an aspect of dyslexia. The results indicate that very well be the case. It doesn't take a great leap to speculate that a higher sensitivity to sound noise may be causing language development problems leading to dyslexia from a young age. Hard to quantify but certainly possible is that modern life is more sound polluted than the past. Some have proposed that some dyslexic students may benefit from using headphones to hear their teachers voice broadcasted to eliminate classroom noise and having a quiet place to study.

Other experiments have investigated dyslexics and non-dyslexics and their ability to perform visual tasks with increasing visual noise by using electronic snow on computer screens. Many dyslexics show a higher sensitivity to the visual snow than the non-dyslexics.

While sound noise is generally external, I believe visual noise is caused by autofluorescent proteins in the eye that can change a photon of visual information into a photon of visual noise by changing the original path. By filtering out the different wavelengths associated with the autofluorescent proteins the visual noise is extinguished. Because the locations of the protein are fixed in individual eyes the individual visual dyslexic usually has a constant specific visual problem that can be described and eliminated.

I sell See Right Dyslexia Glasses that remove described visual problems for dyslexics. Only a minority of dyslexics have visual processing problems that are predominate. The dyslexics that can describe a visual problem that makes reading difficult can have that problem removed by these dyslexia glasses. They have a money back guarantee and require no personal evaluation. More information about these glasses is available at www.dyslexiaglasses.com .

A Different Look at Dyslexia

I wanted to blog today about dyslexia and the fact that when you're talking to someone about dyslexia it is almost necessary for each person to discuss what their concept of dyslexia is before you start. It is very easy when talking about dyslexia to assume that the person you're talking to has the same understanding about dyslexia as you do. This is often not the case.

This isn't meant to be a serious formal discussion about dyslexia but rather an acknowledgment that when you hear that somebody is dyslexic what that means depends a lot upon who says it.
There seems to be a general confusion about dyslexia and its cause. Partly the confusion is caused because of a lack of vocabulary that differentiates dyslexics by their symptoms and partly it is because dyslexia is often written about as if the latest finding applies to all dyslexics and all prior information about dyslexia is now null and void.

Cultural anthropologists and psychologists have both written about how cultures and individuals who lack words for a particular idea or concept act as if they do not exist. Cultures that lack the word for war never get large amounts of people together to fight other large amounts of people. Dyslexics have individual problems that need to be treated in an individualistic way. Thinking of dyslexia as a single condition with a single cause leads to a belief that a particular intervention should benefit all dyslexics. This does not seem to fit the available data.

In much the same way people of the Arctic have many words that differentiate types of snow and use that information for travel, hunting and other uses, dyslexia needs to be broken down into defined subgroups that lead to different effective interventions based on those subgroups.

A numerical scale for ranking the severity of impairment for each subgroup would also be useful as it appears the severity of dyslexic symptoms vary for any individual and may require a combination of interventions for that individual.

In an overly simplified analogy to fertilizers where 3 numbers indicate the amount of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus in order, such as 23-8-14 or 2-12-10, and the gardener knows which fertilizer ( intervention) to use for a particular plant problem I propose a similar system for dyslexics.

A 0-10 scale could be used where 0 indicates no effect on reading ability and 10 indicates the most severe effect on reading ability.

The order of the numbers would be:

1) processing problems ( treated perhaps by multi-sensory instruction) let us call this Brain Structure Induced Dyslexia.

2) auditory problems ( treated perhaps by phonics instruction) let us call this Hearing Induced Dyslexia

3) visual problems ( corrected by See Right Dyslexia Glasses ) let us call this Visual Dyslexia

In my analogy a dyslexic that was evaluated as 8-5-1 would likely benefit most from processing intervention followed by auditory intervention. This dyslexic would also be able to understand that 1 type of program very well might not be all he or she needs.

A dyslexic evaluated as 1-2-8 might only need visual correction.

I find the idea that there is one answer for all dyslexics to be hype and believe that all the evidence shows that there are many different types of dyslexia that respond to different interventions. I would argue that a primary step in dyslexia research is missing that doesn't evaluate a dyslexic's problems as they relate to different interventions.

Others might suggest that other categories or subcategories need to be included also. I have no problem with that. It does seem fair to include brain, eyes and ears as possible sources of dyslexia symptoms at the minimum based on information available today.

For those who take issue with giving a numerical value to impairments I would like to suggest that eventually those numbers would likely be able to be correlated to success with their associated interventions.

Dyslexia and Poor Noise Filters

A new piece of information about dyslexia is taking a step from anecdotal evidence to the realm of being considered research-based. The media, as usual, is in the process making it a problem common to all dyslexics. Below is a quote from one of the better reporters who talked to the primary researcher.

"She stressed that not everyone with dyslexia, a learning disorder affecting 5 to 10 per cent of schoolchildren, also has trouble processing sound."

Several dyslexia researchers in the past have suggested that a major contributor to the problem of dyslexia is that dyslexics have problems filtering the audio information necessary for processing when noise is present. Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that many dyslexics have difficulty listening to a speaker when there are other conversations in the background or even a generalized background noise.

