My
grade
one
teacher,
Mrs.
Blue, wrote
a comment on my report card, 'Leanne
tries very hard
but...' and advised
my parents to have me tested at the children's hospital in Winnipeg.
Over fifty years later, this is my account of being assessed with dyslexia.
(Me circa 1960s)
Dyslexic Assessment
Dad
parks the car. I hop out and wait for my parents. We walk together
to a big building that's as square as a building block.
“What’s
that sign say?” I ask.
“The
first word is Children’s. The second word is Hospital. It’s a
special hospital, only for children.” Mom explains.
Hospital?
But I’m not sick.
Dad
holds the door open, and Mom leads me to a room with chairs. Dad goes
to talk to a woman behind a desk. Books,
games, puzzles and stuffed toys are on a low shelf. I want to play, but I’m too worried
about my parents. All
day I’ve asked, “What’s wrong?” But they just tell me,
“Nothing”—which I know is a lie. So I sit here waiting for…
Who?
Tap,
tap, tap. I hear his shoes, and then I see him. He’s tall with a
friendly face. “Hello, Leanne.” He squats to look at me--eye-to-eye. “My name is George.
Would you like to come and play with me?”
That
sounds fun, but I look at my parents. How can I go play when they look
so worried?
But
mom says, “Leanne, go play with the nice man.”
I
follow George into a small white room with a window. When I look out
the window, all I see is a night sky. George invites me to sit at the
table with him and gives me some Play-Dough. I like how it feels as I squeeze through my fingers. I make a long
snake.
“How
many brothers do you have?” George asks.
“Three.”
I like talking about my family. “Rick, Randy and Keith.”
“Are
you the youngest?”
“Nope.
Sam is.”
He
flips through some papers in a file, searching for information.
“Who’s Sam?”
“My
dog. She’s the youngest.”
He
laughs, but not in a mean way. “I like dogs. Is she a little dog?”
“She
was little, but then she grew and grew and grew and now she’s big.”
I throw my arms out so
George can see how big.
“Do
you like living with your family? Are you happy?”
I
quickly say,
“Yes.” Taking
more time to think, I
change my answer to, “Not
always. Like
one time when all my brothers wanted to watch hockey on TV, and
I
wanted to watch my show. I wanted my mom to tell them to watch what I
wanted to watch. But she didn’t. That made me really mad. So I
marched into my bedroom and slammed the door. Later, when I’d
cooled down, Mom came
in to talk to
me.
She asked me why I got so mad, and so I told her. She told me that we
all have to share the TV. She said that sometimes we watch what
I want to watch, and
sometimes we have to watch what someone else wants to watch. She
asked me if that sounded fair. I said, yes. And then we hugged. I
played in my room until it was bedtime. The next day, everyone watched
what I wanted to watch.”
George
is really easy to talk to. He listens not only with his ears but also
with his eyes. When I finish my story, he picks up a pen and writes something.
“Do
you like playing with blocks?” George replaces
the Play-Dough with a pile of red and blue wooden building
blocks.
“What can you build?”
I
make a tower by stacking two blocks and a house with three blocks.
“That’s
neat,” he says,
“Look what I can build.” He lines
up four blocks end to end, sets
two blocks on top of them and one block on the very top. “This is
called a pyramid. Can you build one?”
“Sure,
that’s easy.” I stack the blocks like he did.
“How
about this?” He makes stairs.
I
think I’ve stacked the blocks like he did, but George says, “Look
closely. Is yours the same as mine?”
I’ve
done it wrong. I’ve
failed. And I know
what happens
when I fail. It’s
like the papers I bring
home without stickers and the report card that made
Mom
cry. And I worry
that George will
get mad at me like my
teacher does.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Hey,
there’s no reason to be sorry. All I want you to do is try. I’m
here to help you.”
That
makes
me feel better.
George
turns
a two-piece
puzzle
upside down on the table. The
circle and square clatter out.
Putting
the pieces back into the puzzle is so easy.
“Wow,
you did that fast. You’re so smart. You need a harder puzzle.”
The
more puzzles I do, the harder they get until they get too hard.
“Can
we play with the Play-Dough again?” I ask.
George
makes a bunny with long ears, and I roll the dough into a carrot and
feed it to the bunny.
Then I make a cookie as big as my hand. We play until George says,
“It’s time to find your parents.”
Before
we leave that room, George gives me a happy face sticker. “This is
for being so smart,” he tells
me.
My
parents are waiting for me in a room that looks kind of like a living
room. There’s a sofa but no TV.
“Look
what I got.” I pull on my t-shirt so my parents can
see the sticker.
“I
had a lot of fun playing with Leanne,” George tells my parents.
“She’s a smart girl. You should be very proud of her.”
My
parents smile, but I can see that they’re still worried.
Mom
almost whispers. “Is there a cure for her dys—, for her learning
disability?”
“We
don’t use labels here,” George tells her with a frown, like
maybe he’s mad. “There’s no cure, but there are things you can
do to help her.”
“Anything.
We’ll do anything,” my parents say together.
“Do
you enjoy reading?” George asks.
Dad
always had a stack of books by his bed. Mom reads book after book
after book. And they take turns reading to me. “Very much,” they
say.
“Your
good example will help,” George tells them. “And do what you can
to build Leanne’s self-esteem. She needs to know that she is smart,
capable and competent.”
We say goodbye to George and leave the building that looks like a block. We get into the car, and no one says anything until
Mom mumbles something from the front seat. I listen carefully
and hear her say, “It’s my fault. I should have known something
was wrong. I should have… There must have been something I could
have done.”
"You know, as they were talking about...about..." Dad stops talking, thinks a little and then says, "I kept thinking I had that. I had those problems. And it took me a while, but I excelled in school. I was too smart for my own good. And many of those things... I did many of those things."
I
don’t know if they hear each other, but I hear them.
‘Dyslexia
influences as many as 1 in 5 people and is a genetic difference in an individual’s
ability to learn and process information. As a result, dyslexic individuals
have differing abilities, with strengths in creative problem-solving and
communication skills and challenges with spelling, reading and
memorising facts.
Generally,
a dyslexic cognitive profile will be uneven when compared to a neurotypical
cognitive profile. This means that dyslexic individuals really do think
differently.
Traditional
benchmarking disadvantages dyslexics, measuring them against the very
things they find challenging.’
“21st century definition of dyslexia”, Made by Dyslexia
‘No
two people with dyslexia will look exactly alike in their symptoms
and the manifestations
of those symptoms. There are multiple symptoms, and they can range
from mild to severe. The more severe the symptoms the earlier they
will become
apparent.’
“Learned
Helplessness” Identifying The Symtoms of Dyslexia
by Tracy
Block-Zaretsky, co-founder
of the Dyslexia Training Institute
‘Having
a child diagnosed with dyslexia can be a traumatic experience…
Parents...should
seek out reading instruction that is based upon a
systematic
and explicit understanding of language structure, including
phonics.’
“Dyslexia at a Glance”, The International Dyslexia Association
photo by ldyck
On this blog in June...
Sunday, June 15
Tying Laces with my Dad (short memoir)
When I have trouble tying my shoelaces, my dad...
Sunday, June 22
Book Review for Indigenous Day
Two Tricksters Find Friendship by Johnny Aitken and Jess Willows
...is a year in the life of a new mutually supportive friendship between Jessie, a white girl, and Johnny, an Indigenous boy
Sunday, June 29
Book Reviews for Canada Day
Canadian Reads: a collection of my favourite books by Canadian authors
photo by ldyck
My fingers
on my keyboard
My head
in the clouds
I relish
my days
More about dyslexia...
