Dyslexia Minor

[livius drusus]

Sounds like an Asterix character.

Anyhoo, what I mean is letters or numbers or words that we have to really, really focus on to get right. I noticed it today because I had to list a bunch of serial numbers ending in P91. It was an enormous struggle for me to not reverse the P and 9. I seriously had to write every line and loop slowly and deliberately like it was first grade all over again.

Does that happen to everyone? I'm not dyslexic afaik.

[curses]

Yep. Depends on the type size/font, though. Any font with a serif is a killer. I constantly muddle up phone numbers and social security numbers on faxes, though. I'm not dyslexic, either.

[Leesifer]

I find I get that with constantly looking at the same word/number too, like your P91.

[Tanda]

:yup: Me too.

[cappuccino]

I get dyslexic with certain words and letter groupings too. Also when looking at the same word over and over again, it starts looking wrong to me. Even though I can see it's spelled correctly and the same as ever, it feels majorly wrong to me. It's as if the concept of that word's meaning has evaporated away by the act of looking at the word repeatedly.

How strange.

[Crumb]

:bonghit:

[ceptimus]

This right/left east/west thing just confuses the hell out of me. When I was at school, we didn't have dyslexia, so I was just bad (or lazy) at reading and writing. A whack on the head by the teacher was considered a good treatment for laziness in those days, and it worked on me (to an extent anyway).

I was always annoyed that I had to 'cheat' to remember which way letters and numbers went - the other kids didn't have to use these tricks. I associated letters with asymmetric things in the classrooms - so if I wanted to write a b I would look at the blackboard that had a chalk holder on the right hand side, and so looked (slightly) like a b. And then a d had to go the other way - so I'd look at the blackboard and write the loop on the opposite side to the chalk holder...

Nobody ever taught me these tricks. I invented them myself to avoid being whacked quite as often. And I didn't tell anyone about them either. They were my shameful secret. I suppose it did me good in the long run - taught me to be inventive. Over the years I've built up a vast collection of these tricks, and they allow me to manage fairly well - though I expect I'm having to work harder than normal people to do the same things.

No one (as far as I know) ever confuses up with down or forwards with backwards. I think it's because there are obvious aspects of reality that differentiate these opposites - things fall down not up, we can see forwards but not backwards. However, when it comes to left and right, although these are clearly opposite directions there is no obvious difference between them. We apply the arbitrary labels 'left' and 'right' to these directions, but some of us have to stop and think every time to remember which one is which.

[livius drusus]

That's fascinating, cep. It puts your avatar and general puzzle wizardry in a whole new light.

[Leesifer]

cep. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

[ceptimus]

46

[Leesifer]

It was your "whack on the head by a teacher" comment that had me wondering, thanks.

I got caned at school myself and had to duck when another teacher used to throw chalk at us!

So I wondered if were we were in the same sort of age group.

We're not - you are 6 years older than me :giggle:

[Dragar]

I have a lecturer who is severely dyslexia (and does not do any writing on the board for that reason - all powerpoint and OHPs from him).

He told (in quite a humorous fashion) how he used to be embarrassed by it, but now has gotten over it. He said some events left scars, though - like being made to walk around school with a sign over his neck, reading, "I can't spell 'the'."

[ms_ann_thrope]

Also when looking at the same word over and over again, it starts looking wrong to me. Even though I can see it's spelled correctly and the same as ever, it feels majorly wrong to me. It's as if the concept of that word's meaning has evaporated away by the act of looking at the word repeatedly.That is a perfect description of the nameless phenomenon that completely trips me out from time to time. I'm so glad that you could put it into words... I'm not alone! :hug:

[livius drusus]

I used to play with that effect when I was a kid. I'd stare in the mirror thinking "what if I wasn't me" until I didn't recognize myself anymore.

Good times...

[Puck]

It's more numbers for me. Letters too, but numbers kick my arse.

I can look at an address and can't say it right. After it's out of sight, if I picture it enough, I can force my mouth to say them in order.

I was a "lazy" kid in school, too. "Puck's not stupid, she's lazy" is what they told my Mother. Now I know better, but I wanted to scream at them, "I must be stupid, because I'm trying". I finally gave up and didn't try any more, and they left me alone to sink. Thank goodness for the Mothers Of Invention's Uncle Meat album.

[wildernesse]

Last semester I wrote all my notes by hand as opposed to using the laptop, and actually became disturbed at how often and how easy it came to me to swap letters while I was writing. As in, at least every couple of lines I would have a word or three written with swapped up letters. Different words, not the same--it was as if my brain just spelled that word that way and somehow when I write regularly (not quickly) I have time to think about it and fix it.

