| Subject: Re: Sudden Regressing teen |
Author:
Rod Everson
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Date Posted: 09:43:51 05/16/11 Mon
In reply to:
Melissa
's message, "Re: Sudden Regressing teen" on 07:50:17 05/11/11 Wed
It doesn't strike you at all odd that we read with our eyes, not our ears, but "dyslexia" is always blamed on something going wrong with the phonological (auditory) component, not the vision component?
When we read we are required to visually absorb information (print) and correlate it with what we have already learned (spoken words). Print is just encoded sound, and English print uses, unfortunately, some pretty messy coding, but it's still coded sound.
Doesn't it seem reasonable that a child would have difficulty correlating the messy coding with the phonological component if he was seeing double, suffering from alternating suppression of vision, etc., as many, many "dyslexic" children (and adults) in fact do?
And I say "in fact" because the existence of these various visual problems can be objectively determined with the proper vision testing. And most "dyslexics" will be found to suffer from such vision problems. Fix the child's vision problems, teach them phonics if still necessary, and, in my experience, you often (though not always) are on the way to having a successful reader.
And there is plenty of research out there, but you have to be willing to look for it, and not just accept the statements from authorities who've already made up their minds, based on precious little evidence, incidentally. However, I should point out that the research concerns the existence of, and effectiveness of treatments for, the vision issues. Vision therapy does not teach reading. It just prepares a child to finally be able to learn to read, in many, but not all, cases.
Speaking from a position of fairly extensive experience, if I had a child who was struggling to read, my next dollars would be spent getting an evaluation from a developmental optometrist. In most cases of dyslexia, that will be the most likely route to eventual reading success.
P.S. I once held the exact same views on this matter as you, Melissa. I now think that I was wrong, very wrong, based on my various experiences since I formed that original opinion. I, too, was convinced by the various "authorities" that vision had nothing to do with the matter. I now know that those "authorities" were wrong then, and are wrong now.
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