​Have you ever noticed that some people mix up words when they’re talking? They may mispronounce the word, or say a word that sounds similar to the right one, or they may ummm and aaahhh as they try to remember the word they need.

​This is an issue with word retrieval – having the right word on the tip of your tongue. Sometimes it’s called speed of lexical access – how quickly you can come up with the word you need.

​They use this same approach when looking at words. Some words easily give a mental picture, but many don’t. It’s easier to picture ‘elephant’ than ‘was’, and many people with dyslexia find it easier to read the word ‘elephant’ than the word ‘was’!

​A mother told me about her eight-year-old daughter reading a book and coming to the word ‘jacket’, which she read as ‘warm coat’. This is likely to be because she was picturing the meaning of the word in her mind, and that was more important to her than the actual letters in the word.

As people with dyslexia are often creative and imaginative, they may group information differently in their minds. When asked to find the things that go together out of this group of pictures 

​they may choose boat and feather, because they can both sit on water, but a word-thinker may choose boat, coat and goat, because the words sound alike.

​

​​A teenager was repeating a story she had just heard. As she came to the words ‘station wagon’ she clasped her hands to her cheeks, said “Oh no!” and then said ‘wation stagon’. She then groaned and said “Oh. It’s happened again!”

A mother was chatting to me about her son’s school work. She remarked:

​(Note: Rapid Naming is not a test for dyslexia – it is used as a small part of the process of finding out whether someone has a specific learning difficulty).

​Another thing I’ve noticed in my work as an assessor is that many people with dyslexia have very good listening comprehension – they have no problem understanding what people are saying.
Many find it harder to put their thoughts into words, so their oral expression score may be lower. Of course, it is usually even harder to put their thoughts into writing.                                             

​This problem can lead to frustration, embarrassment and humiliation for the person. They often become very quiet, as it’s easier not to speak much at all. 

Dyslexic people tend to think very quickly. It takes much longer to think with words than it does to think with pictures. As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”!
​
Learning to slow down their thinking helps people to identify their mental pictures more accurately. Learning the meaning of words along with the spelling and writing of them, gives an accurate mental picture of every part of that word. 

 How do you go about getting a diagnosis of dyslexia? There is no one test for dyslexia, because the symptoms of dyslexia vary from person to person. An online test or a screening test will tell you if you have a likelihood of dyslexia, but to get a formal diagnosis of dyslexia in New Zealand you will need to see either an Educational Psychologist or a NZCER registered Level C Assessor.

​It used to be thought that dyslexia could not be diagnosed in children under 8 years of age. Current thinking is that the earlier a child is tested, the sooner they can be helped. Many of the symptoms of dyslexia (slow reading, poor spelling, letter reversals) are common to young children so it can be difficult to determine if the child really does have a learning difficulty, or whether they are just taking a little longer to get a grip on reading and writing. Dyslexia runs in families, so if a parent or relative has had a diagnosis of dyslexia, or if they had similar struggles in school, that is taken into account, too. The methods that help dyslexic children also help other children, so even if the assessor is unable to give a definite diagnosis of dyslexia they can recommend things that will help in the classroom.

Some parents worry that a diagnosis of dyslexia will be labelling their child. However, a child who sees others learning to read and write easily can be quick to give themselves harmful labels, such as ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’. Being diagnosed with dyslexia is usually a tremendous relief to a person, as they realise that they are not stupid, but their brain is wired differently. Even the word diagnosis implies that something is wrong. I prefer to talk about identifying dyslexia.

Yes, having dyslexia may mean that you find reading, spelling or writing difficult. You may take longer than others to process information. You may find it hard to remember names, phone numbers, or a long list of instructions. But when you find and work with your gift of dyslexia you can learn more easily and efficiently. People like Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson, Whoopi Goldberg and Albert Einstein all struggled with reading and writing at school. Many of them didn’t have a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, but the indicators were sure there. The reason that these people were all successful is not despite their dyslexia, but because of it: they used their creative thinking abilities to achieve in their chosen field. A diagnosis of dyslexia is not an excuse for lack of effort, or a reason to give up. As Thomas Edison (another famous dyslexic) said “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Parents may feel obligated to consider medications for their ADHD child, because they are concerned about their lack of academic progress. All parents want their kids to do well at school. Children who have difficulty sitting still or staying on task don’t fit well in the classroom, where the expectation is often that they must sit quietly and work without disturbing others.