So, like whenever I am hypochondriac-ing, I called my mom and she told me I wasn't dyslexic. And that solved that. I wish she could have made pinkeye go away so easily.

[huntress]

This right/left east/west thing just confuses the hell out of me. When I was at school, we didn't have dyslexia, so I was just bad (or lazy) at reading and writing. A whack on the head by the teacher was considered a good treatment for laziness in those days, and it worked on me (to an extent anyway).

I was always annoyed that I had to 'cheat' to remember which way letters and numbers went - the other kids didn't have to use these tricks. I associated letters with asymmetric things in the classrooms - so if I wanted to write a b I would look at the blackboard that had a chalk holder on the right hand side, and so looked (slightly) like a b. And then a d had to go the other way - so I'd look at the blackboard and write the loop on the opposite side to the chalk holder...

Nobody ever taught me these tricks. I invented them myself to avoid being whacked quite as often. And I didn't tell anyone about them either. They were my shameful secret. I suppose it did me good in the long run - taught me to be inventive. Over the years I've built up a vast collection of these tricks, and they allow me to manage fairly well - though I expect I'm having to work harder than normal people to do the same things.

No one (as far as I know) ever confuses up with down or forwards with backwards. I think it's because there are obvious aspects of reality that differentiate these opposites - things fall down not up, we can see forwards but not backwards. However, when it comes to left and right, although these are clearly opposite directions there is no obvious difference between them. We apply the arbitrary labels 'left' and 'right' to these directions, but some of us have to stop and think every time to remember which one is which.Classic dyslexia, there.

You may be mildly dyslexic, liv. We generally think of severe cases when we think of dyslexia, and kids who can't read or write, but that there are infinite shades of grey. I've always had trouble differentiating b and d, as well as p and q, and sometimes, 5 and 2 (if the font is funky enough). All of these are, of course, mirror images in some sense. (Oddly, 6 and 9 never gave me trouble....) I don't have trouble writing...just reading, and just at the letter level. I'm fine with known words, particularly in context, but give me a word with a b or d (or worse, both) that I've never seen before, and I have to return to first grade to figure out what the letters are. I've screwed up tests because I couldn't properly transcribe the "b" or "d" I'd marked on the test to the "B" or "D" on the answer sheet.

Dyslexics have a 3D way of viewing the world, as I understand it, which makes some letters play tricks on them. A common way of coping with this problem is to acquire an extensive vocabulary in order to avoid dealing with unfamiliar words.

Nah. You couldn't be dyslexic in the least. :)

d

[livius drusus]

Why, I'm sure I don't know what you mean. :shiftier:

Mulling it over, although I haven't really had tricky letter problems dog me much while writing, I am an incredibly bad proofreader because I overwhelmingly see what I expect to see. I've stared at an error for half an hour after having been told there's an error there and still couldn't recognize it until the teacher told me precisely what it was.

I just sort of assumed everybody had little quirks like that just because our brains are weird and our eyes so distinctly inferior to octupuses', what with all the mirror imaging and hemispheric double-dutch and whatnot. Are we all dyslexic, then, to greater or lesser degrees?

[cappuccino]

Have you had a problem with combining similiar words together unintentionally? I do that a lot without meaning to. Like this one time I was giving directions to a friend and gave her the name of a street as Lamarck. When she arrived she smacked me on my head and went, it's Larack street, not Lamarck! She was right, I've seen the sign dozens of the time and I knew it was Larack but still it came out wrong. Upon a moment's reflection, I realized what happened, my friend was applying to Lamar University for research and we had been talking about it when I was giving out the directions so my brain combined the two words, Larack and Lamar together. Another quirk of mine is I have some trouble integrating words I learned visually(ie from reading) and words that I learned auditorily so I may mix up them and produce well weird results.

At least when I'm typing I can pay a close attention to what I'm doing, otherwise errors start creeping in if I don't and I'm not exactly the best proofreader either.

[pescifish]

I just sort of assumed everybody had little quirks like that just because our brains are weird and our eyes so distinctly inferior to octupuses', what with all the mirror imaging and hemispheric double-dutch and whatnot. Now that I can't see so well, I've found that my brain just makes shit up and tells me that I actually saw it.
I can't believe my eyes!
:fishie:

[livius drusus]

Another quirk of mine is I have some trouble integrating words I learned visually(ie from reading) and words that I learned auditorily so I may mix up them and produce well weird results.
Me too, although more so a few years back than now. I always assumed it was related to my being bilingual. Mixing up words, mispronouncing written ones, direct translations that seem like they would make sense but don't: I put them all in the same English-Italian category.