Intro to Dyslexia and the Dyslexic Advantage

[Dr. Fernette Eide] Welcome, everyone!

This is the first in what I hope will be

a series of webinars that will be helpful

to you, in our Dyslexic community at

Dyslexicadvantage.com. What I'm going to

do is do a brief overview of Dyslexia, and

talk very briefly about the Dyslexic

Advantage. We can talk more about that in

a future meeting, perhaps, and I'll try at

the end to address some of the questions

that we had in our live webinar.

First of all, it's good to recognize that

one in five people are Dyslexic--extremely

common. What that translates into is

8.4 million school age children here in

the United States who are Dyslexic. For

every one who is identified, there will

be 3 who will be missed. It 's really a

staggering percentage. There are a lot of

reasons for this, but teachers are often

not trained in detail about how to

recognize Dyslexia, and also, it's not

widely understood, either, one of the

common signs and features of Dyslexia.

So, Dyslexic students have strong big

picture skills. They are often known to be

very creative, observant, empathetic,

and great problem solvers. But they are

slower to acquire fine detail, basic

skills like reading ,writing , spelling,

or mastery of math facts. Dyslexia will

look different in different individuals,

because it will vary in terms of a

students age, verbal abilities, motor

abilities, working memory, that short term

memory that helps you keep information in

mind, and individual students learning

strengths; and also, temperament. I'm not

talking in detail about testing here, but

I wanted to introduce some of the common

questions that people have. Testing for

Dyslexia is called a clinical diagnosis,

so it can't be done definitively with a

checklist. It really needs to be done,

ideally, with comprehensive testing with

a professional who has a great deal of

experience with the variations that can

occur with Dyslexia. There is some debate

that exists in terms of the best method,

our preference, as I mentioned, is with

comprehensive testing. Usually that

entails some screening of vision, hearing,

and motor ability, but also, standardized

tests we like to use: a combination of IQ

tests such as the WISC-IV, or the WIAS-IV

for adults. These are standardized tests

that involve estimates of verbal and

non-verbal reasoning, working memory and

processing speed; in addition, there are

so-called achievement tests which look at

performance, for instance, on phonology,

on single-word reading, on passage

reading, listening. There are other tests

that are mentioned here, Nelson Denny is a

particular test that is helpful when

students are applying to the College

Board for accommodations because those

passages in the Nelson Denny reading tests

are really better indicators of challenges

that a student may have with college or

graduate school level reading passages.

Other things mentioned here are CTOPP, and

some of the sub-tests listed: listening,

comprehension, single word reading,

reading comprehension, writing, spelling,

phonology, math. In addition, we like to

make sure that we are not just focusing

on a students weaknesses, we like to find

out what a student likes to do in their

spare time, what they may be particularly

talented in doing; we evaluate creative

work and out-of-school activities. In

general, as much as possible, this should

be part of the basic assessment of

students with Dyslexia. We shouldn't just

focus on the weaknesses because that gives

a very lopsided view of a student:

where they are right now, as well as their

potential in the future.

So the hallmark of Dyslexia testing when

using these methods of ability-achievement

discrepancy is to look at how well a

student may perform with thinking skills,

reasoning skills that are communicated

verbally, or non-verbally with puzzles

or complex shapes or patterns that are

presented in front of them, compared to

for instance, written work or

calculations. That ability-achievement

discrepancy is the foundation for

understanding specific learning

disabilities, meaning that intellectual

ability may be high, but there are certain

patterns of specific weaknesses that are

consistent with a specific learning

disability.

So, if we look at how Dyslexic students

perform when they have a battery of

tests such as this; here, on the Y axis

are the scores that you might see in tests

that are standardly done as part

of the WISC test: this is an example of

a student from our clinic. If average is

10 for age, then these scores,

similarities --that's a measure of

analogical reasoning-- things like

comprehension might be extremely strong.

Here, this student was very high in block

design. So being able to perceive and

replicate different spatial patterns,

these are all above the average of 10.

Here, these other measures, things like

how much information can be kept in mind

at one time, a digit span, numbering,

keeping numbers and letters in order,

and coding--being able to copy different

symbols in a rapid fashion, are below

average. In this student's case,

listening comprehension was at the

98th %tile, single word reading was at the

8th, pseudoword reading was at the

3rd %tile--that's a measure of

phonological awareness, and alphabet

fluency-- how quickly you can actually

name letters of the alphabet when presented

in front of you, was at the 6th. The thing

that I wanted to get across to you here

is that the Dyslexic picture is really one

of peaks and valleys, it's not a flat line.

