All About Dyslexia

[thetinyseed]

deminc:

Irlen Syndrome is not a method. It is a visual stress syndrome. It only helps if your child does indeed have Irlen Syndrome where visual distortions take place under certain lighting and is heightened in times of physical or emotional stress. The child needs to be screened for it. It can co-exist with the dyslexia, or it can be the underlying cause for the appearance of dyslexia.


OG is generally the most recognised and recommended method of teaching dyslexic children, but if a child has Irlen Syndrome, it will still be of limited help because the visual distortions will persist preventing them from actually SEEING the page accurately. If you can't see the words accurately because they appear to be moving or fading etc, you can't read. Period. If a child DOESN'T have Irlen syndrome, the filters will make no difference at all and you should save your money for other therapies.

Be careful about having your child diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome. Many kids thought to have that, and undergone expensive therapy; only to realise that they actually have an underlying visual problem. Some could be corrected, but others, too late! :slapshead:

If your child reports of any visual distortions, it is better to bring him/her to an ophthalmologist to exclude visual conditions that could otherwise be corrected, or at least attended to appropriately.

[cnimed]

The screening for Irlen syndrome should be done only after normal vision checks. this is something that the researchers for Irlen Syndrome has always stressed. All vision checks are expensive, and some patients or parents are not willing to check thoroughly.


If it is Irlen syndrome, the filters will show a significant difference in a very short time, especially for those on the severe spectrum. If it is not Irlen syndrome, it will not much difference.

Believe me I went with every skepticism, but I had exhausted all mainstream options. It was expensive, but unfortunately paying is the only way to know for sure. A word of caution, my son could not benefit from the cheaper colored transparencies. His sensitivity was too severe and the reflection from them made it too hard to read. Only the filters helped him, and yes that is expensive. It was also the best money I spent on his vision in a span of two years.

[JonC]

Some encouraging info.


DS (dyslexic) of a friend actually able to score 220+ in PSLE.

Very encouraging.

[cnimed]

Dear all,


as we know, Maths teaching in our school requires a lot of language skills. I recently watched this video on teaching maths without words on Ted talk. The speaker did not learn to read until 5th grade, and now he works at the MIND research Institute.

I think his ideas and work can be very beneficial for dyslexic/visual children. Do check it out when you have the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VLje8QRrwg

[cfan]

Hi


I came across this recently. I found it helpful in certain sense.
Hope it helps.

http://youtu.be/Ojt_WgVxqKY

To me, Dr Jiajia is a very smart boy.

[sugarpie2honey]

My daughter is 5 years old and sometimes has dyslexic tendencies and compared to my other 3 children, is slower with reading and math.


She has managed to come up to benchmark with her classmates in reading; however for math she still is below benchmark. She’s only in K1 this year, but I’m thinking about finding a good math program/enrichment class that can boost her math concepts.

Has anyone found one that they’ve seen great results …for a child that doesn’t really ‘get’ math?

I live in the east…Marine Parade area. Any good recommendations?

Thanks in advance!!!

[3boysdad]

sugarpie2honey:

My daughter is 5 years old and sometimes has dyslexic tendencies and compared to my other 3 children, is slower with reading and math.

Someone is not dyslexic just because she is slower compared to her siblings.

Dyslexia and other difficulties are diagnosed when there is a large gap between intelligence and academic performance.

What sort of reading/maths do you expect of your 5 year old?

[sugarpie2honey]

She’s in a montessori program where they use the pink, blue, and green leveled readers…


For math, they have a systematic approach and for a long time she was stuck on the concept of 10 and 1 makes 11, 10 and 2 makes 12, etc.
I agree, sometimes I do feel what they expect is too much for her age/development.

Thanks! Maybe I should be more patient.
But it’s true that I’ve seen her reverse her entire name and quite confused with b, d, p…although she has shown some improvement. Ok, I may need to be patient. At what age would you say is right for assessment? Earlier assessment is better?

Thanks again for your help.

[3boysdad]

5 years a bit too young to diagnose unless there is a severe condition (i.e. not just dyslexia but autism etc).


A dyslexia diagnosis at 5yrs old may not be accepted by MOE and the reports are expensive. There are many books on dyslexia at National Library that you can read up to decide what to do.....

You can send her for a full eye test to confirm it is not eyesight difficulties. TTSH even has a eye test for children with learning difficulties http://www.ttsh.com.sg/patient-guide/find-care/clinics/page.aspx?clid=9 (p.s TTSH much cheaper than private clinic)

[susancollins]

Symptoms:

mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words (ex: aminal for animal, bisghetti for spaghetti, hekalopter for helicopter, hangaberg for hamburger, mazageen for magazine, etc.)
early stuttering or cluttering
lots of ear infections
can’t master tying shoes
confusion over left versus right, over versus under, before versus after, and other directionality words and concepts.