My long-time friend, Jane, first compelled me to step outside the bumper rails of schooling and seek for myself answers to troubling questions. I started noticing her odd behavior after we turned 11. Back then, we did everything that normal adolescents would do. Except, every so often, Jane would burst into tears and sob. I sat with her patiently as her moral support, lending her an ear. Through several months of this, she gradually revealed the pressures she faced because of her troubled reading and her mother’s refusal to accept that there was something more at play than just her effort.
Concerned and confused, I applied my Internet savvy for finding streaming links to cartoons and other plagues of distractions to something I, for the very first time, felt meaningfully curious about. That was when I learned of dyslexia. Fast-forward to today, Jane is much happier, clinically diagnosed and content with all the proper adjustments made in both her schooling and in the mindset of understanding from her parents at home.
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia was the learning disorder that made school life difficult for Jane. Symptoms in young children not yet of school age include difficulty learning unfamiliar words, pronouncing words, differentiating similarly pronounced words, remembering names for letters and colors, and starting speech in a timely manner. Symptoms in children who have entered the education system include difficulty spelling, abnormally slow reading and writing, difficulty pronouncing new words, difficulty processing speech, and problems forming sentences. Once a dyslexic is an older teenager, he/she could also have difficulty solving simple arithmetic, writing out summaries, acquiring foreign languages, memorizing, and understanding expressions with non-literal meanings. The condition is thought to be genetic, as it often runs in families. This means that one’s chances of being dyslexic increases if immediate or extended family members also have dyslexia.
The cause of dyslexia is thought to be a reduced phoneme-processing ability of the brain. Studying the brains of deceased dyslexics showed evidence for the link between brain structure and dyslexia. In non-dyslexic people, temporal lobe asymmetry usually shows the right hemisphere’s to be larger than the left hemisphere’s. This temporal lobe asymmetry was not found in the deceased dyslexics’ brains, and investigators recognized ectopias, or displacements of brain tissue, at the brains’ surface. MRIs today show altered white matter integrity and fewer white and gray matter in the left hemisphere occipital, temporal, and parietal lobes of dyslexics.
There is no cure for this condition, but early discovery and treatment can prevent one from developing severe anxiety, behavioral issues, aggression, low self esteem, and fear of social interaction. A diagnosis is made after review of the patient’s medical and behavioral history and extensive testing (neurological, vision, auditory, psychological, reading, etc.). Treatment for dyslexia utilizes educational techniques specific to each child. These educational techniques could encompass vision, auditory, and sensory tasks. The goal of treatment is to have one use phonemes, understand the relationship between written text and the sounds they represent, strengthen reading comprehension and fluency, and expand vocabulary. Earlier treatment before a child enters elementary school usually ensures that he/she will acquire the necessary reading skills to thrive up to high school. On the other hand, children who start treatment later could have trouble improving their reading skills and will most likely struggle academically. In this sense, Jane was an outlier. Despite being diagnosed in middle school, she quickly improved her reading and writing skills to succeed in school.
A Reflection
The months of listening, observing, brewing my intrigue and curiosity, and finding a fitting description was in my mind the beginning of my journey that leads me to write this today. Seeing Jane, I feel a sense of accomplishment and gratification I can’t compare to anything else. It gave me not only an opening to become more interested in my science classes at school, but also gave me a sense of purpose, especially in terms of how I can apply my curiosity to help solve other people’s issues. It became a catalyst for my view of the world to suddenly expand with notions I often took for granted or thought would still be far away in the land of science fiction. I gorged on Popular Mechanics, Futurism, and other online publications. I listened to the poetry of Neil deGrasse Tyson as he explained the connection and obligation we have as the universe’s way of understanding itself. I began to see the convergence of all kinds of technologies ushering in new, astounding advancements applied to our day-to-day lives. I began to dream about tomorrow, whether we’d colonize Mars in my lifetime or whether disease will be forever eradicated.
Yet on the flipside of that very same coin, I saw even more that we did not understand. There were more questions to ask. There was more work to be done. Not everybody’s story would end as well as Jane’s. I still saw many students with learning disabilities not getting appropriate treatment. They were frustrated that their grades were not reflecting their efforts. Often, their environment denied them access to help.
Jane’s story helped me realize my natural curiosity about mental disorders and learning disabilities. I now seek an environment in which I can be given the freedom and guidance to explore more of my passion for the field of psychology. I seek interactions with teachers and students who will challenge me to think beyond and expand my mind. I seek experience that will help me develop a better understanding of my interests. But above all else, in terms of what I am most excited about, I seek glimpses into contemporary research to explore the possibilities of more accessible treatment techniques for people with these psychiatric disorders.