While there has been well documented brain structural differences in dyslexics compared to the non-dyslexic population, the resolution of imaging techniques or even autopsy results of dyslexics are unlikely to find the brains mechanism for filtering information anytime in the near future. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist just that our understanding of how the brain works and what can be imaged is still limited.

The most recent dyslexia study to investigate this phenomena investigated people's ability to become aware of a predetermined background noise when their auditory attention was directed elsewhere. As suspected, dyslexics as a group had a much more difficult time with that task.

Some of the more obvious directions to go with this information is that many dyslexics would benefit from a learning environment without distracting background noise or unnecessary competing conversations. On a practical level that could mean better soundproofing for classrooms and for homework areas or simply seating the dyslexic students in the front of the class closer to the teacher. Another possibility would have the teachers voice relayed to the dyslexic student by headphones.

A harder experiment that is sure to follow is one where an evaluation of a dyslexic's ability to learn phonics when background noise is present to see if auditory noise is contraindicated under that condition. While I haven't seen any results for that experiment, anecdotal evidence suggests that will also be the case for many dyslexics.

I would like to point out that the concept of dyslexics having problems with background noise may help to explain the success and the need for phonological instruction for many dyslexics who appear to have normal hearing. The acquisition of language is not normally developed without background noise present and that is not a problem for the nondyslexic individual. On the other hand, it is fairly easy to understand how a child that does not process background noise well starts to develop phonemic awareness problems from an early age and may benefit from phonological instruction which often takes place on a one-to-one basis in a much less distracting atmosphere.

Unfortunately, probably the most optimum time for the dyslexic child with background noise issues to benefit from an environment without background noise is when they are first learning language and at that age he or she is unlikely to have been identified. Even without the research to prove the necessity, I would suggest that it would be prudent for perspective parents with a high genetic predisposition towards dyslexia to consider trying to maintain a low background noise environment while the children are learning language.

Sometimes I wonder if the apparent increase in the percentage of children with dyslexia with phonological problems is not related to some degree to the relatively new desire to have our lives filled with background noise. It seems that many caretakers of children need to have the background TV or radio always present. The quiet surroundings of the past may have helped lessen dyslexic phonological problems and the increase in background noise in modern society may also have increased the number of dyslexics with phonological problems.

Dyslexia is always difficult subject to write about. Even my post here has not yet mentioned how dyslexia can vary from mild to severe and how phonological problems and background noise are just one small slice in understanding the dyslexia pie.

I would like to encourage the readers of this post to consider a hypothetical situation to demonstrate how people in general vary in their ability to isolate relevant information in a noisy environment. Imagine you are in a large crowded and noisy bar with seven other friends. One more late friend arrives and sees you across the crowded room. Wanting to get the tables attention he starts calling out names from your group one at a time. The chances are that each member of your group will become aware of the new arrival at different times. Some of the group will respond because they will recognize his voice, some will respond because they recognize that each name called out is present at the table, and then others will respond when they hear their own name. Some variations might be depended upon the level of attention the individuals have to other activities or even whether or not the new arrival was expected.

If only one individual at the table was dyslexics he wouldn't necessarily be the last person to respond to the new visitor. It certainly would simplify things if in the above example the dyslexic of the table would always be the last to identify the new arrival. Dyslexia and dyslexia research is just not that simple. It has just not been possible to date to develop a scale with any particular dyslexia symptom and say that anyone falls below this number is a dyslexic.

So while it is true that phonological problems are very common in dyslexics and the idea of dyslexics having difficulties with background noise helps refine the understanding of phonological problems and dyslexia it is still not enough to identify dyslexics because dyslexics are not defined by phonological problems.

It is also true that similar type experiments have found that dyslexics have similar problems with visual noise. It also seems to be a filtering problem of extraneous information. The experiments were done on a computer screen with what some might call varying amounts of TV snow. Dyslexics as a group had problems processing visual information with lower levels of visual noise than the non-dyslexic group. On a conceptual level, the idea of visual noise being a problem for dyslexics is similar to the background audio noise being a problem for dyslexics.

The difference between audio and visual noise problems is that audio problems are most often expressed in verbal language and communication problems while visual problems are expressed in difficulty seeing text. While even nondyslexics can easily relate to background noise as interfering with the ability to develop phonemic and phonological understanding, the concept of visual noise as being a source of reading difficulties is not as familiar.

The visual problems seeing text caused by visual noise are considered visual dyslexia. Because these problems are not as prevalent as the auditory problems they are often discounted. Even the idea of visual noise needs some explanation because most people don't experience visual noise. The closest common experience of visual noise is probably seeing snow on the TV which makes seeing the television picture harder to visualize.

One of the most common visual problems that makes reading difficult for dyslexics is reported to be seeing the text vibrate or in motion. To understand the difficulty of reading text in motion, consider the difficulty of reading while sitting in the backseat of a car driving down a washboard road. Difficulty keeping your eyes on the same line and the task of identifying the individual letters in a word now becomes a problem and reading becomes a chore rather than the easy pleasure it is when reading in a stable condition.

Another common symptom of visual problems when reading is that parts of words or parts of letters are overwritten by visual noise.To understand this type of problem imagine someone vandalizing a freeway sign by overwriting parts of letters or parts of words. The more severe your visual dyslexia is the more the letters and words are overwritten. Reading the sign then becomes more of a guessing game resulting in slower reading and an increased chance of reading errors. The question arises about what is the cause of this visual noise. My opinion is that it is caused by auto fluorescence.

