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What it’s like to be dyslexic
Ella Mielniczenko
It can be really embarrassing sometimes .
When typing phone numbers, the order can become mixed up in your head.
Need to Separate Numbers into three’s to make them easier to read.
Exam layouts and spreadsheets can be difficult to read as they are tightly set next to each other.
CAPTCHA (I am not a robot) can be really difficult to read cause of the nature of it.
Reading in general can give really bad headaches.
The lines of text are really hard to follow, without jumping to the line above or below .
Words/ letters can jump around the page.
Auto correct is sometimes useless as you can misspell words so badly that it doesn't understand.
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John and Laura
As well as speaking to the Dyslexia Foundation I also wanted to speak to people who have worked in a creative environment with dyslexia. So because of this I choose to speak to two of my tutors (John Spencer and Laura Parke) who bother have dyslexia. these are the questions I am going to ask them;
What are some of the main things that you struggle with
As I've said previously each person experiences dyslexia differently so I want to know if they struggle more with reading, writing or anything in particular.
Benefits to dyslexia
many creatives consider the reason for their success is cause they are dyslexic and they are able to think differently to others. However I want to know if this is the case for these two, or if they have found some other benefits to it throughout their careers
Drawback’s of Dyslexia
while designing I wanna know if they've found any particular drawbacks that have effected the way that they work.
Have you ever sort out a ‘cure’
As I have personal experience with things that I was told would cure me of my dyslexia I want to know if they've ever experienced something similar.
Are there any tools that you have used in the past or present to assist you
Although there are a lot of tools available people don't always use them or are aware of them. Also they may have found some tools that they use that I am unaware of.
In your professional opinion what do you think about the aesthetic appearance of some of these tools (Dyslexie, Lexie Readable)
Dyslexie is marketed as comic sans for adults and personally I find that it still has a really immature appearance, that I wouldn’t want to use as an adult so id like to see what two professional designers opinions are of it.
Wound you be comfortable to use tools/techniques professional environment?
Many of the tools that actually help dyslexic’s are produced for a younger demographic. So they can have quite an immature and unprofessional appearance.
What considerations would you like to see being made in professional and educational environments to create more awareness and understanding of learning disabilities?
Certain things can be really difficult to do with Dyslexia and that can be hard to deal with when you can't get around those things in order to create a piece of work.
Are there any typefaces that you personally find are easier read?
A lot of Dyslexia is about finding things that work for you and sometimes specific typefaces are easier on the eyes than others and I wanna know if they have a preference and why.
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Dyslexic Foundation
I'm planning to interview the a member of the dyslexia foundation in Liverpool soon on the kind of support and services that they provide and if they find that they are actually beneficial. These are some of the questions I've prepared
What kind of services do you provide here?
this question is just to help me understand what is already on offer to people that may be seeking help. for example if they run dyslexia tests and if they provide support for adults as well as children.
Is it a drop in or bookable facility? Do you also undertake external visits e.g. schools, community groups etc.?
a lot of people can go though life without ever realising that they have a learning disability. Personally I've met quite a few people who have always struggled and thought that they may have dyslexia but didn't know how to go about getting checked. so I feel as though community/ school visits are important as they remind people that there is help available.
Is the service you offer free or chargeable?
I want to know if everyone can access their service, as people from all backgrounds can suffer from dyslexia.
With what disability’s do you provide support? Is it just Dyslexia or do you support people with other disabilities’?
Sometimes people who struggle with dyslexia can also have issues with Dyscalculia (number Dyslexia) which often goes undiagnosed. Even if they don't provide services for other disabilities it would be good if they had the information to point people in the right direction for getting help.
What kind of age groups do you deal with? Is the service more popular with younger people (children, teens, parents of) adults or a variety of age ranges?
People tend to seek out help when they're younger as there is less of a stigma around it and many people really struggle in school. However dyslexia is a life long disability and although people can be taught ways to deal with there will always be things that people struggle with.
What types of problems do service users have?
are people struggling at work to read the text on their computer? Does a teacher not understand how to teach a dyslexic student? Or are they just looking for advice.
Do you find that you need to provide support and reassurance to service users regarding their disability / lack of confidence – perhaps you would be comfortable talking about your experience at school?
Personally I'm really uncomfortable with reading a bit of text out loud or scribing during a project. So I wanna know if the run ‘support’ groups to improve people confidence in these areas.