To look at....these are some additional

sub-tests here, to look at some of the

WIAT achievement scores here, again,

look at 100 here representing standard

scores, we had in our clinic students of

average verbal IQ, Superior, Very

Superior, and even above that. Again,

what I want to convey to you mainly is

the picture--if this is the average range,

what you don't see, is a flat line, which

is more typically the case for

non-Dyslexic students, but instead you

have Dyslexic students who really have

extreme of abilities, and also, very

specific weaknesses. Here, this is Oral

Reading Accuracy, that contribute to the

general reading picture. If we were to

look only at the weaknesses, we are not

really seeing the tremendous potential

that exists among these students.

So now, I am going to briefly go through

the different ages. In elementary school,

typically, Dyslexic students may present

with some of the challenges on the left

column here. Some students may be late

talking, others, parents often say that

they notice they seem to be slower with

letter or other types of naming. They may

have a low interest in books, mild

mispronunciation errors might be seen.

Things like "back-back" instead of

"backpack" , "pisghetti" instead of

"spaghetti", these are mispronunciations

that are not just motor, motorically being

able to pronounce the words, but more

representative of a general issue with

auditory processing and phonology. Often,

Dyslexic students don't 'get' rhymes.

It's because they are not hearing the same

things as non-Dyslexic students are

hearing. They may be slower in learning

to read, have difficulty remembering their

math facts, and also have some right-left

confusion. This is an example of writing

of a student who was told to write lower

case letters. They had a lot of

intrusions, had difficulty knowing what

direction to write the letters. At the

same time, in the early elementary

years, these students may actually be

very socially adept, they may show

themselves to be excellent problem

solvers, be fantastic, for instance, at

real life problem-solving, asking good

questions, and, for instance, show

themselves in science experiments in

class. Some of these students are very

expressive non-verbally, they might be

wonderful builders, great with Legos,

K'nex, things like that, or-- are very

artistic. These students are often

creative. They have lots of ideas, and

they may hide their difficulties.

In late elementary school, the

difficulties change a little bit. You

still have some reading difficulties, of

course, but writing also takes on greater

importance. Examples here: this is a

student who wrote, "I thought I could

climb the mountain." This student had a

great deal of auditory processing

difficulties, and as a result, "could",

"croud", was not very clearly heard, and

as a result, an astute observer could

pick up the writing difficulties were

really a reflection of auditory

processing difficulties that the student

was having. The challenges that late

elementary school students face include

spelling problems, they have often weaker

visual word form, grammatical

difficulties; writing in general may be

disorganized and slow, it may be hard to

get ideas down onto paper. Word finding

is another issue. Some of these students

have actually vivid sensory perceptions

and visual imagery, and it's hard for them

to translate these perceptions into words.

Rote memory also comes online as late

elementary school students are expected

to have more facts at their disposal,

especially if the memorization involves

lists of information that are not linked

by a story: for example, things like state

capitals. It can seem almost impossible to

some students.At the same time, we also

start seeing some real wonderful spatial

talents in students in the late elementary

school years. The science and math

students also become prominent, and some

students find they really excel in sports

and take on leadership positions. These

are students who are often socially adept.

There is strong empathy. They are great

team players. And the arts, as mentioned,

also, clusters of strengths that we see

in students.

In the Middle and High School years`

what is particularly a challenge is the

quantity of reading and writing. It's at

this time where students have to write a

great deal more than previously. The

misunderstanding of syntax, the structure

of sentences, and limitations in

vocabulary really can make schooling

difficult. Standardized tests may also be

difficult. Students may actually follow

quite well in the classroom, but then be

presented with information that is out of

context, like in a standardized exam, and

more subtle weaknesses than reading really

come to bear. As a result, standardized

test performance may be far below what a

student is doing in the regular classroom.

Other issues that are important for

middle and high school and college

students, things like the speed of being

able to complete work, misreading question

prompts. Foreign Language can be a

strength or a weakness for Dyslexic

students. The most typical pattern is that

students may actually fare fairly well by

listening and doing the conversational

aspects of language, but as Foreign

Language progresses in the school system,

and more conjugation and rote memory

rules of language and grammar are

required, then students have difficulty,

If that is a significant issue, or

students have fairly severe auditory

processing difficulties, they really have

trouble hearing the sounds, then we

usually support and recommend a Foreign

Language waiver. Middle, high school,

and college are also the time where word

heavy subjects like science, social

studies can also cause trouble for

students. The important thing I want to

mention here is that there is often a

discrepancy. Dyslexic students are often

quite strong with science, and scientific

thinking. It's only in that middle stage

where a lot of science vocabulary is

presented, where a student may suddenly

feel that they are not good at science.

