A Photovoice Study of a Family's Struggle with Dyslexia

7/27/2019 A Photovoice Study of a Family's Struggle with Dyslexia

1/15

RUNNINGHEAD:PhotovoiceDyslexiaandOppression

1

A Photovoice Look at

Dyslexia and Oppression

Quinn McMurtry

Northern Kentucky University


2/15


2

Introduction

Dyslexia. The word is something that we all familiar with, but truly do not

comprehend. Typically people understand dyslexia as a learning disability that

affects a persons ability to read and spell. While this is true, people fail to fully

understand the emotional toll it takes on those affected by the disability.

For me dyslexia is personal. As a child, I suffered in silence with dyslexia.

At times I would imitate fluent reading by creating imaginary sentences.

Eventually the reading disability started to wear away at my self-confidence.

Soon I could no longer hide behind my personality and my grades and test

scores began to reveal my struggles. It was not until college that I realized that I

had something called dyslexia. But by then a lot of psychological damage had

been done. Although, I realized that through hard work and techniques, I could

compensate for my disability. It would take years to understand how my life and

career choices were and would be affected by the emotional damage inflicted by

dyslexia.

Until recently, I assumed that my battles with dyslexia were over. As a

father of four kids, I had other problems to solve and other issues at hand.

However, this was not to be. Recently, my son was diagnosed with dyslexia.

For years, my wife and I have struggled with our sons erratic emotional behavior

and more recently his struggles to learn to read. Unable to connect the dots of a

definitive diagnosis, we have enlisted the help of experts at Childrens Hospital in


3/15


3

Cincinnati, his pediatrician, a child psychologist, days of cognitive testing and

finally a childrens ophthalmologist was able to definitively determine dyslexia.

Through sheer will alone, my wife, my parents and I have tutored our son

to help him maintain a reading level that allows him to test at a low average

level. Testing at a low-level average is in the best sense of the phrase a double-

edge sword, because school districts will not intervene with IEP (individual

education plan) when a child is still testing within the average. For the school

district, our sons testing scores proves that they are doing their educational work

and no extra intervention is needed. However, as with all intrinsically flawed

bureaucracies, these institutions cannot see the individuality of the struggling

student, nor take into consideration the efforts made by the struggling students

parents and friends to compensate for the struggling childs disability.

According author Sally Shaywitz (2003) states that {t}he condition

(dyslexia) often is undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. It's inadequately treated much

of the time and is associated with increasing anxiety and depression as people

who have it grapple with their unexpected difficulty in reading (p.5). Although

dyslexia is a reading disability, the true devastation is the emotional toll dyslexia

takes on both the individual and the family. In our family's situation, when we

approached our childs school with his dyslexia and voiced our concerns to the

administration, the administration immediately pulled out his test scores.

According to their assessment, Kiernan's scores indicate that he doesnt seem

to have any issues or problems. If youd like, we can try him with some colored


4/15


4

jell overlays and see if that helps, the principle said. But right now his scores

are fine. In one quantitative assessment, our sons disability and our struggles

keep him at grade-level were marginalized and our voice and his voice

diminished. Our emotional struggle and pain to help, tutor and maintain his level

of learning was dismissed as if our struggles did not really exist.

Although this response is most likely typical for school administrators, it

highlights the fact that educational systems fail to properly assess the

psychological struggles that children and families with dyslexia face. In an effort

to give a voice to a marginalized group - dyslexics - I have documented with

photographs, one night of supplemental reading, writing and arithmetic work that

is practiced nightly with my son. Our hope is that with extra efforts, we can help

our son maintain a level that will not only allow him to read at grade level, but to

avoid the psychological distresses related to a childs emotional well being while

overcoming dyslexia.

My goal is to visual represent the effort involved and emotional strain

associated with a child that has dyslexia.

Methods

For this study, I have opted to use a critical ethnographic research method

called photovoice. Typically photovoice is a participatory research

methodology that allows individuals to reflect upon the strengths and concerns of


5/15


5

their community or give voice to a marginalized group using photographic

documentation (Wang & Burris, 1997).