Do service users note any benefits of having dyslexia?
A lot of creatives credit their success to being dyslexic as they say it allows them to see things from a different perspective and create work that many people wouldn't be able to. However I wanna know if people have experienced benefits in any other areas.
Do you talk to service users about any positive effects of having dyslexia, or re-assure service users regarding the difficulties that they experience.
Although the main issues can be aided by extra lessons and other academic assistance, it can also be a very mentally challenging thing to deal with as it can often feel like as hard as you work your brain is working against you.
What tools do you recommend to people, to help them in creating a level playing field for themselves in a learning or work environment? (Ask relevant questions about the tools that they mention)
There are a lot of tools out there created with the aim of helping people with dyslexia get ahead. However I would like to know which ones they actually recommend to people.
What techniques do you suggest to people to help them in creating a level playing field for themselves in a learning or work environment? (Ask relevant questions about the techniques that they mention)
Tools aren’t always the most effective thing for someone who is struggling. Sometimes they can utilise technique that they've been taught. For example, using a rhyme like ‘Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants’ to help them spell because.
What is your personal opinion of the effectiveness of these tools / techniques?
Although a lot of people use aids people often experience different levels of success with them. So I wanna know if the representative from the Dyslexia Foundation thinks that they are actually effective.
Are you aware of the typefaces Dyslexie and Lexie Readable?
Although they are quite well recognised in the community not everyone is aware of them.
Do you consider these typefaces to be effective in improving people’s reading ability?
Although there have been a number of studies conducted into the effectiveness of these typefaces, I wanna know their opinion on them.
Do your clients feel that these typefaces help with reading? What is their feedback about using these typefaces?
Although I do wanna know about the effectiveness of these typefaces I also want some insight into if they actually get used on a day to day basis.
May I ask if you are Dyslexic? (If comfortable replying, ask how dyslexia affects him/her, what difficulties they have experienced and what they have found useful)
Everyone struggles with something different and although I understand somethings from personal experience there are still some things that I am unaware of.
What tools and techniques have your clients fed back that they have found useful?
As everyone experiences Dyslexia in different ways, a tool that works for some people may now work as well for others so I would want some insight into this.
Would you be comfortable to use any of these tools/techniques in an educational and/or professional environment? If so, why? If no why not?
Some tools can be very obvious and often people don't want to draw attention to the face that they have a learning disability so I wanna know many of their clients actually use them.
Do you think that there is enough awareness of how the disability works?
When people find out that I have dyslexia I often can get asked some very weird questions. Which has made me aware that outside those who have dyslexia and those who assist them, there really isn't any awareness about what the disability actually involves.
What considerations would you like to see being made in professional and educational environments to create more awareness and understanding of learning disabilities?
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Questioning the benefits that coloured overlays can have for reading in students with and without dyslexia
Lisa M. Henderson, Natassa Tsogka and Margaret J. Snowling
Coloured overlays are thin transparent coloured films that are placed over a page of text. They are designed to colour the page without affecting clarity of the text
Coloured overlays are often used to combat visual stress
Visual stress includes moving or blurring letters, illusions of colour
Visual stress is reported to higher in individuals with dyslexia than non-dyslexic
Measures of visual stress are sometimes included in screening batteries for dyslexia
Is the recommendation of overlays is aimed at increasing reading performance or at improving comfort during reading.
students read faster using the overlays.
there is no specific colour that works best for everyone. its completely up to personal preference.
frequently chosen colours in the dyslexic group were aqua, lime-green, mint-green and orange
A higher amount of students with dyslexia met criteria for visual stress
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Web tool
Mana and Mich
the reader can personalise the visualisation of the text using the tool's buttons in a toolbar.
The tool bar was made simple and intuitive for easy access for children to use.
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OpenDyslexic
Abelardo Gonzalez
OpenDyslexic is a typeface designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia.
Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to indicate direction.
The unique shapes of each letter can help prevent confusion through flipping and swapping.
OpenDyslexic also has wider letter spacing and a unique italic style.
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Another thing I was encouraged to take up as a child was gymnastics. As apparently if I improved my balance id improve my learning abilities. I've never had actually had any issues with my balance. To be honest I've always had excelled at sports that relied on it. Because of this I decided to do some further research into the reasoning behind it.
Balance and reading are separate symptoms of dyslexia
ANGELA J FAWCETT
Balance deficits may be identified in around 50% of a sample of children with dyslexia and around 20% of a sample of adults with dyslexia.
