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Reading problems

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Denisov

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Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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Reading problems Posted: 02-29-08 14:36pm


Hello all here's my information. I know this is for children usually but I feel this problem has been with me since I was 6 or 7. I'm 36 years old and as long as I can remember have had trouble concentrating on a task. In reading this is especially bad. I have a few problems. * When I read I have to read a sentence 2 or 3 times to understand it. If the sentence is simple like this one, usually after reading it twice I can understand it. I will often break the sentence down into groups of words so that I can understand it. For example in this sentence "If you want to post messages, please register. All posts by unregistered guests are held for moderation, to protect against spam posts " I have to break down the first part to understand that I want to post a message then I have to register. In the second sentence I have to break it down to first see it's talking about unregistered guests and then about moderation. Finally I have to factor in the spam posts. It takes me 2 or 3 attempts to understand a simple sentence like this one. * I will often have great difficulty reading for more than 30 seconds. My brain seems to become tired as if its expending tremendous effort to understand a simple sentence and if the words are even slightly technical then I have a much greater hard time. * I am doing prelaw and the language simply doesn't make sense to me. It's like Greek. I have only wanted to be a judge all my life so I really want to try and figure out why I have this problem for over 30 years. If someone can tell me whether this is dyslexia that would be great. * The words don't appear flipped or anything like that. For example, "cat" seems to be "cat" to me and not "tac" or "act". English was traditionally my best subject so I don't understand why I have such a hard time reading it. I went to my local clinic a few mos. ago and it tested me for ADHD and found no sign of that. Only that my expectations for what I should achieve in life are way too high. Basically the doctor said I didn't have brains to do law. This is extremely distressing and I fear deep down it's the truth. However I am willing to undergo brain surgery if necessary to increase my intelligence. I will also take steroids or dangerous drugs if needed. Anything to make myself smarter. If anyone knows of how I can do this successfully please let me know.

antigone

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Posted: 03-01-08 22:01pm


No neurosurgeon will do brain surgery on you. You can not give a person intelligence. You sound as if you are dealing with some learning disorder. No doctor can diagnose that. To get a diagnosis for a learning disorder you need to be evaluated by a psychologist that deals with this. Public school systems have psychologists that do this type of evaluation on students. Check with the public school near you and get info on getting tested. They can also evaluate for ADHD. My son has a learning disability and ADHD. You sound very much like him. The psychologist said that reading is difficult for him - like if I were to try to read Spanish with my limited knowledge of Spanish and understand what I have read. Is this sounding like you? Don't let one person put you off. Keep looking for answers. If you have no disorder that can be dealt with try going to a tutoring center like Sylvan or Huntington Learning Center. Perhaps you need some intense tutoring to help you with reading. Hope this helps. Best to you!

Denisov

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Posts: 6

Posted: 03-07-08 14:52pm

antigone wrote:

No neurosurgeon will do brain surgery on you. You can not give a person intelligence.

You sound as if you are dealing with some learning disorder. No doctor can diagnose that. To get a diagnosis for a learning disorder you need to be evaluated by a psychologist that deals with this. Public school systems have psychologists that do this type of evaluation on students. Check with the public school near you and get info on getting tested. They can also evaluate for ADHD.

My son has a learning disability and ADHD. You sound very much like him. The psychologist said that reading is difficult for him - like if I were to try to read Spanish with my limited knowledge of Spanish and understand what I have read. Is this sounding like you? Don't let one person put you off. Keep looking for answers.

If you have no disorder that can be dealt with try going to a tutoring center like Sylvan or Huntington Learning Center. Perhaps you need some intense tutoring to help you with reading.

Hope this helps. Best to you!

Being 36, there's no way for me to get testing done at a public school. What you said about the spanish thing sounds sort of like me. I know english quite well but reading is very difficult. It's like I read the words at a normal speed but the information isn't processed at all by the brain. So then when I go back and re-read the sentence to comprehend it, it takes a tremendous amount of energy by my brain to understand what I'm reading. The more technical the language, the greater the difficulty I have. With law being the hardest and medical journals being a second close.

The end result is that after a minute of reading I'm ready to give up!

antigone

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Posted: 03-08-08 02:33am


I realize the schools will not test you but perhaps they can offer you the name of the psychologist that does the testing and do the testing privately with the psychologist. The psychologist can certainly give you a referral to someone who can do the testing even if he/she can not. My son has some of the very problems you describe. Reading is a chore. I encourage you to seek some help. You can overcome some of this. It takes time and effort but you can improve your reading. I hope you will try to get tested. I don't think you have a low intelligence level but perhaps a decoding problem that makes reading very difficult.

Denisov

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Posts: 6

Posted: 03-09-08 14:47pm

antigone wrote:

I realize the schools will not test you but perhaps they can offer you the name of the psychologist that does the testing and do the testing privately with the psychologist. The psychologist can certainly give you a referral to someone who can do the testing even if he/she can not.

My son has some of the very problems you describe. Reading is a chore. I encourage you to seek some help. You can overcome some of this. It takes time and effort but you can improve your reading.

I hope you will try to get tested. I don't think you have a low intelligence level but perhaps a decoding problem that makes reading very difficult.

