It seemed extremely odd to see myself on TV. Sort of surreal, I suppose. It also seemed a bit displaced, too, because this was a day of celebration for my brother. Of course my biggest cheerleader is mom, and she was having a grand time being proud of him and me.

The celebration was a lot of fun, and later on we went frisbee golfing. Let me just say that I was absolutely terrible at it, especially since I missed the first hole because a friend and I got lost on the trail trying to find our group! We caught up with them before the second hole and continued the game, but storm clouds were moving in and the sky was growing darker and darker. Soon a cold wind blew and we could feel the terrifying power around us that the sky held. A fierce storm was very near.

All of us took off running back to the cars, trying to get there before the rains soaked us through or the winds blew us away. A friend and I took the shortcut but everybody else went the long way. Of course we made it back to the cars before them and since we didn’t know where they were, we drove around trying to find them. We imagined them all huddling beneath a tree and getting hit by lightening...for sure our imaginations were working overtime!

But everything turned out good with everyone all safe and sound.

This got me to thinking. Sometimes seems upside down. Things that should be the hardest to do, like giving up our own safety to help our friends, is easier to do than picking out electives for the next school year! Sometimes we wonder if we’re doing the right thing, or whether we’re on the right road and if another way would be better. It’s pretty easy to second-guess ourselves, isn’t it?

Anyway, my life is changing all the time, too. And my guess is that yours is, too!

Hang in there, everyone, take care, study hard, have some fun and I’ll write more later.

A woman named Brenda McBride spent quite a bit of time showing my mom and I some of these devices and how to use them. They are powerful! A couple months later, mom and I went down to Ohio to demonstrate what we’d learned and the people there were as astounded as we were! It is so awesome.

Here’s a quick rundown of three programs I learned about:

*The Intel Reader is a device that takes pictures of text, processes it and then reads it back, all without any downloads. It reads at the speed you tell it to, and it also does a whole lot more.
*Dragon Naturally Speaking is a software program that lets you talk into the headset and it types out for you. Now that’s awesome.
*Solo is a software program that has every type of paper organization format.

There are so many more to tell about but those will have to wait for another day.

I’ll be advocating these tools because they should be made available to everyone who needs them. Life is hard enough with dyslexia or some other learning disorder, so I want to do my best to get the word out.

Anyone who’s interested in any of these technologies, or if you’ve got questions that I can help you with, contact me at dyslexiawonders@gmail.com.

Later they came to my house to talk with my mother and I about the book. They asked me questions about what it’s like being a dyslexic, and they wanted my mom’s perspective of having a dyslexic child. I also showed them some of the technology I use that helps me with school work, such as my Intel Reader. This thing is awesome...it takes pictures of text, turns it into a digital format, and then it literally reads it to me as fast as I want.

When the interviewer found out by a slip of the tongue (by my mother) that I also sing, they asked me to sing for them, which I did. Once they heard me they said, “Yup, we are getting that on film.” So I sang Only Hope from the movie ‘A Walk to Remember.”

I hope you will watch for me Channel 6 at 5pm, Friday, June 18th. This is a local news channel out of Lansing but I’m going to try to get the video and put it up on my website so all of you can see it!
Hey, if anyone’s interested in learning more about this cool Intel Reader, drop me a line at www.dyslexiawonders@gmail.com.

Jenny =)

Developmental reading disorder, also called dyslexia, is a reading disability resulting from the inability to process graphic symbols.

It is believed that about 8% of all kids are affected from some degree of reading disability. This is not caused by vision problems but by the brain's ability to recognize and process symbols. Children with a reading disability may have trouble rhyming, separating sounds into spoken words and even skipping. These abilities appear to be critical in the process of learning to read. It is the same that you need to crawl before you can walk.

Just as exercise regimens help our muscles become stronger and perform better, Carnegie Mellon scientists say specialized workouts for the brain can boost cognitive skills.

A new study of local fifth-graders found that 100 hours of remedial instruction not only improved the skills of struggling readers but also changed the way their brains activated when they comprehended written sentences.

Researchers say poor readers initially have less activation than good readers in the parietotemporal area of the brain. That's the region responsible for decoding the sounds of written language and assembling them into words and phrases that make up a sentence.

However, remedial instruction increases the struggling readers' activation to nearly normal levels.

The poor readers worked in groups of three for an hour a day with a "personal trainer" — a teacher specialized in administering a remedial reading program. The training included both word-decoding exercises — in which students were asked to recognize the word in its written form — and tasks in using reading comprehension strategies.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Ann Meyler and Tim Keller — research fellows at Carnegie Mellon's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) — measured blood flow to all of the different parts of the brain while study participants were reading to arrive at their results.

"This study demonstrates how the plasticity of the human brain can work for the benefit of remedial learning," said neuroscientist Marcel Just, director of the CCBI and senior author of the new study currently available on the website of the journal Neuropsychologia. "We are at the beginning of a new era of neuro-education."

The study also showed that the increases in activation of the brain's previously underactivating areas remained evident well after the intensive instruction had ended. And, when the children's brains were scanned one year after instruction, their neural gains were not only maintained but became more solidified.

"With the right kind of intensive instruction, the brain can begin to permanently rewire itself and overcome reading deficits, even if it can't entirely eliminate them," Just said.

