Options
My secret past ..Shane Lynch Ch5
Betty Britain
Posts: 13,721 Forum Member
✭✭
Shane is talking about his secret.. Dyslexia he is unable to read or write.. Such an emotional show
0
Betty Britain
Posts: 13,721 Betty Britain
Posts: 13,721
Comments
I can't believe no one else has commented on this programme!
My daughter is dyslexic (it's on both sides of our family, and there's a huge genetic link) and I am a teacher who works in both Learning Support at our local F.E. college, and I also work in conjunction with our local Probation Service, and prison, so I've seen the effects of dyslexia at almost every level of society.
The figures given in the programme re offenders with dyslexia were rather conservative - they gave a figure of 40%, but it's actually closer to 65-70% of offenders/prisoners who have a dyslexia issue. Almost without exception they start perpetually truanting from school at around the age of 12.-13, and I'm constantly ashamed at the teaching profession's inability to both spot and deal with dyslexia at any age, and yet they're all wringing their hands when the students start dropping out, and then often offending (because they know no other way to make a life/money for themselves).
They also didn't mention Irlen syndrome - this is a visual disturbance issue where black print on a white background is seen as 'moving' or as 'rivers of white space' down between the words. My daughter also has Irlen syndrome, but it can exist on its own without a dyslexia being present... but unfortunately, many of the symptoms appear the same, so many teachers automatically assume dyslexia when it's actually only Irlen syndrome - which is corrected by something as simple as a coloured overlay to change the colour of the white paper! My daughter's colour is purple, but there are about 10 colours which are generally accepted as being useful. I in 5 people have Irlen syndrome - that's 20% of the population - and yet most are undiagnosed because they think everyone sees print the way they do, so they don't think to mention it!
There was so much missed out of this programme, but of course they couldn't do everything. I was shouting at the screen at several points, though - I couldn't help it because I'm so passionate about this subject and the people I've helped over the years!
Shane was very brave confronting his anger - and many adults ARE angry about it, especially when diagnosed later in life; no wonder they resent their school days/teachers so much, and so they should. The school/teachers cocked up big time!
Oh well, back to work for me tomorrow, back to my world of Learning Support where there is always a way in to helping someone to Literacy, you just have to have the time and patience to work out what that is!
xx
The tests showed that he is dyslexic. Quite an interesting programme.
Thank you.
xx
Hi there
You're one of my heroes.. I'll explain why. Both my husband and daughter are dyslexic. My husband who's in his 60s was never diagnosed but through sheer determination went on to get a degree in engineering. We realised quite early on that our elder daughter (who's now 36)had a problem. Throughout her primary school they tried to tell us she had low intelligence. It was P7 before we got her statemented and even they they didn't want to use the word dyslexic. At secondary school she was assessed again then at college and again at university. The Learning Support officer at her uni was wonderful and I cried in her office. It was so good to know that someone else was fighting for my daughter as well as me and her Dad.I should add that every time she was assessed her intelligence was rated above normal and her writing and reading fell far short of her chronological age.She went on to get an honours degree and we are so proud of her. One thing she has always said to us is that she never thought she was stupid because we told her she wasn't but we see what happens to people who don't have that support.
I've gone on a bit I know but this is something very close to my heart.
x
No, please do 'go on' - and thank you (although I'm a heroine, rather than a hero
I know how you feel as a parent too, though thankfully I didn't have to fight as long as you did for my daughter. I still had to fight for too long, though. But what I'll never forget (and you'll know how emotional this was for me) is the day we got the results of her first, formal dyslexia screening at school two years ago (she was nearly 13 at the time). You see, my eldest has always been very good with words (she's 18). She writes, she's won short story competitions etc. Next to her my youngest always felt 'stupid', even though I knew she wasn't. However, as part of the dyslexia assessment they also did an IQ test - and she came out as 140+ (which is pretty much at the top 1 or 2% of the population, not that it matters; it's only a number, after all). But the effect on my daughter was amazing - she looked at me, with a look of wonder on her face, and said "but I always thought I was stupid and my sister was the clever one". I cried, bless her.
The trouble is (and this is no consolation at all) that it's harder to spot in girls than boys - basically, girls 'care' about what their work looks like, so they'll draft, and re-draft until it looks ok. Boys, generally, don't care - they just bang it out and hand it in! So we can pick boys up at 7/8 years old (if the teacher is on the ball that is - sadly not enough are) but girls, for no reasons that are justifiable, do tend to get missed for longer.
