Have you ever heard of dyslexia? Most likely, the answer is yes. This is no surprise since it is now common knowledge that as many as one in four people have some level of dyslexia, but have you ever heard about dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dysnomia, or dyspraxia (in total I think of them as the 5 D's)? There are infinite neurological differences out there among all of us. Whether you found your way here because you are just curious about dyslexia, or because you are wondering if you or someone you love might be dyslexic and need some help, take a look at the links below.
When we were first navigating these waters, we got a lot of help from my aunt, who told us about the Federal Child Find Mandate. My aunt is a retired reading specialist whose practice focused on working with dyslexic students and helping them learn to read - it's her passion and she literally has a PhD in it. In brief, Child Find provides federal funding for and mandates that every school district in the U.S. identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities. Every school district across the country has a Child Find Coordinator, so you can call your school district to identify that person, or find them on the school distritct website. You can reach out to them about scheduling an educational assessment of your child. If you homeschool, having the assessment done might be the end of the road in terms of working with the school, unless you want to enroll your child in school in order to take advantage of the school's reading programs. You can always ask if you can acess any school reading programs even if your child is not enrolled in the school, but they might just tell you no. Ironically, the school's educational assessment might simply conclude that your child has a "specific learning disability," but they won't diagnose what specifically it is (e.g., dyslexia). If you need the actual diagnosis, make sure you find out ahead of time whether or not the school will go as far as a diagnosis. If they won't, you will likely need to find a private psychologist who specializes in psychoeducational assessments and you'll want to do that to avoid unnecssarily putting your child through multiple rounds of assessments.
Orton Gillingham and Lindamood Bell are the two most common reading training programs designed to help dyslexics learn to read. There are various proprietary brands of each. Take Flight and Barton are two brands that provide Orton Gillingham training. We have a truly amazing Barton tutor and quickly began seeing the benefits of tutoring 2-3 hours per week with the Barton program, including increased confidence and self-motivation to read anything and everything! I don't know much about Lindamood Bell, though it was what my Aunt used in her practice.
For dyscalculia, Ronit Bird has a list of indicators that might help you identify on your own whether that is a factor for you, and she also has an easy to implement math program for students with dyscalculia. Both are listed below.
Whichever of the 5 D's you may have at hand (and it may be a number of them), many people would consider you lucky, so don't fret. There is a lot of literature out there about the many advantages that come with these neurological differences, and the many success stories of dyslexics through time, and there are a lot! We wish you all the best on your journey to assessment, possibly diagnosis, and getting the necessary help. Hopefully this post and the resources listed below will be a helpful starting point towards those ends.
Do you know someone who frequently substitutes b's for d's, and vice versa, in their writing?
Do you know someone who regularly falls back on counting by ones, even for simple math problems?
Do you know someone who reads really well, but struggles or refuses to write?
These are just some of the indicators for a few of the 5 D's noted on this page.
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