Got Dyslexia?
Got Dyslexia? If your mind 'hears' every word of this sentence, you're probably okay.
By Eric Hasteline
Have you heard the one about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic who stayed awake pondering the existence of Dog? If not, you've got a fresh joke for the next cocktail party. But when you spin this yarn over a glass of merlot, be sure to add that it's flawed: Dyslexia is not about letter reversals. Rather, it is a brain disorder that makes it difficult for a dyslexic to connect the sound components of speech --called phonemes-- to the written letters representing those sounds. A few dyslexics may see letters reversed, but more often the problem can't be so easily described.
To understand dyslexia better, consider the contortions the brain must go through in order to read and understand the word rutabaga. First it must resolve the word's contours into letters, and then match these letters to the individual phonemes the letters represent. Next the brain stitches the phonemes together into the sound of rutabaga, then it retrieves the word from memory to comprehend it. In English, the more than 40 phonemes outnumber the letters in the alphabet, because letters can express multiple sounds. For rutabaga, a normal brain would select the phonemes /r/, /u/, /t/, /e/, /b/, /e/, /g/, and /e/. The /t/ sounds similar to a d, while the pronounciation of the letter a, which occurs three times in the word, requires two different phonemes. The first and last take on the sound of the a in sofa, while the second a sounds like the long a in bait.
The phonemes in rutabaga illustrates how complex reading actually is. Now imagine trying to navigate this lexical jungle while lacking the ability to match the letter "a" to the sound of /e/. The brain's method of unlocking the meaning of a word --silently sounding out /rutebege/-- is disrupted for a dyslexic, thus creating a challenge. To see if you might have dyslexia, try the experiments below.
Experiment 1
1. Do you have difficulty reading aloud?
2. Are you a bad speller?
3. Do blood relatives of average or higher intelligence have trouble learning?
4. Do you struggle to follow written but not oral directions?
5. When reading, do you often have to go back over the same word several times before understanding it?
6. Did you have problems learning a foreign language?
Answering yes to more than two questions means you should try the next experiment to see how well you connect phonemes.
Experiment 2
Below are 20 nonsense words. If spoken aloud, nine of them sound like real words-baik, for example, stands for bake. Without speaking the words out loud, figure out which ones correspond to real words. Missing more than three could mean you have some degree of dyslexia and could benefit from further evaluation. The answers are at the bottom of the page.
zam
lep
crope
bete
mord
sed
roolpeze
frire
blone
baik
calp
hib
masp
thoe
vust
praid
blut
karn
crad
If the experiments above lead you to believe you might have dyslexia, don't despair. You're in good company: Dyslexia affects more than 15 percent of us and is a leading cause of iearning disabilities. But new teaching methods that emphasize the sounds of language can help dyslexic readers attain normal reading skills.
Some neuroscientists believe that dyslexics are more creative than average - Albert Einstein and William Butler Yeats had this disorder- because the brain structures normally devoted to processing language rewire themselves, thereby priming the mind to cook up novel ideas. For more information about dyslexia, go to www.discover.com/brainworks.
Answers to Experiment 2: beat, said, rule, peas, fryer, blown, bake, though, prayed
By Eric Hasteline
Have you heard the one about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic who stayed awake pondering the existence of Dog? If not, you've got a fresh joke for the next cocktail party. But when you spin this yarn over a glass of merlot, be sure to add that it's flawed: Dyslexia is not about letter reversals. Rather, it is a brain disorder that makes it difficult for a dyslexic to connect the sound components of speech --called phonemes-- to the written letters representing those sounds. A few dyslexics may see letters reversed, but more often the problem can't be so easily described.
To understand dyslexia better, consider the contortions the brain must go through in order to read and understand the word rutabaga. First it must resolve the word's contours into letters, and then match these letters to the individual phonemes the letters represent. Next the brain stitches the phonemes together into the sound of rutabaga, then it retrieves the word from memory to comprehend it. In English, the more than 40 phonemes outnumber the letters in the alphabet, because letters can express multiple sounds. For rutabaga, a normal brain would select the phonemes /r/, /u/, /t/, /e/, /b/, /e/, /g/, and /e/. The /t/ sounds similar to a d, while the pronounciation of the letter a, which occurs three times in the word, requires two different phonemes. The first and last take on the sound of the a in sofa, while the second a sounds like the long a in bait.
The phonemes in rutabaga illustrates how complex reading actually is. Now imagine trying to navigate this lexical jungle while lacking the ability to match the letter "a" to the sound of /e/. The brain's method of unlocking the meaning of a word --silently sounding out /rutebege/-- is disrupted for a dyslexic, thus creating a challenge. To see if you might have dyslexia, try the experiments below.
Experiment 1
1. Do you have difficulty reading aloud?
2. Are you a bad speller?
3. Do blood relatives of average or higher intelligence have trouble learning?
4. Do you struggle to follow written but not oral directions?
5. When reading, do you often have to go back over the same word several times before understanding it?
6. Did you have problems learning a foreign language?
Answering yes to more than two questions means you should try the next experiment to see how well you connect phonemes.
Experiment 2
Below are 20 nonsense words. If spoken aloud, nine of them sound like real words-baik, for example, stands for bake. Without speaking the words out loud, figure out which ones correspond to real words. Missing more than three could mean you have some degree of dyslexia and could benefit from further evaluation. The answers are at the bottom of the page.
zam
lep
crope
bete
mord
sed
roolpeze
frire
blone
baik
calp
hib
masp
thoe
vust
praid
blut
karn
crad
If the experiments above lead you to believe you might have dyslexia, don't despair. You're in good company: Dyslexia affects more than 15 percent of us and is a leading cause of iearning disabilities. But new teaching methods that emphasize the sounds of language can help dyslexic readers attain normal reading skills.
Some neuroscientists believe that dyslexics are more creative than average - Albert Einstein and William Butler Yeats had this disorder- because the brain structures normally devoted to processing language rewire themselves, thereby priming the mind to cook up novel ideas. For more information about dyslexia, go to www.discover.com/brainworks.
Answers to Experiment 2: beat, said, rule, peas, fryer, blown, bake, though, prayed