Dealing with Dyslexia as an Adult

Unlike Brilharma’s student, my dyslexia was never bad enough to be noticed. Due to a number of reasons, I was very introverted and spent most of my time reading. (I think this is why I don’t have many reading/spelling problems). Most of the mistakes I did make were labeled as “inattention” or “laziness”. These things I learned later were typical of dyslexia (switching around b, d, p, q; writing 62 instead of 26 - the more I found out, the more it sounded like things I did!). Though I made these mistakes regularly, I learned to check, and double check all I did. And this was good enough throughout my school life until I hit college. I noticed that the notes I wrote quickly (to keep up with the prof) were a mess - frequent misspellings! It’s so strange to be taking notes and suddenly forget how to spell a word - and just write the closest sounding approximation. The only one I can remember offhand is when I spelt “column” as “collum” but I know I’ve had to go back and respell words in my notes.
Also fun is knowing you owe your friend $5.52, but telling her you’ll get the $5.25 to her tomorrow! That was a fun 5 minutes worth of explaination…

As long as I can go slow enough, my work is good. What I’m worried about is when speed is required. I’ve heard that though I can still be tested it wouldn’t be worth much - I’m too old.

I dislike feeling unable to correctly get my ideas/feelings/thoughts across - even this post feels disjointed to me. I dislike having my mom comment on my spelling as if it’s my fault I never learned better. I dislike calling SDMB or IMDB, SMBD or IMBD, respectively (or typing those in broswer - I love my dropdown menu!).

I’m hoping that others will either have gone through something similar or know someone else who did and might be able to give me some advice.
I thank you in advance!

I posted a couple of links on that thread to work done by Ron Davis. Here is another page describing the program.

I can’t say enough good things about The Gift of Dyslexia. If you are dyslexic (and the book contains a simple diagnostic) you may find some relief. If you’re not, you’ll know more about the condition when you’re done…and may end up feeling a little jealous.

Good luck!

I do all that stuff too. And I write pretty much any letter any which way. I had special classes in elementary school but I don’t think they really knew what my problem was. I’m great at scrabble now though and any other word scramble kind of thing. My reading ability has always been good because I learned very early and it was stressed as vitally important. Problems became noticable when I was first made to start transcribing what I read. b p d q are interchangeable to me without very careful consideration.

Things really fall apart when I am tired or rushed. Getting the translation from my brain to the paper loses a lot.

I don’t worry much about it though. I think it is kinda cool.