Dyslexia

Great Debates
1

Dyslexia, it’s Causes and possible Manifestations, By Jim Ryan

I will be kind of brief.

My wife has a daughter. That daughter is right handed, naturally, from what I know. She married a left handed man. They had 3 children, 2 were girls and one was a boy. The father spent a whole lot more time teaching his son than he did his daughters from what I observed, in speach and action. This young man grew up as a left handed individual. He is the second oldest. The first child born was a girl, and she presents as a naturally right handed, individual, that is very coordinated, very strong, and very intelligent. She is an A student. This family started out in New York, so my wife and I, had little contact, until the family moved to Florida. Once settled here, they had a new baby girl, I call her shugie. She presented as being what we all consider as normal. We had fairly close contact with the family, from there on out, until the parents seperated. At that time, they came to live with us.

I took much time and pleasure, in teaching shugie about everything I could, in the best possible terms. At that time, she was just starting to read, write, and color. Coloring and many other things supplied by her loving grandmother, my wife.

At that time, I started to notice that when reaching for things, there seemed to be a slight hesitation in respect to which hand she should grasp an object. I also noticed that when she wrote some of her letters, they were written backward.

I also observed how shugie would write right handed, but she positioned the paper as a left handed person would. Since I observed these situations in their formative stages I decided not to make drastic changes and instead, I started to get her to learn to write with her left hand, and perform other things with her left hand, in an effort to help balance her body and mind conservatively. I carefully told her of some of the things I saw and why, so that she could understand what was probably caused by a right handed mother that loved her very much, teaching a naturally left handed child, without realizing her daughter was born right hemisphere dominate, or in other terms, left handed. When reffering to right hemisphere and left hemisphere, I am speaking of brain function. Right hemisphere dominance, usually manifests itself in left handed children, while left hemisphere dominance, manifests itself as right handed children.

In the vast majority taught, as we consider sound teaching, left handed children, tend to base their balance on the right side of their body, while right handed children tend to balance their body, on the left side.

The strongest power for the right handed individual, comes from the right side, as the left side stabilizes and retains posture, for the needed power to be supplied, to the extent the individual wishes. These same principles apply in kind to the opposing handed person.

Now, if someone were to teach a normally left handed child, without realizing that child was left handed, the teacher or parent, would be confusing normal body mechanics, and creating instibility in balance, form, and power, causing the child to be forever off balance, seemingly uncoordinated and a loss of physical strength as well.

Some of the consequences from this situation, will undoubtedly lead to differing emotional stresses thruout the childs lifetime, probably creating many physical, mental, and emotional stress, for their entire lifetime.

I once stumbled onto a person speaking on cluster headaches, and they said the medical community did not understand what was causing them. When considering what I believe, I think it possible that cluster headaches could bear a connection to dyslexia.

The study I would suggest to help prove, or disprove a link to cluster headaches and what I present on Dyslexia, is to question all the affected persons within those families, to see if there were both right and left handed lineages.

Right and left handed lineages may alternate with each new generation, or possibly skip several generations and then, suddenly appear.

This is a shortened and inadiquate version of how this should be written, but this is on the spur of the moment.

One of the first things to test for each child born, when they first start grasping, is to make special notice of which hand the child normally starts to grasp with and closely observe over time, if pursuit of their naturally dominate instints.

Only mothers will know if what I present below, with dyslexic children happened to them.

Boy Scout,–annonamous sends this within his email from the Dyslex association.

“Bunches of cells beneath the surface of the brain have been detected which lie on the surface in the brain of a non-dyslexic person. These groups of cells ought to have moved to the brain’s surface at the time when the brain was developing in the fetus, but failed to make the journey.”

Boy Scout,–At what time in the childrens lives are these tested for?

If tested after being taught to be opposing handed, the child may sleep on the oppossing natural side of the body.

Scientists may not have considered that since we have a favored side of the brain and body, we all may need to sleep on a certain side of the body more, so that those cells migrate properly.

Children taught to use the opposing side of the body may not sleep in the proper manner because of the confusion, causing these cells not to migrate in the more severe cases.

