Dyslexia

Dyslexia in College and University
A considerable number of children with Dyslexia walk into Adulthood and college unaware that they may be having a Learning Difficulty like Dyslexia or a related co-morbidity that is associated with Dyslexia.

With increasing demands of the curriculum and the flux that comes with entering college, they suddenly realize that reading involves a great deal of effort and that there is difficulty in learning a new language. Even Math’s can pose a problem for such children, as the numbers can be difficult to read.

These “young” adults realize that they may be good at a number of activities but find it difficult to fully understand the pages of their textbooks unless they have read it a number of times.

Spelling becomes an issue and there is difficulty in systematically planning written work or taking notes in the lecture room and sequencing the notes. Handwriting may also be messy, and dyslexic adults may find that they are easily distracted and have trouble concentrating. If the above sounds familiar and the signs listed below in detail ring a bell with what you may be experiencing, it would be worth while to sit up and give a thought to how your school days were and that if you faced any difficulty when you went through the years of trying to make sense of what was happening around you.

Though not a dictate, there is a possibility that you may have a learning difficulty like dyslexia that has gone undetected.

You should know that Dyslexia is a learning disorder that has neurological roots. It usually has a hereditary or a genetic origin. Dyslexia is not a disease but a disorder. Therefore, it cannot be contracted at any age or time. As a “young” adult you may be having the disorder since childhood. Mostly children are born with dyslexia and as they grow they struggle to learn or remember or express themselves in words. If diagnosed at an early stage of childhood it help’s the individual to receive necessary training and treatment to overcome future educational problems.

Having said the above, Dyslexia can be treated at any point in time in the life of an individual. However, it is necessary that it be identified so that it is dealt with. There is no cure for dyslexia but we at the Dyslexia Association of India can provide focused remedetiation or training to grasp words and information properly, so that your potential is not underutilized during your higher studies.

But first, it must be diagnosed. While only a trained professional can diagnose dyslexia, you can learn the warning signs and seek a professional diagnosis.

We would like you to keep in mind that dyslexia is not a disease and being dyslexic has nothing to do with being intelligent. Dyslexia is not an ethnic, racial or gender based disorder. It can happen to both men and women alike.

You should be empowered and have the knowledge to understand that Dyslexia should not be confused with the following
Having a disease
Being poor on intelligence
Laziness or not being of a caring nature
Something that can be cured with medicines or drugs

As a “young” adult with dyslexia you can learn to overcome the disability, but you would need to be pointed in the right direction by a dedicated professional, and this is where the Dyslexia Association of India steps in to fill the gaps that traditional education is not able to plug. We provide scientific testing and pinpoint the exact area where you need to concentrate to excel in your academic endeavor.

We would like you to read through some of the signs and symptoms listed below that get manifested in “young” adults with a learning difficulty and then decide on a course of action.

⇒ If there is an element of dyslexia - a “young” adult will not be able to read properly. Hence, they might hide their reading problems.

⇒ There is a possibility that you may have poor spelling abilities and will often rely on friends to correct your spellings.

⇒ You may face difficulty in writing lectures notes a lot and may also not be able to write in detail for continuous periods of time.

⇒ However, you may be very confident in oral form of communication.

⇒ Mix up dates, numbers, times, and miss appointments or lectures

⇒ Get confused when you have to speak in public or read aloud

⇒ If you do part time work you may be working well below the intellectual capacity required of you’re level and consequently feel frustrated

⇒ You tend to make mistakes and get easily flustered when filling out forms and writing cheques

⇒ There may be a tendency to avoid and shy away from planning, organizing and managing time, materials and tasks.

⇒ However on the positive side, you may notice that you are good with

⇒ Having an entrepreneurial sprit and come forward when something new needs to be thought of and done.

⇒ You may possess a very strong memory. This is largely because there is a strong possibility that as you are unable to use words in the written format you have started to rely on your memory

⇒ You may be the life of a party as you have excellent people and inter personal skills.

For a majority of dyslexic “young” adults the right hemisphere in the brain is larger as compared to a normal person. Therefore, you may be stronger in areas controlled by the right side of their brain. Hence, you can display creativity and innovativeness and do well or be inclined towards creative fields like sports and at visualizing 3-D images. For e.g. being an engineer, architect, designer, pastry arts, sport and musician, may be your calling

You may possess a very good intuitive sense as well. You may be very good at reading people and understanding them. We have also seen that dyslexic individual’s see the world predominantly through their mind's eye, rather than through their physiologic eye or that if you are a dyslexia you may tend to see what you “think” you see, rather than what your eyeballs see. To further complicate matters, you may do this so quickly, that you may easily become confused when the multiple facets do not produce a solid view.

If the above has some element of similarity to what is happening to you then we at the Dyslexia Association of India can help you train the mind's eye in you to return to a learned, anchored, viewpoint when it realizes they it needs to see with the mind, and not with the eyeballs. This is accomplished with assessment testing, followed by one-on-one exercises that retrain mental perception pathways.

Besides the above there are other ways to cope with dyslexia or a specific learning difficulty through the use of various intervention strategies.

We encourage you to take a first step towards approaching us and having an assessment done. This will help identify your strengths and weaknesses, learning profile, and determine evidence of dyslexia or any other form of difficulty that you may posses. With this knowledge we can recommend strategies to help you cope with dyslexia or the other specific difficulty, based on your cognitive profile. Correct advice and timely intervention and accommodation can help you excel.

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