It's important to look out for that,

because these students often just need

more encouragement, they might need more

repetition, and even some tutoring. But

often if they can get through this period

of time where the vocabulary and the

technical language of science is mastered,

and gapped to the point where you actually

have to think and critically analyze

observations, that's where Dyslexic

Students can really excel and do fantastic

work, even breakthrough work in research.

Organization is also a typical issue at

this age. That occurs for a number of

reasons. Sometimes the organizational

difficulties reflect inter-connected and

immersive thinking style, as a result, it

is hard to prioritize information and to

"chunk" it, categorize what they know,

and then put it in a sequence. I think in

another webinar what I might do is --

we can talk more about the executive

function organizational aspects of

Dyslexia. At the same time that we talk

about the challenges that occur at this

age, it's often really exciting to see

these students really start breaking out

of the pack in terms of their higher

order thinking. Often, students will

surprise their teachers with really

striking insights, different perspectives

on themes, or questions that are presented

in the classroom. Students can thrive in

project based learning and the arts,

verbal talents are often also noted at

this age. Some Dyslexic students actually

have a wonderful span, being able to keep

information in, and as a result they can

excel in things such as Drama or Debate,

because they can keep in long arguments

and what people have said, in their memory

banks, and then be able to analyze it and,

for instance, to counter arguments when

presenting in that kind of forum.

Leadership, also, is a very common talent

cluster among Dyslexic students. Often,

if a parents says, "I don't know what kind

of talent my student has, maybe there is

no specific talent or creative drive. If

we ask more questions, what we find out

is that these students, their strength may

be social. It's not that they prefer to be

in the science lab, or prefer to be doing

math equations, or physics; these students

really may seem to have no particular

special talents or gifts, but it's their

gift is actually social. What they really

are is making friends all over the school

with different ages, and that's going to

be a great talent in practically any

profession.

I also want to mention a bit about stealth

Dyslexics there. Stealth Dyslexics often

fly under the radar of

detection. Stealth Dyslexia in younger

children is usually seen in a setting of

gifted children who may be able to

compensate for some of their weaknesses

but, as Dyslexia evolves in older

students, often they can crack the code

of reading for comprehension purposes.

They can often read silently with good

comprehension, but their challenges come

out more with oral reading accuracy, and

with speed of processing, and with

writing. Organizational issues also

contribute to some of the writing

difficulties with Stealth Dyslexia. It's

another big topic, to talk about Stealth

Dyslexia, so maybe we can put that off

for another webinar if there is interest.

College and the Workplace: this is really

a new field, a lot...a new area.

There has been a lot of discussion about

the early years of Dyslexia, but, I think

it is going to be really an explosion of

understanding about Dyslexia in the

workplace in the coming decade. As much

in, for college, it is the quantity of

reading and writing that can be

particularly tough, we typically see

students in the first two years of college

have their greatest struggles. Sometimes

students will try a little bit of college,

really have trouble, and then have to

step out, try again, and then over the

course of some time, the brain matures

a little bit more, and then they can

actually balance schooling when they are

a little bit older. Another thing that we

see is that, although the first 2 years are

the toughest because there is a lot of

required reading, and a lot more rote

information...Dyslexic students, if they

can "push their way through" those first 2

years, they may really find the upper two

years quite a bit easier as they are used

to deep thinking, and analysis, and the

thinking part of college, where they work,

is not hard for most Dyslexic students.

It's really just the rote memorization

work that is required in the early years,

and the sheer quantity of books that need

to be read.

Time management: a big issue for many

students in the college years. Getting

through their major requirements, that's

often, as I said, the worst part. If you

can request reduced courseload, that's

very helpful for many students. Many

students also find they need to break

out their school schedule so that they

take some classes over summer.

In the workplace, the things that are the

most difficult for young Dyslexics are

tasks that require repetitive, and say for

instance, data entry, clerical tasks,

that's kind of like that fine detail that

is difficult for many Dyslexics. Filling

out forms, because information is not

contextual...questions that also rise,

should I disclose my Dyslexia in the

workplace? It can really be an important

issue for many people.

So at the same time there are really

significant challenges at the college

level and in the workplace, as said,

in higher education, and in careers, this

is often where Dyslexics shine because

they are fantastic problem solvers,

whether it's people problems, system

problems, or technical problems. Dyslexic

strengths often involve strategic

thinking, many Dyslexics are strong with

empathy and seem particularly good at team

building. Dynamic Reasoning, which is one

of the mind strengths, is something that

we also seem to see more often sort of

"turning on" in the college graduate

school or workplace years. Being able to

spot trends and predict what's going to

happen, which is important for so many

different cutting edge careers.

