American Dyslexia Association

Category: Dyslexia

  • Lexilens, Overcoming Dyslexia

    Lexilens, Overcoming Dyslexia

    Abeye, a French healthtech startup has developed Lexilens, a revolutionary reading aid for dyslexics.

    This new product is based on science and provides instantaneous effect to dyslexic readers. It was awarded several prizes among which the CES innovation award at Las Vegas in 2020 and Silmo Gold award (health & vision category). It will be launched in France soon after this summer and in Europe afterwards.

    Dyslexia is a reading disorder affecting 8 to 10% of population

    Dyslexia makes reading very difficult and is declared as a handicap by the World Health Organization. Children suffer the most from it as they must read a lot at school while they have not yet learned how to cope with this disorder by setting up alternative strategies to read.

    Dyslexia makes reading difficult and can lead to school failure, loss of self-confidence & potentially social isolation. It is a daily pain for the children and their family.

    Abeye develops smart eyewear for health and wellness

    Launched in 2018, the startup Abeye (abeye.tech) creates smart eyewear, eg standard looking eyewear that embeds electronics to provide health related services to the user. Abeye just released earlier this year a product called Spectalert which is a fall detection eyewear for seniors. Lexilens is their second product, developed with the same rules : simple, useful, elegant and affordable.

    Abeye is incubated by “Atol les opticiens”, a French optician retail network (800 shops in France). Abeye can therefore rely on Atol expertise to design eyewear that looks like….eyewear and that people will actually want to wear

    Lexilens is a revolutionary reading aid for dyslexics

    Lexilens is the result of a 2-year R&D effort by Abeye in collaboration with the scientific academic laboratory that discovered in 2017 a potential cause of dyslexia.

    These French scientists showed a link between the eyes, the brain, and dyslexia: In the image processing center of the brain, every single human at some point creates a mirror image of what they are seeing. Think of looking in the mirror when letters seem backward. In a person with dyslexia, the incomplete decoding in the brain of the mirror image can result in overlays or omissions. For non-dyslexics, the two eyes are asymmetric, which means not exactly alike. And this asymmetry gives clues to the brain in selecting which image to pick. For dyslexic people, they have two eyes that are too perfect. So the brain cannot tell the difference and can mix the two mirror images.

    Lexilens can filter mirror images with its electronic lenses and reading is easier for the dyslexic wearer.

    After several versions, a real-life test was conducted with several testers. The results are unprecedented. The children’s parents’ testimony is extremely promising, as some children can read up to twice as fast with Lexilens. For many testers, reading is faster and easier, memorization is increased, and academic results are improved, increasing social confidence.

    Lexilens effect is instantaneous (no training required), universal (does not depend on the age, gender or native language). The spectacular effects of Lexilens have been since confirmed for adults and children from a broad range of countries. A formal clinical trial is under way to generate scientific data to measure the improvement rate.

    A non stigmatizing device

    Abeye has been working on improving the design of Lexilens so it can be worn at school without stigmatization. Lexilens will be available in two sizes : children & adults. Lexilens is compatible with all prescription lenses for increased reading comfort.

    Lexilens will be available for preorder in the coming months (in Atol shops in France and online (abeye.tech) for the rest of Europe). Abeye is currently in discussion with distribution partners to support its global expansion.

    Lexilens: https://abeye.tech/lexilens/

  • GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    Dyslexia Spelling = Phonetic Spelling + Creative Spelling

    What is Phonetic Spelling?

    When you’re dictating a word and tell your son or daughter that he should write what he hears, your child will attempt to map the sounds in the words to the sounds of the letters.

    However, English is not a phonetic language. There are a very large number of English words where there is a gap between how the word sounds and how the word is actually spelled. Not to mention, there are many times multiple correct phonetic options to a given sound (for example: k , c, ck, and qu – all sound about the same)…

    What is creative spelling?

    Given that English spelling is not phonetic, and each sound may have several spelling options, a lot of correct English spelling is dependent on the visual memory of a written word. If you have good visual memory of words, you will be able to spell a word correctly simply by writing it down, and from memory deciding if this is the correct spelling.