Auto fluorescence is well-documented in the parts of the eye by proteins and many different wavelengths of light. The concept is easy to understand if you consider the path of a single photon which is originally carrying visual information from the object observed. After absorbing the photon by the auto fluorescent protein it is then emitted on a path no longer related to the object observed. The result is that one packet of visual information is removed and changed into a packet of visual noise that is no longer related to the image.

As the visual noise is related to specific auto fluorescent proteins that each are activated by individual wavelengths of light as possible to filter out those wavelengths of light to remove the visual news.

As the cause of the visual noise for visual dyslexia are specific auto fluorescent proteins that are activated by specific wavelengths of light ,it is possible to develop a filter for those wavelengths which effectively removes all of the visual noise. With the removal of all the visual noise the visual problems associated with visual dyslexia are extinguished. I call the universal visual dyslexia filters designed to remove the visual noise caused by auto fluorescence, See Right Dyslexia Glasses. They are available at The Visual Dyslexia Solution.

Dyslexia is of course much more complex than just having problems with auditory and/or visual noise.Individual dyslexics usually have specific coexisting problems that are not limited to only auditory and visual noise. Discussions of the other issues will have to wait another day.

Flawed Joint Statement about learning Disabilities And Vision.

Here we go again. A new Joint statement from pediatricians and eye doctors who admit they can't diagnose any learning disabilities want to make a blanket statement that learning disabilities and vision aren't related. Here is the PDF file link.

http://www.dys-add.com/VisionTherapy2009.pdf

After reading the statement , my thought is that that they are throwing out the baby with the bath water. It is easy to understand their position and why they felt the statement was needed. It would also be easy to correct their statement with the addition of a few facts. Fact # 1 , there are a minority of dyslexics , properly called visual dyslexics , whose reading problems are caused by visual problems .
Fact #2 , the minority of visual dyslexics is about 10% of the dyslexic population or about 1-1.5% of the general population.

I designed and sell See Right Dyslexia Glasses which act as a universal visual dyslexia filter to remove the visual problems associated with visual dyslexia. I make no claims that the glasses help learning disabilities in general. They do not help dyslexics in general. The small minority of dyslexics with visual dyslexia that can describe visual problems that make reading difficult will have the visual problems removed with the See Right Dyslexia Glasses.

Visual dyslexics are known to have a higher rate of poor depth perception than the general population. Eye doctors that would like to see evidence of the affect of See Right Dyslexia Glasses might consider the fact that they will correct poor depth perception instantly and the poor depth perception will return when the glasses are removed. I mention that because I do not believe that eye doctors have anyway of correcting poor depth perception of visual dyslexics.

The idea presented in the statement that missing letters and moving words leading to reading problems are the result of anything other than visual problems is FALSE. It is really a stretch to say that it is a proven fact. I would suggest that the failure to being able to identify dyslexic individuals is partly because of a poor understanding that some dyslexic problems are visual.

Products that associate learning disabilities in general with visual interventions are likely to fail the majority of people with learning disabilities and at best help a small minority. The Irlen method has had some real success but does a poor job of identification of who will be helped leading to many failures. I have yet found any indication that vision therapy is an effective therapy for learning disabilities. I would describe vision therapy as bait and switch. People want educational help and vision therapy promises to help all with learning disabilities. The eye training provided has never been shown to help anyone.

Reading the joint statement about dyslexia and vision by every type of doctor that can NOT diagnose dyslexia was interesting. In many ways I do agree with their results for the mentioned vision therapies and how they have not been proven as beneficial for learning disabilities and so shouldn't recommended.

I believe that their basic agenda is a result of feeling that promoters of the mentioned vision therapies in the statement do not take a professional approach to the business of selling their products. It is actually hard to argue with the position that the mentioned promoters are not acting professionally.

All doctors are expected to act in a professional and ethical manner.Whether or not those promoters are being ethical depends on if they are knowingly over promoting the products or just incompetent or unaware.One requirement of being a professional doctor is to prescribe treatment to those that need treatment and to not prescribe treatment to those that do not need to be treated. The majority of years of education a doctors receives are slanted towards being able to diagnose who is to be treated for what and how.

I suspect that the joint statement was prepared because The Irlen Method and Vision Therapy are seen as overselling their respective products as being the necessary treatment for learning disabilities. Their sin is at least that learning disabilities is too broad a subject ( or condition) to only have a single treatment and to suggest either as a general treatment.

The joint statement basically says that Vision Therapy has never shown any educational benefit and that Irlen tinted lenses studies have shown mixed results at best. It implies that you can conclude results from flawed studies. By any reasonable standard you can't conclude results from flawed studies.

There is no reason that visual problems should be related to learning disabilities in general. If there is a visual aspect to some learning disabilities it would be a subset of reading problems or dyslexia. This has never been tested in a proper manner and so has not been shown to exist. It is no surprise that something that has never been shown to exist does not have a recommended treatment.

Visual dyslexia is not likely to be proven any time soon by a scientific study.