The brain imaging research was supported by a grant from the R.K. Mellon Foundation, as well as the National Institute of Mental Health and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In addition to Meyler and Keller, other study co-authors included Vladimir Cherkassky, of the CCBI, and John D.E. Gabriel, of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Carnegie Mellon University (2008, August 7). Remedial Instruction Rewires Dyslexic Brains, Provides Lasting Results, Study Shows.

Related Links: Download the Article |  CCBI

Dyslexia may result in difficulty communicating, and those affected may learn coping skills that make it difficult for others to know they are struggling. For instance dyslexics have difficulty selecting the right vocabulary to express their thoughts or ideas so they use words that are not their first choice in describing a particular situation. They may select easier words than they would have liked to. They may even choose not to comment because they can't think of the right words.

Dyslexics may have trouble understanding instructions that are verbal or written that cannot be controlled at their own speed of processing. This leads others to fill in what they believe are the blanks. They have particular problems with lengthy instructions and complex ideas.They may not get the latest jokes being told but you would not know that because they are laughing as if they understand just so they can feel like they fit in.

Learning names of people, who they are related to, and in what profession can make for uncomfortable moments in a social setting. You are introducing your next to neighbor whom you talk to almost every day to your friend from school and you can't think of your neighbors first name. While introducing them the neighbor seeing you don't know her well enough to introduce her jumps in and tells your school friend her name. They chat for awhile and the entire time your feeling stupid or mad because you knew if given just a few more seconds could have remembered. Now your neighbor doesn't think you like her and may even be mad at you.

Most dyslexics will have a challenging time learning a foreign language. It is important that the dyslexic be exposed to a second language early in life to help them begin the long process of learning another language. With most colleges now requiring a second language to graduate it is important to give your children a head start. Spanish and sign language are usually easier for dyslexics to learn as opposed to French or Japanese.

By treating your symptoms instead of the person a dyslexic can be a great asset to society. Without proper treatment for their dyslexia many dyslexics have low self-esteem, depression or anxiety. They also choose what college to go to based on if the dyslexia has been treated or not.

Untreated dyslexia will affect more than just their reading. It will effect their social skills, mathmatics and science. They many never discover what their true gifts are. All because someone did not want to properly diagnose and treat dyslexia.

Dyslexia is nothing to be shamed about in reverse most dyslexics are super gifted and creative in other areas. Society just hasn't shown the value of these traits by kindergarten.

Many teenagers have asked; I feel stupid, I think I have dyslexia, I feel dumb when I can't understand something, is this dyslexia? My parents think I am "stupid" and they are not afraid to tell me. Somehow they think by saying that you must be really dumb if you don't know that; is somehow going to motivate me to try even harder. It is not working.

By telling a dyslexic they are stupid or dumb even when talking to a neighbor., "Yep my boy is not able to read yet and he is nine. I wonder if he should be in a special school." This is embarrassing not motivating to anyone who hears these kinds of statements.

Many parents think their child is being lazy and use insults, punishments and bribery to get the children to just "do it". This could be you if:

• Your parents grounded you to your room until you have finished writing your one page journal in first or second grade. After hours of tears and raised voices you finally finish the page. Your parents are thrilled and you celebrate with ice cream. You eat the ice cream and feel great they are proud of you but you feel exhausted from the mental effort required to write that one paper.
• Your parents have a stash of bribes to help you read or write a certain amount. Your parents just do not understand that rewards do not help. You just are not being taught the way you learn. It is like asking your parents who have never been in a pilots seat to sit behind a 747 turbo jet and having them just take it for a slow trip down the run way and back again. When they have successfully parked the airplane they can have free flights for a year for their entire family. But they have to do this in exactly one hour and the passengers could die if they do it wrong.
• They paid you a large amount of money to memorize your multiplication facts up to twelve or even to the tens. Other kids memorized their multiplication facts in second or third grade in what seemed like a weekend. I now know that anyone can memorize the facts to collect the $100.00 bill. However within a day they will have forgotten all the facts if they are a dyslexic. Most dyslexics will never memorize their multiplication facts, even as adults. It's OK most adult dyslexics never need the skill of memorizing the multiplication tables. They can still do the math just not in their heads. They can use paper and pencil or a calculator. Many just trust what someone else tells them. The dyslexic will feel dumb inside but will try to hide that feeling from the rest of society.
• Being told that you will never make it in college because you can't type, can't take the harder English and math classes that are required to get you into college. By having a current evaluation from a Psycologist on file you can level the playing field. You can take the ACT or SAT with extra help, you can get into good colleges that are required by federal law to accommodate you and you can learn to type with the aid of the proper teaching method. Hey Mom and Dad, you need to learn Chinese from a Russian instructor and if you can't do it then guess what; you must be really stupid. Don't make a dyslexic learn the way you did because it is very difficult for them to do this.

The term 'learning disability' means a disorder in one or more of the basic processes involved in understanding spoken or written language. It may show up as a problem in listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, or spelling or in a person's ability to do math, despite at least average intelligence.

The term does not include children who have learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or physical handicaps, or mental retardation, or emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Dyslexia is not the result of lack of motivation, sensory impairment, inadequate instructional or environmental opportunities, or other limiting conditions, but may occur together with these conditions.

Although dyslexia is lifelong, individuals with dyslexia frequently respond successfully to timely and appropriate intervention.