err… dyslexic?
I’ve always had a problem reading numbers outloud. I get really nervous before reading off a phone number for someone, for example. I have to concentrate REALLY HARD to make sure that I read the numbers in the right order, and that I say the right word for each number. It’s always been like this, but only for numbers. What gives?
oN
I have the same problem, but with acronyms. I get the letters all mixed up and even if someone points it out to me I often can’t see it.
Doesn’t dyslexia mean that you see words backwards? Are you seeing them backwards or just mixing up which ones to read first?
IANAD, but I have a daughter who copes with dyslexia.
I believe the word “dyslexia” is used to describe a family of
symptoms. Yours sounds like one of them, and you may well be mildly dyslexic.
(Another number-related symptom is an inability to deal with bubble-tests - those multiple-choice tests where you determine the correct answer and then mark or punch through its associated number on a separate answer sheet. When my daughter takes one of those tests, her teachers Xerox the question sheet, she marks the answers right on her copy of the question sheet, and they process her question/answer sheet manually.)
This is going to be hard for me to describe because it’s hard for me to concieve, but the way my daughter describes it (and I’ve also read of this description elsewhere) the letters “move” as she reads them.
When my daughter was six, she would get extremely upset whenever we tried to point out the difference between the letter “b” and the letter “d” - because to her there was no difference. To her the words “dad” and “bad” were exactly the same. And it didn’t help that mom and dad (before we knew what was going on) kept insisting that they were different and telling her to concentrate more.
(As she got older, she could get the letters to stop moving long enough to distinguish between them - but only when she read slowy.)
I’m curious about this too, as I think I have some very slight form of dyslexic behavior. When I’m writing longhand, I’ll sometimes mix up letters in words as I’m writing them. For example, a word will end up as “steroe” instead of stereo. The thing is, I realize it as I’m writing it, and fix it right then; and it’s always the subsequent letter that I’m misplacing. I don’t think makes me dyslexic, but is it a dyslexic behavior?
I was diagnosed w/ dyslexia when I was a child. I don’t know what criteria the doctors made that diagnosis on, but I can tell you the symptoms that I exhibit EVERY DAY.
Total inability to spell any complex word correctly (many of my posts go to Word before ending up here).
The EXACT problem you (Opalcat) described with numbers.
The number thing is completely maddening to me because I’m a radio dj and have to give out phone numbers live over the air almost daily.
Most dyslexia, literally- the inability to read, is caused by problems processing the sounds in speech, not visual perception. Of course if a person cannot distinguish the sounds in speech, then the symbols which represent them are not going have much significance. That’s why they have a hard time learing to identify the letters. A picture of a duck is a picture of a duck regardless of which direction its facing. Well, if you can’t hear the individual sounds in the words then the b and the d are the same thing. One is facing this way, the other is facing that way. And they are both meaningless symbols which don’t communicate anything.
Opalcat, Do you have problems reading? Or just with the numbers?
No, I am a very fast reader, actually. I can read the typical novel (up to about 800 pages) in a night or two. The problem has always been with numbers.
My daughter has Dyscalculia…dyslexia with numbers. She can’t recall numbers, transposes in calculations and she also has problems with those bubble in tests. She says they jiggle and give her a headache. She’s in seventh grade and can barely tell time. Multiplication tables give her nightmares.
She has excellent reading comprehension skills however, and has no problem with mathmatical concepts.
Maybe you should check into it. There was a website called Dyscalculia.com or .org or .net… Lots of information out there on dyscalculia, although some sites say it’s not a real condition. They should meet my Lara!
What do you mean, not a real condition?
Anyone know of online tests for this? Because it runs in my family and I have often wondered if I am. I have trouble with simple wright sometimes. Often fungle up basic words and numbers, ect.
try http://www.dyslexia-test.com/. Most of the “tests” are simply asking you things like - do you have trouble spelling?
The was a interesting story recently that someone claimed to have a cure for dyslexia http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/NASA.html
Is there anything that you can do besides just coping with it? Any strategies, methods etc?
If the problem is specifically reading and spelling, then the answer for many people is found at www.readamerica.net.
They have worked out a simpler way of understanding the alphabetic code and have some excellent didactic principles.