LD Expert Podcast with Jill Stowell
Dyslexia and Imposter Syndrome
Jill Stowell: Dyslexia is more understood and more misunderstood than ever before.
We now know that the dyslexic thinking style may have exceptional talents associated with it. We know that 1 in 5 students may exhibit signs of dyslexia.
What is not always recognized is the impact on self-esteem, identity, and the family when a student has dyslexia.
Welcome to the LD Expert Podcast, your place for answers and solutions for dyslexia and learning differences.
I’m your host, Jill Stowell, founder and executive director of Stowell Learning Centers and author of Take the Stone Out of the Shoe, A Must-Have Guide to Understanding, Supporting, and Correcting Dyslexia, Learning, and Attention Challenges.
At Stowell Learning Centers, we work with children and families like yours - helping parents understand what’s going on when bright students struggle in school and what can be done to change that permanently, and we understand that having a child with dyslexia or a learning challenge can be very lonely for a parent.
You feel like you’re the only one whose child is struggling and you don’t know who to talk to. This podcast is for you. This podcast is part of our mission to equip parents with knowledge and practical tools for understanding and helping your child.
If this episode brings up any questions for you, go to stowellcenter.com and give us a call.
I met a multi-millionaire one time who told me that he used to hide behind a huge rock instead of going to school when he was 11 because he couldn't read and he couldn't bear the bullying.
When he was 12, a teacher who understood that you could be smart and struggling at the same time had compassion and helped Joe learn to read.
Dyslexia shows up in different ways.
In some cases, it’s an obvious and debilitating inability to read.
But it can also be very stealthy - masked behind intuitive social abilities, talents in sports or arts, or creative problem solving.
It may not even seem "bad enough" to go outside of the school to address it.
But here's the challenge: Our dyslexic learners know they're struggling and they usually know they're hiding.
In spite of good intelligence and talents, they often suffer a crisis of self-esteem and identity.
Dyslexic students tend to be good comprehenders and good compensators.
They often are intuitive and savvy enough about the world to make it look like they can do the work. Or they find ways around doing the work so that their challenges with reading or writing may not be obvious.
Michael entertained his classmates whenever reading or writing seatwork was assigned and then he’d take everything home so his mom could help him with it. His teacher thought he had ADHD.
Alex was really bright. He was headed for pre-med in college, but he came to us for help in his senior year in high school because he had been masking difficulties with reading and writing for years by getting his friends to do his language arts homework in exchange for helping them with math.
Under the compensations and workarounds, our dyslexic students are suffering from imposter syndrome and low self-esteem.
This is really important for parents and teachers to understand.
Because these students can mask their difficulties and typically have other strengths and talents, poor performance in school can get masked for lack of motivation or laziness, and often ADHD.
There is, unfortunately, I think, a lot of anxiety these days and a lot of awareness around anxiety.
Imagine just how stressful it is to go to school everyday knowing that today might be the day that you get embarrassed by being called to read in class or everyone sees your low test score, or the day that your friends recognize that you must not be that smart because you’re so slow at doing the work.
I really want people to understand this because the stories that we tell ourselves shape us.
A student who is constantly hiding who they are because they have difficulty reading or whose outer self is a star athlete but internally they’re ashamed of what they can’t do, may suffer a crisis of self-esteem or battle with imposter syndrome.
I have spoken with very successful dyslexic adults who shared that in spite of advanced degrees and highly successful businesses or careers, they experienced feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and self-doubt throughout school and most of their lives. They didn’t feel worthy of their success, the good grade, the job, or the praise.
For the rest of this episode, I’m going to give you some very quick answers to common questions about dyslexia.
And we’re going to start with the most important one:
Is dyslexia a permanent condition?
Dyslexia is a thinking style that is often associated with both reading difficulties and creative abilities. It is a neurobiological difference in how the brain processes language.
