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September 20th, 2009 | 
Author: Hi would like to know your experiences of having dyslexia and studying at the same time. What do you do to overcome difficulties?
Oh my goodness I am dyslexic and currently studying, and due to another medical condition the dyslexia is causing me some real issues, I have to do a lot reading for research assignment.
However these are the things that I am currently using, to help a little.
A list of the most commonly misspelt words
Spelling rules such as I before E except after C (I only learnt this a few years ago).
Homophones is handy too, as it is not unusual to confuse similar sounding words such weather/ whether. (Laminate them and keep a copy on the fridge, and a copy to keep in my folder).
Ask teachers to write each paragraph in different colours, so I can keep track of were I am if copying from the board. (Some teachers were more than happy to do this, other not so).
Class handouts to be on coloured paper, for my daughter and I its a cream or buff colour. I now take coloured paper so my note taker can copy assignments and class notes onto the coloured stuff, which really does help with reading.
For reading text books etc, I use a coloured overlay. When reading I take my time, but at the moment it has been extremely difficult, because after half an hour of reading causes nausea and a mean headache.
I start on assignments as soon as I get it. Most teachers are happy to check on progress if asked. This year I have asked for one extension for an assignment.
I use a computer to do assignments etc, ensuring I use spell check to keep spelling mistakes in check.
Dragon Naturally Speaking is an excellent computer program which does word processing, and uses speech recognition, that allows you to dictate your work. (My daughter used this program and loves it).
Another is Read & Write gold which I am trying to get, for my self, and I can scan in text books etc, and it will read it to me.
When doing tests/exams, ask if I am allowed to take note paper in with me, if its a multi choice test, ask if I can mark the question sheet, this helps by crossing out the incorrect answers. Or ask for a verbal exam is done, or for extra time to complete the exam.
Thankfully my lecture is very supportive, and has granted me an extension for the research assignment. And have only had a few exams, which I passed with very little help.
The link below shows what dyslexics see when trying to read.
Edit;
The coloured overlay comes in different colours, because no person is exactly the same. I know someone who uses a yellow colour which makes me feel sick, but a pink & blue work for me.
This the same for printing out notes etc on coloured paper, I use a cream or a light blue.
I am a preschool teacher in an integrated childcare centre, and I have a child with autism in my class. I have never worked closely with a child with autism before, and he seems to have trouble managing his behaviour. He mainly hits, kicks, and pushes the other children. What strategies can I use to help him learn other methods of expressing his upset with the other children?
I would use a social story with him…..they are simple short stories that help the child learn to self monitor his behavior. I would also try a token system of reinforcement, something that you can show him easily and discreetly to let him know that he is displaying appropriate behavior, keeping hands and feet to self, for a small discreet reward. If he does start to have a tantrum or start to display negative behaviors and can’t calm down try removing him from the situation, and letting him have a small area, "break room" where he can deal with his frustrations. hope this helps, i included links for information on social stories.
http://autism.about.com/od/treatmentoptions/f/socialstorydef.htm
http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/
http://www.autism.org/stories.html
ADHD medications boost Norepinephrine and Dopamine.
Social phobia medications (SSRIs) will make the cyclothymia worse.
Cyclothymia medications are mood stabilizers. Some mood stabilizers are also Dopamine antagonists which should worsen the ADHD.
Any idea what doctors would use for this situation?
Medication for mood stabilization only and therapy.
There are actually politician out there who are concerned about the health of our children, like Sen. Alex Padilla. He is the Chairman of the California Senate’s Select Committee on Obesity and Diabetes. He stated on September 17th that he planned to hold hearings this November on the link between soda consumption and obesity. His announcement last Thursday dovetails with the release of a study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy that indicated that a shocking 62 percent of children aged 12 to 17 drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day. What was even more shocking was that an estimated 41 percent of children aged 2 to 11 consume that amount! Let us meditate upon the consequences of such statistics for the health of our children, now and in the future.
Children with unhealthy diets generally become adults with a lot of health issues. And, excessively overweight children, in days gone by, more often than not remained overweight and became adults with a variety of weight-related diseases. But, this is no longer the case. Experts say that overweight adolescents are starting to suffer problems that used to plague mainly middle-aged adults — early heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
“I don’t think that most parents truly appreciate the role soda pop has in causing weight gain,” Padilla said. “It is unfortunate that soda is actually cheaper than milk and even bottled water in many instances.” Padilla said California needs to do more to educate the public about the health effects of drinking too much soda and to consider its options for reducing soda consumption among children.
Though we may feel that politicians let child-related issue fall between the cracks as they argue and debate often nonsensical topics, let’s encourage those legislators who take an active and meaningful role in helping to tip the scales of health on the side of our children.
For more information, go to reuters.com
Posted in Uncategorized | 
Tags: childhood obesity, early heart disease, overweight adolescents, type 2 diabetes | 
1 Comment »
Did you know that there is currently a real movement in this country to teach children how to meditate? Only a few years ago, it seems, the practice of meditation for children in Michigan schools was actually outlawed! But, our world and our children are becoming progressively more anxious, frustrated, and angry, with little means for resolving these feeling. We, adults, have certainly become poor role models for conflict resolution. We can’t even discuss health care without trying to outshout each other.
The meditation movement for children that is occurring in some schools (again), and other places in many communities, seems a wonderful opportunity to teach our children how to find the peace within themselves that seems to be eluding them in the outer world today, and to learn to deal with their emotions and improve their relationship with peers.
Sarah Wood, the author of Sensational Meditation for Children, who facilitates child meditation, said that teachers who build meditation into lesson plans report their classroom environments being more peaceful and attribute this to their students’ ability to express compassion to each other.
