Louise Ward, Director

Canadian Dyslexia Centre

290 Picton ave., Ottawa, ON K1Z 8P8

613-722-2699

dyslexiaassociation@ottawa.com

Dyslexia-Friendly Workplace

‘’Equality of opportunity is an equal opportunity to prove unequal talents’’. Viscount Samuel

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia results from a different brain

organization, which may cause a problem with

reading, writing, spelling and/or speaking,

despite average or superior intelligence,

traditional reading instruction and socio-cultural

opportunity. It is genetically inherited and its

cause is biological.

Dyslexic versus Control

Control Example

Left Anterior

Dyslexic Example

Left Anterior

Causes of Dyslexia

Dyslexia is genetically

inherited, and its cause

is biological.

Causes of Dyslexia

The brain of a

persons with

dyslexia works

five times harder

than other

peoples’ brains.

Causes of Dyslexia

Dyslexia can cause “letters and words appear to move around, jump over each other, blur and reverse themselves”.

Talents of Dyslexics

Often, a person with dyslexia will also have special abilities and talents associated with superior visual-spatial skills.

These abilities, contrasted with deficits in basic skills, make dyslexia confusing for employers.

"Dyslexics are overrepresented in the top ranks of

people who are unusually insightful, who bring a new

perspective, who think out of the box,"

Sally Shaywitz, Yale

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\FORTUNE - Overcoming Dyslexia.htm

Talents

Albert Einstein•Great intuition;•Adapt easily to changes; •Sees patterns quickly; •Thinks and perceive in 3-D; •A lively imagination; •Creative; •Sees the big picture instantly; •Usually very ambitious and persistent; •Superior reasoning;•Does not follow the crowd.

Famous People Bill Gates

“Often you have to rely on intuition”

Famous People William Butler Yeats

Willie was sent to lessons in spelling and grammar, but he never learned to spell. To the end of his life he produced highly idiosyncratic versions of words.-

Biographer A. Norman Jeffares  

Famous People Albert Einstein

He told me that his teachers reported that . . . he was mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.-

Hans Albert Einstein, on his father,

 

Famous People Agatha Christie

I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the "slow one" in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.-

 

Famous People Thomas Edison

My teachers say I'm addled . . . my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce. 

 

Reading

Slow rate of reading

Blurring and distortion of words

Th is co ourse wil lst riv etoeq pst ud ent swi the bas ic crit ical t hin kingan d es sa ywri thig sk il ls.

Misreading of words which are visually similar:

Misreading multisyllabic words: philosophical, inheritance,

interference

Omitting connecting words: at, is where, who, over, under ect

Reading difficulties:

was-saw, speak-break

Lack of paragraph concept

Inadequate or missing punctuation

Mixing up sounds in multisyllabic words

Reversal of letters and/or numbers

4 5

p b q d

Small print below 12 point font

Poor quality photocopies

On white paper

“While most persons with dyslexia are articulate, some may have speech difficulties”

Expressing ideas clearly when speaking

Not finishing sentences

Finding the right word when speaking

In his mind’s eye he could see the white sheets of paper on

which he had written his sermon. Then suddenly the thing

happened--the terrible thing he had feared. The words

disappeared! In panic he searched his mind only to find it blank

- the rest of the sermon - the works he had tried so hard to

memorize - was gone, gone!

speaking clearly during interviews or oral examinations

speaking on a specific subject within a time limit or interview

- Speaking:

Understanding negative sentences

Which one was not there?

What aspect cannot be inherited?

Spelling

Misspelling visually similar words that are not picked up by a spellchecker:

- importance-impotence, brown-drown- cursing-cruising, erotic-exotic

Numerous erasure and/or cross-outs which make

written work very messy

Mixed up and/or omits letters or words

Spelling

‘It's a…. poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. ‘- Andrew Jackson

May take up to 2000 times or more to remember how to spell a word, compared to the maximum of 14 times needed by a non-dyslexic. Many famous writers never mastered spelling.

Writes the same words differently in the same

passage

- familiar, femilliar, fammilliar, femmeliar

Listening

In a noisy room

Screening out important information

Sensitivity to some sounds, such as: speaker’s phone, hand clapping in a theatre etc

Math

Memorizing multiplication tables

Reversing numbers

Losing place in long division

Reading difficulties may cause problems understanding written problems

Organization Skills

Forgetting appointments

Forgetting work at home or office

Miscalculating time needed for tasks

Getting lost in an unfamiliar building

(sometimes in a familiar building as well)

Getting mixed up between left-right, west-east, up-down

Inability to organize desk

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, just what does an empty desk mean?”

Source Unknown

Note-taking

Inability to read own writing

Taking notes while listening

Writing fast enough to copy from board

Writing

Expressing ideas clearly in writing

Difficulty planning and organizing essays

Immature writing

Poor sentence structure

Common physical problems often seen in dyslexic persons and affecting work environment:

Migraine headache caused by fluorescent lighting, noise or

weather

Extreme stress during testing situations

Feeling of being overwhelmed when a large amount of writing

is required

Motion sickness affecting the ability to use elevators,

escalators, driving, etc.

Sensitivity to perfumes, strong deodorant or chemicals

• Orton-Gillingham based methodology

• Phoneme awareness cat = /k/ /a/ /t/

• Sound-symbol relationship

Language Training

If someone spends 3 months in

language training and then you find out

he/she was dyslexic, then shame on you

‘’I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive. ‘’

John W. Gardner

HELP! HELP!

Dyslexia-Friendly Testing

Extended time Careful with demand speech Know the difference between mispronunciations and

dyslexic mistakes Avoid negative sentences Allow spelling mistakes Allow ‘’fishing’’ for words

Dyslexia-Friendly Workplace

Full-spectrum lighting Chromogens lens/colored overlays Coloured paper Noise-masking Mind-mapping Wordsmith An understanding ‘’Boss’’

‘’To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men’’.

Abraham Lincoln