My Dyslexia Turns Words into Sounds

Being Dyslexic means different things to different people. It affects us differently. It gives us different challenges when dealing with the spoken world in which we are immersed. One of the hardest aspects of my dyslexia is how my brain interprets words. While most people breeze through the seemingly easy task of understanding what somebody else is saying, for me it has always been more difficult.

Think for a minute about how you register a smell. When your nose detects a smell, your nerves transmit this information to your brain. Your brain then determines what this smelt is – whether it be a rose, a perfume, or chick tikka masala. We all learn smells over time and most of us can recall them with ease.

Now compare what happens when somebody is talking to you. Your ears detect the pressure waves created by their speech, these get carried to your brain, and your brain converts these first into individual words and then into full sentences. Simple – you learnt how to do this when you were a young child. It’s so ingrained that you probably haven’t even thought about it before.

Listening to people is Child’s play – isn’t it?

Finally, imagine that instead of your brain correctly translating those pressure waves into words, it sometimes converts them into sounds only. Sounds without any context or meaning. Almost as if they had come from a musical instrument – not a person. If your brain was doing that to you, how would you begin to understand what somebody else was saying?

That is my life, my everyday experience. At some point of every day, my brain will present me with sound only – the words are missing.

Despite this, I can now speak three languages

If you’ve ever listened to somebody speaking a foreign language then you know what I’m describing. Their words hold no meaning for you. It is in turning these sounds into known, distinguishable words that we learn a new language. It is what happens when a child first learns to speak.

In my functioning dyslexic brain, I have these gaps in conversations. It can happen at any time, and with any words. If you were to hear the following sentence, would you know what the other person had said?

     ?          ?            ?        the oven off

It could have been any of the following:

• Have you switched the oven off?
• Can you switch the oven off?
• I have switched the oven off

I have to ask the person to repeat themselves, but often as I do I feel my brain working. It is already circling back to fill in the blanks – converting the sounds into words. How does it do that? It de-constructs the sounds and puts them back together as words, using any clues that it picked on the way, and asking the visual side of my brain to help. This really is a collaborative and creative process.

     ?            ?            ?       the oven off

Taking the sentence above, this is how the process goes:

Step 1: I start “seeing” and “feeling” the letters forming in my mind – as if they were being written down on a piece of paper one my one

Step 2: As these letters appear I can start to piece them back together into words. If the word is an object, such as car, then I often “see” this object first in my head before I can grasp the word

Clue: The sentence ended as a question

Step 3: Finally I rebuild the sentence with the words that I have recreated and the clues that I picked up

Result: “Have you switched the oven off?”

It takes longer to reconstruct a sentence than it does just to listen to it. This could, therefore, disrupt the natural flow of a conversation. While I cannot prevent my brain from mis-interpreting words into sounds, what I do control is how people feel towards me when it happens. Over the years I have spent time developing and improving my ability to keep a conversation moving when it does happen.

Most of us have some quirk that we have no control over. For me it makes no sense battling against it if it turns out to be un-fixable. It makes much more sense to analyse the impact it has and then develop techniques to minimise this impact.

The best way is to know yourself well and find your own method. Build on your uniqueness.

Don’t Worry, You’ll Grow Out of Dyslexia

Being dyslexic as a child was a pain, to put it politely. Not only was there the difficultly with reading, writing, and spelling, but there was also difficultly with:

• remembering,
• concentrating,
• speaking,
• hearing,
• handwriting

Basically, all those little niceties in life that make growing up and attending school easier. But this post isn’t about those, it’s about other people’s attitudes and how this came out in what they said to me. One of the phrases that springs to mind right now is: “Don’t worry, you’ll grow out of it.”

Don’t worry, I’ll grow out of dyslexia? I’ll grow out of dyslexia? What?! Let’s think about this for a moment! As Dyslexia is a result of having a brain that functions differently from others, growing out of it either means that my brain function will change fundamentally as I age, or I’d get a new brain. Neither of those were likely to happen.

Nor did they.

So I haven’t grown out of it!

So does that mean my life is over as I haven’t grown out of it?

Thinking about it, why would I want to grow out of it? It is our brains that make us who we are. It is our experiences that make us who we are. It is our struggles, our successes, and our failures who make us who we are. Without my dyslexic brain I wouldn’t be me. I might not have built up the grit, determination, persevere that I have now. I wouldn’t have built my own unique combination of skills that I have now. I wouldn’t be where I am now.