While mine is but thoery, it would be nice to see some testing done for them.
It is just possible, that if what I say is true above and we have that dominate side in sleep, it may be possible that in some cases, if the right handed mother sleeps on the opposing side as the fetus, it could possibly cause the mother a lot of restless nights due to the baby moving and kicking, while she tries to force herself to sleep on her natural side.

I would suggest if a mother has a lot of restless nites, that she switch her normal sleeping side, and see if that helps, if their is lefthandedness in the family, and vice versa.

It is possible that some mothers naturally sleep on their opposing side because the child is so restless and they figured it out all by themselves.
Mothers who are Dyslexic, may or may not tend to sleep on the right or wrong side, and if they have a baby, the confusion set up by the mothers own sleep may intensify within the next generation.

This is unlikely, but none of us really knows.
It would be nice to know if the cells spoken of can migrate partially, or wheather they always remain either fully under, or fully on top. Can these cells move to the edge?
Are these cells on opposing sides of the brain, in right and lefthanded children?

If so, it would make sense that like air bubbles trapped under a cup, if that cup is tilted in the correct manner, the air bubbles will rise to the top.
This is but theory.

TEST–TEST–TEST

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That’s brief? Holy crud. Don’t make any long posts, dude. :dubious:

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For the subject I present, this is very short, but I do understand. Thanks for the reply.

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Nitpick: You don’t have a theory. You have a hypothesis.

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Theory-- An idea formed by speculation. Thanks anyway.

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Looking further, I see we are both correct to a degree.

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I’m dyslexic and speaking with this experience I am rather convinced that your ideas about possible causes have no foundation but wild guessing.

If I read this well, I should be forcibly righthanded while being lef-handed and this was then the cause that I developped dyslexia?
Sorry, but I am lefthanded and nobody ever forced me to switch hands by doing anything, although I learned to use my right hand for some cultural influenced tasks. Hence I can do these things with both hands. I use my left hand when I don’t have to pay attention and I use my right hand when I’m in public/have guests.

My mother was also lefhanded and I remember that she insisted that I should be teached to write with my left hand because she was as a child forced to learn writing and other skills with her right hand.
She didn’t have dyslexia though.
Yet a family member of my mother - a natural right handed - was dyslexic.
Salaam. A

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Not in science. The word has a different meaning there. See this document for details.

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Hasn’t this right/left hemisphere dominance theory been pretty much discredited? And this idea that your child will be right or left handed based on how much you love them - seems dubious. And even if you do buy into the right/left dominance theory, is there any evidence at all that forced learning of right or left handedness has any effect on which hemisphere is dominant, (let alone curing dyslexia)? Seems to me it would be confusing cause and effect. Many children are ambidextrous, and tend to switch hands when performing tasks. I’m not aware that this a problem requiring correction. This just sounds like more of the same misguided thinking where left-handed children were “corrected” to use their right hands, usually with negative effects on the psyche.

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[QUOTE=Aldebaran]
I’m dyslexic and speaking with this experience I am rather convinced that your ideas about possible causes have no foundation but wild guessing.

If I read this well, I should be forcibly righthanded while being lef-handed and this was then the cause that I developped dyslexia?
Sorry, but I am lefthanded and nobody ever forced me to switch hands by doing anything, although I learned to use my right hand for some cultural influenced tasks. Hence I can do these things with both hands. I use my left hand when I don’t have to pay attention and I use my right hand when I’m in public/have guests.

My mother was also lefhanded and I remember that she insisted that I should be teached to write with my left hand because she was as a child forced to learn writing and other skills with her right hand.
She didn’t have dyslexia though.
Yet a family member of my mother - a natural right handed - was dyslexic.

You say,–If I read this well, I should be forcibly righthanded while being lef-handed and this was then the cause that I developped dyslexia?

I answer you by saying,–that is one way in which dyslexia can happen, but not the only way, just as there are mild and severe forms, of dyslexia. I would also say Salaam, that because someone teaches a child to be left handed when they were born right handed, does not necessarily mean that every child taught in such a manner, will become dyslexic. There are many mitigating circumstances, such as the age and intensity when teaching the child and wheather or not physical teaching went along with the spoken and wrote properties.

I would ask you Salaam,–Do you play sports?

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Try something for me Salaam, if you will. Place your right hand over your right eye and type an answer to this question, with just your left forefinger.

