Invisible Handicap - Dyslexia

The invisible handicap. Einstein had it. Woodro Wilson had it. The great French sculptor August Rodan had it. Vice President Rockefeller has it. And what doctors don't know about it could fill volumes. Perhaps 10 million school children suffer from it. And if it's diagnosed early, they can learn to cope with it. >> Tomorrow morning, you wake up and your shoe is missing. What do you have to do? >> Find it. >> Okay. Find it. And let's put that one to the left of new. To the left of new. >> Where did you put find? >> On my tiny new. >> I would like you to put it on the left side of new. >> Jim, would you make me the word tap? >> Yes. >> Tap. Okay, Jim, say that word that you made. >> It tip. >> These [clears throat] children are not They are not mentally defective in any way. Yet, as 8, n or 10 year olds, they are way behind in the skills we tend to associate with intelligence. Simple reading, recognizing by instinct right from left. But they all have normal IQs. What they are afflicted with are learning disabilities. The message sent to the brain becomes garbled in transmission. >> Douglas, I notice your letters are getting all mixed up in your desk. Could you put them in a a row again so it'll be easier for you to find them? >> What these teachers are trying to do is get them to overcome their disability with special education. >> The specific reading problem is called dyslexia. It's next to impossible to show you how a dyslexic sees printed matter, but it might be something like this. Take a simple sentence. The cat was on the hat. It might be seen as this or as this. Or the same person might another time see it this way. What happens is the natural instinct to scan a word in a conventional sequence gets shortcircuited. Beyond difficulty in reading, dyslexic children are usually awkward physically, become easily frustrated by not being able to accomplish both the academic and physical skills of other children. This is the Vanguard School, a private school in Poli, Pennsylvania. You know, 78 or so percent of the kids who come to a school like this are klutzes. I mean, they're clumsy. They trip over a uh a pebble. Uh they bump into doors. They knock teacups over and all of this. Well, these kids have been used to all of their life parents and teachers and relatives criticizing them. >> All right, bring it in. COME ON, RUN. RED. If >> a kid's out on the playing field and he's cluty and he can't catch a ball and it just hits him in the in the chest or hits him right in the face. In first place he's hurt. In second second place he's embarrassed. In the third place, uh, he is a peculiar kid whom the other kids start to laugh at, tease, and even revile. And if we can improve his skill, and we know we can do that, uh then we're doing something that will help his self-esteem immeasurably. >> The things like the softball that was um mandatory and the basketball in gym in high school were really awful. They're great. I couldn't >> Kathy Rice is 24 years old, a dyslexic who can barely read. >> She remembers the frustrations of childhood. And I'm standing there for the longest time swinging at these balls. And the longer it got, I'm sure I wasn't getting any closer. And pretty soon I couldn't even see the ball cuz my eyes were tearing up. You know, I was starting to cry. I just felt so frustrated like like what am I ever going to do? I'm going to run into people like this. I can remember that afternoon thinking that if dyslexia means this, I might as well just hang it up right now. Many failures in machine parts can be traced to disregard of this important consideration. See article 4. >> Kathy Rice's difficulty is that she processes written information very slowly. She reads like a six-year-old and can only do it for a few minutes at a time. But there's nothing wrong with her ability to understand and remember the spoken word. So she learns what she has to learn on audio tapes. character. >> Kathy Rice has managed to live with her disability and is an A student of of all things engineering at Colombia University. >> Delta 2 all the way up to delta J. >> All right. So, it will be a J by one matrix. But since it's in two dimensions, >> when I'm writing, I seem to get things mixed up. So, right after I write something, I read over it while I still remember what I meant to write. make sure I got that. Um, if I read over it later, it's more difficult for me to read it. Just about as difficult as it would be for me to read a normal book. It's not >> I don't remember what it is and I have to figure out each word like with and from. I get those mixed up. They don't look alike and I can't say why. But when I'm reading, I don't I have to concentrate to take each word as it comes and look at the letters and figure out what it is. If I go by his recognition, I'm quite often wrong. >> To get an idea of what happens when a dyslexic like Kathy does read, we asked her to take a diagnostic test with Dr. Howard Milman, a psychologist who specializes in learning disabilities. position administered resuscitation to the thief. Other patients might have difficulty with spoken language or with simple arithmetic problems, but mostly they are visual difficulties that vary from patient to patient and even within the same patient. There's nothing wrong with their eyes. It's in the message that the eyes send. Parents of dyslexics often assume that their children are stupid or just don't try hard enough. Dr. Milman has designed a test for parents, a little frustration box that demonstrates how a dyslexic child might see things. The task is to trace a line between the double lines on the star. But you must look in mirrors, which reverse left and right and up and down. It's next to impossible on the first go. And to make it more difficult, the doctor plays the role of a nagging parrot. >> Come on. Most of the reporters do much better than this. >> Is that supposed to relax me? >> No. >> Remember, my sense of direction is confused because it's all done with mirrors. >> Try to stay in the boundaries. >> Come on, sir. >> What happens? What? How do parents respond to this difficulty with a child? >> They put pressure on the child to learn better and it takes many forms. Uh do extra homework. Um they try to sit down and help the child and if the child in fact does have learning