Saturday 4 June 2011

Dyslexia - Gods practical joke

I had a bit of a row with Jeni Barnett, the rather useless & patronising stand in for Vanessa Feltz on BBC London 94.9 on Thursday morning. If you click this link and advance it to 2.15.15 you can hear the discussion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00gxkjd/Vanessa_Feltz_Drugs_and_bad_advice/

Having been up all night working, I'd actually just dropped off to sleep when BBC London rang at 11.15 and told me I was on air, so my thought process wasn't as sharp as it might have been. Having just listened to it again, I bitterly regret not giving her both barrels for many of the ridiculously crass and ignorant comments she made, possibly the worst being that people should view cancer as a health opportunity. She gave the ridiculous case of "a health centre in america where people with cancer are told they are not allowed to say they are ill and 80% get better". Great. What about the 20%? What about the millions of yanks who can't afford such services? What is the equivalent rate for people who are allowed to say they are ill? Ben Goldacre at the Guardian has made a living exposing such bolloxology. The last thing we need is crass and ignorant BBC radio  presenters telling people with cancer they are not ill. I believe it's dangerous and I'd sack her for spouting such cobblers if I was her boss at the BBC, but I digress.

Jeni Barnett set me off, by stating that "dyslexics are sprinkled with stardust" and "it is a gift". When I challenged her to say whether she was dyslexic she said "yes, when I am tired I get numerologically dyslexic". Total bollox, what she means is when she gets tired, she gets tired and makes mistakes. Something we all do. She claimed she once lost a job because of it. This is typical of people like her. It's great to blame mysterious conditions for your own uselessness. Did it occur to her that maybe they sacked her, because she couldn't organise her life in such a way as to be fit to do her job?

For dyslexics, it is not a gift. It is just a pain in the arse. Sure some of us develop methods of coping so that we get by, but it improves nothing. I've been successful in life, but this is because I work hard. I've learned that if I try my best, I can do pretty good things with my life. There are many things I'm really proud of. My family, my band, my studios, my blog, my  achievements in my working life to name but a few. How has dyslexia helped these? Jeni Barnett read out an email saying that dyslexics think 2,000 times quicker than "normal people". I've no idea whether this is true. My guess is that it is a generalisation and completely meaningless. I come from a pretty intelligent family. I've never noticed any evidence that I think more quickly than my siblings who are non dyslexic. In fact I'd say there's a pretty good case to be made to say that I don't. The number of people who have told me "your brother is the most intelligent bloke I know" bears witness to this. I doubt too many people say the same thing to him. I know for a fact that a few have told him "your brother is the biggest wind up merchant, I've ever met" but as far as I'm aware, this isn't a measure of intelligence.

Lets have a look at  a few things I excel at. Let's see if there is any evidence that dyslexia has helped. Lets start with this blog. When I finish writing this, I'll re read it twice. This is because it will contain all manner of garbled grammar, misspellings and mangled sentences. If I'm still not sure, I'll ask my wife to read it. She has yet to read a blog and not spot a whole host of errors. I doubt anyone would ever use this as a textbook example of good english, in fact I'm sure many readers wince the poor use of english. They tolerate it because they find some of the information here interesting. Does it make me see things "more clearly" than my fellow bloggers. I've no idea if any of them are dyslexic, but I'd say Vickim, Mrs Angry, Mr Reasonable & Mr Mustard see things pretty much the same and often more clearly. They often express their points far more eloquently. What about my band? How has dyslexia helped this? The studios? Most importantly, what about family life. Well my kids know all about my poor academic record and achievements. I can't help them with their homework in many subjects. When they say "how do I spell Wycrundiatoration" or something, I just say ask your mum. Is that great? Is it a gift from God. To me it feels like Gods practical joke.

Would I employ a dyslexic? Well I do, so yes, but there are certain jobs which dyslexics do not excel at. On one occasion, a dyslexic employee took a telephone order from a customer and wrote the name down as "Niger Eateels". A discrete phonecall managed to ascertain that the customer was actually a Mr Nigel Eatwell. I'd already asked him to ensure customers spelled their name. He insisted Mr Eatwell had. Fortunately, I understood. When I was at school and six years old, I got called up to the blackboard and asked to spell the word "train". I wrote T-R-I-A-N. The teacher told me off and wrote the correct spelling below. She then told me to write it again. I wrote T-R-I-A-N. She called me an idiot and hit me on the knuckles with a ruler for my sins. That was the reality of dyslexia as a child. I hated school. It presented endless opportunities to look stupid, get humiliated and feel really crap about myself. I always thought that the saying "school is the best time of your life" is a total fallacy. I actually had a physical aversion for years to visiting my old schools, which I've only recently got over.

