I am dyslexic | Hacker News Reader

I am dyslexic

matthewsag.com

68 points80mph54 comments

There are no clear criteria to distinguish dyslexia from poor reading ability; multiple studies have found that reading ability is unimodally distributed, with no clear distinction between dyslexics and "ordinary" poor readers. We have identified no interventions that are particularly beneficial to dyslexics; dyslexics and non-dyslexics appear to respond at similar rates to training and practice in reading skills.

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220004651/http://www.nrdc.o...

Colored lenses or special fonts do not appear to be beneficial in any way.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27580753

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26993270

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29204931

Without having dug into those studies to check the statistics and how they were done, the linked blog post gives a pretty compelling account of how coloured lenses do with for at least this person. It's quite possible that there are types of dyslexia which do respond to coloured lenses that are averaged out in a bell curve of general "dyslexia".

>the linked blog post gives a pretty compelling account of how coloured lenses do with for at least this person

I could link you to any number of blog posts giving compelling accounts of how drinking bleach cures autism. Belief is not evidence.

That comparison is too dramatic. I understand what you're trying to get at, but my point about the statistics still stands, unless you've dug through the those studies yourself and are happy that a specific kind of deficit isn't being masked by noise from externally similar but different conditions.

So you are accusing the author of making this up? Your arrogance is sickening.

No. I think that the author genuinely believes that colored lenses make it easier for him to read; I know that several carefully conducted clinical trials have found no benefit.

It’s weird how much Dyslexia and ADHD overlap. Looking at the symptoms of Dyslexia https://www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/co...

I guess this isn't so surprising considering the holism with which the brain conducts itself. I.e. no specific functions are entirely localized to specific areas (although some areas do tend towards specialization). All or many parts of the brain are taking part in language, executive function, emotions. I always imagine it as a massive chunk of feedback loops all plastically wired together where there is the possibility for ostensibly pure 'cognitive' functionality (biased towards neocortex) to be processed in an 'emotional' (limbic) way. Hence why there's some interesting emotional/stress-related comorbidities in both ADHD and dyslexia (and in various other neurodevelopmental disorders). Obviously am not a neurobiologist but everything I've read about the topic suggests that our model of neurological ailments (i.e. DSM's strictly discrete categories) is not representative of how such things manifest neuroanatomically (more continuous & intertwined).

I had trouble believing those were truly dyslexia symptoms until the reading/writing portion of the page.

align these ideas and check out the autism spectrum and get ready for your mind to be blown.

Mind is pretty blown. There really is so much overlap

Dyslexic's of the world untie!

I actually think a lot of people underestimate quite how many dyslexic people are about in industries you wouldn't expect them. I work in software development for instance and have worked with vast swaths of dyslexic devs, QA/test automation engineers and all sorts of other technical roles. A lot of the time its never really brought up as thanks to syntax & spell check its fairly hard to go wrong (I'll admit to having been responsible for a couple of pretty questionably spelt variable names tho).

Its really only in fully written out text it can become obvious as even with spellcheck, if you bungle a word bad enough (or somehow skip a few which i also do more frequently than i'd like), what gets fixed can sometimes be far more bazaar than the spelling error itself.

For the most part I think people develop coping mechanisms for the majority of day to day issues it gives them, although some bits Ill admit I've never been able to fully work around (I feel most 6 year olds would likely out do me trying to alphabetise a stack of books for instance) - not that its something that comes up regularly in my day job `book.sort();` :)

It's probably also notable that the stuff under the term "Dyslexic" vary's a lot - both my wife and i have it (future kids are doomed), and although we share a lot of stuff, some symptoms are entirely different. Its actually a pretty interesting thing to read up on - especially as a remember some of the info being pretty much none existent only a decade or so ago - while now there is are ton of research about in to what on earth is going on with it.

I tend to rearrange the letters in a word, and also add letters that are not there and/or remove letters that are there.

For instance, I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and genuinely thought that the Wizard's name was Grandalf.

I had a tough time in grade school learning to read and write, but I credit my Grandmother constantly reading to me for giving me a strong desire to learn to read myself.

I'd be interested to know if folks here with dyslexia agree with the sentiment that dyslexia affects their visual ingestion of words, and that visual aids (like the colored filters he discusses) can improve their reading ability.