I'm sure you recognise some of that in your own experience, and I can only apologise for the upset my profession has caused you and your family over the years - there's no excuse apart from ignorance, and sadly there is still too much ignorance there. If I tell you that I had to basically train my daughter's Learning Support department about Irlen syndrome (and I had to get her assessed where I work because no one at her school was trained to do the Irlen assessment, even though it's more common, and easier/cheaper to deal with than dyslexia!) then you'll know what I'm on about when I say it's not much better these days either :mad:
You don't say so, but I am guessing your husband was one of those who felt feelings of anger about his dyslexia being mishandled (or just plain missed) over the years. People mis-underestimate the extent of emotion a late diagnosis (which you'd think would come as a relief in most ways - and it is, of course) brings out in an adults who's had to fight their whole life to escape the label of 'stupid'. We had an adult student where I work about 8 years ago - she couldn't read or write, had undiagnosed dyslexia and Irlen syndrome, but now she's got a degree, like your daughter, and she is employed as a Visiting Lecturer by us to teach other adults in her position. She's inspiring, and very well-known locally (Jersey is a small place!).
Once again, thank you for your story - I could really feel the rawness of it. At least now you know the genetic link is so strong, when/if your daughter has a family of her own she'll know the signs to look out for, and will know how to fight if her own children are in need of help. Remember the boy/girl thing - yes, it's a huge generalisation, but it's largely true!
http://www.channel5.com/shows/my-secret-past/episodes/shane-lynch-dyslexic
Thanks:) just saw it. It was really good.Fair play to him for doing it. He is a great dad. His wife just had their second daughter
You are right. I wish I could help you more. But you're right that it costs a lot to get an assessment privately (that's because it takes 8 hours to do a full, comprehensive dyslexia assessment). However, you may feel it's worth pursuing if you/your son/daughter can't get any joy with persistence at their son's school. Sadly teachers aren't routinely trained to spot the signs - it's a badly neglected part of the system.
And of course, he may have (either instead of, or as well as dyslexia) Irlen syndrome - but that is much easier to detect. Many opticians are trained to do an Irlen assessment, and it only takes half an hour or so, so it's worth asking. Altenatively your G.P. may be able to refer your grandson to his local hospital to have it done there (a route open to parents here, but then we aren't part of the NHS, so I may be giving you false information
Whatever the issue, please don't let the school fob you off, either through their inexperience or their lack of knowledge/training etc, or through not wanting to spend the time and Learning Support money on your grandson... but if they do I can only urge you to consider private testing for your own peace of mind. It's not ideal, but you'll find a reluctance, still, to 'label' children at a young age, and yet until they have a diagnosis they can't have any help, so it's a bit of a 'Catch-22', but most parents don't care about labels as long as their child is getting the support they need! And 7 is not too young at all.
But you're right - leaving it much later, especially with a boy, and you're in the realms of disaffection with, and turning away from, education in a more detrimental way by the time he gets to secondary school - and that way lies a whole other can of worms.
Ok You're one of my heroines then
The really satisfying thing happened when she was at Uni. They obviously did their own assessment and said that our local authority was obliged to assist our daughter with her studies. They had to supply her with a computer and also gave her a sum of money to employ a mentor to assist her with her literacy.She found a lovely lady to help her and it worked well for the 3 years she was there. I thought it a bit ironic that the same local authority who told she was basically not very intelligent then had to help her with her studies.
Talking of her children she has a little girl of 18 months who is here with us today as her Mum is in hospital in labour about to have number 2 !!! I'm on here on DS to keep my mind occupied on something else:)
My fave entertainer Jonathan Ansell has Dyslexia
http://www.roarglobal.com/clients/jonathan-ansell/biography/
''Brought up in Bognor Regis where both his parents were primary school teachers, and influenced by his mother's tapes of Pavarotti and the Three Tenors, Jonathan, the middle child, joined the West Sussex Boys Choir at the age of eight. He also learned to play the violin and trumpet. And music was not just a passion, but a solace."I loved primary school, always loved the hands-on expressive subjects, particularly music, "he says. "I loved science too. But as school got more academic, I found it harder and harder. It wasn't until I went to the Guildhall School of Music when I was 18 that I saw a poster about being assessed for dyslexia.
"I was diagnosed dyslexic. I had gone through school without anyone noticing it. But at least I knew why I had such issues. I felt alienated all the way through school, and the only time I ever chilled out was when I was on stage doing musical stuff." Jonathan started by landing the lead role in his primary school production of Joseph at the age of ten: "It really inspired and excited me. I got a real buzz out of that." He toured extensively with the choir, sang many times in Arundel Cathedral, to great acclaim. But in his teenage years his passion for singing had a downside. He was bullied''
Burrercup Please let us know when your grandchild is born all best to to you all
Jerseyporter you are brilliant
my point is that some people and celebs all.too often claim to suffer from dyslexia when it is simply the case that they failed to learn to read and write properly. It is now very common to use dyslexia as an excuse for poor intelligence and schooling.