Dyslexia testing is prohibitively expensive and best case today is what is called dyslexia risk identification followed by some intervention for kindergarten children.This is often called dyslexia testing but has low standards.

By its very nature a generalized dyslexia testing program is going to test all children in an area. The people to give the tests and record results must have some generalized skills with testing and children ( think money ) and testing all the children will take time ( think money). Identification of children at risk ( the bottom half) and intervention ( more money). After intervention you find that 70% have come up to standard and that 30% didn't. They are the children most likely to be dyslexic and can now be tested for dyslexia.

It is also very likely that because of the assumptions on language abilities tested to determine dyslexia risks that visual dyslexics will not be included in the final group as their language skills are often very good.

To conclude , I suggest that See Right Dyslexia Glasses that claim to remove described visual problems , have a money back guarantee , and are easily evaluated in a matter of minutes to at most hours indicate that at least some people with learning disabilities have visual problems where removal of those problems leads to faster more accurate reading with better comprehension.

More information about See Right Dyslexia Glasses and visual dyslexia can be found at The Visual Dyslexia Solution web site

Visual Perception Reading Problems

I have my own views on what causes visual dyslexia reading problems and how to correct them and that is how I developed See Right Dyslexia Glasses. I have always limited my claims to helping those dyslexics that can actually describe their visual problems that make reading difficult and mention that those visual dyslexics are a small minority of dyslexics in general. The Irlen Method has been around a lot longer than my glasses and is much better known.

Irlen convinced people that visual dyslexics needed to be evaluated to determine particular color lenses for particular dyslexics to get help and that works for some visual dyslexics. Irlen doesn't guarantee any positive results and in my opinion oversells her product. Between her claims of correcting the reading problems of visual dyslexics along with helping good readers, autistic and ADHD problems it seems her glasses help everyone with any educational difficulties.

Now ADHD and dyslexia do co-exist in many people so it is likely that there are some people with ADHD that do have visual dyslexia causing reading problems. I just suspect that removing visual dyslexia problems from someone with ADHD doesn't actually do anything for their ADHD and so I personally only market See Right Dyslexia Glasses for visual problems that make reading difficult. My success rate at removing described visual problems that make reading difficult is close to 100% so I can offer a money-back guarantee.

I also eliminated the need for a personal evaluation by designing the See Right Dyslexia Glasses as a universal visual dyslexia filter that is effective for all visual dyslexics.

I read almost everything that is published on the web that concerns dyslexia by having Google alerts for dyslexia, visual dyslexia ,dyslexia research and several more. Today I was reading a blog about visual perception that had a book reference that discussed the Irlen method and at the end mentions See Right Dyslexia Glasses as a more promising approach to the problem of visual dyslexia and here it is below the line.
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Visual Perception

The following is excerpted from A User’s Guide To The Brain, by John J. Ratey, M.D.

I met a psychotherapist from the West Coast named Rolf at a conference in Aspen, Colorado. It was autumn, cool and overcast, yet Rolf was wearing yellow-tinted sunglasses. I just thought, Oh, it’s the California thing. But Rolf, age sixty-eight, had discovered only two years earlier that he had a visual-processing problem. He had begun to work with dyslexics when he retired from active practice, and in studying all he could, he learned about a technique called the Irlen method for helping a small subset of dyslexics.

Certain dyslexics have difficulty reading because as they move their eyes from left to right across a line of type, the letters seem to shimmer… they move. The affected individual can’t keep track of the words, and so has to struggle mightily to read. The Irlen idea was that if such a person looked at written material or any fine details through a certain type of filtering lens, the shimmering would stop.

Rolf had been tormented all his life with the idea that he was not as smart as he thought he was. It had taken him much longer than other students to study. He was smart enough to get by, and got his medical degree by forcing himself to listen well and ask lots of questions. Indeed, his first love was neurology, but that required much more detailed reading than psychology, which relied more on talking and listening, so he ended up becoming a psychiatrist. He had always loved literature, but just never read it because it was too much of an ordeal.

Upon discovering that different-colored Irlen lenses helped certain dyslexics, Rolf drove to his neighborhood pharmacy, picked up a magazine, and began trying on different-colored sunglasses. He tried blue, then brown. Nothing happened. But then he put on a $5 pair of yellow tinted lenses, and began to read the magazine. The words stood still! He read it more easily than anything he had ever tried to read before in his life. He was elated.

Rolf was already wearing glasses for common farsightedness. He hurried to his ophthalmologist to explain his discovery, and together they ordered a pair of Irlen lenses. Today Rolf is a voracious reader.

It’s important to note that Irlen lenses help only a small fraction of people who suffer from dyslexia, which can be caused by many different perceptual or brain processing problems. The shimmering of letters is not a problem that can be diagnosed with routine eye exams. Rolf happens to be in the small group of dyslexics who can be helped by Irlen lenses, was aware enough to apply what he was learning about dyslexia to himself, and was clever enough to find some ready evidence for a possible cure at his local pharmacy.

Rolf needlessly spent much of his adult life with a poor image of himself. Despite his outwardly successful career, he had been in analysis for years trying to understand why he thought of himself as inadequate and lazy, why he had to study so hard to achieve what others did routinely, why he didn’t read the journals as his fellow psychiatrists did or keep track of the news in the papers. His struggle had nothing to do with an intellectual deficit or a motivational problem. It was pure perception.