Both balance and reading deficits in dyslexia may be explained by differences in processing, based on cerebellar dysfunction.
The cerebellar deficit claims only that the language-related regions of the cerebellum are affected in dyslexia. These are generally considered to be lobule VI and VIIB in the neocerebellum – well away from the motor and balance regions in the cerebellum.
Balance deficits are not directly linked to reading deficits, because they involve a separate route in the causal chain.
The balance difficulties are best seen as symptoms of dyslexia which may be identified before children fail to learn to read, and which are therefore particularly useful in screening tests for dyslexia.
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When I was younger I really struggled with basic tasks throughout my education. So in an attempt to get me help my mum sort the advice of medical professionals. They informed her about how some doctors were experimenting with chiropractic methods to ‘cure’ dyslexia. I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around me neck and they believed that this could have been the reason for my learning difficulties due to my spines connection with my brain being misaligned. All I can really remember from this experience is going to get my neck cracked once or twice and it not having any kind of positive effect on my learning abilities. However I decided to do some research into it.
Chiropractic Care May Help Children with Learning Disorders and Dyslexia
The goal for this chiropractic approach is to improve brain function by realigning the spine to strongly stimulating nerve pathways to the cerebellum and other parts of the brain.
Yannick Pauli’s research strongly suggests that chiropractic care may help various cognitive abilities that are essential to learning.
The cerebellum plays a vital role in learning. It helps the brain coordinate and integrate the various sensory information, as well as to increase the processing speed of the brain.
Numerous factors can affect the proper development of the brain, including maternal stress during pregnancy, traumatic birth, poor diet, and sedentary lifestyle.
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I was planning to conduct a survey with the public to find out some of the common misconceptions about dyslexia, however one of the previous works that I read had already compiled this information.
these were some of the common misconceptions
Writing letters and words backwards are symptoms of dyslexia.
Writing letters and words backwards are common in the early stages of learning to read and write among average and dyslexic children alike. It is a sign that orthographic representations (i.e., letter forms and spellings of words) have not been firmly established, not that a child necessarily has a reading disability (Adams, 1990).
Reading disabilities are caused by visual perception problems.
The current consensus based on a large body of research (e.g., Lyon et al., 2003; Morris et al., 1998; Rayner et al., 2001; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987) is that dyslexia is best characterized as a problem with language processing at the phoneme level, not a problem with visual processing.
If you just give them enough time, children will outgrow dyslexia.
There is no evidence that dyslexia is a problem that can be outgrown. There is, however, strong evidence that children with reading problems show a continuing persistent deficit in their reading rather than just developing later than aver- age children (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996). More strong evidence shows that children with dyslexia continue to experience reading problems into adolescence and adulthood (Shaywitz et al., 1999, 2003).
More boys than girls have dyslexia.
Longitudinal research shows that as many girls as boys are affected by dyslexia (Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Escobar, 1990). There are many possible reasons for the overidentification of males by schools, including greater be- havioral acting out and a smaller ability to compensate among boys. More research is needed to determine why.
Dyslexia only affects people who speak English.
Dyslexia appears in all cultures and languages in the world with written language, including those that do not use an alphabetic script such as Korean and Hebrew. In English, the primary difficulty is accurate decoding of unknown words. In consistent orthographies such as German or Italian, dyslexia appears more often as a problem with fluent reading—readers may be accurate, but very slow (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
People with dyslexia will benefit from colored text overlays or lenses.
There is no strong research evidence that intervention using colored overlays or special lenses has any effect on the word reading or comprehension of children with dyslexia (American Optometric Association, 2004; Iovino, Fletcher, Breitmeyer, & Foorman, 1998).
A person with dyslexia can never learn to read.
This is simply not true. The earlier children who struggle are identified and provided systematic, intense instruction, the less severe their problems are likely to be (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Torgesen, 2002). With adequately intensive instruction, however, even older children with dyslexia can become accurate, albeit slow readers (Torgesen et al., 2001).