    But kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia have very poor and inconsistent visual memory of spelled words, and therefore, can hardly rely on their visual memory of words…. Not to mention that children with dyslexia or dysgraphia sometimes confuse the direction of letters, and though they meant to write the letter “b” actually end up writing the letter “d”…

    A child’s Creative Spelling refers to the spelling of a child who has no idea of how to spell correctly certain syllables of a word, and therefore, creatively makes them up as he writes. And each time he/she “creates” a word’s spelling, it usually ends up as a different spelling creation.

    Can a regular spell checker correct dyslexia spelling?

    English is not a phonetic language, and therefore, the “creative spelling” of a child with dyslexia or dysgraphia must be taken into account in order for a spell checker to provide value for a dyslexic child. However, the “creative” spelling of such a child is basically “noise” and therefore any computerized program, such as a regular spell checker, that tries to correct a single word at a time (and not based on the context of the sentence) is doomed to fail… That is why Microsoft spell checker many times simply fails to correct a heavily misspelled word written by a dyslexic… and the reason why dyslexic children require…

    Continue reading here: https://www.ghotit.com/ghotit-for-kids

  • Dyslexia in different languages

    Dyslexia in different languages

    French, Danish and even English can be hard for dyslexics students while Spanish, German and Italian may be easier.

    Dyslexia in different languages

    It becomes more and more evident that dyslexia, being the same to its core all over the world, also depends on how difficult the language is to learn and to read. Between languages, there are differences in the orthographic, phonological, morphemic, and inflectional structure, but what makes them harder or easier to learn is also the “opaqueness”: how possible it is to break the words up into sounds and how well those sounds match the letters and letter combinations. For example, French, Danish, and even English can be hard for dyslexic students while Spanish, German, and Italian may be easier.

    Different languages, dyslexia and spelling transparency

    Danish speakers are sometimes said to swallow their consonants, making it a bit of a challenge for learners to hear which words they are using. Looking at a Danish word on paper, you won’t necessarily know how to say it out loud. The same goes for French with its je peux (I can), il peut (he can), and un peu (a little), pronounced in the same way (x and t silent) but with different meanings. Dyslexic students, as well as English students, often struggle with the irregular spelling of the language. They often feel the need for an extensive repertoire of strategies to overcome the challenge.

    Studies are being done on dyslexia in different languages but there is still much left to discover. Such as how dyslexia looks in languages that are written in another direction, like Arabic, or in a language that doesn’t have an alphabet, such as Mandarin. Learning Chinese, you must match the meaning and sound to a specific character, which in fact results in a perhaps more complicated and severe disorder than that of English dyslexics.

    Continue reading here https://cpen.com/insights/dyslexia-in-different-languages/

  • In What Grade Should My Child Be Reading?

    In What Grade Should My Child Be Reading?

    Child development isn’t an exact science, which is why it doesn’t usually make sense to compare your child to his/her peers. Some kids take to reading, writing, and math early on, and others need more time to master these skills. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong just because your child isn’t reading yet.

    Let’s look at some common language milestones. If you notice issues or your child is experiencing challenges in and out of the classroom, it might be time to consider getting some additional help.

    Common Reading Milestones

    Kids learn to read and write one sound at a time. Here are some typical language accomplishments during early childhood:

    Kindergarten (ages 4-5): Links letters to sounds and pronounces simple words. Students may be able to write some letters.

    First Grade (ages 6-7): Learns about 100 common words. By mid-first grade, many students can read simple books on their own. They also learn to write the alphabet and sound out words when they’re unable to read them on sight.

    Second-Fourth Grades (ages 8-10): By this age, students understand the sounds of all letters and recognize lower versus upper case letters. They begin reading short chapter books and can discuss characters, settings, and storylines. By fourth grade, students can also do basic research projects.

    Continue reading here: https://blog.brainbalancecenters.com/in-what-grade-should-my-child-be-reading

  • Visualizing to Make Meaning

    Visualizing to Make Meaning

    By: Judy Zorfass, Tracy Gray, and PowerUp WHAT WORKS

    I grabbed my purse, stepped outside into the cold night air, and watched as a flake drifted to the ground. I started walking to my car, but I had to grab hold of a mailbox to keep from slipping.