I ask this because many dyslexia experts in the US (and some outside the US) insist that dyslexia is purely phonological, and therefore non-visual.

As someone who works in the field but does not have dyslexia, I have to reconcile these academic's edicts with the personal descriptions I hear from individuals with dyslexia, which clearly indicate that dyslexia can have visual causes and aids.

I'm with the phonological camp. In fact, one of the things that surprised me greatly is that I can read Japanese dramatically more comfortably than English. I can read the symbolic characters very easily and since almost all of the phonetic characters in Japanese are grammar, I tend to gloss over it. However the grammar is very regular, so you can usually figure out what's going on without having to read every character.

In fact, I get very frustrated when I read children's books because they often omit the Chinese characters for words and replace them with phonetic characters. I just can't read it without a massive struggle.

It's also interesting that I vastly prefer computer programming languages that use symbols rather than words. One of the common "coding practices" in Ruby is to replace "if !whatever" with "unless whatever". I literally can't understand the latter and I'm always rewriting it in my editor to "if !whatever" so that I can understand the code. You might think I'm just used to it, but if I write "if not whatever" -- bam! I can't understand it. Weird, isn't it!

Have you ever tried an APL-family programming language? If so, I’d be curious how you found it.

I have, indeed. I studied APL at school (which shows you how old I am!) I enjoyed reading it and hated typing it :-) I tend to prefer things that are a little bit in between. APL has quite a lot of unusual features, though (some of which were intuitive for me, having been a FORTH programmer, and some of which were not -- having a pretty poor math background). I've been thinking of playing with one of the modern APL variants. I think I would really enjoy it these days.

I had the same experience with chinese characters being easier

I can say that I read a lot. And comprehend what I read very well. Writing on the other hand is definitely the most difficult but. The best way I can describe it is if I were to write a short essay by typing myself & then the same essay with the same exact words by dictation. The results would be hugely different. As soon as I have to actually put the words on the paper myself something goes wrong. It’s usually still legible English, but the meaning / structure of what I’m trying to get across seems to get lost. If someone reads it back to me I can tell this and realise it.

It’s a weird one :)

I'm the same. I never had too much issue reading, though I do avoid anything overly literally as the language just gets in the way of story. But writing has always been impossible for me, even with keyboards. The whole idea of 'padding' out essays did my head in at uni. Interestingly on the speaking vs writing point I naturally use a lot of tone and body language to convey my meaning. That might be my acting background but I also wonder if it's a compensating mechanism for struggling with words.

As the article says, everyone's experience is different because it isnt diagnosed physiologically. When i was diagnosed i had a reading tutor who focused on building connections between visual symbols and vocalization, which i think was the right approach for me. Personally, i dont have the level of spelling difficulty as the author, but i will sometimes miss-identify and mis-pronounce words in a self consistent way for months or years before noticing some additional characters. When reading prose in my head without sounding out words, i can manage 500 wpm with good comprehension. Reading text aloud at a normal narration speed is extremely taxing and difficult. As a result I never attempt read verbatim from slides when giving talks.

It’s crazy how different his dyslexic experience is than mine. I think there are differently several different things going on under the umbrella term “dyslexic”.

Colored glasses do not help me. Reading is slow, but doesn’t cause headaches. Spelling is near impossible. After a slow start by high school my reading comprehension was at or above my peers.

I have always thought I had dyspraxia[0], which although totally unrelated to dyslexia, made teachers think I was dyslexic when I was young as I was unable to (and still can't) write in a legible way unless I write slowly and in block capitals, however I can read very well, and when in the mood can consume books on many topics at quite a fast rate.

That said... I've just read the list of dyslexic symptoms[1] and I'm shocked. I can legitimately tick about 80% of that whole list. So maybe I am dyslexic after all ?

[0] https://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/dyspraxia-adults/

[1] https://www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/co...

As a child I was diagnosed with dysgraphia because my handwriting was terrible, plus other things to do with sequencing. To this day I just can't seem to control my hands when I'm writing.

My spelling is pretty normal. I don't often see words on the page transposing. But because I didn't have some of the headline effects dyslexia was ruled out.

At university I was re-diagnosed with dyslexia. Nearly all of that list applies.

So many dys-words. But I think that by the time you've survived the academic system and you're left alone to get on with living your life, there are more important things than labels. Most important, IMHO, is the coping factors, how much of your energy they sap, and whether you have the life opportunities use them.

