So it has been proved, our child has Dyslexia and some, at last. Now what?  The school will introduce a Specific Learning Difficulty programme to aid and help our child to access the Education on offer.  However the school has a Curriculum and 29 other children per class to

manage and can only do so much in order to support and aid each child.  Sometimes they need a Parents input to help them find what works for your child.

What as Parents can we do to help?  These are the questions My Husband and I asked ourselves, when our suspicions were confirmed, that Roo did indeed suffer from Dyslexia (a common reading disorder),  Dysgraphia (a common writing difficullty) and Dyspraxia (a common lack of  co-ordination).

First thing was to research the type of visual learning that Roo most benefited from.  Not all visual learners follow the same processing structure,  so to give access to as many forms of learning as possible,  we adopted the Multi Sensory Approach in order to discover what Roo found most helpful.

First up we were informed that for the Majority of visual learners,  white paper and black type were not an option.  The light reflections caused an increase in discomfort,  ability to focus and in concentration.  So we borrowed some coloured acitate sheets from school to play around with at home.  It was found that Roo prefered the blue spectrum, this was confirmed by our visits to the Behavioural Optometrist, and so we made sure we always had:

Blue acitate overlay's for reading,

Blue paper for writing and photocopying.

We asked the school to produce where possible all reading and writing excercises on Blue Paper.

We then looked at writting aids.  This would help to reduce the stress of the Dyslexia and Dysgraphia,  a slope was provided at school but we needed one at home too,  for home work,  so we looked at the school one www.specialdirect.com/Product.aspx .  Hubby then cobbled togeather a wooden slope to suit.  A lever Arch file is a super alternative to the wooden or plastic slopes, if pennies are tight.  Children with reading and writing issues have been found to prefer and cope better with the old style 20 degee sloped school desks,  but many schools have chosen to do away with these sadly.

Next we looked at aids to help Roo to sit still.  Why?  you may ask.  Well, Many children with Mild Autistic Spectrum Issues can also have hyper active muscles.  In days of yore, before the recognised issues, these children were deemed, clumsy, fidgits, lazy, lacking concentration and disinterested and in many cases were refered to as "disruptive influences"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    As visual learners they process a lot of the information through multi sensory interaction.  In other words movement, sound and touch help them to take the information in.  Why I cannot get an answer to,  but my own theory is that as the brain is not processing directly in the "Normal" way, so it finds an alternative way to pull in the info. Roo for instance will withdraw into her own world,  which can look like day dreaming,  if she is forced to sit completely still. In this state she neither hears nor see's what is happening around her,  which can be frustrating for the teacher and Roo.  However allowing her to fidgit and move around is distracting to the other children, a dilemma for the teacher and Roo.

The answer is a wobble cushion  www.physiosupplies.com/acatalog/Wobble_Cushion.html . This simple physio and excercise aid if used to sit on in class can keep those pesky muscles moving,  but not so much that it distracts other children.  The cushion is also a blessing at home round the dinner table. When Roo and children like her sit down to eat,  legs are constantly on the move,  bum shuffeling around,  cutlery on the floor and food going every where but where it should,LOL.  While sitting on a cushion,  Roo sits quite still and food gets to where it should.

The next little thing is that saying to most children "Look at me when I am talking" really does not help them to take in the topic,  but do that to many Autistic Spectrum children and you have lost all chance of relaying any info full stop.  They will more often than not just withdraw or at best if they are communicative,  tell you what colour your eyes are. Sitting on the carpet staring at the teacher as she relays info on  "The Rain Forest" does not work for Roo,  but give her a small object to fiddle with, a small quishy ball or Blue Tac and she will relay back all the relevant facts once the discussion is over.  This also works for us out and about at the Cinema, Theatre or any place where our child is expected to sit still and not distract others.  Ruth much prefers to watch T.V sitting upside down or layng down with legs in the air, not acceptable in public,LOL..

Writing aids were next.  Many children with learning problems also have issues with muscle co-ordination and therefore gripping a pencil. Many have what can be desribed as loose joints.  In gripping a pencil their nuckle joint colapses back too far causing the grip to be insecure. This can cause problems with fine motor skills where a light but firm grip is needed.  Pencil grips www.specialdirect.com/Search.aspx  to suit the childs comfort zone can make life easier while trying to write as it increases the area of grip.  We keep these for all Roo's pencils at home, we found that we could buy in bulk at most budget stationers.  I know of one parent who uses old cork or modern rubber stoppers from wine bottles for her son who has Downs Syndrome and so a delayed muscle structure. She begs her friends and family to collect them.