By photographically capturing the needs of relegated groups and

individuals, photovoice can direct the focus of research and lend an emotional

power and relevancy to specific problems or concerns. Furthermore, according

to Lindlof & Taylor (2002), humans visual memory is limited and visual capturing

of imagery allows for a high-fidelity of an event (p.115). In other words, a

picture can speak a thousand words.

As previously mentioned, dyslexia not only affects the afflicted, the

emotional toll affects those who love and participate with someone with dyslexia,

therefore my wife and I, as parents of a dyslexic child, are suffer with the

emotional effects associated with dyslexia. Subsequently, I will argue that as

parents associated with dyslexia, we are institutionally marginalized. It is with this

marginalized perspective, I photographic my wife, helping our child, through one

nightly session of Kumon Math and Reading Kumon is the supplemental

instruction, we pay for to help our son maintain grade level math and reading. To

date the school has offered no assistance.

Depending on our sons emotional state, the additional math and ready

can take an additional hour to complete not to mention the emotional distress

and difficulties associated with a 7-year-old struggling to learn reading and math.

The photovoice methodology gained relevance during the early 1990s in

Washington DC, when activist used a form of participatory photographic research


6/15


6

to highlight the extreme realities of homelessness and child poverty (Wang et. al,

2000). In brief, the photovoice methodology involves the following. Researchers

give marginalized individuals cameras, basic photographic instruction and then

task these individuals with the mission of documenting certain aspects or

generalities of their own lives. Ranging from a sequence of images, to a daily

diary of photos highlighting a social phenomenon or condition voice or

representation is given to the research participant (Wang et. al, 2000).

Typically, empirical research would gather data by observer observation.

However, photovoice allows the participant to gather data on his or her reality

without the potentially damaging variable observer bias. Departing from

empirical model of observer participant, photovoice is deemed to be very

accurate methodology and a vital research tool for marginalized groups and

communities (Wang & Burris, 1997). Instead of a researcher stating what

ethnographically is occurring, the researcher now gives voice to the participant by

empowering the participant to document what he or she sees or views as

relevant, thereby giving voice to the marginalized.

On April 2, 2013, I personally photographed my wife tutoring our son

Kiernan while completing his Kumon reading and math homework. This work

(Kumon) is in addition to his regular schoolwork. Kumon consists of math and

reading repetition drills and has proven to be an effective practice to help our

child maintain or exceed grade level reading.

Interpretive Results


7/15


7

Although in the past, I have documented a variety of emotional incidences

involving Kiernan's temper tantrums. Furthermore, I have also videotaped

episodes of Kiernan defiantly proclaiming his low self-esteem regarding his level

of intelligence with phrases such the following:

I am stupid.

I hate myself.

Even the kid, who doesnt speak English, reads better than me.

Everyone else is smarter than me.

However for this study, my goal was to capture the emotion time where Kiernan,

his mother and myself are often most frustrated and weary from the constant

stress and uncertainty of dyslexia and the emotional troubles associated with it.


8/15


8

Photo #1 Kiernan working on his Kumon math with abacus in the

foreground.

Photo #1 was midway through the additional homework period. In the

forefront is an abacus. We have used the abacus during the early stages of

conceptualizing numbers. Furthermore, the visual and tangible nature of an

abacus allows Kiernan to conceive of numbers differently.

Photo #2 Kiernan's transition from math to reading.

Photo #2 depicts the transition to reading. Also, the photo indicates

Kiernans increasing lethargy as we try to complete his assignments.


9/15


9

Photo #3 Kiernan's mother becomes visibly frustrated.

Photo #3 demonstrates my wifes frustration. Her eyes are closed in an

attempt to mask her emotional frustration.

Photo #4 Typical letter reversal common with dyslexia.


10/15


10

Photo #4 is an example of dyslexic reversal of letters. Despite repeated

attempts the same reversal of letter and numbers is common for dyslexic kids.

Eventually leading to frustration, apathy or even anger.

Photo #5 common flopping and flipping of numbers.

Photo #5 is an example of dyslexic flopping of numbers. This is the

general conception that most people have of dyslexia.