Just for a moment, look up and examine the scene around you. Be it a sterile office, cozy bedroom or den, allow yourself to sit back and really see the world that surrounds you. In the amount of time that you averted your gaze from this page, your eyes meticulously dissected the image cast upon your retina into approximately 126 million pieces, sent signals for every one of these tiny elements to a transfer station in the thalamus, which then fired neuronal networks to and within the visual cortex, then sent the information to the frontal cortex, and somehow you put the pieces back together into a seamless pattern perceived by you as a sterile office, cozy bedroom, or den.

To add to this complexity, recent physiological findings suggest that all this processing takes place along several independent, parallel pathways. One system processes information about shape, one about color, and one about movement, location, and spatial organization. If you look up and see a clock, the image of its face and the action of its sweeping second hand are being processed independently, despite how unified the image appears. It may seem bizarre to think of vision as functionally subdivided. But how otherwise could a person who has perfect focus and tracking of moving objects be color blind? Some so called blind people who cannot see colors or objects can still see movement.

As humans, our highly convoluted cortex enables us to combine visual messages with other sensory messages and past experiences to give unique meaning to particular visual situations. The sight of a fresh bouquet of red roses will probably have a different effect on me than on the florist who works with roses every day. Most other species do not have cortical convolutions, so the greater part of their visual processing occurs as pure sight. Humans have evolved to process most visual information in the visual cortex.

Since the introduction of the Irlen lenses, a more promising approach has been developed with the See Right Dyslexia Glasses. These glasses, which require no evaluation and are backed by a money-back guarantee, are an affordable risk free option to correct the problems associated with visual dyslexia. For more information, visit the web site at http://www.dyslexiaglasses.com

Dyslexia Interventions

Dyslexia interventions and reality. " Holly Shapiro Ph.D. said... I must advise this blog’s readers that dyslexia is not a visual problem (dyslexia.yale.edu). " and is using Sally Shaywitz, popular author and fundraiser , as her source of information.

A minority of dyslexics have visual problems as a primary source of their reading problems. I have never said that dyslexia is a visual problem but if an intervention ignores the visual problems that some dyslexics have it will fail for those dyslexics.

Well since Dr & DR Shaywitz seem to come to their conclusions from fMRI data and are also promoting sort of the same phonics and phonemic interventions as being the only valid and effective dyslexia interventions and useful for all dyslexics, I say open your eyes and look and the data again.

FMRI data does not support any universal problems for all dyslexics. If the data supported that position then you could identify a person as dyslexic or not by fMRI.

As for dyslexia and vision not being related if you are using fMRI studies to show the phonics relationship the fMRI vision studies should be as valid. This dyslexia and vision fMRI study shows similar results to all the dyslexia and language areas of the brain studies .
"
The human brain consists of a patchwork of regions that carry out different activities. At least 32 regions (labeled with a "V") are thought to participate in vision. Region V5, for example, seems to be crucial for tracking moving objects; V1 and V2 recognize colors and patterns. A number of studies in recent years have targeted a visual pathway that includes V5 as a trouble zone in people with dyslexia.

fMRI images of people with (bottom) and without (top) dyslexia, taken while looking at stationary patterns (left) or moving patterns (right) of dots" height="165" width="200">
fMRI images of people with (bottom) and without (top) dyslexia, taken while looking at stationary patterns (left) or moving patterns (right) of dots

In 1996, Eden and her coworkers at the National Institue of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md., (where she worked at the time) confirmed this association "


Pay attention readers, the reason that different dyslexia interventions are being promoted is that not one is effective for all dyslexics. Several government studies have found that systematic phonics instruction from a professional is the best reading help for children struggling to read. I do not and can not understand how that Best can be perverted into a conclusion that phonics instruction is effective for all dyslexics.

When there is found a reading instruction method that is Effective for all dyslexics there will be singing from the roof tops. Holly Shapiro says all her students learn from her phonics program and I assume she is talking about reading. I do not believe it. She either has a very low standard of success or is being misleading.

I am not saying that her particular program is good bad or indifferent. I am not saying that she is doing anything different than many other people selling dyslexia interventions. The reason I am not saying anything is because it is almost impossible to find what the results of these interventions are.

How would an effective intervention be defined? At the low end of effective I would at least require that the dyslexics would not be falling further behind . At the higher end an effective intervention would yield people who read at a level that would be expected from their intelligence.

Quack Quack Quack . Who was that . " Readers should also be made aware that Mr. John A. Hayes is an Internet marketing quack, who might be practicing optometry without a license."
says Holly Shapiro. Internet Marketing QUACK. Hummmmmm It seems that what started me off on this subject was all the PAID articles with PAID links showing up on my google alerts and wasting my time that were made to seem to be articles by different people.

Personally I don't use paid links or write articles as if I was a third party with no interest but the truth. That is considered Black Hat SEO techniques and frowned upon by google. Let's see sleazy black hat Internet Marketing techniques by Holly saying all her stuents learn ( I assume reading) no dyslexia testing needed, no guarantee Quack Quack. That is misleading . I did notice that you kept changing a few words here and there in that bogus article touting your place with links saying you are better than everyone else. Oh that's right, if you didn't change a few words now and then google would notice they were duplicate content and they would never see the light of day.