Entrepreneurship, Dyslexics, as many of

you many know, really excel as

entrepreneurs. They make up 35-40% of the

successful entrepreneurs here in the

United States. So, really highly

over-represented among successful

entrepreneurs compared to the general

population.

And what about older Dyslexic adults?

It's important to be aware if either you

or a friend or family member is suspected

to have Dyslexia,that...if you are over

the age of 40, the chances are, you were

never formally identified. Part of that

reason is because at that time the

federal legislation actually hadn't taken

place, so there was no pressure to

identify Dyslexia, it wasn't identified

in the school system yet. Really, the

legislation only took effect for people

who are now younger than the age of 40.

Many older Dyslexic adults got by--

succeeded--with personal strengths,

with people talents, as mentioned before,

strategic thinking and problems solving,

and they found that "real life" was easier

than school. When we polled our community

here at Dyslexic Advantage, many people

said that people supports were very

important, technology less so, but, that

soon will be changing. In answer to the

question, "Am I still Dyslexic?"---yes,

you are! It's a brain wiring difference.

Most Dylsexic adults are able to read and

understand, but their reading may be slow,

and writing and spelling even more

challenging than reading...that's what

most people tell us.

In answer to the question about the brain

science of Dyslexia, "Are Dyslexic brains

different?"---Yes, they are. Here is an

example from Manuel Casanova, a

neuroscientist here represented the

different brain volumes in Dyslexics versus

non-Dyslexics in terms of color. There

were larger right hemispheric brain

volumes among Dyslexics compared to

non-Dyslexics. Some of that....I think

this might be helpful in giving you an

idea of what the differences are. If you

process more information in the right

hemisphere, versus the left hemisphere,

this is an example from some really

fascinating split brain studies from

Sperry and Gazzaniga. These experiments

were not done on Dyslexic or non-Dyslexic

subjects...they were not done on Dyslexic

subjects. Instead,patients who were under

going a procedure which actually split the

hemispheres. So what it told us was what

do the respective hemispheres do when they

process language. For example, when one

of these split-brained patients were

flashed the word "knight" on a screen, if

it was flashed on the screen in a way that

the left hemisphere saw the word, then the

person said, "It says knight." But

interestingly, if it was flashed on the

screen so that the right hemisphere saw

the word, the person said this, " I have a

picture in my mind, but I can't say it.

Two fighters in a ring, ancient, using

uniforms and helmets on horses, trying

to knock each other off....knights?" What

this reflects is, although language is

really represented on both sides of the

brain, depending on whether you have more

left sided processing or right sided

processing, how that information is

organized, stored ,and expressed is very

different. On the left hemisphere, the

language centers tend to focus on

specific, exact information. In the right

hemisphere, it's more associational. So

there are these complex images and stories

associated with a word. As a result, when

students are say, in their middle or their

high school years, and you know they know

so much information. You've asked them to

write about it. Sometimes what you see is

really this kind of "complex perception"

that is really hard to put into words.

These are students, if you question them,

they know a lot about the topic, and yet

there are very few words they have written

on the page. Again, I think it's just a

great example that really can inform more

understanding of why writing is so

difficult for many students. There are

specific ways to actually encourage

elaboration. Translate pictures into words,

for instance, that particularly can work

well with many Dyslexic students.

So, I think we'll probably have a special

session on some of the brain research

studies in Dyslexia, because it's

fascinating and I think a lot of you would

have great discussion of some of the

observations. We really want to encourage

more sharing between Dyslexic populations

and the researchers who are trying to

study Dyslexia. I think it is very

important, and will help things all the

way around. A theory or a model that is

helpful to think about, what the balance

is in Dyslexia is this fine detail and big

picture aspect of Dyslexia. Dyslexia as

a trade-off is a trade-off for more big

picture thinking at the expense of fine

detail. Here we have a quote form Manuel

Casanova, he said, "Dyslexia is a pattern

of connectivity that favors longer

connections at the expense of shorter

ones, as measured by spaces between cell

minicolumns. This pattern of connectivity

may yield a greater capacity for abstract,

'visionary' thinking".

What Dr. Casanova has found is that if

white matter connections are measured in

Dyslexics versus non-Dyslexics, there are

clear differences. In fact, the pattern

between these connections looks like

there is kind of extremes, where, if there

is a normal distribution in the middle,

at one extreme favoring the fine detail

are autistic individuals. And at the other

end, favoring big picture, are Dyslexic

individuals. The picture over here on the

left, shows this trade-off between autism

and Dyslexia. Here, Dyslexia patterns

with these long projectios and pathways

in the frame, favor these top-down

cognitive style. What is the big picture?

