How much help should I get - Phd dyslexic

I have asked him how it affects him and he said it never really has and he just saw the extra help he got in school as a bonus. His reading is no different to mine but as i said before he hasn't read pages and pages of stuff aloud to me but he doesn't have any difficulty reading. His short term memory is fantastic as well, much better than mine, I was on the phone to my boyfriend earlier and he asked me what i had for lunch and i couldn't remember, he then reeled off a list of everything he'd eaten in the last two days.

My brother has dyspraxia and doesn't have any problems with writing, he really struggles with reading and comprehension and has quite severe language problems in that he can't pronounce words correctly so people find it difficult to understand him properly. He has no problems understanding what other people say to him and he's rather clever but just struggles to express himself properly before getting frustrated and either getting angry or giving up. He attends a special school, and since he's been there he's progressed really well. There are eight children in his school with dyspraxia and all of them are boys, apparently the condition rarely presents in girls. He also has a number of sensory problems that add to his condition.

I think that I am not ignorant.



It's there alright, yes. Some people have trouble with reading, writing, etc. But the issue is whether or not it should be classed as a medical/psychological condition, and whether or not the help that is given to students who have it is proportional to the problem in the first place.

unfortunatley people are mis-diagnosed or are mildly dyslexic (if you ask me i think they should be the same thing). My cousin was mis-dignosed, i always knew he wasn't dyslexic because a. he was mildly and b. he wasn't a slow reader. I suggest you find better examples . I'm pleasantly surprised that you've actually bothered to find out information about it, most people don't, so my appologies with regards to that. But 2 people can't represent the masses, you just were unlucky i guess because i KNOW how it effects me. A trvial example is the fact it took me ages to read the last HP, despite hardly sleeping, when my friend read it in 3 days :l.

I have read some of Snowling's papers on the subject, and also some of her responses to Dyslexia's dissidents. Interesting indeed.

The role of science is to test hypotheses to establish their accuracy in describing reality. The hypothesis that there exists a distinct and discrete condition which methodologically impairs the written lingual skills of individuals has been tested several times, and the results of such testing has been inconclusive.

So you think when a dyslexic person who reads a page significantly slower than the rest of the population, or when they can't finish thier exams as quickly as thier peers, or when they spend hours doing one peice of homework- that they are somehow lying?
Surely this is objective enough for you. Or are you determined on thinking everything is a lie?

OP - Are these books that the library has copies of? If so can you not use the online catalogue and copy/ paste it into a word document to get your books to order them from the library? Or simply order the books online?

I don't deny that dyslexia exists only that i think some people get diagnosed with it when they don't really have it or are misdiagnosed. Possibly my boyfriend being an example of this. I know quite a bit about dispraxia because of my brother's condition and with that i know a bit about dyslexia/dyscalculia etc. It was suspected that i might have dyscalculia when i was little but it turns out i'm just incredibly s**t at maths. I also think some people use these sort of conditions as an excuse but that's not to say that some people genuinely struggle and need extra assistance and help but often this is taken advantage of by others who might not need the resources. When i look at how profound my brother's condition is and think about the lack of help and support he had in mainstream school and then hear about someone who gets a free laptop and a grant that ends up getting spent on beer i get really pi**ed off.

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When I say distinct and discrete, I mean distinct from being a poor reader.

Some people who are poor at reading are diagnosed with dyslexia. Others are not. Where is the distinction? There is none.



I don't doubt that some people have reading problems, writing problems, etc. What I do doubt is that you can split this group of people into two groups of people, with one of them being 'poor readers who have dyslexia', and the other being 'poor readers who do not have dyslexia', because the measures by which education psychologists do this seem to be arbitrary, their methods inconclusive and baseless, and their diagnoses tend to be completely subjective.

In fact, I read a study not long ago in which a number of people who were deemed 'poor readers' were evaluated under controlled conditions by several different education psychologists who were under instruction to test for dyslexia. The study quite potently suggested that the diagnosis procedures for dyslexia vary from psychologist to psychologist, and as a result, so do their diagnoses. Their results were incoherent with one another.

It may be best if you asked for support from your universities disability services. They may be able to provide you with someone who can assist you with library tasks for an hour or two a week. If you don't mind getting a bulk of books out at the same time that is. Although you may need a shopping trolly if you try and get 30-50 at the same time

This is not correct. If you test someone for dyslexia, you test to see if they have a very large discrepancy between certain parts of their IQ. Many poor readers have little or no discrepancy, but their overall IQ is low. It is generally harder to diagnose as dyslexic people who have lower IQs. However, if (like me) parts of your IQ are well over average and parts are well under, you will almost certainly be diagnosed with dyslexia, unless there is another obvious reason for the discrepancy (for example, a blind person will have a visual IQ of nil).

Your example of how it is difficult to diagnose dyslexic people who have lower IQs is just one example of many occasions in which a dyslexic person becomes undifferentiable from a non-dyslexic person who is simply poor at reading, or poor at reading out loud, or poor at writing, or poor at something else related to commanding the language.

In fact, the only time that the difference may be 'unambiguous' is the one solitary occasion which you described - when a person of an otherwise high IQ has difficulties with something.

"This guy can't read very well, but he has a high IQ!"
"Oh really?! Well it can't be the same as that other guy who couldn't read well, but had a low IQ, he was just stupid."
"You're right, let's invent a fictional ailment for which we have no evidence, and for which we have no explanatory mechanism, and we'll blame it on that"

Ok. You don't get it. My overall IQ isn't that high, because full scale IQ is averaged out. Bits of my IQ are very high and bits are very low. So we're not talking about high IQ person versus low IQ person, we're talking about someone whose IQ is all over the place, and someone whose IQ is pretty much straight across the board.

