Determination Key to Overcoming Dyslexia

At the Orange County school where she teaches, no one knows that Laura needs to use a template to grade math papers. Or that an aide helps her write letters. If the principal, the parents or other teachers knew, Laura (not her real name) fears, they would think what she herself thought until a few years ago--that she is stupid and incompetent, perhaps no brighter than her special education students.

In fact, she is dyslexic.

When she found out that she had been suffering since birth from a learning disability, she was privately relieved but angry that it had taken so long to be diagnosed. And she was embarrassed to go public.

“People don’t understand the turmoil, the inner turmoil,” she said, “when you have an IQ of 115 and get nearly a 4 point in graduate school and can’t do simple, simple things like remember that 7 times 8 is . . . um . . . ,” she blinks and sighs, “whatever it is.”

Despite much increased public awareness about dyslexia, many people mistakenly think it is a children’s reading disorder--one in which, for example, was is mistaken for saw and B for D . However, it is actually a lifelong problem that involves a variety of perceptions and that affects an estimated 20% of the population, according to UC Irvine researcher Mary Louise Kean, who is studying adult dyslexics.

Although a few are diagnosed as children and treated with special reading programs, others have been diagnosed only recently. Many others do not know they are dyslexic and still cannot understand why, despite their most intense efforts, they find it difficult to read, write, balance a checkbook, get on a freeway or remember names.

Dyslexia, a disorganization of the brain in people of normal intelligence, is generally inherited, primarily striking those of northern European descent, according to Kean. She said dyslexic brains develop the right number of cells but that between the 16th and 24th week of gestation, the cells do not migrate outward to the proper place in the cortex. The confusion is always in the language areas of the left hemisphere of the brain.

Other parts of the brain may also be damaged or, in compensation for damage in some areas, enhanced, leaving dyslexics with highly individual combinations of liabilities and talents. They are typically intelligent but underachievers who are perhaps unable to follow directions or maps or who perhaps lack the coordination necessary for sports. Under pressure, they may forget or stutter or not hear correctly.

Some have superior right-brain proficiency in the visual and spatial areas and become accomplished artists, architects, engineers, entertainers or even athletes or writers, Kean said. Famous dyslexics include Rodin, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Agatha Christie and current celebrities Cher, Bruce Jenner and television producer Stephen J. (“The A-Team”) Cannell.

Many are left-handed and are susceptible to autoimmune diseases or allergies, Kean said. The disease is present in a range of intensities in men, but women have either severe or mild cases, she said. But even “mild” dyslexia, according to one dyslexic, is like a “mild case of the bubonic plague.”

The reason dyslexia is so insidious is that it is invisible, victims say. Worse than the symptoms were the excruciating blows to self-esteem when they were labeled lazy or stupid by parents or teachers or even themselves. Many dyslexic adults, after a lifetime of failure in school or low status in their families, may feel they are not good at anything, said Sarah Solomon, a learning disabilities specialist and director of the Newport Center for Educational Therapy in Costa Mesa.

‘Don’t Say Anything’

“If you don’t want to be incorrect or look stupid, you don’t say anything,” said Orange Coast College art instructor Karen Mortillaro, 42, who was diagnosed as dyslexic only last year, three years after learning she has lupus, one of the diseases often correlated with dyslexia.

In high school, she said, she was told she was mentally retarded, “but I didn’t believe it.” Her determination carried her through, however, and she went on to junior college and to art school, taking no more than two academic classes a semester. In eight years, she had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Her thoughts are always clear in her mind until she tries to talk or write them down, she says. “I know what you say and what I hear are different,” she said. Once, when a friend observed there were sculptures in the courtyard of a museum, Mortillaro replied, “What are they doing in the closet?” She says she cannot “hold thoughts” or recall thoughts from memory, which makes math and remembering names difficult.

Mortillaro now works with light sculptures and holds a patent for a disappearing spheroid display. She was listed in Who’s Who of College and University Students while she was studying at Otis Art Institute (now Otis/Parsons). To learn the math, physics and electronics needed in her art work, Mortillaro collected her own library, which may include as many as five books on a particular subject. If she cannot understand one book, she says, she’ll read the others, “or I’ll find someone who’ll explain it to me.”

Her dyslexia has ruined two relationships, she said, because people have misunderstood what she said. “No matter how hard I tried to say, ‘God I’m sorry,’ there was no way to get it back. I had to say, ‘That’s it.’ ”

Dyslexia is one reason, she says, that she lives alone.