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How does reading performance modulate the impact of orthographic knowledge on speech processing? A comparison of normal readers and dyslexic adults
Chotiga Pattamadilok & Aubéline Nelis & Régine Kolinsky
due to difficulties in acquiring the alphabetic code, dyslexic children would be less sensitive to the manipulation of orthography.
dyslexic adults do not necessarily have poor reading-related skills
Evaluation of reading-related skills
performance was significantly higher in NR than in DYS in all subtests except pseudoword repetition and forward digit span.
might be due to compensation mechanisms that DYS adults have developed to cope with their deficits.
took about 32 ms longer to process inconsistent words.
participants took about 110 ms longer to process non-rhyming words when these shared the same spelling. Unlike lexical decision, the occurrence of this effect did not depend either on group or on reading-related skills.
participants made more errors when they processed non-rhyming words that shared the same spelling.
extensive reading experience and/or other compensatory factors that allow individuals to reach high reading-related skills have the potential to modify the core processes of speech recognition.
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Brainy Type: a look at how the brain processes typographic information
By Thiessen, Myra; Kohler, Mark; Churches, Owen; Coussens, Scott; Keage, Hannah .
I desired to read this source as I wanted some more background information to how the brain sees different typefaces.
Explored the discriminative processing of letters across a range of typefaces.
what variations of form improve legibility.
visual circumstances have contributed to the ease of reading: a clean open typeface, the relationship between the letter, word, and line spacing, margin space, line length
It is the decoding of texts that is the primary function of typography for reading. This means type or typographic design that interferes with this process is unsuccessful regardless of the aesthetic qualities.
typefaces that balance distinct and related visual features are likely to be more legible because they may do more to facilitate accurate letter identification
participants thought tasks were harder or took longer to complete when set in a more visually complex typeface compared to one that was conventionally easier to read
For the purposes of this study, text typefaces, a serif and a sans serif, represent the high legibility category. The low legibility typefaces were selected from more decorative or display options, a blackletter and a script.
Arial and Times New Roman representing the high legibility variations and Lucida Blackletter and Edwardian Script the low legibility options.
typefaces with low legibility capture more attention and are more difficult for the brain to abstract and maintain within working memory than those with high legibility suggesting that the visual complexity may reduce legibility at the most basic processes of reading
Alternatively observed a larger effect of typeface at low-level processing in the language dominant left hemisphere compared to the right, implying that more effort is required for the brain to process basic tasks related to letter identification when harder to read typefaces are used.
The ability to easily ascertain essential distinguishing features is important for accurate letter identification
This implies that the easier these unique or distinguishing features are to access, the less cognitively demanding letter recognition will be.
the brain must work harder to abstract letter units when less legible typefaces are used.
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Dyslexia and the brain: What does current research tell us?
ROXANNE F. HUDSON LESLIE HIGH STEPHANIE AL OTAIBA
Dyslexia is an often-misunderstood, confusing term for reading problems.
One of the most common misunderstandings about this condition is that dyslexia is a problem of letter or word reversals (b/d, was/saw) or of letters, words, or sentences “dancing around” on the page
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterised by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.
It is neurobiological in origin, meaning that the problem is located physically in the brain.
Dyslexia is not caused by poverty, developmental delay, speech or hearing impairments, or learning a second language
Brain Structure
the frontal lobe, organisation, production, and manipulation of language and speech.
The parietal lobe, linking spoken and written language to memory to give it meaning so we can understand what we hear and read.
The occipital lobe, the visual cortex is important in the identification of letters.
The temporal lobe, verbal memory, understanding language, language processing and reading.
The brain is chiefly made up of two types of material: grey matter and white matter. Grey matter is mostly composed of nerve cells. Its primary function is processing information. White matter is composed of connective fibres, White matter is primarily responsible for information transfer around the brain.
found that people with dyslexia have less grey matter in the left parietotemporal area than non-dyslexic individuals.
Less grey matter could lead to problems processing the sound structure of language
Many people with dyslexia also have less white matter in this same area
More white matter is correlated with increased reading skill
Having less white matter could lessen the ability or efficiency of the regions of the brain to communicate with one another.
Most brains of right-handed, non-dyslexic people are asymmetrical with the left hemisphere being larger than the same area on the right.
Right-handed people with dyslexia show a pattern of symmetry or right larger than left.
This may be why People with dyslexia are more creative.
studies using functional imaging techniques that compared the brain activation patterns in dyslexics show under-activation in areas where they are weaker and over-activation in other areas in order to compensate.
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Proust and the Squid
By Maryanne Wolf
About the development of reading in the brain.
Discusses what happens to the brain when a child has difficulty learning to read.
End of the 19th Century when ‘word blindness’ was identified.
Since then little has been done to understand the condition.