    Did you picture a woman standing outside on a winter’s night watching the snow fall? Or maybe you pictured her taking a step and then slipping on the icy sidewalk as she headed to her car? If so, you were visualizing — a critical reading skill that is necessary to comprehend both informational texts and literature. Within the College and Career Readiness Standards for Reading, visualizing has a role to play in helping students identify key ideas and details and understand craft and structure.

    Proficient readers scan and interpret text, forming a mental image of what is happening. Visualizing while reading adds texture to a scene by adding imagined details that the text may not spell out, and it is an indication of successful text comprehension.

    By incorporating differentiated models, practicing visualization, and supporting your students as they visualize (drawing on principles for Universal Design for Learning), you can help them learn to use all of their senses to engage with and imagine the world of a text, and to bring that world to life as they read. See UDL Editions Visualize Strategy for a student-friendly explanation and rubric for visualizing.

    Technology Tools for Visualizing

    A range of tools (both low-tech and high-tech) can support your students’ ability to visualize. For example, you could encourage students to draw, use dramatizations, and/or create music. Students could use cameras to take photos, or they could search for photos, images, and other graphics. They could create their own videos or watch those produced by others; they could listen to music or use programs to create their own. A variety of software tools and apps are available that stimulate students’ visualizations and support their efforts to draw, diagram, and create images.

    If students are reading digital text, they can access a variety of embedded supports to enhance visualization (e.g., audio explanations, photos, and images), including embedded prompts that encourage students to stop and visualize. All of these tools can help you to differentiate instruction. The video below provides ideas for using supports that are built into text to differentiate instruction.

    Continue reading here: http://www.ldonline.org/article/Visualizing_to_Make_Meaning

  • Crickets, Books, and Bach: Develop a Summer Listening Program

    Crickets, Books, and Bach: Develop a Summer Listening Program

    Summer reading is as much a seasonal pastime as baseball and fireworks. Many parents put together a selection of books that are meaningful, educational, and engaging—books to nourish and stimulate young minds during these few freewheeling months.

    Parents should consider assembling a summer listening list, too. When we think of literacy, we tend to think first of reading and writing. That’s because for centuries, printed text has been the dominant means of recording and sharing information. Yet for most children, listening is really the first entry point into language—the cornerstone of learning and of cognitive development. In an age when kids are regular users of personal multimedia technologies, the importance of learning to listen and listening to learn is as great as ever.

    The importance of learning to listen

    Listening is an engaging way to learn, a primary approach to developing or strengthening reading strategies, and, in some cases, a necessary means to access information and knowledge. Listening media, such as audiobooks and text-to-speech, can be especially helpful to children with learning disabilities, such as those with dyslexia and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who struggle with print-based learning, and central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), who may struggle to listen.

    For such students, well-chosen listening experiences can open up new vistas of learning, providing access to information and ideas previously ‘hidden’ in books and supporting the reading process itself. Such opportunities provide a powerful supplement or alternative to a reading program focused around printed text.

    Research has shown that combining reading and listening through the use of audiobooks or text-to-speech programs improves the literacy skills of struggling readers, including those with learning disabilities. Reading comprehension, listening comprehension, phonological awareness and blending, and naming skills have shown to be improved with a combined reading-listening program. Listening while reading helps children learn the patterns of language, the obvious ‘code’ of letters and words on the page, as well as less obvious codes, such as tone, nuance, and implied meaning. Brain imaging technologies show that when we listen, different parts of the brain are engaged than when we read—or even when we merely hear something. Listening can provide whole levels of information that are essential to determining the value and validity of a source. Teaching children to listen to tone of voice not only helps them develop reading skills but can help in the development of their social and conversational skills, too. (For more information, see Plato Revisited: Learning Through Listening in the Digital World by David Rose& Bridget Dalton, published by RFB&D.)

    Continue reading here: http://www.ldonline.org/article/15904/

  • Why Dyslexia Is More Than a Reading Disorder

    Why Dyslexia Is More Than a Reading Disorder

    People with dyslexia have difficulty reading letters and words; it’s a learning disability that has nothing to do with their intelligence. Until recently, researchers assumed the challenge could be traced to language difficulties, including problems processing printed words, and they focused their attention on the language parts of the brain.