What is the information we need to know.

What's the context. It tends to be more

holistic and gestault in terms of

processing, and good synthesizing that

comes as a result of this.

If you look at the fine detal/ big picture

trade-off, in other practical clinical

academic situations, the fine detail

picture are things like specific facts

where you are trying to master knowledge

in isolation. You are trying to learn

rules and procedures and information

that is supposed to be predictable,

orderly, and for instance, rote. At the

other end, the Dyslexic style is more big

picture. It's "gist". It's conceptual.

This kind of pattern works well for best

fit; looking at themes , patterns ,and

stories; information that is personal and

presented in context, and has associations

and relationships. You can imagine that

this kind of big picture style is so

helpful in many disciplines,

where you are trying to look at real-life

trends or real-life problems. You can also

imagine that in early elementary school,

where fine detail and rules and procedures

are being mastered, that's a particular

time that is difficult for many Dyslexics.

Going back to big picture: experiences,

kinesthetic learning, also contribute to

this big picture understanding of

information. Big Picture thinking is often

non-sequential, it can be messy because

you are really looking at the "best fit",

it doesn't have to be exact. Surprise and

Novelty are often really important for

Big Picture because it might cause you to

completely re-set your picture and your

perspective. This pattern is thought to be

more intuitive, rather than explicit.

If you look at this trade-off between Fine

Detail and Big Picture, the short

connection type processes in the brain

are things like Phonological

discrimination. What is the difference

between "ba" and "da"? Was it "bat" or

"dat"? Reading has a lot of fine detail

associated with it. Is there an "s" on the

end of the word or is there not? Again,

rote memory, information that could be

quickly processed and more automatic.

On the other side, the kinds of tasks that

are important for long connections in the

brain are things like analogical thinking;

how is this like that? Spatial reasoning,

which requires often different...how

would that object be rotated in space?

Engineers are very good at things like

that. Mental Simulation, again, not

exact but actually approximate. Big

picture processes are often slower, and

as mentioned, less automatic.

If you look at the fine detail challenges

in younger students, what are the sorts of

things that you'd see? -- Is that the

letter 'b' or 'd'? Did you say 'wold' or

'world'? Was 4 plus 4 eight, or seven, or

six? --These pieces of information are

very exact and specific short connection

type of tasks. Letter recognition, sound

discrimination, fact retrievals,

sequencing. What are the fine detail

challenges that older students face?

Things like homonyms-- was that 'hear',

or 'here'? Choosed or chose? You'll hear

students say, "I know what that means,

but I can't explain why, or I can't

pronounce it. Was that punctuation rules

that's a fine detail? Was it studies with

an apostrophe 's' or with an '-ies'?"

Examples of fine detail challenges have

been studied in brain systems. These are

from fMRI studies. A famous study by

John Gabrieli at Stanford, and what it

shows you is that in typically reading

children, when they were listening to a

rhyme, there is activation in these two

circles. When Dyslexic students were

given the same rhymes--this was an

interesting study because the students

didn't have to make a decision about

anything, they were just listening to

rhyming words in the scanner. You can

see, it is much less of a match betwe4en

those. But when students were remediated,

with a variety of methods--some was

auditory training, another was a

phonological method--that, improvement in

that sound discrimination could be seen on

an fMRI, and that correlated with the

tests that they gave the children. It's

important to note that these kinds of

tests are not useful for diagnosis, at

that point there is a lot of individual

variations. Mostly what can be gleaned,

at least at this point in time, come from

groups of students with controls, rather

than relying on a single person or so.

It's not as if you could go and have a

scan and find out that you are Dyslexic.

It's still a clinical diagnosis or

identification.

Another thing I wanted to mention here,

because we talked a bit about Stealth

Dyslexia. This is some fascinating work

from Fumiko Hoeft. What she found when

she studied Stealth Dyslexics was that

there was more brain grey matter seen in

Stealth Dyslexics, as well as more

activation in areas associated with

contextual learning. So, these are

students who had trouble with single word

reading, but were actually quite strong in

reading words within a story or a context.

The interesting part about this is that

the extra brain grey matter in these

context areas is consistent with the

strength that certainly we see among

Stealth Dyslexics, about contextual

learning, and being able to function well

in applied problem solving.