Written language has developed from crosshatched lines on stone dating back 77,000 years, to Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The alphabet as we know it came 2000 years later.
Our ability to read comes from out ability to recognise objects.
Chinese children must learn to recognise complex pictures that denote a word or a group of words.
Children whose language uses the modern alphabet have a much easier time of it.
Some physical and environmental reasons for reading failure -
Frequent ear Infections in early childhood.
Poverty of language at home.
There is no cause of Dyslexia and no uniform Display of it in children.
Which part of the reading process is proving difficult -
Decoding the printed word in speed and fluency.
Remembering what has been read.
The emphasis should be on finding the best way to help children compensate for their particular defect.
‘Dyslexia is our best, most visible evidence that the brain was never wired to read’.
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Performance differences between Times and Helvetica in a reading task.
by RUDI W. DE LANGE, HENDRY L. ESTERHUIZEN AND DEREK BEATTY
survey conducted to find out if serif or sans serif typefaces were easier to read.
Typographers and printers often regard seriffed or roman typefaces as more legible and appropriate for reading material than typefaces without serifs. Authors contend that readers prefer roman above sans serif, that it is read faster, and that the comprehension rate is possibly higher when text is set in a roman typeface.
Romans and sans serifs were found to be equally legible, as no significant statistical difference was found between the reading speed, scanning speed, accuracy and comprehension.
This study also concluded that people do not distinguish words by reading each letter individually; instead, they only glance over the word.
possible further area of research reading text with a glance
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The impact of font type on reading
Stephanie Hoffmeister
Recent studies of dyslexia-specific fonts provide no specific evidence that they improve an individual's reading ability or speed of reading.
More than 27% of children with learning disabilities drop out of high school compared to 11% of the general student population.
Dyslexia is familial and heritable. 23-65% of children who have a parent with dyslexia have similarly been identified as having dyslexia.
The typography with serifs was deemed a more decorative font, but fonts with serifs were believed to be too excessive of a decorative text
serif fonts are said to be more legible as the contrasting use of thin and thick lines makes the letters and words more distinctive and is easier on the eye
Legibility deals with being able to recognise individual characters and words.
Readability is what makes some texts easier to read than others
very small letter sizes close to the acuity limit, serifs may actually slightly interfere with legibility
people do not distinguish words by reading each letter individually; instead, they only glance over the word.
serifs are preferred between the ages of 4 and 10 at larger font sizes
while sans serif fonts are preferred at smaller font sizes for people beyond older than 10.
Also, serifs can act as a distraction on the characters, which can cause slower word recognition
Arial font was rated the best by almost all the subjects
People with dyslexia who participated in this study stated that this font was straightforward, clear, basic, and rounded.
teacher's say that the spacing between the characters, words, and lines was more important to the students not whether they used a serif or sans serif font
the British Dyslexia Association recommends Arial, cause it is well spaced
reading accuracy improved by nearly three words when reading the three-dimensional print version, which was identical to the flat print but with shadows and a subtle block appearance.
individuals with dyslexia do appear to suffer from crowding, which is the inability to recognise objects in clutter.
they are distracted by the words surrounding the word that they are trying to read
to help someone with dyslexia learn to read more efficiently was to use extra large letter spacing.
retention of material was improved by using disfluent fonts like Monotype Corsiva
The British Dyslexia Association suggests that students with dyslexia should be using simple fonts to aid in reading. However retention was increased using disfluent fonts in students with dyslexia.
Ariel, Helvetica, Verdana, and Adsans are more readable than Times New Roman.
research to date suggests no significant evidence for these specialized fonts (Dyslexie, Lexia Readable) to improve the reading comprehension, reading speed, or general reading ability of an individual with dyslexia.
personal preference for typography, typeface, and font type and size influences the legibility and readability for each person whether he/she has dyslexia or not.
further areas of research: OpenDyslexic, Mana and Mich web tool
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Lexie Readable
Lexie Readable (formerly Lexia Readable) is a family of fonts designed for maximum legibility, it’s an attempt to capture the clarity and accessibility of Comic Sans without the American comic book associations and whimsical childlike quality.
Lexie is an attempt to retain the strength, friendliness and legibility of Comic Sans, and even a slightly marker-drawn feel, whilst tidying up the comic book idiosyncrasies. It adds a hint of dignity, a sprinkling of refinement, and introduces elements of designer type to appeal to a contemporary audience.
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