busting myths about learning differences

Over the past few weeks, I have been sharing – and busting – some common myths regarding learning differences such as dyslexia, ADD/ADHD and autism.  This week’s myth:

Myth #3: “My dyslexic child just needs to concentrate more.”

People with dyslexia have brains that will ‘disorientate’ when they strike confusion. This means that they will use their imagination to look at the problem, often from different perspectives, until they have solved it. This works really well when dealing with real life objects. But when they become confused with a word, and try to look at it from different perspectives – all of a sudden the word ‘but’ becomes ‘put’ and ‘was’ becomes ‘saw’. 

Disorientation is the opposite to being focused. When someone is disoriented, they will not be ‘present’, and will be experiencing inaccurate perception.

Can you imagine how difficult it must be to stay focused when your brain is constantly wanting to disorientate because you are confused about a word? So many words cause confusion for dyslexic leaners. Any abstract word has the potential to do so, because they are not able to create a picture for it. It is easy for a picture-thinking dyslexic person to picture a tyrannosaurus rex, therefore even though the word seems difficult, it tends not to trip a dyslexic reader up. It is not so easy to picture a ‘the’, a 'was' or a 'put' - these are the types of words that cause disorientation.

​Tyrannosaurus rex =

   
​the =

Making a dyslexic person concentrate doesn’t work.​ In fact in my experience all it seems to do is cause stress,  headaches, tummy aches and meltdowns.

If your child is not concentrating, there will be a reason for it. They will be experiencing disorientation - probably due to confusion. Take a short break if possible, and have them find a way to re-focus – whether it is through something physical such a jumping on the trampoline or running to the end of the driveway and back; or it could simply be taking some deep breaths.

In the Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme, students are taught a simple, effective method that allows them to recognise the feeling of when they disorientate, and gives them the ability to re-focus without the need to concentrate or ‘try harder’.

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For more information on dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, autism and other learning differences, head over to my website or drop me an email.  I’d love to hear from you 🙂

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