In fact, these slides were taken from

Dr. Hoefts presentation at our conference

on Dyslexia and Talent, she challenged

the concept of Dyslexia being deficit,

only, as she presented her work. I highly

recommend checking out the videos from our

conference on our You-tube channel,

youtube.com/dyslexicadvantage. Her talk

there showed that Stealth Dyslexics, as

much, have that contextual top-down

processing, being able to use brain

pathways in order to do decoding and

problem solving. She also presented and

showed us some work from Ken Pugh at the

Haskins Lab at Yale that showed that

there seems to be a trade off between

reading and visual spatial processing

ability. In fact, from that work, it looks

like the weaker the reading ability, the

stronger the visual spatial talent. Sort

of a fascinating result. It was building

on some previous work that showed that

Dyslexics outperformed non-Dyslexics in

terms of spatial rotation and problem

solving types of work. That might account

for why Dyslexics are over-represented in

fields such as engineering and

architecture. So what she put in her slide

is that these kinds of data challenge

accounts suggesting that Dyslexia is a

deficit. It is not, it's a trade off. You

can't just look at weaknesses associated

with Dyslexia, the whole picture is a

trade off. Some abilities are very strong,

or even above average, while other things

are the more traditional Dyslexia related

challenges with reading and writing.

I did want to mention some of the Dyslexic

strength literature here. Some examples,

Dyslexics, as I mentioned, outperform

non-Dyslexics on a variety of tasks. Here,

some in a previous study, if you do these

spatial puzzles here on the left, Dyslexics

are better than non-Dyslexics at these

things. On creative insight problems, it

shows that more problems were correctly

solved by the Dyslexic group compared to

the non-Dyslexic group. As mentioned,

Dylsexics are over-represented in schools

of art and engineering in surveys that

have been done, as well as surveys of

successful entrepreneurs.

These are some of the data that we've had

from our clinic. These are WISC scores,

here are various measurements on the

WIAT, for those of you who know about the

technical aspects of these tests. So, if

100 is the average, I think what I really

wanted to show you here is that there are

some areas that are below average, below

the line at 100 of things like working

memory, processing speed, sentence

repetition. Here are things like oral

reading accuracy, and math facts fluency.

At the same time, there's some

spectacularly high scores as well of

things like verbal reasoning ability,

oral word fluency, reading comprehension

can be very strong among some Stealth

Dyslexics, and things like that. Math

problem solving can also be in the average

range or very high amongst some clusters

of students. The main point getting across

here, Dyslexics are not a flat line. They

don't have even abilities. They are

lop-sided in this way, but it's also a

huge mistake to believe that Dyslexia is

weakness only. It's also accompanied by

some pretty impressive strengths. If we

are not looking for them, we need to be.

This just reinforces that the up-side

conceptual ability typically far exceeds

academic achievement. Often, what we've

seen when we spend time with these students

is that they really have extraordinary

conceptual ability, often 1grade, 2 grades,

sometimes even more above their grade.

It's something to be looked for because it

can be very frustrating, not only to have

to spend extra time with the basic rote

aspects of schooling, but to not be fed

for their advanced conceptual ability can

be a recipe for problems, because then

school really doesn't hold any excitement

or joy for them. It's not uncommon, for

instance,where we've had students who

were placed in gifted classrooms, but with

accommodations to support them for

reading and writing. That's why we like the

comprehensive testing--you have to look

for the strengths as well as the

challenges if you are going to be doing a

good assessment for Dyslexia.

So, maybe that's a good segway into the

next and final part of this talk, Dyslexic

talents in children. There are a wide

range of talents that we see among these

students, things like spatial problem

solving, this is a fantastic maze birthday

card that an 8 year old happened to bring

with him, and he showed me actually how it

could be solved. Often students really

excel or are precocious at hands on

projects. They may have unusual

perspectives. Here is an example of a

drawing of a bike from Michael Critchley's

work, a 9 year old was spontaneously

drawing a bike from an aerial view.

Spatial talents can also present in the

kinds of things they do. We've had a

number of soccer goalies, hockey goalies,

who are Dyslexic. Some of that may be just

pure athletic ability, but many cases, I

think it's spatial, and it's being able to

...a little bit of dynamic reasoning, to

see how people are moving, and to know

where the ball is going to go next. We've

also had a number of accomplished sailors

among our student group, we have parents,

also, who are very good at navigation,

sailing. This is another kind of complex

system where Dyslexics can excel at,

factoring in things like the weather,

wind, the current, and being able to know

where you are and where you'll be.

At the same time, the talents in Dyslexic

children aren't limited to just spatial

abilities. Some students are extremely

verbally gifted. They can be wonderful

storytellers, have advanced conceptual

reasoning as I mentioned, great verbal

reasoning...walking arguments, in fact.

