Today, I continue to put a megaphone to my voice to help children with dyslexia get the support they need to succeed – from parents, teachers, and everyone with whom they come into contact.
Most dyslexic people have strong visual/spatial abilities and weak auditory skills. How does that translate to real-life and living?
One important area that has significant consequence in childhood is following directions. This requires accessing of linguistic information presented in different forms.
Because this learning and thinking difference occurs on a spectrum, the level of difficulty following directions will vary from one dyslexic to another.
Some children have poor sight-word recognition but they are able to process language adequately. They understand phonics and apply it to reading, but have memory problems that translate to, among other things, following verbal or written directions.
Others have trouble processing language but are able to recognize sight words, so they rely on sight words when they see unknown words but are unable to sound them out. These children take mental pictures of word patterns and are able to read. These are the children who say “the” for any word that has that letter combination in it, like, their, there, them, they, etc.
Then there are those children with a mixture of the two. Their difficulty is a combination of the two experiences above.
In a very short video clip, Nessy illustrates how a child may appear to be lazy when, in fact, he has forgotten a direction given. Check it out here.
Instead of slapping labels on children who have difficulty following your directions, or punishing them for “deliberately” disregarding your instructions, seek ways of making the direction as easy as possible to visualize.
How have you felt when you could not remember all the instructions given to you or were distracted by something, then forgot directions you were following?
I appreciate your posts on this subject as my son is dyslexic and this brings more understanding. Thank you
I’m always happy to help increase parent’s understanding of their dyslexic children. You’re very welcome, Carol.
It’s good that you are sharing awareness. Misunderstanding can be difficult for kids and parents
Thank you. I aim to smooth things between parents and their dyslexic children so they can move them from struggling to success.
I was watching The Amazing Race last week. There is a team of Olympians but they are both dyslexic. I felt for them as they tried to work out one challenge where they had to remember the order of a color pattern and a 4-digit combination to a lock to get the next clue. Spoiler alert – I was so happy when they finally found the clue.
Thanks for sharing that, Elisa. I’m glad the dyslexic team worked out the clue also.
Didn’t know that about working memory and dyslexia. Thanks for the education.
You’re very welcome, Roy. Every time I add to someone’s knowledge, I feel blessed.
I like the concept that working memory is fragile.
It is interesting how stress can reduce the ability of working memory to hold anything.
Stress can make anything and anyone less effective and efficient than they can be.
Verbal instructions are not my friends. Especially long strings of verbal directions, given by people who are practicing for careers as auctioneers. They come in like the tide. So fast. A huge rush of unintelligible information. Then, when I try to follow the directions, they are gone, as the tide recedes.
The resulting confusion leads to much annoyance on the part of the instruction giver, who, exasperated, says, “I don’t have time to repeat myself!”
And I’m left wondering what the heck just happened. But most people don’t understand auditory processing disorder (which is the cause of many people’s dyslexia).
Alice, you so aptly described what happens to the average dyslexic. If only speakers would understand their auditory memory dilemma and not get so exasperated. Hence my crusade to educate people about dyslexia, even as I do my best to assist parents and give hope to those who suffer so many indignities because of dyslexia.