If I was trying to generate really good success stories for a dyslexia intervention, I might suggest that any poor reader in trouble not be tested for dyslexia but just start paying for the intervention. That way if I was lucky, I could get paid thousands for what could have been achieved with a few hours of after school instruction and when the non-dyslexics started reading as well as they should I could claim a very effective dyslexia intervention. Oh, I am sorry, that's not my technique that is what Holly Shapiro does. Quack Quack!

But if I did that I couldn't sleep at night. I would feel I was over promoting and misleading dyslexics to think my intervention could help all of them. Isn't that the definition of being a QUACK . I bet if I was going to be that unethical I sure couldn't offer any guarantee or for that matter give any kind of indication of what results my intervention might have. Paid links ,Paid articles as ads, fake claims of helping every dyslexic, duplicate content and I am the internet marketing quack.

It might be argued that because dyslexics differ in their specific problems and severity of those problems it is difficult to predict what the individual results would be. I suggest that if the people charging for the intervention can not evaluate an individual and come to a conclusion as to how well the individual will do at least in a general way then, they don't understand the relationship of the individual's problems to the intervention.

I on the other hand, having become familiar with the I have the answer for all dyslexics interventions, represent my visual dyslexia intervention to those for which it is 100% successful only and I identify who will or will not be helped by them. Rather than quacking up customers who will not benefit from my product I am the anti-salesman shooing them away.

To Holly who would say I may be practicing optometry without a license I say put that joint down and get your facts straight. The glasses I sell are usually without prescription and the prescription glasses I sell have the prescription provided by the customer. Nothing I do requires a license.

Holly you are welcome on my blog any day to voice your opinions. I am sorry but it is you that seems to have all the internet marketing hype and a narrow and incomplete understanding of dyslexia. You charge more for 2 hours of instruction that I do for my glasses and I refund the price and shipping if my customers ship them back. Who is the Quack??????????????

People like you and Shaywitz with your concept that dyslexia is a single condition and can be fixed with a single intervention are wrong . I am not even saying that your program isn't a good one for many or even most dyslexics. Teaching phonics is very important for the majority of dyslexics but it is not the whole answer for every dyslexic as you imply.

I have people calling me up and telling me how they have spent thousands for dyslexia interventions that didn't help much. Thinking about it now I have never had a pair of glasses returned by someone with whom I have discussed their vision.

You can not tell me that when you were working with children yourself that you didn't sometime have thoughts after the first interview that that child wasn't going to do well with your intervention.

My problem is with people who oversell their dyslexia interventions and drain out all the available money from non-responders so they end up stopping their hopes of finding an intervention that works for them because they go broke. Offer a guarantee and I won't be as harsh.

The worse possible financial situation someone buying my glasses could be in from trying my glasses is that they would be out the cost of return shipping . Trying your intervention for 3 months would cost $2500 with no guarantee of any help. Take the money and run is your business philosophy right ?

By the way ,your ignoring fluency and comprehension and assuming that they will develop on their own after the dyslexic learns phonics IMO is missing the point that the faster a dyslexic is helped the better off he or she is. Your program could be better .

Multiple Deficit Theory of Dyslexia

Try as I might I haven't been able to make popular the idea of dyslexia as a syndrome. Syndrome being a term that has major essential aspects which all people must have to be considered having the dyslexia syndrome after proper reading instruction. Poor reading skills ,lack of fluency,slow inaccurate reading and poor comprehension seem to be common to all dyslexics and could be considered major essential parts. A dyslexia syndrome also has minor aspects that may or may not affect the individual and usually make up a laundry list of symptoms.

reading below grade level
trouble rhyming words
oral word confusion
short term memory problems
poor spelling
Bothered by glare on print
see text in motion
left and right confusion
auditory problems
poor phonemic understanding
reversing letters in words
writing letters backward after third grade
slow naming of pictures
delayed speech

and many more minor essentials would usually be included in the list. Most of you reading this have seen similar lists. If anyone wants to comment and have other minor essentials added to the list I will, but that is not the point of this post.

Failing to make the dyslexia syndrome popular as a way of understanding why dyslexics are different from each other and need interventions based on their individual problems, like a thief in the night, I am going to steal new terminology, modify it, and hopefully come up with terminology that the public can use to discuss the subject of dyslexia in a more comprehensive way .

My opinion is the the issue of dyslexia needs a paradigm shift , A paradigm is a system of belief
based on an individuals personal knowledge and assumptions. It is a way of looking at situations. Your personal paradigm about particular issues actually colors your opinions and behaviors.

I am sure I need to have an example of a paradigm shift to show how changing a paradigm can be powerful. Many people have the paradigm that the homeless are lazy,dirty ,thieving,drug addicted alcoholics that wouldn't work even if they had the chance and so helping them is futile .

A different paradigm might include different facts such as a large % of the homeless are veterans who suffered post traumatic stress syndrome from being exposed to horrors in war defending or country, others are hard working family people who have lost their jobs through layoffs, and some are single mother families with children who are on the street because of financial hardships that they had no control over. We can also expect a large increase in homeless from people that we actually know due to the financial depression we are having in our country. Many people are only a paycheck or medical problem away from being homeless. The conclusion from this paradigm is that many homeless are not that different from us and so are deserving of help and that with help they may indeed recover and leave the homeless population.