Some of these students, you can see, they

are socially perceptive. We also see

students who have particularly strong

math and science abilities. One of the

questions we were asked in the live

webinar was a question about dynamic

reasoning, and when does that present?

Although that's typically an older

presenting gift among Dyslexic students,

we also can see that among students who

really thrive with for instance, video

gaming or imagining video gaming. This is

a drawing that one student brought in to

us about how he would plan a game, and

what you can see is it is a very complex

diagram. It had a lot of feedback loops,

--if this happened, this would go to

here--and students really love the

complexity of systems like this. Sometimes

gaming at this age may be the best way to

kind of analyze things like that. Older

students can get involved in things like

Game Theory, or Economics, but in the

early ages -- maybe video gaming or

imaginary worlds or fantasy may satisfy

that craving for complexity. Dyslexic

students we often find, are very

metacognitive. There is a study of college

students that found Dyslexic students had

stronger metacognitive abilities than

non-Dyslexic students, maybe because they

had a harder time with rote memory. They

are often extremely analytical. When we

did a survey at Dyslexic Advantage dot

com, I think the analytical strength was

among the highest that people reported

of their talents that they seemed to use

commonly in their workplace and their

jobs.

When we surveyed the talents in our

parents that we saw for the students in

our clinic, we had probably an unusual

cluster of parent careers, because we

are near Microsoft and Boeing, but, 43%

of the parents from out clinic were in

engineering, computers, science, or

economics. Twenty-five percent were in

business, upper management, or sales.

Other occupations included pilot,coaches,

counselors, and veterinarians. There were

strengths that build on personal

communication, empathy, but also things

like problem solving and spatial

visualization and reasoning. This is just

a little pie chart looking at the

different kinds of careers that we found

when we polled individuals from our

community.

Okay, this brings me to Dyslexic Mind

Strengths and I'll come into a close here.

MIND is an acronym that we use that

stands for Material Reasoning,

Interconnected Reasoning, Narrative

Reasoning, and Dynamic Reasoning. These

are brain-based mechanisms that contribute

to Dyslexic strengths.

Material Reasoning is an ability to

reason about the physical characteristics

of objects in a material universe, largely

spatial reasoning ability. Material

reasoners are often able to, for instance,

figure out how things work, gears,

pulleys, for example. This is a drawing

from a great little builder in our clinic.

At 6 years old, he was already drawing

ships in cross-section from an aerial

view. This child's understanding of what

a boat is certainly better than a standard

six year old who doesn't have that strong

physical knowledge of what things are.

The "I" stands for Interconnected

Reasoning, and that's an ability to spot

connections or relationships between

different objects, concepts, or points

of view. An ability to connect diverse

perspectives, or see things from different

points of view can be used in all kinds of

situations, from things like the work

place, working in businesses,

corporations, to writing novels, or...in

the military, being able to see a

battlefield from different perspectives.

This is really an incredible strength, but

it can also be a challenge when students

are younger, and they have trouble picking

one, or narrowing what they want to say

in a paper. Interconnected Reasoning

allows individuals to unite information,

to assume a global or "big picture"

perspective, and to also determine large

scale features like gist -- what's the

"gist" of the situation, or context.

N stands for Narrative Reasoning, and

that's an ability to create stories by

connecting a series of mental scenes from

past personal experience, as well as a

tendency to use stories to recall the

past, understand the present, and imagine

the future. We have a lot of gifted

storytellers in our clinic. We've seen

that in adults with Dyslexia that

storytelling ability can be great for all

kinds of occupations, not just writing,

but also communicating a vision in a

workplace as a business leader or, for

instance, in the courtroom with a lawyer,

who can communicate and really connect

to the jury. So, Narrative Reasoning is

really a fascinating strength associated

with Dyslexia. Many students are able to

use stories to really boost their memory

for information in the classroom.

Which brings us to the last Mind Strength,

Dynamic Reasoning. That's an ability to

recombine the elements of the past to

predict or simulate future outcomes.

Dynamic Reasoning really builds on

pattern recognition. It often involves

personal rather than abstract memory.

It can be great for highly changeable or

ambiguous situations, where there is

incomplete knowledge. Cutting edge fields,

finance...if suddenly you have a crash of

a stock market, what is going to happen

next? It's not ever happened before like

this...A lot of Dyslexic dynamic reasoners

really excel in times like this because

they are trend spotters, pattern people,

they look at best fit, and so, it doesn't

matter if it hasn't happened before, they

will make a good prediction for the

future. As mentioned, Dynamic Reasoning

uses these "best fit" cognitive processes

rather than rule-based, deductive, or

formulaic thinking. Rather , Dynamic

Reasoners used cases and examples. They

like to connect the dots in order to

predict what is going to happen next.