Do ADHD medications make a difference? There is some evidence that drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall do help improve attention, focus and self-control. However, this doesn’t always translate into better learning in the classroom, particularly in the long term.*
​

Living with an ADHD child can be very stressful. Exhausted and misunderstood parents can feel guilty about their ADHD child’s behaviour. Observers may put it down to bad parenting or lack of discipline in the home. “Children with ADHD do mostly what ‘normal’ children do, except it is louder, longer, more often and to the extreme.” (L. Timms, 2014)

How does ADHD look in everyday life? Disorganisation, lateness, forgetfulness, fidgeting, inability to follow instructions, boisterousness… all of these and more are familiar to parents of the ADHD child. Parents often find it hard to understand that the child who can’t pay attention for a few seconds when they’re being talked to can sit for hours totally absorbed in a video game. The difficulty is not a lack of attention, but paying too much attention to things in the wider environment. The person with ADHD seems unable to filter out things of lesser importance when they are involved in a task, so the bee buzzing at the window or the siren outside demand their attention as much as the maths problem they are working on, or getting ready for school.


The child with ADHD is a bored, but curious, child – their internal clock is going faster than the world around them, so for them the world seems to be going in slow motion. That makes them feel like they have more time to fill and they develop strategies to do so, like daydreaming or moving from one activity to another.


Is there a way that these energetic, enthusiastic, creative and intelligent individuals can be helped to curb their impulsive and over-active behaviours without taking away the positive aspects of their personality? Is there an effective alternative to medications to help the ADHD child?
The Davis® Attention Mastery Programme enables a person to take control of their behaviour and their learning, without the use of medication.


The programme addresses the underlying components of ADHD – the developmental aspect and the disorientation aspect.


Just as children with ADHD have missed out on important classroom learning, perhaps because they were distracted or daydreaming at the time, they have usually missed out on learning many of life’s important lessons and concepts, too; concepts such as change, consequence, time, sequence, cause/effect, order/disorder can be a mystery to the person with ADHD. Has your ADHD child ever been in trouble at school and you’ve asked “What did you do?” only to be told “I didn’t do anything!” That seems like the truth to a child who has no concept of consequence.
​

The Davis Attention Mastery programme gives people the tools to relax, focus, and adjust their own energy level to suit the task or circumstances and to better fit in to social situations. Instead of relying on drugs to improve self-control, the person learns to take responsibility for their own behaviour.
To be able to take responsibility the person needs to experience the basic concepts of change, consequence, time, etc. From this experience they can develop a new model of behaviour, based on the way the world actually works, rather than their previously incomplete or inaccurate understanding.
In a Davis Attention Mastery programme the ADHD child is involved in active, hands-on learning using real-life experiences to learn the basic concepts and put them into practice.

The success of the programme depends on the motivation of the child to use the techniques and the motivation of the family to support them as they put their new learning into everyday situations. Many children are happy to be free of the side-effects of ADHD medications, and parents enjoy having their child’s personality back again with this drug-free approach. The Davis facilitator guides and supports the family after the programme to help with this.


If you’re looking for help for your ADHD child without medications you can contact me today to find out more.




* From the Wall Street Journal, July 8 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ormjydg

In my job I assess people for learning difficulties and help them overcome the negative effects. Each person is unique, even if they are identified as having the same difficulty.
​

For example, I have seen people with dyslexia who have real difficulty putting their thoughts into words when speaking: sometimes they can’t think of the right word, and sometimes they use a word that is nearly the same. Then there are others who are very articulate and can speak fluently and at length about their ideas, but can’t write them down.

I have also seen dyslexics who are great at maths; although words are a problem, they just love the patterns and problem-solving that are such a big part of maths. Then there are others who have the same problems with numbers as they have with words. They may have a deep maths anxiety that is just as limiting as their anxiety about reading or writing.
​

In my job I help people to understand their difficulties, but also point out their strengths. There are lots of little “lightbulb moments” when people realise why some things have been so hard for them, and other things have been easy. This is often a time when parents gain insights into their child’s way of thinking. So often there are struggles and tensions between parent and child, particularly over things like homework, forgotten instructions and lack of concentration.

​If a person is identified as having a learning difficulty such as dyslexia they have several options for getting help: New Zealand school teachers are gradually learning better teaching techniques to help dyslexic students - you can ask your child’s teacher about this. Schools also have access to specialist teachers who can help in the area of literacy and learning and behaviour (RT:Lit, RTLB). Out of school tuition is an option for those who live close to a provider. Check that the programme offered is making a difference for your child after a few weeks – it may be doing more of what already hasn’t worked.