Now for actually Learning.

So thats it for aids that reduce stress, but what about the learning itself, how can we help to reinforce what is being taught at school. Well sitting at the table with books and a pencil just does not work. So we needs alternatives to help Roo to understand and access the info. Roo's Dyslexia and Dygraphia gives her problems with recognising and writting particular words, letters and numbers:

b,d,g,q,p,s,2,3,5,7,9.

ee, oo,ou,ie,au.

Th, Ch, Wh.

Sound Blends www.phonicsontheweb.com/blends.php

Phenomes en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic

Now no matter what,  Roo will always have difficulty with these.  She will always have to look,  check and look again.  She will always have to double check her reading and writing to look for discrepancies.  Yes in exams when she is older she will have a scribe to help her write and an audio aid to help her read questions.  However this is the real world out here and not everyone is as forgiving or tollerant as the Education System is becoming, and there are confidence issues involved too in having to rely on others.  I know, I too have Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. So we look at alternative ways to help Roo to recognise the rules, shapes and patterns that make up language and the writen word.

Mnemonics helps to a degree.  We all remember i before e except after c. Ah I hear you cry,  what about Weird and Weigh. Fear not Mnemonics covers all that too.

i before e except after c and weird is just weird.

i before e except after c or when sounded "A"  ei, as in neighbour and weigh.

These are audio memory mechanisms to help, though not full proof but useful.

The other is to access the idea of shape.  A Dyslexia sufferer finds it difficult to process the recognised form, but if they could feel how the shape is formed it may help, the same for those with Dysgraphia.

We use a large whiteboard,  however wall or lining paper tacked to a wall is equally as good. We firstly draw the big shape in the air and say the letter, S for example, out loud. Then we move to the whiteboard and draw the shape full size, using full body movements, but the childs eyes are closed.  This is termed Blind Writing. We are encouraging the child to feel and hear how the letter is formed. We then reduce the letter size as the child becomes more confident and finally, done with the eyes open.  As Roo progresses and becomes more confident with the alphabet, we move on to vowels, and sound blends etc. This system worked for me and gave me a whole new lease of life, it may not work for all though, so many approaches are best.

We now come to reading and the dreaded book. School/ Home readers no matter the content still tend to be rather stifling and boring, especially those designed for the Dyslexic. They also seem to still be written on white background with black type,ugh.  So on further nosing around I came across this site  www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/navigate.do ,  you have to download the file to get the list of books, but we have found it a great resource in getting books that fire the imagination and encourage Roo to want to read. The local library has been ever so helpfull in ordering the books if they did not have them. We also ask family and friends to buy particular favourites for Christmas and Birthdays.

We use a lot of story book tapes and CDs to encourage and fire the imagination and allow Roo to familiurise herself with the story before reading it in some cases.  We restrict her structured reading to just five minutes a day reguardless of how much content has been covered. We do this because it is very,very tiring for a Dyslexic to read after a full day at school.  Watch a young Dyslexic read, they will start to fidgit and yawn very quickly, the brain has gone into hyper overload and is tiring.  A Dyslexic reader has to work three times as hard as a normal reader to understand and form the written word.  If a childs brain is exhausted they will learn nothing of any value.  The school also now recognise this, and restrict the time and style of reading. Quality not Quantity is the mantra.

Sequencing is also an issue.  Problems with sequential memory in many people with Dyslexia is a profound problem, if unrecognised.  For instance, you go to the shop for eggs, bread and milk.  Fine, three things, easy to remember.  Now we get to the shop and pick up eggs, bread but what the heck was the other thing!  It wont come to you no matter how much you try.  We have all done it on occasion especially if we are tired, all sleep deprived Parents recognise this and empathise I am sure.

