I Don’t Need Your Help
Learning with a disability
Going through school is hard but its harder when you feel so different, it’s harder when you have to learn with a disability. I don’t know if I was too proud or just went to a crap school but I learned on my own how to deal with my disability. I am dyslexic and its hard to deal with. Many late nights at the dinner table doing homework that ending in me crying. I know you’re thinking “Hey! Why didn’t you get help?” it really isn’t that easy. Once you get to a certain point it just seems like you can’t fall back and get help. It’s almost scary to do so, so you turn and run. Ken Bain talks about this in a chapter in his book, Managing Yourself. He talks about the aligator brain and how it is your fight or flight response. This part would be flight, you run from what could potentially help you just because it scares you. But the alligator brain also shows the good side of it too, it shows the fight. When you learn mostly by yourself with a learning disability you fight for what you need, not physically but mainly with yourself. It’s tough but you work through everything and push yourself.
What is it?
Dyslexia- a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence.
Dyslexia is not something that will stop you from graduating or doing things on your own. It is also not a sign of low intelligence or a sign of laziness. Most people with dyslexia actually have to work harder than normal. A lot of doctors call it a reading disorder or disability but it also can affect writing, spelling and speaking. People who are dyslexic can still comprehend and understand complex ideas it just take a little more time than the average student. Most dyslexic people are very creative and people have a hard time telling if its from dyslexics being “wired differently” or if it comes from having to think outside of the box. Some people are ashamed of this and they think it marks them as stupid or different, I used to be but there is a long list of celebrities that are dyslexic and if we put them on a pedestal then why should we be ashamed of what we have when they are going through the same thing? The thing is even if there were no celebrities with this, there is still no reason to be ashamed of it. It’s a part of who you are it does not define you.
Living with Dyslexia
In order to proceed with learn you will need to do certain things to fit you and your learning style. Whether it’s starting over or just proceeding. People that are dyslexic need to work a little bit hard than average, they need to work harder on connecting letters with the sounds that they are connected with. Also working on being able to recognize common words like “and” instead of having to pause. Sight recognition is also important, this is being able to see a word and just recognize it instead of having to sound it out, most people can recognize words fast while it take more time for dyslexics to do that. It is also harder for a dyslexic person to read fluently expecially outloud. Not being able to fluently read messes up reading comprehension. People with dyslexia tend to find themselves having to reread sentences over and over again until they actually understand them. Dyslexia isn’t just the letters being mixed up within text, it deals with a lot. Speach become jumbled, along with even typing words. While writing or typing with dyslexia you can be thinking about writing one word for your paper and write a completely different word, or you could be reading and your brain tries to finish the sentence before you do and you say a word that’s not there. There are a lot of different things with it.
