Aspies For Freedom

I have to disagree with this clear generalised accessment of how read is processed. This may vary well be how linguistic/verbal thinkers proccess reading.  Speaking for myself being more of a visual spatial thinker words are  converted into their own reality of shape and form.  I don't think I have specific "language centers" in my brain to do the interpretation.

"If you're reading a word that you've never seen before, you need to first translate the letters into sounds, and then put those sounds together to make a whole word,"

I think most of the time, my brain just skips this step.  I find I will know how to spell some words, their meanings but I just can not say them.  So much for the "whole word reading" theory.

"Rosen teaches Alex to pay attention to slang, which is an important part of social communication, especially among children."  Children being encouraged to use "slang"?  My 6th grade teacher would drop dead if he heard that one!  

"Deception is beyond him, which is why Rosen actually celebrates when Alex tries to manipulate her. "  This parent wants their child to learn how to lie?  Some people value honesty and truthfulness.

I think slang is an important part of speech too, especially local colloquialisms.

He will make an awesome self-advocate one day.

We need more people who are not nervous at public speaking around.

We need more people who are not nervous at public speaking around.

Definetely. That may be why most conferences have the same few speakers all the time.

I also am not convinced that the suggested sound conversion phase is involved in my reading.

As a dyslexic, I'm also not happy with dyslexia being explained in terms of reading and writing difficulties.

As a dyslexic, I'm also not happy with dyslexia being explained in terms of reading and writing difficulties.

Hmm, pardon me for my ignorance, but if it isn't that, then what is it?

Different way of visualising the world, noticeably manifested in difficulties reading and writing.

You know how gluten and casein are bad for autistics because they pass into the blood and act like opioids in the brain?  Dyslexics are more like Aspergerers.  Could be related.

Amy, if I could answer in some few words, life would be a lot simpler and sweeter.

Okay.
To be dyslexic is to be organised in a different, individual and very personal manner.
Dyslexia is on the autistic spectrum: and defined by a specific response to the general autistic experience.
The dyslexic has problematic social interaction: but less so than many others on the autistic spectrum.
The dyslexic is not on the same war footing with the NT, as are many others on the autistic spectrum.
The dyslexic coexists with the NT, more readily than many others on the autistic spectrum.
The dyslexic is almost the autistic outsider on the NT inside.

NT takes the dyslexic as like itself, but just a little confused as to the rules of things.
That's what dys-lexic means, as a word. Lexicon indicates that there is a set of systematic rules. The dyslexic is dys-lexic, that is does not properly follow these rules.
The NT assumes there is one reality, and one set of rules for that reality.
The dyslexic is aware that you can have as many realities as you supply lexicons for: aware of this as an inate whole person matter.

The dyslexic does two basic things, needs to do two basic things.
Firstly, they have to have some mastery of the NT lexicon, the NT set of rules as to what is real. Dyslexics are pretty good at that, but not perfect: when they make these mistakes; they are pulled up as dyslexic.
But the other thing which the dyslexic does, is keep alive the general autistic awareness, that the NT reality is just arbitrary. And, again, they do this in a whole person way.

Reading and writing difficulties do arise, but only incidentally.
My physical hand writing can go from being an illegible scrawl, to copperplate perfection, depending on what I am having to cope with. My ability to communicate with others in writing, can vary from zero to very good, depending on a lot of factors. I can suffer word blindness, and in fact complete loss of conventional memory, depending on what I am feeling.
But these and other reading/writing difficulties are incidental and variable.
What makes me dyslexic, is just what places me on the spectrum, and just how I deal with the experience of being on the spectrum.

It's much more complex than that, of course.

Those on the spectrum, know that the NT reality is not the only one.
What makes the dyslexic dyslexic, is just how they work that matter of there being other other actual and possible realities.

Just as many on this forum are not prepared to allow others to tell them what the autistic consists in.
Just so are most of the adult dyslexics that I know, determined that they and not non-dyslexics are going to say what dyslexia consists in.

Most diagnoses and descriptions of most special needs are not good enough.
They may have done some good. They may have once been necessary. But now their shortcomings are just too obvious.
The traditional way, the NT way of seeing all these things, is gradually showing its age and limitations.

Thats on target.

A different way of visualising the world.

A different way of conceiving the world.

My world arises very much through the thinking and feeling that I do.
And that world varies depending on who I am with: the world I have is the world I share with them; and that world may simply fade away when I'm not with them.

That sounds very BPD.

I'm hyperlexic.  I was surprised to learn that it's uncommon, and there's no way I believe it's a disorder.  

I remember very well when I first understood why my mum and dad were so fascinated that they'd gaze at books for hours on end in the evenings.  I couldn't see what was so interesting in the little "pictures" (letters and words) that they'd spend so much time gazing at them, slowly turning pages.  So I asked when I was three years old.  My dad put me on his lap and showed me the page he was reading and said "each of these little pictures is a letter and each one makes the same sound.  You run them together and you get words."  

That was an epiphany to me, as I finally got it!  I then drove him mad writing the alphabet out for me and getting him to give me a word with the first letter ie. apple for a, ball for b, etc. which I'd then draw underneath.  After a month or so I didn't need my chart any more, and I was reading reliably by the age of four.

Alison (who is still very much in love <3 with the written word decades on!)

I thought you said you weren't autistic but that you worked with autistics. :?

I think you should check the criteria for BPD before comparing it with dyslexia, as I don't think many dyslexics would like it to be said that its very similar.

Biddy Roy: I just meant the bit I quoted.

I think lots of people have 'autistic selves' that they never even knew about.

And when they parent or work with people who are autistic, they sympathetically come out to play.

Just a phenonmenon I have noticed.