“DON’T worry, you’ll grow out of it”

This phrase bothers me. Not because of any effect that it has had on me. But for the effect that it could have on any children currently going through similar struggles that I did as a child. It implies that there are only negatives consequences with being dyslexic. It implies that you can’t make it as a dyslexic. It implies that if you just wait long enough things will change. It implies that you are a victim. This could rob them of the most important lesson that I learnt: “If I want to see a change in myself, I have to work on it starting today”. I can make a difference to my own life.

That attitude is empowering
Waiting to grow out of something is not
“Don’t worry, you’ll grow out of it.” I’ve got many thoughts on this phrase, but I’ll never come up with a better response than one I heard yesterday. I was watching a video from the BBC and this was how one person answered that statement:

“Grow out of Dyslexia? I’ve grown into it.”

Instantly I understood what he meant. What dyslexics learn much earlier than some people is that we have to learn how we work. We have to learn how we excel. We have to learn what we are passionate about. We cannot compete with the world on its terms, so we have to change the rules of engagement to suit or own unique talents.

I certainly grew into my dyslexia, but I guess I was 26 before this happened. Up until then I was learning how to cope with it. The question on my mind now is how to talk to dyslexic children so that they aren’t put off like I was. To me the answer is simple: I have first hand experience so I can just tell the truth and speak from my heart.

Whoever you are, you have your own unique strengths and weaknesses. Embrace yourself, accept yourself for who you really are and start building on your strengths. Don’t tear yourself apart because of your weaknesses.

Below I’ve included the link to the clip I watched:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/01443782-3e2d-46d0-a429-2b58adb3056a

Life Changing Moment for Dyslexic Child

My life was changed by a chance discussion in 1985 when I was 10. Up until this point I thought I was stupid. My teachers were telling my parents that I was stupid. I thought that I wasn’t very good at school and it was beginning to become a problem. In more honesty, I didn’t know what I was and it was very confusing. I appeared to be intelligent when we had discussions in class, but as soon as it came to writing anything down I failed at it. Horribly.

Story writing at school was terrible, in the time the other children took to write the required page I struggled to write a third of it. I was getting more and more frustrated at school and my school in Birmingham was not doing anything to help. This was back in the 1980s and teachers just didn’t have the time/ability/knowledge/resources to do anything to help children like me. I was beginning to slip through the net – to descend down into who knows what? In a little over a years time I was to move up to Secondary School. My brother already attended a Secondary School in our area and I’d heard the stories. To do well you had to push yourself against the general apathy of the other pupils. If you didn’t have the drive to learn you weren’t going to find it at the school.

I was going to be in trouble and my life was going to go nowhere
(remember I was only 10 years old at this point)

How I saw where my life was headed

Let me fast forward 30 years for a minute. How has my life turned out so far? After graduating from university having studied mechanical engineering I have worked with multi-national companies around the world. I am currently living in my fifth country and enjoying a fast paced and continually changing working environment.

This couldn’t be more different than the future I envisioned as that 10 year old boy.

What happened? What was that discussion that my parents had when I was 10? How did it change my life so dramatically? Let me tell you the story…

The Conversation That Changed my Life

My parents were worried about me. They could see my spark of curiosity, my interest in the world around me. But they could also see that I wasn’t able to do anything at school and they couldn’t understand why. During a discussion about my issues at school they’d been told that I was just stupid.

Luckily for me, they didn’t buy this explanation. Either through parental love or through something that they recognised in me they thought there must be something wrong. But they had no idea what. This was before the internet, before you could ask google or Siri what the problem might be.

So here it was that they found themselves talking to their friends about my situation. Suddenly a lady came over and started talking to them. She said that it sounded like I was dyslexic. She was a teacher who had retired early from the profession so that she could spend more time teaching dyslexic children. She gave them the coping skills they needed to succeed.

Through Margot’s teaching, and being tested by a British pioneer in the field: Dr Margaret Newton I was indeed identified to be Dyslexic. This had an incredible effect on me:

• Suddenly I knew why I was having trouble at school,
• Suddenly I knew that I wasn’t stupid,
• Suddenly my life began to have more purpose.
• Suddenly I had something to fight against!

So what did the headmistress say to my parents when they approached her about my dyslexia?

It’s a middle class disease – a way to appease parents with stupid children that there is something medically wrong with them. It doesn’t exist!
(Word’s of my Primary School Headmistress)

Hmm, so I wasn’t going to get any help from there!

Remember, this was my school that had a duty to help me learn

Luckily for me my parents persevered – they gave me learning opportunities and special tutoring after school out of their own pocket. Margot Lewis gave me private lessons every Wednesday until I went to Secondary School.

I can still remember sitting in the front seat of our family car beside my mother. At times cold until the car’s engine warmed up enough to blow warm air into the cabin. At other times having bright autumn or spring sunlight shining directly in my eyes – unable to block it out as I was too short for the car’s sun visor.