Sorry but that list of symptoms is absolute BUNK. "Had it tough in school"? What kind of horoscope level bulls--t is this? "May be able to sense energy of others"? Really?

C'mon dude, maybe you have difficulties, but don't turn to these tricksters for diagnose.

(removed, misunderstood parent, wasn't constructive)

I am aware of the word’s multiple uses, and I resent the suggestion that I don’t.

Dyslexia is a diagnosis about reading text. That page very clearly uses underhanded horoscope type wording to make you think it applies to you individually.

Hogwash. Absolute hogwash.

Sorry I misunderstood your comment. Sometimes metaphors _are_ taken over-literally on HN. I didn't assume ill intent.

Dyslexia is obviously caused by _something_, but its forms and manifestations do seem to be varied.

There are specific tests that can be done, and no doubt they are accurate. But you can't test every single child, and I think one should be open minded to the kinds of behaviours that are co-incident with dyslexia in case it might lead someone to a diagnosis.

Diagnosing based on that list is obviously wrong, but I don't think it claims to be a list of falsifiable, scientific characteristics. More something to prompt. I'd rather have a more open funnel than a closed one.

Of course you can test every single child. In America we test every single child, every week or two. Starting from childbirth and continuing pretty much uninterrupted until they leave school.

In the US the Federal Govt requires schools to test every student for dyslexia and provide appropriate services.

I don't know how things were done in the US. But I get the impression that the educational authorities are keen on automated multiple-choice tests. At school I failed pretty comprehensively at the 'standard' testing until the dyslexia was taken into account (although I don't recall more than a tiny handful of automated tests).

From my dim memory (over a decade ago), my own dyslexia diagnosis was a few hours long, included a variety of tests, both hand-writing, physical, an interview etc. That would he hugely expensive to do for every child.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia at age of 8. At the time I couldn't spell my name with any reliability (it's not a complicated one), and I was failing primary school across all subjects. My reading level was, perhaps surprisingly, about average for my age, although I do find to this day I have to be very careful not to skip lines or misread words while reading (I usually use my finger IRL or highlight the text I read through as I go along online).

I see dyslexia now as an umbrella term for a wide class of learning related symptoms. The justification for receiving additional support and understanding as a means to reduce waste of potential. If there is such a large gap in one area of development that that it overly impacts the measurement or development of the other areas then failing to compensate for that seems negligent.

It's a funny thing. I'm almost certain I came up with that dyslexic agnostic insomniac dog joke. I thought of it while delivering pizzas in my uni years around 1989.

Would be happy to be proven wrong though if someone can find an earlier reference to it.

It's a Steven Wright joke from sometime in the 80's. (I don't have a reference handy and I'm on a phone...)

I was diagnosed with auditory hearing dyslexia when I was a child.

I find it to be very useful, but it also can be extremely taxing when I'm trying to process information in a noisy (visual and auditory) environment.

It's hard to explain, but I actually am capable of processing a lot of information. I often imagine that I have a hyper-threaded brain that is multi-tasking. However, the issues start when I'm processing conflicting or too much information. Which can be many things, like multiple conversations, unusual or loud noises, smells, lights, odd patterns of any kind, etc...

I’m also dyslexic, however my experience has been completely different from my fathers (also dyslexic). Where as he struggled though school and university and eventually attended night school lessons to help with work, and still to this day has real trouble communicating effectively through written text, I went through the unitsofsound[1] course before the age of 10.

I can say that for 90% my of day to day I really don’t notice it. With more intensive written work (writing a CV or a formal letter) i need to “double think” myself quite a bit and follow processes to write & then review & refactor my work before letting out the door.

Obviously it’s a sample size of 1, but I think unitsofsound really helped me, and when about 15 years ago my dad started work on converting the course into a program that could be delivered easier for more people that was great. 7 years ago I got involved converting it to flash so we could deliver it on the web and reach even more people, and this year we sold it to another company who can hopefully take it to the next level again and help even more.

I hope people will not dismiss my praise of unitsofsound as just self promotion, the ideas were not mine/ours, the theory goes back to the 70’s, but I do believe it has the potential to help lots of people.

Anyone wanting to try it out for free please get in contact and I can set up some accounts (just now still anyway). One of the great perks of doing something like this is giving it away to those who genuinely need it.