    But in the latest research published in the journal Neuron, scientists led by John Gabrieli, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that dyslexia may be due to a much broader difference in brain function. After analyzing functional MRI brain scans of people with and without dyslexia, they found that those with dyslexia were less adept at something called adaptive learning. When the brain sees something new, whether it’s a word, object, voice or experience, it expends a lot of neural energy to gather as much information about the novel stimulus as possible. But if it does this every time it hears the same voice, or encounters the same dog barking, for example, that wouldn’t be efficient. It’s therefore able to adapt and quickly triage new encounters from familiar ones.

    Gabrieli found that in the brains of dyslexics, this process wasn’t occurring when they heard the same person speak different words. Nor did it occur in other tests of the brain’s plasticity, or ability to adapt. That suggests that the trouble with reading has less to do with language specific problems but rather broader issues with adaptivity. In other words, the issues with adapting to new things may compromise skills like reading.

    Continue reading here: https://time.com/4608060/dyslexia-reading-disorder/

  • The Easy Reading Card – Easier Reading System!

    The Easy Reading Card – Easier Reading System!

    Reading is the key to success. Anyone who reads well and who understands what has been read automatically learns the rules of correct spelling.

    Precise, accurate reading is a prerequisite for writing and learning. The specific design for children of the Easy Reading Card makes reading easy and fun.

    Scientific studies have shown that a majority of individuals that exhibit reading problems are affected by subjective visual perception. When reading, the visual channels have to work precisely timed together so that there is no overlap of visual information.

    Science has proven the positive effects of the influences of colors while reading. Especially the color blue leads to a phasic activity of the channels, which leads to an increase in reading achievement, reading comprehension and reading speed. The color thus supports the sub-processes of the visual sensors.

    Teachers from around the world are already using the Easy Reading Card when working with children.

    Watch the Easy Reading Card in action:

     

    More info: www.easy-reading-card.com

    Order here: www.dyslexics.com 

  • Feeling Smarter and Smarter: Discovering the Inner-Ear Origins and Treatment for Dyslexia/LD, ADD/ADHD, and Phobias/Anxiety by Harold N. Levinson, MD

    Feeling Smarter and Smarter: Discovering the Inner-Ear Origins and Treatment for Dyslexia/LD, ADD/ADHD, and Phobias/Anxiety by Harold N. Levinson, MD

    In this groundbreaking book written for both lay and professional readers, Dr. Harold Levinson, a renowned psychiatrist and clinical researcher, provides his long-awaited follow-up work about truly understanding and successfully treating children and adults with many and diverse dyslexia-related disorders such as those found on the cover.

    This fascinating, life-changing title is primarily about helping children who suffer from varied combinations and severities of previously unexplained (“inner-ear/cerebellar-determined”) symptoms resulting in difficulties with:

    • reading, writing, spelling, math, memory, speech, sense of direction and time
    • grammar, concentration/activity-level, balance and coordination
    • headaches, nausea, dizziness, ringing ears, and motion-sickness
    • frustration levels and feeling dumb, ugly, klutzy, phobic, and depressed
    • impulsivity, cutting class, dropping out of school, and substance abuse
    • bullying and being bullied as well as anger and social interactions
    • later becoming emotionally traumatized and scarred dysfunctional adults

    Feeling Smarter and Smarter is thus also about and for the millions of frustrated and failing adults who are often overwhelmed by similar and even more complicated symptoms—as well as for their dedicated healers. Having laid the initial foundations for his many current insights in an earlier bestseller, Smart But Feeling Dumb, Dr. Levinson now presents a compelling range of enlightening new cases and data as well as a large number of highly original discoveries—such as his challenging illumination that: “All the above dyslexia-related manifestations are primarily ‘inner-ear’ or cerebellar-vestibular—not cerebrally or thinking-brain— determined and so do not impair IQ and have a favorable outcome.”