The second paradigm does not exclude that the first paradigm is partly true. There are indeed some homeless that will always be homeless for different reasons. The second paradigm does try to expand our thoughts and can change people's behavior to some degree. Perhaps they might consider voting for rather than against some homeless laws to protect the homeless. If nothing else, having more information is likely to help people make better informed decision about the homeless.

Back to dyslexia. I have posted before about how people tend to report about dyslexia as if it has a single cause. I propose that we now call that the Single Deficit Theory. The SDT (single deficit theory ) has been pretty common to describe dyslexia and some ore used to base SDT interventions.

The Dore Method SDT dyslexia is based on brain structure problems that can be helped by exercise programs .

Ron Davis Method SDT dyslexia is based on the fact that dyslexics think in pictures.

Irlen method SDT dyslexia reading problems are based by their sensitivity to a single color

Timing problems in the brain SDT dyslexia problems are caused by slow processing in the brain

Phonoogicial problems SDT dyslexics have problems associating sounds with letters

Auditory processing problems SDT problems differentiating individual sounds

Language processing problems SDT problems in the word formation part of the brain

Executive processing problems SDT problems sequencing thoughts

Short Term Memory Problems SDT problems with short time memory as the cause of dyslexia

MRI areas of the brain SDT every area of the brain associated with reading visual,auditory,phonemic,language processing,word formation etc has each has its day as the SDT of dyslexia

See Right Dyslexia Glasses SDT for the 10% of dyslexics that can describe specific visual problems that make reading difficult.

There are many more SDT's about dyslexia. The obvious lack in all is they have is that none account for all the different problems that dyslexics express as why individuals with dyslexia have problems reading fluently with good comprehension.

I read a post the other day about the concept of the Double Deficit Theory of dyslexia. The position was that while the author used to believe in the SDT of phonological problems she saw dyslexics that had no phonological problems still having reading difficulties She thought by adding delayed time processing problems and calling that the DDT she could now describe all dyslexics as having phonological and or delayed processing problems.

I see the DDT as still lacking as a final description of what problems all individual dyslexics have.

My first thought was that be DDT lacked any acknowledgement that some dyslexics have visual problems that make reading difficult and there needed to be at least a Triple Deficit Theory or TDT. My second thought, seconds later, was that it was unlikely that even a TDT was going to be able to accurately describe dyslexia.

This is why I am proposing the paradigm shift to the Multiple Deficit Theory of dyslexia or MDT. The value of the paradigm shift to include MDT rather than DDT or SDT is this. If you are looking for dyslexia help and the person you see believes in a SDT , say phonological problems,
then your are tested for phonological problems and any positive results for phonological problems are defined as being your dyslexia problems and any intervention is based on helping you overcome those phonological problems only. No other dyslexia problerms are looked for ,evaluated or have interventions available at that location.

On the other hand if someone believes in the MDT of dyslexia then while phonological problems will probably be evaluated and intervention recommended that will not be the end of the process. Perhaps auditory processing will be evaluated next and intervention recommended if needed. Perhaps executive decision making and short term memory evaluations would follow with recommendations that interventions would or would not be needed in those areas. To be complete I would recommend visual testing for visual dyslexia and if problems are found that See Right Dyslexia Glasses are considered if necessary.

If you are out in the woods and want to have a fire and only consider that fires are made from big logs, when you return with only big logs you are going to have trouble making that fire. Call that Single Object Fire. Double Object Fire might include matches also. A Multiple Object Fire might also include an ax, dry grass, fire pit, rocks for fire pit, pine cones, bucket of water, cell phone, small dry branches, chairs, cooler with drinks,book to read, snacks, friends, music, permit or other objects as well. Few people will need all the Multiple Objects to make their fire just as most dyslexics only need help with a few different problems but only by considering that their problems need to be identified from an all inclusive list rather than than an SDT or DDT to start their reading fire.

Educational Neuroscience Dyslexia and Special Educational Needs

Too many people think that researchers have already found all the answers to why people are dyslexic by studying the brain. The following article is much broader than my usual focus on visual dyslexia. For those that really want to understand what has and has not been discovered in the field of neuroscience as pertains to dyslexia and special educational needs I think this states the information as well as anything I have read on the web.

It also inplies support for what I have long believed , that the individual educational problems that need to be worked on for the individual are not going to be identified anytime in the near future by imaging techniques. Pen and pencil and verbal type testing is much more likely to produce indications of specific skill deficiencies that need to be addressed for educational success.

While being able to describe visual problems that make reading difficult is a start in being able to define visual dyslexia, I am finding that some dyslexia evaluations are starting to include visual testing also and finding co-existing visual and non-visual problems with much success in removing the visual dyslexia problems with See Right Dyslexia Glasses.

http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/educational-neuroscience-where-are-we-3675 >

Are advances in brain sciences useful to the field of education? Dr Jodi Tommerdahl looks at whether breakthroughs in our knowledge of how the human brain works can provide insight into how children learn, particularly in the area of SEN, and, if so, what’s taking so long?