11/15


11

Photo #6 Kiernan reaffirming shape of a letter.

Photo #6 is Kiernan reaffirming proper shape and direction of either a

letter or number. This process reaffirmation is continuous and only recently has

Kiernan developed, what we consider a positive attitude towards the frequent re-

affirming of the shape and direction of either letters or numbers.

Photo #7 is an image of Kiernan delaying rewriting a word.


12/15


12

Research has shown that dyslexics often withdraw from learning.

According to Alexander-Passe (2006) concludes that a variety of emotions are

experienced by dyslexic children including: frustration, lack of confidence, self-

doubt, sensitive to criticism, behavioural problems, competitiveness disorders,

self-blame, aggressiveness are all descriptions of emotion-based coping

strategies (pg. 258). Furthermore, teachers consistently misinterpret dyslexic

students as being lazy, unmotivated or disruptive; when in reality these behaviors

are based on emotional coping due to the effects of dyslexia (Ryan, 1994).

Conclusion

In retrospect, I failed to truly visually capture the emotional effects

associated with dyslexia. According to Lindlof & Taylor (2002) research

participants often experience a high sense of being watched when cameras are

present and this was the case with Kiernan (p.116). Although Kiernan's

emotional reaction to additional homework has vastly improved, he is fully aware

of the power of documenting his actions via a visual medium. In other words, he

does not like to have visual proof of his bad behavior.

Although the images may be lacking emotion power, I do hope that

eventually more attention will be given to the emotional side effects associated

dyslexia. As standardized testing becomes more pervasive and quantitative

measures continue to replace personalized instruction, individuality is gradually

compromised. In order to mediate the effects of dyslexia, special attention must


13/15


13

be applied to the potential emotional nature of the disability (Alexander-Passe,

2006).

Moreover, because of the increased importance of standardized testing, it

might be warranted to refer to dyslexics as the academically oppressed. Call it

quantitative hegemony or something similar, but what is occurring is basically an

oppressive abyss of pedagogy and standardization.

As a parent of a dyslexic child, I can attest to the fact that less attention is

given to dyslexics than other disabilities, thereby further ignoring one problem, in

favor of another. Linking city, county, state and federal education systems, our

educational culture is becoming more and more centralized. As educational

institutions acquiesce, giving way to more governmental rules and regulations,

school administrators are reluctant to qualitatively assess students with learning

disabilities or special abilities.

Therefore, individuality and creativity become victims of the majority

thereby leading to oppression. Fiore (1970) states education as the exercise of

domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent, often

not perceived by educators, of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of

oppression (p.78). Eventually leading to the erosion of individuality and an

educational system that can only react to learning disabilities through

standardized methodologies and practices. Lost in this process is the emotional

devastation that cannot be quantitatively measured or mediated, leaving millions

of dyslexics oppressed.


14/15


14

It must be noted that other children, unlike Kiernan, do not have the

support of an involved family to mitigate his disability. What happens to the

dyslexic child who's family cannot afford Kumon math or reading or even spend

the time to re-affirm the shaping of letters and numbers? I wonder.


15/15


15

Bibliography

Alexander-Passe, N. (2006). How dyslexic teenagers cope: an investigation of

self-esteem, coping and depression. Dyslexia, 12(4), 256-275.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

Lindlof, T. R. (2002). Qualitative communication research methods. Thousand

Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Ryan, M. (1994). Social and Emotional Problems to Dyslexia. Reading Rockets.

Retrieved April 1, 2013, from www.readingrockets.org/article/19296/

Shaywitz, S. E. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: a new and complete science-based

program for reading problems at any level. New York: A.A. Knopf :.

Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use

for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Educ Behavior, 24, 369-387.

Wang, C., Cash, J., & Powers, L. (2000). Who Knows the Streets as Well as the

Homeless? Promoting Personal and Community Action Through

Photovoice. Health Promotion Practice, 1(1), 81-89.

A Photovoice Study of a Family's Struggle with Dyslexia

Documents

Transcript of A Photovoice Study of a Family's Struggle with Dyslexia