In spite of popular beliefs, the symptoms associated with dyslexia, like other learning disabilities, can be improved or eliminated by developing the underlying skills at the root of the problem. The reading difficulties can be resolved while preserving the strengths and abilities.
What does brain science say about dyslexia?
Brain research indicates that dyslexic readers use less effective brain pathways for reading than skilled readers.
The neuroplasticity research tells us that the brain can rewire itself through intensive and targeted training. This is very encouraging, because we now know that more effective pathways can be developed!
How do I know if my child has dyslexia?
If your child had early speech problems, difficulty rhyming, difficulty learning the alphabet, and struggles more with reading and writing than expected, they may have dyslexia - particularly if there is a family history of dyslexia or reading problems.
Is your struggling reader a Legomaster, out of the box thinker, creative problem solver, or gifted in creative arts? They may be dyslexic.
Go to stowellcenter.com/dyslexia to take a quick dyslexia screener.
Should I get my child tested for dyslexia?
If you’re asking the question, then yes, you probably should.
A diagnosis of dyslexia provides a direction for getting help and it can be a huge relief to students because it means that there is a reason for the struggles. It’s not their fault and it isn’t because they’re not smart.
Will the school test for dyslexia?
Many states now require early dyslexia testing. The challenge is that once diagnosed or suspected, most teachers are not trained to remediate dyslexia.
Struggling readers may get support through intervention or special education, but the underlying auditory and visual processing skills needed to correct dyslexia are not addressed in the schools.
Is dyslexia when students reverse letters or read backwards?
Yes and no. Many dyslexic readers experience visual disorientation when reading or writing that can cause spatial confusion with letters. However, not all dyslexic individuals experience these symptoms.
There is typically a strong auditory component to dyslexia which makes it difficult to process, or think about, the individual sounds in words. Sequencing letters or words in oral and written language may also be challenging.
Is there more than one kind of dyslexia?
There are 3 main types of dyslexia:
Dysnemkinesia - which is difficulty remembering letter symbols and writing them without reversals.
Dysphonesia - which is difficulty connecting sounds and letter symbols in order to use phonics for reading and spelling, and
Dyseidesia - difficulty visually recognizing whole words for reading and remembering how words look for spelling.
There are four more types of dyslexia that are combinations of these three.
What are common symptoms of dyslexia?
Not every child who stumbles over “b” and “d” once in a while or struggles at first to sound out words is dyslexic.
It is the number and consistency of symptoms that indicate the dyslexic thinking style. While every dyslexic student is different, over the last forty years working with this incredible population of students, there are some common characteristics that we tend to see:
- Creative, visual-spatial thinker; they excel at arts, Legos, building, or sports
- Big picture thinker; out-of-the-box problem-solving abilities
- Highly empathetic, charismatic, or excel socially
- Doesn’t like to read, but likes to be read to because they often have very strong comprehension abilities
- Difficulty learning the alphabet - in fact, as they get older, they probably still have to sing it in order to write it
- Lingering difficulty with letter and number reversals after age 7
- Sounds out every word
- Strong, strong negative emotions towards reading or writing
- Confusion with small words such as “the”, “of”, and “if” when reading
- Guess at words based on a few letters in the word
- Can’t decode new words; dependent on their fund of memorized words, and
- Misread words but get the meaning, so they might say “cat” for “kitten”
Dyslexia is one of my very favorite topics because there is so much potential in these individuals and so much hope for change.
So thank you for listening.
To wrap things up:
Notice and nurture your dyslexic learner’s strengths AND, go after the root of the challenges.
Don’t let anyone convince you that your dyslexic learner is just stuck with it and has to spend a lifetime working around it.
We want kids to live their best lives and enjoy their talents without the dramatic, even if hidden, struggles.
At Stowell Learning Centers, we help children and adults eliminate struggles associated with dyslexia and learning differences. We want to make this journey easier for you. Connect with us on social media and on our website, stowellcenter.com, for information and free resources.
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