The rise of educational neuroscience

When Should Dyslexics Try Visual Intervention

Visual dyslexia only affects about 10% of dyslexics as the primary cause of their reading problems and so it is seldom the first thought about what intervention is needed. While that is as it should be , I don't think that it should only be considered after spending much time and money on interventions and concluding that the final results fall below what could be reasonably expected from those interventions.

To muddle things up more, there are perhaps another 20% of dyslexics who co-mingle visual and more prevalent language and auditory processing problems. As these dyslexics show the typical early speech and communication problems so common to dyslexia they are likely to be enrolled in whatever the local community has deemed the answer to dyslexia without visual problems ever being considered.

People tend to believe their own senses and assume whatever they experience is normal. This is particularly true in children. Depending on the age of the child, visual problems can sometimes be determined by discussions about their vision. Being extremely near sighted all my life my Ah-ha moment came when I went to school with my first pair of glasses. I found that my teacher was not doing her usual arm waving dance up front while explaining things by the black board but was actually writing on the black board. I had no idea . It occurred to me later that if someone had asked how well I could read the blackboard I would have answered " read what?". I also remember my first eye exam and the first question . What direction is the E pointing? my answer " what E ?". My mother almost screamed THAT E ON THE WALL , "what E? I said.

My point being that , at least for me , as a child I thought my vision was normal . My fuzzy little world where only things closer than my outstretched arm were clear was normal. Later in life I realized that any discussion about my vision would have revealed its flaws.

My criteria for whether the See Right Dyslexia Glasses will help visual dyslexics is: can the visual dyslexic describe specific visual problems that make reading difficult. That works well for adults. Children can often answer questions about how they see the page that indicate problems that to them seems normal. Are all the words clear ,sharp , in focus , stable or in motion, and look uniform?

I am going to add another indication of visual dyslexia for children that parents can check. It is not universal but often can be used as an indication of visual dyslexia. If by changing font size on the computer the child's fluency improves with increasing size then a visual problem may be indicated.

As some visual dyslexics experience problems even with the large print in first grade books it may be impossible to both increase the size and have enough words to read for a fair test for all.
It is a better test for those visual dyslexics that only started to have their problems about third grade when print size in their school books gets smaller. It might also be helpful to stop near a billboard with very large print and ask if the print looks the same as that in their books.

A careful observer can often listen to a child's speech and determine if any language or auditory processing problems are likely to lead to reading problems and need to be addressed. In an ideal world discussions about vision and how a child see the written word would also be included. As visual dyslexia is unlikely to produce any noticeable problems before school age it is important to at least have a discussion about their vision if reading problems occur.

Visual intervention should be tried when there is an indication that visual problems with seeing the printed page are present. As See Right Dyslexia Glasses have a money back guarantee they are a low financial risk and are very effective in removing visual dyslexia associated visual problems.

Dyslexia V's Visual Dyslexia

Dyslexia and visual dyslexia result in the same types of reading difficulties. Slow, inaccurate reading that results in poor comprehension of written material is common to both dyslexia and visual dyslexia.
Dyslexia and visual dyslexia are both information processing problems but have different causes. The different causes require different interventions.

Dyslexia or Visual Dyslexia ?

The problem is how someone can determine if an individual's problem results from dyslexia or visual dyslexia.

The most common research based theory of dyslexia is that it is a brain structure problem that interferes with processing the auditory and phonemic information in a normal manner.

This often shows up in speech and comprehension of speech difficulties prior to exposure to reading.This is the child who mixes up words, has trouble with rhyming and sometimes following directions. The inaccurate processing of speech makes learning to read a battle which leads to poor fluency, accuracy and comprehension. When asked to describe a page of print the response from a dyslexic is a clear, focused, uniform and stable page. This indicates that their problem is not visual.

Visual dyslexia is not an auditory or phonemic processing problem.

The visually dyslexic child does not have the speech problems associated with dyslexia of mixing up words, rhyming or following directions. His or her problems show up when difficulties with the visual aspects of reading are
encountered.

Moving words, missing, transposed or reversed letters and an assortment of other visual problems are what the visually dyslexic child has to battle. When asked how the words on a page look the result is quite different for the visually dyslexic child than the dyslexic child.

I could read if only the words would stop moving or if the words would always look the same are common complaints for the visually dyslexic child.

Visual dyslexics have trouble with reading because they have trouble seeing what is written. With the See Right Dyslexia Glasses all the words on the page will be stable, uniform and in focus. That is why they are called the visual dyslexia solution.
Reading errors caused by visual problems will be eliminated with the See Right Dyslexia Glasses. The visual dyslexic will no longer have to slow down or stop to guess at words. This results in an immediate increase in reading speed, fluency and accuracy.
Spelling will also improve over time as having an accurate visual memory of words makes them easier to remember.

Dyslexia and Visual Dyslexia may co-exist.

When dyslexia and visual dyslexia co-exist it may still be beneficial to have the visual problems removed by the See Right Dyslexia Glasses. If a dyslexic can also describe a visual problem that makes reading difficult that visual problem will still be removed by the glasses. While not a complete solution he or she will no longer have to battle both types of problems when reading.

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