Hello, can you tell me some of the problems and conditions your son had? Also, what were his treatments?

antigone

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Posted: 03-12-08 08:50am


My son is 11. When he was in 3rd grade he had real difficulty reading. He was way below grade level but was getting wonderful grades in math and other subjects. His teacher insisted that he see a doctor and get "a little bit of something" because she was sure he had ADHD. I did take him to his doctor and we had him evaluated. He does have ADHD but the medications did not clear up the reading problems. He would read words incorrectly - pronounce the second letter first or read a word backward. It didn't happen all the time but warning bells were going off in my head. He was old enough that this type of thing should not have been happening. He would write the words backward as well. Frequently he would write letters backward - b,c,d,f, j,p,q etc. Again, he was at an age when this type of thing should have been gone if a child did this early on. My son was in a private school so they had no ability to test him. His teacher just wanted me to increase the medication, thinking this was the problem. I finally called the public school on my own and inquired about testing for Nick. They were very helpful and we arranged for the testing. It took some time for this to occur but it finally was done. The school psychologist gave a battery of tests to Nick. I had them look into ADHD as well, just to see if they saw the symptoms of the disorder. The tests showed Nick to be of superior intelligence, ADHD, and he has a decoding problem. He looks at a word and the brain does not see the word as it is written. He tries to read it but the letters appear to Nick in a different order than what is actually there. Sounding out words is very difficult for him. He gets the sounds mixed up or wrong. The psychologist described it as being like reading a foreign language. Nick has received special education to assist him with his reading, spelling and language arts. This has helped but the problem is still there. He has difficulty reading and spelling is a nightmare for him. He is was on straterra for his ADHD but became very depressed. Now he is taking an herbal preparation to treat the ADHD. It seems to be working well. I think Nick will always find reading and spelling difficult. He has to put more time into these activities than most kids his age. He is a very auditory learner. He just needs to hear information one time and he has it. It is truly amazing. I will read chapters to him in science or social studies and he will ace the test. It takes Nick a long time to read so I help him with this. His hand writing is terrible. The handwriting thing seems to be a common problem for people that have learning disorders. I hope this helps. I will be more than happy to tell you anything more that you need. I am trying to describe Nick's problems but I don't fully understand what happens in his brain when he reads. Something goes wrong in the brain that helps you understand what is written. Let me know if there is anything else I can tell you. I hope you can find some assistance. You are in school so perhaps someone in the tutoring center or counseling center can help you find out where to get tested. Let me know how it is going.

Denisov

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Posts: 6

Posted: 03-13-08 15:29pm

antigone wrote:

My son is 11. When he was in 3rd grade he had real difficulty reading. He was way below grade level but was getting wonderful grades in math and other subjects. His teacher insisted that he see a doctor and get "a little bit of something" because she was sure he had ADHD. I did take him to his doctor and we had him evaluated. He does have ADHD but the medications did not clear up the reading problems. He would read words incorrectly - pronounce the second letter first or read a word backward. It didn't happen all the time but warning bells were going off in my head. He was old enough that this type of thing should not have been happening. He would write the words backward as well. Frequently he would write letters backward - b,c,d,f, j,p,q etc. Again, he was at an age when this type of thing should have been gone if a child did this early on. My son was in a private school so they had no ability to test him. His teacher just wanted me to increase the medication, thinking this was the problem. I finally called the public school on my own and inquired about testing for Nick. They were very helpful and we arranged for the testing. It took some time for this to occur but it finally was done. The school psychologist gave a battery of tests to Nick. I had them look into ADHD as well, just to see if they saw the symptoms of the disorder. The tests showed Nick to be of superior intelligence, ADHD, and he has a decoding problem. He looks at a word and the brain does not see the word as it is written. He tries to read it but the letters appear to Nick in a different order than what is actually there. Sounding out words is very difficult for him. He gets the sounds mixed up or wrong. The psychologist described it as being like reading a foreign language.

Nick has received special education to assist him with his reading, spelling and language arts. This has helped but the problem is still there. He has difficulty reading and spelling is a nightmare for him. He is was on straterra for his ADHD but became very depressed. Now he is taking an herbal preparation to treat the ADHD. It seems to be working well.

I think Nick will always find reading and spelling difficult. He has to put more time into these activities than most kids his age. He is a very auditory learner. He just needs to hear information one time and he has it. It is truly amazing. I will read chapters to him in science or social studies and he will ace the test. It takes Nick a long time to read so I help him with this. His hand writing is terrible. The handwriting thing seems to be a common problem for people that have learning disorders.

I hope this helps. I will be more than happy to tell you anything more that you need. I am trying to describe Nick's problems but I don't fully understand what happens in his brain when he reads. Something goes wrong in the brain that helps you understand what is written. Let me know if there is anything else I can tell you. I hope you can find some assistance. You are in school so perhaps someone in the tutoring center or counseling center can help you find out where to get tested.

Let me know how it is going.

Thanks for the answer. I will try to get tested when I have insurance. Right now I'm not in school so there's no way for me to get tested. I suspect though it has something to do with not just reading but is some deeper issue. The more I look into it it seems even thinking literally "hurts" my brain. So maybe the reading symptom is just an extension of this problem. If so it might be a problem of lack of intelligence.

Does anyone here know how to become smarter? I am willing to try surgery or dangerous pills, even experimental treatments. No idea is too strange to me at this point. Please help!! I'm desperate to get into law school.

Denisov

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Posts: 6

Posted: 03-13-08 15:30pm

antigone wrote:

Thank you. I will try to get tested when I have insurance. Right now I'm not in school so there's no way for me to get tested. I suspect though it has something to do with not just reading but is some deeper issue. The more I look into it it seems even thinking literally "hurts" my brain and the reading difficulty is just an extension of this problem. Honestly I think it's just lack of intelligence.

So does anyone here know how to become smarter? I am willing to try surgery or dangerous pills, even experimental treatments. No idea is too strange to me at this point. Please help!! I'm desperate to get into law school.