I never said that some people didn't have problems with reading. What I'm saying is Dyslexia does not exist as a distinct condition which some bad readers have, and which other bad readers do not.

There are plenty of people who have similar 'symptoms' to what is known as dyslexia (i.e. poor reading capabilities) who, once psychologically evaluated, are not diagnosed with dyslexia, and subsequently, are given no help whatsoever. Whereas others ARE diagnosed, and are given disproportionate 'help'. This help often doesn't make sense, given the nature of the ailment, and what's more, the help that's given tends to be useless... or so studies show.

Dyslexia is nothing more than being a poor reader, and the fact that it is classified as a condition, and some people are diagnosed with it seemingly arbitrarily is causing an extremely dangerous imbalance in education.



Lol. Like I said above, some people with identical symptoms to those deemed to have 'dyslexia' are not diagnosed with it, following evaluation, and are subsequently given no help with their problem. These are the truly disadvantaged people. Simply because the arbitrary process of diagnosis has not led to them being labelled 'dyslexic', they're not privvy to the benefits that somebody with identical symptoms is.

Not only that, but the help given to those that ARE diagnosed with it is very often disproportionate to the help they need, and that puts the rest of us at a disadvantage.

You accuse me of attempting to disadvantage people, when in fact, it is the creation of 'dyslexia' in the first place that both undermines those people who have a real problem, but are not deemed to be dyslexic, and also undermines people who have no problem, but whose dyslexic classmates are given disproportionate help, putting them at an advantage.



Having read possibly hundreds of papers on Dyslexia from various psychologists, professors of education, etc, I have yet to come across any evidence that suggests beyond reasonable doubt that dyslexia exists as a distinct psychological condition. I have, however, read many articles written by dissidents of dyslexia which are very convincing indeed.

There are also 5 or 6 people in my class who have been diagnosed with it, one of my closest friends being among them, so I have that first hand experience you were talking about.

As for your blatant stereotyping, I will turn a blind eye.

Science is not about taking the majority opinion of scientists in the field. Science is about evaluating evidence, and seeing what it objectively suggests. The evidence presented for the case of dyslexia is extremely weak, and that won't change, regardless of how many scientists say otherwise.



Lol, you're a complete and utter ****. You assume I haven't read papers on it simply because I haven't arrived at the conclusion you WANT me to arrive at?

Look, idiot, I've read more papers on dyslexia in the past two years than most Educational Psychology students and I don't appreciate your assumptions unsupported assumptions about my level of research.

Moron.

Which is the case for a great number of people, but there are no ailments magicked into existence when somebody has say, an overall high IQ, but a poor IQ when it comes to say, numeracy. Quite a lot of people are quite happy to accept that they're 'terrible with numbers', and go on with their otherwise high intelligence.

I don't deny that dyslexia exists only that i think some people get diagnosed with it when they don't really have it or are misdiagnosed. Possibly my boyfriend being an example of this. I know quite a bit about dispraxia because of my brother's condition and with that i know a bit about dyslexia/dyscalculia etc. It was suspected that i might have dyscalculia when i was little but it turns out i'm just incredibly **** at maths. I also think some people use these sort of conditions as an excuse but that's not to say that some people genuinely struggle and need extra assistance and help but often this is taken advantage of by others who might not need the resources. When i look at how profound my brother's condition is and think about the lack of help and support he had in mainstream school and then hear about someone who gets a free laptop and a grant that ends up getting spent on beer i get really pi**ed off.

First of all, please be more careful when attempting to filter swear words. Just type the entire word out and let the filter do its job. As you'll see, pissed isn't in the filter but the other word is. Make sure it's all edited out and not just partially as you can be techincally warned for avoiding the filter. Thank you.

Anyway, what I think you're referring to is Disabled Students Allowance, a non-means tested grant? This isn't from the university but the government and is there to meet the costs of any additional costs that arise from disability (equipment, non-medical helper etc.) It isn't just "free" money. You aren't just given money to then just spend down the pub. It can only be used to pay for software and equipment recommended after an assessment. If you are referring to a specific university grant then fair enough but I don't think there are many (if any) universities who offer their own grants to students with disabilities as that's what DSA, the government grant, is there for.

So students receiving DSA are not taking money away from other students who require financial support for any other reason. It certainly shouldn't be means tested as this means that many students miss out.

It's against the law to discriminate against a disabled student (or place them at a disadvantage). The support offered by the DSA is designed to help remove that disadvantage. If it's only given to students below a certain income then this is grossly unfair and also creates some quite serious legal issues.

I'm from a relatively comfortable (certainly not well off) background. I know that if DSA became means tested I probably wouldn't qualify for it. So how am I expected to pay for the 2k worth of equipment, software and non-medical helper necessary to place me on a level playing field with non-disabled students?

I'm not saying the system is perfect, few systems are. I'm sure there are some students who are given equipment that they don't really need and therefore give it away or sell it. But DSA is a welcome, valuable and necessary grant for the vast majority of students.

I appreicate and understand your frustration that students in many state schools still don't receive adequate support. Although I wasn't diagnosed with dyspraxia when I was at school (or even when I started university) I was quite suprised with the wealth of support offered to students with disabilities at university. But this is something that needs to be celebrated. The problem is the lack of support offered to school-age students, often because of limited resources and poor education and training amongst staff. Not to take it out on university students, many of them receiving just the right amount of support.

Anyway, this is to everyone. This thread isn't an appropriate place to get into a discussion over whether dyslexia exists or not. The OP came to this forum asking for advice and, although I'm not a qualified psychologist, I do think he or she has processing difficulties. If no one can offer the OP some advice or support then please just leave this thread alone. If this argument continues (especially if there are further insults) then I'll remove the posts and warn. Thank you.