Now that I knew I had a problem I had the desire to do something about it.

Those trips made all the difference to my life. Within a few short months I took and passed an entrance exam to a Secondary School on the other side of the city. Here I found myself surrounded by children who wanted to learn. I developed a healthy rivalry with a number of children in my class – all of us striving to be the best.

I had all this potential and it was about to go to waste. It was about to be flushed down the toilet of an education system that was not geared up to help children like me. I was, however, one of the lucky ones. I was able to achieve despite the education system, not because of it. What about all those other children who had the same amount of potential as me but theirs has gone to waste? How did their lives turn out?

If anybody ever wonders why I see the best in every child. Why I will never write any child off. Why I want to give all children the opportunity to find their niche– this is why.

If every children now has the opportunity to reach their full potential then I would be happy. I’d be happy that we now have education systems that can look past the “default child” and see the individual. But we don’t have that system, and not all children reach their full potential.

Had I not had parents who believed in me, and the luck to meet a teacher who understood my condition, then who knows where I would be right now?

If you find yourself, or your child, in the same position – Never Ever Give Up – fight for a brighter future.

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I include some resources below that I hope you will find encouraging:

“Made By Dyslexia” Organisation

The British Dyslexia Association

 

Believe in Yourself

This week I commented on a blog post written by one of my heroes. Hero might be too strong a word, but I’ve certainly looked up to him since I was about 10 years old. He is a real adventurer, and to a 10 years old adventurers are heroes. What makes this adventurer even more interesting is that he is a successful entrepreneur. He and I are both Dyslexic and we are proud that we are.

The adventures that thrust him into my conscientiousness were:

• Attempted to set the record for crossing the Atlantic by boat (his first attempt ended with the boat sinking),
• Setting a record for crossing the Atlantic in a hot air balloon. This journey ended with both pilots jumping from the balloon and being scooped up out of the Atlantic by the Royal Navy

This was all high drama stuff – very exciting for a 10 year old!

I am talking about Sir Richard Branson – he is a man that I’ve always wanted to meet. His name has been on my dream dinner party guest list for as long as I can remember. As I said, he is Dyslexic and proud of it. I think it is fair to say that his dyslexia made him into the entrepreneur he is.

He writes extensively about many topics. Today I came across a post he wrote entitled: “How Much do you Know about Dyslexia”. I like what he writes and as I believe I know quite a lot about dyslexia I thought I’d set about reading it. Here is a short excerpt from his post:

How much do you know about dyslexia? If I told you that many of history’s most dynamic achievers were dyslexics would you believe me?

Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell – each of these game-changers were dyslexics. In fact, 40 per cent of the world’s self-made millionaires have dyslexia. Still think of it as a disadvantage? (Sir Richard Branson)

I’ve almost commented on a post by Sir Richard before – this time I did. It was a long comment, a novel almost – or at least blog length. I will include my comment in its entirety at the end of this post. Here, however, is a short excerpt from it:

I taught myself coping strategies that were essential for me to succeed.

I still use these coping strategies after almost 20 years in industry. These days, however, people value these as an incredible skill that I have. The ability to take complex information and present it to people in diagrammatic form – pictures. (David Veitch 😉 )

It doesn’t matter who you are or how you have been written off in the past. Everybody can achieve amazing things if they just know how. Find your strengths, find your passion, develop coping mechanisms – maybe one of these with become a strength.

Whatever you do, believe in yourself and never give up.

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I wrote a post about finding my strengths within my weakness – you will find it here

For articles about these daredevil exploits, use the links below:

• Boat Atlantic record attempt (BBC)
• Balloon Atlantic crossing (Belfast Telegraph)

Link to Sir Richard’s blog post: How much do you know about Dyslexia

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Here is my comment to the post in full:

I found out that I was dyslexic when I was 10. This was a light bulb moment for me: “so I’m not stupid!”

School was hard work, as was university. Everything took me longer but I was determined not to be held back. At least I knew there was a real reason why it was harder for me.

The further I moved through the British education system, the better I coped with my dyslexia, but the less creative I became (I didn’t realise this until afterwards).

I taught myself coping strategies that were essential for me to succeed.

I still use these coping strategies after almost 20 years in industry. These days, however, people value these as an incredible skill that I have. The ability to take complex information and present it to people in diagrammatic form – pictures.

These days my creativity has returned. I do photography, I draw, and I write a blog. Sometimes about my expat life, sometimes about personal development, and sometimes about creativity.

Due to my school experience I feel passionately that schooling systems can let children down.