I would like to add to this that a vast majority of 'real' dyslexia sufferers have a good intellect and education, most can read and write perfectly well, they just miss things out, or jumble letters and words up.
There are lots of misdiagnosed dyslexics out there who were simply inattentive at school and now blame their poor reading and writing skills on a condition. It really annoys me!
Well, sadly, they often are - and I am one! Teachers are, unfortunately, not always trained to do the job properly, certainly not when it comes to identifying common issues like dyslexia (we won't even go into the whole behaviour management thing - another area I've worked in!). I know, I wasn't given any specific training on dyslexia (or behaviour management either). I learned more in my first two years dealing with the issues I've since developed an intense professional interest in (even before I realised my own daughter was dyslexic and had Irlen syndrome) than I ever learned a 'teacher training' college in the mid-80s. And I know for a fact that there are still too many teachers out there who are still too ignorant of too many things. I will defend my profession to the hilt when I need to, but I can't defend the indefensible - teachers are still too slow to recognise dyslexia/ Irlen syndrome and that's if they recognise it at all, and then 'the system' is too slow to implement anything that may help them
Hope the birth went well!
Thank you again for sharing your story - just goes to show I shouldn't generalise any more than anyone else should! But the low intelligence thing I do recognise (my daughter thought that of herself - that broke my heart because I knew it wasn't true) and also the spelling test story - my daughter could learn all her spelling tests and get full marks, but when she was asked to do any free writing half an hour later couldn't actually apply any of them. Her main problem is mixing up her vowel digraphs (e.g. she can't hear the difference between the sounds in 'dairy' and 'diary' - she knows they both have an i and an a in them, but can't work out which is which, but of course if she can't 'hear' the sounds she also can't work out how to write them either, so it just comes out mixed up. To paraphrase Morcambe and Wise, all the right letters, just not necessarily in the right order.). She gets extremely frustrated when teachers talk too quickly because she can't process the sounds quickly enough to understand everything she's being told - maths lessons are proving a particular source of stress for her, but when I spoke to the teacher about it she just said "oh, I know I speak too quickly - she'll learn to cope, just like everyone else does". I felt like strangling that teacher!
There is sadly much truth in that - a bit like being 'bi-polar' has also become trendy (as someone who has depression in the family that is also annoying). It's as equally frustrating as having your problems doubted to start with.
Me too, as I hope you can tell! Just as many people who really 'only' have Irlen sydrome are misdiagnosed with dyslexia, leading to mis-directed learning support for the wrong reasons which is equally as frustrating (to me, anyway!). The whole thing of being labelled 'thick' at school is a huge problem with some of the adults I encounter as 'Return to Study' students, but because we screen every single student we are able to pick up the signs very quickly these days.
I hate the fact that people still think they 'suffer' from or with dyslexia - you live with it, and you find ways to cope with it (hopefully with help from the right quarters) but that 'suffer' idea is still far too prevalent.
Thanks for the kind words. Our daughter had real problems with word endings. Words such as looks, looking and looked all sounded the same to her (and often still do) But I've got to give her full credit. She kept getting a D in her GCSE English and knew she really had to get a C to be of any use. She repeated it 5 times before she got that C. She just wouldn't give up. Her tutor sent her the biggest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen:D. .... and the next good news is that she had a little girl this morning. Was only in labour for 3 hours and just made it to the hospital in time! Mummy and baby girl all well.:)
Congratulations! I'm pleased it went well. I have a soft spot for baby girls, having had two myself!
I now teach GCSE English as well, at the 16-19 F.E. college where I work - if they didn't get a 'C' in Maths or English at school they have to commit to trying to retake, and like your daughter (well done to her, by the way - I wish I could borrow her to inspire some of our students!) some have retaken so many times they've almost lost count, but because of our screening programme (everyone from a 16 year old full time student to a pensioner doing a computer evening course gets screened) we at least pick up the problems and so can put in support as much as we can, staff permitting (seemingly better than the schools can
It's not ideal, but it's the best we can do. We also offer 1:1 for students who want to spend an hour a week intensivey with a tutor - I currently have a very dyslexic young man I see once a week on that basis. We'll never put it all right in the time we have, but we concentrate on 'real life' Literacy situations in the hope that he is better prepared when he leaves. Like many dyslexics he is extremely creative - his real talent is I.T. - but sadly that creativity is often overlooked and only the poor handwriting/spelling noticed.
I just want people to know that being unable to spell or read is not dyslexia. Dyslexic people normally have something called word blindess - words on a page look wrong and the brain confuses the order they are in. I have this.
So to all those people out there who didn't learn at school please stop using dyslexia has an excuse for poor schooling.