A person with unrecognised sequential memory problems will suffer this every day, day in and day out.  They will be given a time for an appointment,  but if not written down straight away it can be gone forever.  If something distracts their sequencing memory, then the info is lost and they have to phone yet again for the appointment time.  Excentric is the term used when I do this, and at age 44yrs it has not reduced.  For some people though excentric is not the term banded about, it is "Stupid" or "Thick" or "Dumb".  Imagine having that stigma, yet you know in your heart that you are as bright and clever as the next and certainly more so than the ignorant folks branding you.  Some people have Audio Sequential issues and some have Visual Sequential issues. For those with an Audio Problem writting the information down is the coping stategy, for  Dyslexics like Roo and I who have Visual Sequential problems  we need to say it out loud and some times more than once,LOL. In my work enviroment that is considered excentric, thankfully : )

To aid a child with visual or audio sequencing issues we have to help the sequencial memory and train it to work more effectively. For "Normal" children this happens part naturally and partly through education so they go on to remeber the basic rules of language that allows them to read and write in a specific order.  They may not know the rules academically to say out loud but they recognise the sequence and remeber it. For instance "her" is alway spelt "her". For a Visual Sequencial memory sufferer "her" could be spelt "Hir", "Hur", "Her" or "Hr" at any given moment because the sequential memory forgot the rule. To help the brain to access and strengthen its sequencial memory, we play simple every day sequencing games, but more often than others would.

Sequential Memory Games can be boring for young dyslexic children and they dont always get why they have to do it, understandably.  This was my one concesion to the sweets as a treat rule,  I used mini M&Ms : (  but what works, works.  I would make a sequence red, yellow.  Roo would look at it,  I would remove the sweets to a bigger pile and she would have to pull out and say the two correct colours.

As Roo got older we moved on to lego,  then match cards and so on.  The sweets changed to stickers and eventually as now just because she values and understands the reasons why.  We also reduced the saying out loud gradually,  untill she could pick out the sequence in silence. Now Roo is 8yrs 4months and can sequence five colours more often than not,  an average learner should find a sequence of 7 easy and reach that level within days of practice,  yet for Roo it has taken 3 years to get this far and that is a sound acheivment in my book.  At the age of 20yrs my sequential memory was 3 in colours in a row, 24yrs on with a lot of practice which I have to keep up to, I also can do five, LOL.

Finally I get to the computer as an aid and learning tool. There are many programmes out there that aid Dyslexic and Visual Learners in their learning, many used by proffessional Dyslexic Tutors and Teachers. www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk/store/c-33-learning-software.aspx .

We are lucky to have access to Word Shark, Number Shark and the Mystery of the Lost letters.  However these are expensive as the cost mounts up. One could as we did, ask family and friends to give a little money at Christmas and Birthday to put towards these.  There are however a number of learning sites that do gear their educational games etc towards the visual learner.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/literacy.shtml

www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm

www.educationcity.com/

We also used a childrens touch typing programme to aid Roo in her use of the computer, the school also uses the computer to allow Roo to access some of her learning modules.

Children who are Dyslexic are not hindered in life as long as the support and strategies they need are forth coming.  The one and I think the biggest problem is confidence.   All Dyslexic children have the same chance and abilities as other children to succeed, but constantly hearing  degrading remarks hurts, "Hurry up", "Stop Daydreaming", " Your not concentrating",  "Little Johnny is not working to his ability",  "Young Janet is down right Lazy",  " A monkey could average a higher score, what were you doing all that time",  "You had more than enough time to complete your essay".  It all builds up and kids get to feeling why bother! "I know I can do it if I had the time, support, peace, but they dont care, so why should I. They think I am useless anyway".

Well a word of encouragement from my own experience. Of the last Twenty Two Phd hopefulls to walk through the departments doors, Sixteen of them were Dyslexic to one degree or another.  Four were Mature Students who fought hard without help to get there and found relief that their gift of Dyselexia was welcomed and supported, not frowned upon.  University will go out of their way like no other educational media to help and support the Dyslexic.  Why? because the mind of those with Autistic Spectrum Issues has brought many a Philosophy, Science and Arts theory into the realms of reality.  The mind of those with these issues has for some reason the ability to think outside the box.  Whether a child wants to persue an academic, tecnical, service or practical career, in this day and age they should not in any way be hindered in their dream.

We as Parents have the tools and access to information to aid us like no other generation gone before.  I encourage all Parents to get in and get involved.  Sometimes the teacher is just as much in need of your input and help, for they don't always have access to the tools, the knowledge or the time to work out what our individual children really need.

I hope I did not waffle too much, and hope that this insight may help someone who may be struggling to work out what to do, now that their child has been recognised as a Visual Learner.

Best wishes and good luck. Luv Winnie.xxxx