I wish it could be easier for dyslexic children – they deserve the right to know that they can be successful. But then it is not only dyslexic children that are let down by schools.

Dyslexia doesn’t define me, but it is always a part of me. It made me who I am today – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Working smarter rather than harder is something that I have tried to do for as long as I can remember. It all started at university where I had to develop my own way of learning. Up until then I’d had an education system that had told me how to learn – and the rules were clear. Now I was on my own and I was not going to let my dyslexia disadvantage me.

I realised very early on with my dyslexia that I could not compete on other people’s terms. I could not read or write as fast as them – so I had to find a way to change the rules of engagement. I had to find my own way to be successful. There were simply not enough hours in the day for me to keep up. I didn’t want to just survive university – I wanted to thrive at it and be successful. I also wanted to have time to enjoy myself. It was at university that I got my first opportunity to live overseas, and this wouldn’t have been possible if I’d been an average student.

From a young age I knew I was different. As a child I did not like this – children have a strong need to just fit in and those who don’t get teased. But being different gave me an opportunity to be myself, to find myself. I had artistic licence to create myself how I wanted to. I didn’t have to fit into any societal norms.

Being different has given me the opportunity to be myself – I have not had to fit in

My life since then has only increased this. By the age of 41 I have lived outside of my country of birth for 12 years. I have spent a significant amount of time in five additional countries. In each of these I was, and am, different. I cannot fit in, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I do not share the collective history with the country.

So I have a long personal history of getting the best out of myself. I do a lot of research to make my job easier. A lot of it is related to learning, and there are three reasons why I do this:

1. I want to be able to learn new topics as quickly as possible – I am always learning something new,
2. I want to be able to help my children learn as quickly as they can,
3. I want to make my job easier. If I can educate my customers more quickly, then we can work together much more effectively to get a better result for them

So I’ve always tried to work smarter rather than harder. But I have had times when this has not been possible and I’ve just had to work harder. Every time that I’ve had to do this I’ve seen my productivity drop. I’ve watched the quality of my work reduce. I’ve asked myself if anybody would want me to work this way if they knew their returns were diminishing. The overall results have not been good in the long run.

Culturally, this is something that Japan is currently trying to get its head around. It has a falling workforce so is trying to work out how you get more work done with less people? My experience here has told me this: if I were to work as the Japanese already do then my productivity would plummet. There have been times over the last 18 months when I have worked as my Japanese colleagues do – and I’ve felt myself getting slower. My thinking, my idea generation, my decision making processes. So what was the benefit for myself, for my company, or for my customer when I worked longer hours? There was no benefit – only cost.

I want to leave you with a link to a video of a cyclist finding a completely unique way to ride his bike. While I’m not sure how authentic this video is it’s a bit of fun and makes you think about the harder/smarter equation!

https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/videos/780808775425141/

If you can’t get the above link to work, the one below shows something similar, so I guess it’s not unique, but it is authentic:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3763381/Cyclist-Michael-Guerra-performs-Superman-trick-carry-daring-overtake-rivals-racing-road.html

Being different, finding your own way, can be a little lonely at times. But at least you can say that you are living by your own rules.

Finding Strength in Weakness

I have dyslexia and all through school I found this a challenge. I was ten when I found out which, back in 1980s Britain, was quite early. Before then I thought I was stupid, so the diagnosis was a huge relief. It was also the kick start I needed, now that I knew why I was different I could start learning how to deal with it.

Fast forward 30 years and I am successful in my career. I have turned, what was once a disadvantage, into an advantage. I am a slow writer – so I have taught myself how to be concise. In business I have found that this is a useful skill. I am a slow reader – so I do not want to have to read something twice. I have perfected how to understand and consume information, and convert it into something that doesn’t require as much reading. Lately I have begun taking pictoral notes (this will be the subject of a subsequent post).

Being dyslexic has given me:

• the determination to succeed,
• the willingness to accept that I will make mistakes,
• the desire for constant improvement – I will not accept that my abilities are limited to those that I have today
• the openness to search for new, quicker ways of learning

I research as much as I can, I read books about learning, teaching, mindfulness, personal development – if I can find any technique that makes me even a little bit quicker then I will use it. A byproduct of all this is that it has increased my skill as an educator – which makes me more successful in my career.

I would like to end this post by returning to those pictorial notes that I briefly introduced earlier. I use them all the time in discussions with colleagues and customers and they are very much appreciated. The concepts that I deal with on a daily basis are complex and can often not be described by abstract words alone. Converting them into graphics turns out to be a useful skill.

Dyslexia is part of who I am, a part that gives me more strengths than weaknesses, and I would not be without it.