It is only since I recognised my dyslexia and started to understand the condition, that I have really been able to understand many of the odd things that have happened to me in my life as a result of it. A recent example was when I attended a church service. During this there was a part of the service, where a long section of text was read by all of the congregation. After about three sentences, I was completely lost. I couldn't keep up. Everyone else could read the text three times more quicky than I could. It was peppered with all manner of strange words, which I stumbled over. In the end, I just ended up staring at my feet. I suddenly recalled that as a child, I used to be an alter server.  The same thing used to happen. I'd zone out and get completely lost. As a result, I'd not do the various things an alter server is meant to do at the correct time. A priest once told my Dad that I was one of the most useless alter servers he'd ever seen. I stopped being an alter server when I was 13. By this time, I'd reached the point where all I ever did during mass was stare at the girls in the congregation and think impure thoughts. Being a good Catholic, I came to the conclusion that being an alter server was transforming me into a sinner, so I gave up. When all of  my friends gave up, the priests tried to persuade them to stay, but they were quite pleased to see the back of me. To be honest I wasn't surprised and I wasn't offended.

Shortly after I finally quit alter serving, I discovered punk rock. Mark Perry of sniffin glue magazine told everyone to learn three chords and form a band. My favourite Punk Rock band, The Ramones wrote songs with lyrics like this :-

I Dont wanna walk around with you

I Dont wanna walk around with you

I Dont wanna walk around with you

So why do you wanna walk around with me?


That was it. I got minimalism. All of a sudden there was something I could relate to. All of a sudden there was something I could belong to. And that my friend, is what all of us, dyslexic or not really want. We don't want to be told we're "dusted with stardust" we just need to feel like we belong,  that someone understands us, that we are not totally alone and that we can do something. Punk rock gave me that. What worries me most is all of the people out there who have never found anything. That is why I write blogs about the subject, just so maybe someone, somewhere will get a bit more understanding of what it's like, be they a dyslexic or a friend/family member of a dyslexic. I've no idea whether I succeed, but I will do my best to try.

Oh and one final thing. Nothing irritates me more than people like Jeni Barnett, who use an affected spellings of their name. Why can't she just spell it like everyone else, it's bad enough having to learn one spelling. I'm sure patronising old bags like her, just do it so they can trip up dyslexics like me and make us feel even more stupid.

11 comments:

Mrs Angry said...

Well, I didn't hear the phone in, but I do think this is a very interesting subject. I have three family members who are dyslexic, and with similar difficulties, and in fact since one was identified as being dyspraxic, well: hello, rather late in life I realised there was a reason for my being so hopeless at well, quite a lot of things. If I wrote a list of the things I can't do, in fact, I would feel very self conscious, so I won't. And anyway, it doesn't really matter now, although it did affect me a lot when I was younger, and problems like that were not identified. But although it is vital children get the support they need if they have such difficulties, and usually they don't, even these days,I don't actually think people should be labelled and identified by the limitations of such problems. In my experience, differences like these are compensated for by the resourcefulness needed to work around them, and a more creative mind, with the ability to think laterally and not in a plodding straight line.

Jaybird said...

Dear Rog, there is a lot of crap talked about dyslexia. It is not true that dyslexics think 2,000 times faster than other people.

It is the case that it is easier to diagnose dyslexia in intelligent people than those with below average intelligence, because the gap between expected & actual achievement is wider. But if your strengths are not that strong, or English is not your first language, then gap is smaller and the dyslexia may not be picked up. I think this has skewed diagnosis rates, which in turn has led people to think dyslexics are super-bright. Some are, some aren't. All struggle.

I do get sick of people pointing to the few highly successful dyslexics, as role models and support of the dyslexia as a gift, and ignore the fact that the majority of people in prison are dyslexic.

It is not true that dyslexia is a gift, unless you are one of those people who believes that coping with adversity is a gift.

I don't. It may inform your attitude to life, you may be more patient or more determined as a result, but that is not a gift. You are just as likely not to have that empathy or self-knowledge, and these are qualities you can develop without being dyslexic.

Jeni Barnett's comments were ill-informed and crass.

George said...

her her.

the other problem that people face is that anyone that does not understand dyslexia thinks that anyone that has it is stupid or not good at learning.

i have resonably high IQ, but struggle to see simple mistakes like the ( hte ) and ( nda ) and dont get me started with were

Citizen Barnet said...

Being dyslexic must be a real pain. And very discouraging for children in today's mad testing culture, even if the problem is more acknowledged than it used to be.