[1] https://www.unitsofsound.com/

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

The dyslexic folks at HN might have the special responsibility to come up with some sort of solution. Only you know what works, and have the tech smarts to figure something out.

So, for example, what if this:

> de – et – te – ct – ti - io – n

were actually displayed as

> de.tec.ti.on

Would that help? Maybe you can up with some other scheme, like coloring syllables? Or positioning of syllables spatially (across 2 lines) to help synchronize them?

Maybe you've already tried these or other things. It would be valuable to share your experiences.

I am dyslexic. Recently my father reminded me as a child (1st grade) I had this crazy ability to write in mirror image with my right hand while normally with my left. By 3rd grade it was gone (I didn't practice at all). Literally you could hold it up to a mirror and read it (allowing for a child's lettering). Is this common? I've not known anyone else that could do this.

My grandmother was left-handed in an age when they forced you to learn to write right-handedly instead. As a child she could comfortably write with both hands simultaneously, starting in the centre and working outwards, the left hand writing a mirror image.

My wife (age 37) thinks she's mildly dyslexic. What's the best and most effective way to test that? (if you happen to know)

There is no one test, especially because dyslexia co-occurs with various other neurological differences (ADD/ADHD/dyscalculia/processing disorders, etc.)

I run a startup whose technology is used as an assistive technology for people with dyslexia (and also as a speed-reading aid for non-dyslexic readers). Some reading specialists have suggested that our tool could be used as a litmus test for certain types of reading issues, including dyslexia. For some (not all) people with dyslexia, the first time trying our line-wrapping color gradients is life-changing. (For most people who use it as a speed-reading tool, it's a cool lifehack, but not a quantum leap.)

She can try it by just looking at the demo on our website. [1] Protip: we're going to launch a fully-functional, free, version of our browser plugin later this week. It will require occasional tweeting, but not a Twitter auth or any PII gathering whatsoever.

1: http://www.beelinereader.com

tried it, seemed a bit easier to read. Maybe a nice option would be to adjust background color, font size and line width. Pure black on white especial with long sentences makes it really hard for me to read. That is why most of the time I rather read form my phone than from a printed book.

Thanks for the feedback! We do offer all of these features in our browser plugin. Background color has been configurable since the beginning, and we added the layout and sizing options last month!

The “test” I did (from what I remember it was over 20 years ago) consists of testing just about everything, general knowledge, 3D persecution, maths, verbal reasoning, English etc then aligning all those scores against the national standard and pointing to a marked difference everywhere written English was involved sort of thing.

Also dyslexic and also used to mirror write perfectly, but without knowing I was doing it. Was in the late 70s, prior to dyslexia being widely understood and my teachers had no idea what to do.

me too (~1976) they knew it was something that was not stupid or lazy, but had no clue what was going on. However, most teachers treated me like I was a retard -- Yes ,I am using that word on purpose as it was used for me.

> When I forget to change back to my tinted lenses all my old symptoms come back. This is as close to proof as you can get that colored lenses work for me and that this is not just a placebo effect.

I'm glad it works for OP (and, really, he doesn't need to care why it works if it does!) but I don't think that really does anything to show it's not placebo?

The placebo effect is supposed to remain effective even if the person knows its a placebo. If it is placebo, it should be possible to get an improvement by putting on a "reading necklace" or something else that obviously shouldnt help. Might be interesting to look into

Interesting how most of the issues cased by dyslexia he describes have a strong social component.

Seems like having people be more aware and tolerant of its symptoms would help a lot.

Wow, a dyslexic lawyer. (A very text-intensive occupation.)

Kudos to the author. Helps people (me) relate, and offered with a healthy dose of encouraging can-do attitude.

What you are describing is something other than dyslexia, which is a phonological thing, not a visual thing.

To be fair, from the article: "Dyslexia can mean a lot of different things. The term is used as an umbrella term for a combination of auditory, visual and attentional disorders that manifest as learning disabilities. I can’t say what it means in general to be dyslexic, I can only say what it means to me.

My type of dyslexia is visual/attentional, but mostly visual."

I have the phonological thing, but I was not diagnosed as dyslexic as a child because I'm also not so typical in many ways. These kinds of issues are often like that. Our words are imprecise.

Another one here...

that’s inspiring.

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