Many Are Withdrawn

Melissa Thomasson, a Costa Mesa psychotherapist who leads a support group for adult dyslexics, says that many dyslexic adults are withdrawn. She teaches the 20 members of the group skills such as asking those talking to them to go back and repeat “little loops” of the conversation where they have blanked out. She also suggests that they make the effort to verbalize their thoughts despite the difficulty.

Thomasson, 38, is dyslexic herself. Rather than having a reading problem, she said, she has problems tracking conversations, remembering left from right and remembering people’s names. “In family group, I have a sign-in sheet I keep in my lap so I won’t forget,” she said.

Dyslexia also can be a factor in anti-social behavior. Studies have shown that from 30% to 70% of those in drug or therapy programs or the penal system are dyslexic, she said. Olympic diver Greg Louganis recently acknowledged having had a drinking problem that, he said, was in part the result of feeling different because of having dyslexia.

“It causes a tremendous amount of inferiority problems,” said Richard Strauss, who sits on the boards of directors of five banks and heads a Dallas real estate firm that has developed more than $300-million worth of residential condominiums, 7,000 apartment units and a new town in north Dallas. “If you’re not big enough to be the fastest on the track team or the biggest on the football team or tall enough to play basketball, what happens is you become a juvenile delinquent. I was the No. 1 juvenile delinquent I knew.”

Strauss, who also oversees $2 billion in state transactions as the chairman of the purchasing and general services commission for the State of Texas, said he reads on the seventh-grade level and spells on the fourth-grade level. After quitting school at 19, he said, he “finally got into an area where I could compete. You don’t have to be a genius at reading and writing in my business.”

Compensation Strategies

Strauss said he surrounds himself with people with good reading and spelling skills and relies heavily on a lawyer to help him understand documents. At the same time, he said, he has trained his memory so that he can remember almost every detail of a meeting without taking notes.

“Many dyslexics are bright enough to compensate and use their intellect to fill in the gaps or cover up,” Solomon said. Some use word processors, visual cues, books on tape or television, or, like Strauss, rely on friends, spouses or secretaries to get around their problem.

For them, trying to backtrack and learn language skills is too time-consuming or, for some, too difficult. “It’s like backing your car into the mud and getting stuck again,” said one dyslexic man. “I want to get on the freeway.”

But others decide it’s worth it.

Clients at the Newport Center for Educational Therapy range from children in the first grade to adults 45 years old who have just diagnosed their problem and who are “finally realizing it’s not their fault all these years,” Solomon said. Typically, she said, they are people who have heard about dyslexia and “suddenly it all clicks--’Oh it could be me!’ ” Many sit in her office and weep. “They’re discovering for the first time that they’re not dumb but bright.”

Help Available

Resources for testing and referral are available through the Orton Dyslexic Society, a nonprofit international group that also sponsors lectures, seminars, parent groups and a language skills workshop. The numbers are (714) 731-5223 in Orange County , (818) 789-5630 in Los Angeles and (714) 337-9418 in the Inland Empire. With children, the public schools can make assessments and pediatricians should be consulted, Kean said. Some neurologists, for insurance purposes, can write prescriptions for educational therapy, she said.

At the language skills seminar held weekly at the Fluor Corp. in Irvine, Solomon and others use a multisensory method to impart information “in a way that it will stick.” Teachers may, for example, have students pick up colored discs and place them on the syllables in a written word as they are speaking the word and looking at it.

To organize an essay, they will make a graphic outline of the ideas on paper and then cut and paste them to organize them.

Students range from those who do not read to those with master’s degrees. They can take the eight-week class (cost: $250) as many times as they need, Solomon said, adding that motivation is the major element in success.

Some want to improve their skills so they can apply for a job. One 20-year-old laborer with an IQ of 125 came in determined to learn to read after back injury made him afraid he would no longer be able to earn a living. He could read at only the third-grade level, but he said his goal at the end of eight weeks was to read the sign in the classroom: “Quality Policy.” He made it, Solomon said.

‘Tired of Falling Down’

Ken Kunkel, 45, a first-grade teacher in Garden Grove, just enrolled in the program. Kunkel has a master’s degree in education but, he said, has been frustrated all his life by poor writing skills. “I’m tired of falling down,” he said. He started the classes, he said, for himself and to show his daughter, 14, who is also dyslexic, that it is a “solvable problem.”

Unlike Laura, Kunkel acknowledges his problem to his first-grade pupils. “They understand what I’m doing; it just comes out backwards sometimes. The other day I wrote an E backward. We just laughed about it. Children are very understanding.”

Like Laura however, he says he is more understanding of the dyslexic pupils in his classroom. “There are six or seven in each class,” he said. “Every teacher teaches them. I’m just aware of it.”