I noticed recently that Brian Coleman had typed 'Totterdige' and 'Buisness'in an email. That wasn't the result of dyslexia but of typing in a tearing hurry and, I suppose, not taking the trouble to check his work.

We should all check our work, dyslexic or not. That's my job, checking people's writing. I can spot mistakes but I have to know they are there in the first place.

Since I never learned grammar at school that is a gap in my English abilities. But I'm better at it than most people, so my shortcomings go unmarked - except by David Duff (who I haven't heard from in a long time...).

Rog T said...

I am slightly irrational at times about certain things. I was so cross about what she was saying, I gave up on sleeping and spent the day catching up on other stuff.

I just wish that when people know the square rout of nothing about subjects they would spare us the benefit of their wisdom, especailly if they want to be patronising and condescending.

I'd love to hear a proper discussion about the subject, with people such as Benjamin Zephaniah, who's comments I can totally relate to. I had been meaning to write a blog about Benjamins comments today, but Jeni Barnett pissed me off so much I got completely sidetracked

Mrs Angry said...

Jaybird: yes, dyslexic children of higher IQ are more easily identified due to the disparity between for example, verbal articulacy and written work. But there is also evidence that people with dyslexia are more visually responsive, if you like to put it that way, and benefit from learning in different ways, not necessarily compatible with our present academic way of teaching small children.
Rog, where else can people who know the square root of nothing got to patronise the rest of us, except on a radio phone in? Don't listen to such bilge: it only encourages them.

Jaybird said...

Mrs A I think part of the problem is that dyslexia is probably not one thing. It describes a set of problems in reading and also with short term memory and organisational skills, but the disruptions in the pathway that give you the problem, will, I suspect, turn out to be various. So some people have Irlen syndrome and are helped with colour films over words. Others have visio-spatial problems, whereas for some I think the issues are more in the auditory parts of the brain (or the bits linking auditory to written language). That means some may be more visually responsive and others won't. I believe, in the future, "dyslexia" will be as useful a label as "rash" or "hepatitis". People do find ways to work round their problems, but because we have not really borken dyslexias down into subsets yet, it is harder to point people toward shortcuts that work for them.

Below is a link to various different kinds of visual distortions that some people with dyslexia experience when looking at the printed page.

http://www.irlen.com.sg/irlen.html

ainelivia said...

am commenting here, mostly because of the contents of your first paragraph; not because i know anything about dyslexia.

It's that positive/schmosotive stuff that really gets me riled. if you think positive everything will be ok.... hmmmm.... since my bestest friend, the nearest i ever had to a sister, died almost two years ago from pancreatic cancer; i have learned a lot from her and the situation i found myself in... all that positive stuff is baloney.

Barbara Ehrenreich's article in Guardian, Sat 2 January 2010"Smile! You've got Cancer", made me shout out loud, Yes!! and i was having a coffee in one of MillHill's coffee shops at the time. How I wish she had published her book titled: "Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and The World", a year earlier. For this was a discussion my friend and i had many times; she had told me once how some well-meaning nurse had said that "Cancer could change your life". "Yes," my friend replied, "and it also ends it".

And later you mention Ben Goldacre; well this is the second time i have heard the word Bolloxology, the last was my friend complaining bitterly about the "positive nuts" that keep saying stupid things about having cancer.

And as she said so many times, "let them come back and say that to me when they have that diagnosis". and yes, i agree great for the 80%, but what about the 20%. and anyway my personal experience proves that this notion of not speaking about illness is helpful is bollox. After my friends death, i experienced enormous grief, that developed into depression; i struggled along for months just able to drag myself through each day... it was when i went to see my doctor and talked about how i felt, and she arranged counselling for me and prescribed medication, that i began to see a way forward. good for you for getting angry and speaking out, more of us should do it more often.

Rog T said...

Ainelivia,

Thanks for your comment. You said so eloquently so many of the things I wanted to say. My best mate died of pancreatic cancer 10 years ago and you could not have had a more positive attitude to the disease than Ernie. I hate all diseases, afflictions and disorders. None makes things better. I just wish I had the gift of language so I could quell the anger I feel about it all by eloquently expressing my feelings.

The thing that hurts most is the number of times in my life I've wanted to say something and all I said was "I don't know what to say"

valblog said...

Everything is a gift. Lots of gifts are unwanted, unwarranted or completely useless.love, Valrye

ainelivia said...

.... and i forgot to say, please do write the blog post about Benjamin Zepaniah, i'd like to read that, because there's a straight talking man..