Do you know for sure your mother is lefthanded and if so, how?

Thank you.

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“Theory” for “idea” is scientifically incorrect (so we aren’t both correct to a degree). A theory is one or more related hypothesis which have been supported by many tests. I’m being nitpicky, but since the OP is framed as a scientific discussion, we need to use the right terminology when discussing your ideas.

It is not a put down in any way to say that you have a hypothesis, not a theory. It only makes you seem more brilliant when you use the right words.

The problem is that you have no data that support your claim. I’m not even sure you have observations. Is shugie dyslexic? How do we connect her ambidextriousness to brain damage? Your OP does not contain all of the information needed for us to come to the same conclusion that you have.

The OP made me think of a book I read about seven months ago, about a little boy diagnosed with brain damage. His parents, desperate for a cure, consulted a iconoclastic doctor who specialized in patterning, which is a “theory” similar, but not identical, to yours. The idea is that brains need to follow a specific pathway in development, and that children who are brain damaged (mentally retarded, motor impaired, learning disabled, etc.) skipped important neurologial steps as they developed. The establishment of a dominant hemisphere, according to the “theory”, is one of these steps. Treatments involve forcing the children to go through the skipped steps by putting them in a regiment similar to the phases babies go through (i.e.g, creeping, crawling, etc.). Controlled experiments has not supported the efficacy of patterning, and it’s considered to be quackery by many in the pediactric community.

I’m actually curious about this topic because my mother describes me as left-handed toddler, even though I’m right-handed now. My nursery school apparently “switched” me, as the legend goes. I don’t feel inherently left-handed, but people often think I am because of the crazy way I hold my pencil. And I’m unusually clumsy (a doctor told me I have a mild case of CP, which I don’t believe).

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“Salaam” is a greeting. It’s Aldeberan’s signature.

[sub]I’m turning into one of those posters I hate! Apologies![/sub]

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I don not believe for one second that forcing a child to use the wrong hand can “cause” dyslexia.
I have a rather severe form which intervenes at the most unexpected moments. When it intervenes with writing and reading, the causes are evidently being tired, being in the need to concentrate for longer periods, needing to swithc between languages etc… (calculating is always limited to 1+1= -3). I don’t have that much problems though when using languages that don’t have Roman (Latin) script.

I read that you were talking about left handed children being teached to be right handed. The family member of my mother was a natural right handed, he was not teached to be left handed, yet he was a born dyslexic be it in a much lesser degree then I seem to be.

I could read Arabic at a very young age. They didn’t discover the dyslexia until I was about seven and started to learn reading other languages, written in Roman script.
I don’t know what you mean with “physical teaching”.

About sports: yes I do some sports.

Salaam. A
(this means “peace” :slight_smile: It is not my name although as anyone here can witness: I am extrermely harmless completely innocent.)

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Hasn’t this right/left hemisphere dominance theory been pretty much discredited? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would say no, unless you can prove differently, because I’m pretty sure I can lend credibility to that end. I want to hear how you discredit it first. Thanks

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Have you done a literature search to see if there have been studies that support your claim? This is how you can lend credibility to your argument. Posting about shugie does not do anything for us at all.

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this is a bit hrad bceause i alxays rely pn blind typing when writinh inb lati, characters on non latin printde keyboard.

(Back to blind typing). Because that is the very reason why I was raised as left handed child in a Muslim society/culture, where the emphasis for a lot of things is put on the use of your right hand.
Salaam. A

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Shugie was where I first started to see how dyslexia presented itself in her. Doctors and scientists either have to see things happen to others or experience it themselves, even before an opinion can be formed. To that end, I offered the things I saw directly relating to the specific situation, in her. I’m still waiting for you to prove left hemisphere, right hemisphere is not still relevant.

If you will excuse me for a time, I have some other things to ask of Aldebaran, thanks.

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Thanks Aldebaran. I now see that while you are very accomplished, esp[ecially when you have so much going against you, in the form of dyslexia. What is blind typing?

I can see now, that asking you to perform the test I asked was wrong of me, because of all that you deal with.

I would ask, if you stood on just your right or left leg alone, do you balance well on just one leg?

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Boy Scout11, has shugie have been diagnosed as dyslexic? You never said so in your post.