disabilities, that process almost always leads to failure. >> But what was the effect on you when you were five, six, seven years old? >> Most of the time I came out with the wrong words. You know, of course, I remember the wrong ones, I guess, more than the right ones. So, uh, I was very timid about even making any attempt because I knew that I didn't recognize these things, you know, and I can't even remember trying to figure out which side of the page we were reading from. I felt that, you know, the other kids didn't like me. Some of the teachers I knew were trying to be understanding, but what they were trying to make me do was so impossible for me. I didn't know why, but I even I knew it it just was impossible. >> Unidentified learning difficulties almost always uh is accompanied by emotional difficulties. Um and in a sense the person um can eventually become a marginal member of society, a recluse, a person who is not at all functioning up um to the talents that they do have because of some specific learning disability that's prevented them from learning in the normal way in the usual manner. >> Mop. >> What's this Mike? >> OP. Is this a What's this letter here? >> A B. >> A B. >> Yes, it is a B. >> This is Mike. He's seven years old in public school in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where they have special classes for children with learning disabilities. Look at him and you get an inkling of the frustration in a child who sees things differently. Now B. >> Ob. >> Put an M. >> Mob. >> Mob. >> Mob. >> Do you know what a mob is? >> You have a crowd of people. >> Whole lot of people. That's a mob. All right. >> But Mike is a lucky boy. He's in one of the few public schools that offer special classes. Most states have laws that make it compulsory to give learning disabled children the right to special education, but few states have the money for it. So the chances are that children like Mike, and it's estimated that there are at least 2 million of them, get shunted to the back of the class, treated as dunes, have personality problems, become delinquent, castoffs because they can't learn in the conventional way. The problem in finding an LD child is that you first of all have to have very careful diagnosis and it requires more than just simply an IQ test. This means a great deal more uh emphasis upon psychological evaluation, psychiatric, neurological and so on. This requires larger stats than we presently have available to us to really find these youngsters. And then the case is if we find them, will the resources be available to teach them? We're not quite sure. >> It's a matter of funds really. I think the the technology is there. It's a limited technology, but it's still there and we certainly could do more than we're doing. >> If parents are concerned enough, they can send children to one of a number of state assisted private schools that have proved that disabled children can be taught to learn and think their own way and become as successful as anyone. They're taught to feel the shape of language. square. >> Very good. And it is a square, isn't it? Do you see it, Josh? >> Very good. Are you ready? >> Mhm. >> Close your eyes. Dig in. >> A circle. >> Very good. And it is a circle. We try as in every way we can to build up a sense of uh worth, his feeling of confidence by giving him at the same time uh a an attitude towards himself that he is a successful learner who has a place for himself in the world who can overcome the deficiencies that have made it difficult for him to adjust to regular classrooms. Ordinary teachers who don't uh um who don't acknowledge and teach to his individual learning style. But you showed them all when you top of the class. >> Well, yes, in a way I did. I was awfully proud of that. But um there was there's more to being a high school student than grades. A lot more. And what I wished is that I could be popular. My older sister was a cheerleader. I that's what I wished. >> So you were validictorian in high school. You're now at Columbia University. You're married. What sort of problems do you have around the house? I mean, can you can you cook a dinner? Can you read a a recipe? >> I've had some dinners that went directly to the garbage, not even as leftovers. Um, a recipe that would call for rice would either specify cooked or uncooked normally. And I just don't notice cooked and uncooked looked about the same to me. And I can remember one recipe calling for cooked rice. I put in uncooked rice, cooked it uh put this put it together with some liquid ingredients in the oven for about 15 minutes, which and there wasn't enough liquid to do the rice anyway, which of course it came out. It was like crunchy. Only you couldn't you couldn't bite through it. It you couldn't cut through it. It was awful. That went out that went in the garbage. I got very good directions before I ever went into Columbia. I was scared to drive into New York because I have trouble reading road signs. I go by them. Well, sure I can figure out what's up there, but I might have to stop over pull over to do it. Can if you can imagine that in New York traffic, it wouldn't be a good idea, you know. So, I just go cruising by all these signs and can't quite often can't pick up what's on them or um if I if I'm looking for a specific thing like the George Washington Bridge, I know I'm looking for a sign for that. I can look at all these big green signs and when I see the one that has the George Washington Bridge, usually I'll recognize it. Now, if they abbreviate it, they can mess me up. If they put GW Bridge, the word Washington is not there. I'll go right past it. I have to work a little harder at some things than other people do, but I feel I can do almost anything I really want to do. Don't let dyslexia or anybody get you down about it. It's a lot easier said than done, but uh it's not all that bad, especially if it's diagnosed early. And in my case, I don't feel it was diagnosed early. And if you suspect you might have it, I'd suggest you run right out and be tested. And once you find out you do have it, it's something to be pleased. Um you were born with it. It's not like it just happened yesterday and you should be sad you all of a sudden got it. You've had it all your life and now you realize it and you're just lucky that you know about it.