Particularly good for areas that are

completely new, as mentioned, new

domains of knowledge... A very famous

highly successful Dyslexic researchers in

all kinds of fields, and inventors, also

in business and finance, as mentioned.

I just want to talk a bit--I'm just about

to close--about some of the trade-offs

that happen in memory, based on the

Dyslexic processing style. As mentioned,

rote memory is a relative weakness for

many Dyslexics. It's non-contextual, it's

generalized (generic), like a dictionary

definition. The strength side of memory

for many Dyslexics is personal memory,

it's like an episode, scene-based. It

occurs at a specific time and place, and

often uses cases and examples with

connection of these, in order to create a

big picture.

Why Dyslexic Strengths matter? There has

been a lot of controversy and discussion

about whether it's important to address

strengths associated with Dyslexic

students. We think it is absolutely

essential. This is another student in

our clinic. This is percentile, now, and

the average range is at the 50 percentile

mark. If a student has this kind of oral

expression, listening comprehension, but

down here visual matching, or math facts,

fluency; looking at the whole picture is

really essential for understanding the

pressure points that a student is feelilng

in school. How to optimize and have

challenge in the areas where they are

actually thriving at, but also support and

reasonable expectations for their

weaknesses. Understanding, for instance,

visual matching is a sub-test which can

be associated with these so-called

"careless mistakes" that happen with

mathematics. There is often a little

drift that can occur for many Dyslexics.

They'll look at numbers, then they'll look

again, and the numbers may switch place.

They are called careless mistakes, but

they aren't really careless, they are

perceptual mistakes. Understanding this

extra difficulty, rather than give them

more and more rote problems to solve, it's

good to really see the whole pictureof

things, and be able to assign fewer

problems. Also, projects that will appeal

to the areas of their strength, and the

modes that they learn fast in.

Dyslexics often have extreme discrepancies

between their different cognitive

abilities. Failure to recognize that can

really take a toll on their esteem and

emotional health. It's very important,

what the environment is, as I mentioned,

what the expectations should be. On the

positive side, recognizing student's

strengths, really have powerful effects

on these students' futures. We've had so

many students come back to us, and tell

us, just understanding their situation,

seeing what they were good at, getting

the whole picture of what they were facing

was very empowering, very encouraging.

And what we've talked to highly

accomplished individuals as adults, they

often said, "Having my mom or dad really

believe in me, understand me, or a teacher

who encouraged me, recognized that my

ideas were really good, really helped

carry me through a difficult time, and a

time I really needed to put in a lot of

extra work compared to my peers."

I wanted to share this brain study. It is

really fascinating. In this test, subjects

were asked to silently generate the verb

associated with a noun. For example, if

they were given the example of a boat,

what would you expect the boat to do?

It would be sailing, Just thinking of

sailing, and not even saying anything, the

red brain, these are cross-sections from

the base of the brain, up to the top. The

red parts are all the different parts of

the brain that

non-Dyslexics used when they were thinking

of that. The blue parts were all the parts

where Dyslexics subjects were using, so

completely different areas of

the brain to process things. Just

understanding how different Dyslexic

processing is from non-Dyslexics, really

can help us understand why there can be

a disconnect in the classroom, why many

Dyslexics are not well understood, and

why we need to work and do more research,

and more policies that improve our

understanding of how to optimize work

places and classrooms for Dyslexic

people.

What next? Dyslexic [Advantage] is now a

501c3 organization. We hope that you will

watch and share videos from the conference

conference. This is the youtube url--

youtube.com/dyslexicadvantage . We hope

you really consider making a donation to

the Webinar series, we'd like to continue

to do these, and be able to create a

library that can help more individuals.

The focus of our group is to look at

reframing Dyslexia. Too often right now,

Dyslexia is thought to be a stigma, and

many people believe that Dyslexics are

low potential people. For that reason, we

need to speak out more. A lot of people

need to make steps to educate their peers,

and friend and family members about the

high potential associated with Dyslexia,

and the talent side. Our goal is to

identify and help more students and

adults to share more of the research and

applications of strength based focus, so

that we can help our students in

classrooms, and more employees and

workplaces. Education, of course, extends

to parents, teachers, and non-Dyslexics,

and what we'd like to do, is improve

awareness all the way around about the

talent side of Dyslexia, and help build

our community, so it's better

opportunities for everyone. So, thank

you very much for joining us, and please

get in touch with us so if we can help

more, if you've got ideas for future

webinars, or if we can answer some

questions. Thank you!