Children who meditate have reduced test anxiety, more positive peer relationships, enhanced anger management skills, and better self-esteem. Medical science has discovered that meditation decreases blood pressure and helps other physical functions in children as well as adults.
There are additional books available on how to teach your child to meditate. Let’s help our children to grow from the inside out!
I am in college. I really struggle to understand a topic from a book. I mainly depend on my teacher’s help. I need 3-4 days to understand something from a book that my friends can understand in 5 minutes. My doctor says that I can’t have dyslexia as people get it at 3-4 years instead of 20. But I am not convinced.
hah hah!
Dyslexia is something your born with; it’s like a special wiring in your brain. Dyslexic is a word to describe difficulties with written language, organization and short term memory, and is usually diagnosed within a childhood – although for me, it took until I was 11 for my school to finally get there act together. You cannot stop and start dyslexia, it’s for life.
I think that maybe you struggle to understand things from a book because you are auditory learner, meaning that you learn best through listening to the teacher.
My brother showed many signs of Autism as a child and my mother neglected us so he never got diagnosed. The school labeled him ADHD but now that I’m an adult I see that his behavior was not ADHD at all. I am pretty convinced he has either Autism or Aspergers. (sp?) This is the first opportunity we’ve had to get him some answers because our biological mother is finally out of the picture. He is 19. If anyone has any help that would be great!
Is he interested in being evaluated? As an adult, this will need to be his choice. Besides that, this is difficult to answer as it wasn’t mentioned whether he has insurance or not. If he does, the first step would be to obtain a list of mental health providers who do evaluations from the insurance company. If he has managed care, you’d need a referral from his primary care physician.
If he does not have insurance, you’ll need to do some research on mental health clinics in the area. He’s still under 21, so if you can locate something like a Child Development Clinic, they would be able to evaluate and diagnose. Some avenues to look into for a clinic would be local hospitals and universities. Googling is also a great resource. Just google your city/state and autism diagnosis, treatment, etc. Just know that without insurance, these evaluations can be expensive.
good luck!
We have a nine year old daughter that is severely ADHD. She is on two kinds of medicine- morning and evening. She started her meds a few weeks ago. What are some of the ways you deal with the problems that happen with an ADHD child? Temper tamtrums, not listening, just plain moody sometimes. Since she started taking her medicine, she really has gotten better. We still have our problems though. She goes back in a few weeks for reevaluation. My husband and I are looking for a few tips to make things a little easier. We have two other children in the house as well-3 years and 10 months. Thanks for your answers.
Increase her exercise…chances are she’s pretty sedentary, right?
There are studies being done by some physician (saw it on the news so I don’t have a URL reference, sorry) and he has shown that increasing the exercise in children causes the brain to naturally produce the stimulant the brain needs (that the medicine is doing now) to get rid or greatly reduce the ADHD symptoms.
Kids now a days are stimulated mentally but not much physically, and this is the body’s way of letting you know there’s problems…according to this physician.
But, his studies may have merit…I am an adult with ADD, and I have started exercising again regularly, and do not need the ritalin now…I just started that on my own…my physician is impressed.
Good luck!
As in, they already had children without autism, then they have a child with autism. How do the parenting skills change?
Im 14 years old. I have a brother and he is autistic and he is 13. I know from seeing them all the time that autism can make the parents life so much more stressful (including mine). But, i know patience is a big thing that changes when they had my brother. My dad isnt very good with that but i know my mom sure is. I mean, my brother is pretty smart (above the average smartness level of autism), he can read, write, spell, and do math. I know that having an autistic brother changed me completely, without him, i totally would look at life so much differently. It makes me appreciate autistic people and mentally challenged people way more than i would if i didnt have my brother. Also, ive been thinking of becoming a special teacher. But yeah, back to topic [lol] parenting skills change by having A L O T more patience, and idk but its hard and i give anybody who has an autistic child [including my parents] alot of credit, it is alot harder than people think.
hope this helped 
My hypothesis is: "If children have dyslexia, then they will have an inability to read words and learn." With a hypothesis such as this, how can I form steps for such an experiment? I need help! Please help me.
I would go to the library, and look up dyslexia/learning experiments in the psychology journals there. If you find one or two articles published in academic journals, they will describe how the experiments were conducted and you can base your model on that.
In general, psychology experiments involve the test subject group and the control group. You would have to define the age and characteristics, such as dyslexia, and how this was determined.
I imagine you would have 1-3 word lists of 5-20 words each, depending what age children or students you are testing. These words could be written on notecards or read on a recording. The children would either be shown the cards to read out loud, or would hear the words and write them down. There would be one part of the exercise where the words are presented with the right answers given, a second part where the subjects write or speak the words along with the answers being given at the same time, and the third part where they are tested for being able to read and/or write the words by themselves, based on the same cues as before, but without the answers given.
Then you could quantify the responses based on how many right and wrong or how long it takes the children to read or write them.
This is a very vague example, and could leave room for other learning issues besides the dyslexia affecting the outcomes. Technically, you would have to eliminate or isolate other possible factors, such as attention deficit or test anxiety, but you could show that dyslexia "interferes" or "correlates" with difficulty in learning. It could still be that the kids without dyslexia are taught independent study and practice skills, or the kids who test for dyslexia could have other issues instead of or besides dyslexia that are causing the learning difficulties.
I think a better way to control it would be to show kids’ learning ability before and after being shown ways of studying and practicing so they can learn words successfully. If you showed the low retention and recall when they were given words on their own, and then showed a sharp increase in performance when they were given special assistance to study and practice in between the initial run and the test run, that might still show that left to their own devices, the dyslexic students have difficulty in contrast to the true capability they have when given the means or assistance to study words and retain and recall them later.