    And an “ingeniously clear” and explanatory theory of symptom formation, including the triggering of phobias and anxiety, has been formulated by Dr. Levinson using a simple analogy: “I can rapidly but transiently induce the entire dyslexia syndrome in perfectly normal individuals by spinning them around until their brain signals become dizzy or scrambled. And then mandating they perform varied reading, writing, conentration-demanding…tasks.”  In other words, dyslexia is recognized to be a complex multi-symptomatic syndrome encompassing all of the above mentioned symptoms—and many more. Clearly, it’s not just a pure reading disorder as now also recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) diagnostic manual, DSM-V.

    This syndrome results when diverse normal thinking brain and related processors fail to descramble the “dizzy” or distorted signals received from a fine-tuning signal impairment within the inner-ear and its supercomputer—the cerebellum, man’s lower “little brain.”[1]

    Most important, all the dyslexia/inner-ear based impairments and their symptoms were discovered by Dr. Levinson to respond rapidly and often dramatically when treated with simple and safe inner-ear enhancing medications and nutrients—thus enabling bright but dumb-feeling children and adults to feel smarter and smarter. In addition, by clarifying and more effectively utilizing a diverse range of educational and non-medical therapies which enhance inner-ear and/or cerebral compensation, all dyslexics can be best helped.

    Using the above mentioned spinning analogy in order to better explain improvements, Levinson states: “The dyslexia-like or inner-ear/cerebellar syndrome triggered by spinning normal individuals till dizzy signals arise can be minimized or prevented by pretreatment and/or treatment immediately following symptom formation, using anti-vertigo or inner-ear-enhancing meds and non-med therapies.”

             Additionally, Dr. Levinson discovered and similarly treated the relatively “minor” inner-ear/cerebellar dysfunction found associated with ASD or autism as well as traumatic brain injury and other major disorders. This enabled overall improvements, albeit the primary impairments persisted.

    In summary, this book’s content is highly unique. Its many patient-derived insights are fully capable of explaining and successfully treating all the known dyslexic symptoms and their determining mechanisms as well as clarifying all data and theories characterizing the dyslexia syndrome—including the frequently overlapping attention deficits and phobias. Significantly, most all of Dr Levinson’s highly original inner-ear/cerebellar concepts—considered “decades ahead of their time”— have been independently validated via hundreds of referenced neuroimaging and other studies.

     

    To order this “life-improving” book from Amazon or its publisher, Springer, log onto Dr. Levinson’s website: dyslexiaonline.com

    Feeling Smarter and Smarter: Discovering the Inner-Ear Origins and Treatment for Dyslexia/LD, ADD/ADHD, and Phobias/Anxiety by Harold N. Levinson, MD
    Feeling Smarter and Smarter: Discovering the Inner-Ear Origins and Treatment for Dyslexia/LD, ADD/ADHD, and Phobias/Anxiety by Harold N. Levinson, MD

     

    1 This theory was considered “ingenious” because it replaced and resolved several long held mistaken concepts—previously leading to scientific dead ends and paradoxes. For example, it was mistakenly believed:1-that dyslexia was a pure reading disorder of primary cerebral origin, despite its typical “symptomatic impurity” and the absence of cerebral neurological signs as well as the presence of only inner-ear/cerebellar signs, and 2-that all the many non-reading symptoms found among dyslexics were considered “co-morbid”—meaning they were/are believed due to separate non-dyslexic cerebral-related processing impairments—rather than due to a common inner-ear/cerebellar origin akin to the way the diabetic syndrome is caused by a common underlying insulin deficiency. So the illuminated paradoxes to be resolved were: 1-How could dyslexics have normal and even genius IQ’s and improve if they had so many separate and irreparable cerebral processing impairments? They couldn’t! Indeed, their IQ’s would approach zero,  2-How could dyslexia be due to a primary and irreversible cerebral impairment akin to Alexia in the presence of only inner-ear/cerebellar neurological signs and mechanism? It can’t! , 3-How could spinning, which destabilizes only the inner-ear/cerebellar signals, create all the dyslexia-related symptoms and how might inner-ear-enhancing meds “cure” them? This would be impossible if the dyslexia syndrome was of a primary cerebral origin affecting multiple sites of primary brain functioning.

    Available on Amazon: Feeling Smarter and Smarter

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