Parents comments

Predictably, teacher's, parents and partners all say the
same kinds of things about dyslexic children. Usually
they are things that they live with or experience
through their work. Interesting many of their comments
apply equally to adults as they do to children. One can
only assume that some types of behaviour once learned
remain with us for life. That is unless something truly
dramatic or remarkable happens to change us.

The value of knowing what others in similar positions to
ourselves are experiencing is fairly obvious. It lets
us know that our situation is not a unique one and that
we are not alone. It also helps us understand that the
condition known as dyslexia is a common one and
therefore highly unlikely that we are responsible for
the problems our child is facing. Since we may reason
that, although we may choose to hold ourselves
responsible for our own child's difficulties, we can not
be responsible for the behaviour of every child with
similar problems. There is some comfort (albeit an
unexplained one) from knowing that many others parents
are in the same intolerable position as yourself.

If you recognise any of the behaviours described on the
next page, this may give you more clues to help you
decide, if what you may already suspect merits further
investigation. If you do not recognise any of the
behaviours, this does not mean the person is not
dyslexic, it simply means that their behaviour is not
typical of the common kinds of behaviour reported to us.
Furthermore, it should be made clear that is not be
possible to list every type of reported behaviour, as
there would be so many that it would be difficult to
find an individual that they did not apply to.

Common remarks made by parents and partners.

Children

I have given up trying to learn him the alphabet, so as
his farther.
He is the clumsiest child in the school, he drops
everything.
He is always hurting himself falling off or over things.
If I take my eyes off him for a second he disappears.
He's always in trouble, either at school or with the
neighbours.
He make the same mistakes over and over again.
No matter were I take him, he always has to touch
everything. Especially if he is not allowed to.
He drives me to distraction with his continual
pestering.
He is always last to be picked for any games.
He tells me the most ingenious stories, I can barely
keep my face straight.
He is easily led and always seems to get the blame.
He is always breaking things, he just seems to touch
things and they break.
He is on an emotional seesaw, one minute any minor
criticisms I make bounce off him with out any effect,
the next minute he becomes broken hearted by them.
When I listen to him talking to his younger brother, it
is hard to believe there is three years between them.
I send him up stairs with a message for his sister,
before he gets out of the door he has forgotten the
message.
He is so untidy, you can tell were he has been from the
trail he leaves behind him.
He prefers the company of younger children.
He looks like he has been pulled backwards through an
edge.
He constantly crashes his bike, I'm dreading the day he
begins wanting a motor bike.
He can not get on with other children, its as if they
know he his different in some way.
He cry's a lot.
His Grandmother says his father was just the same, at
his age.
He is always complaining that no one will play with him.
He is a sensitive child but sometime he explodes with
rage, it frightens me.
At bed time he will not settle down and go to sleep.
It's like he can't switch off.
He has always asked a lot of question, but lately they
are becoming so deep I don't know how to begin to answer
t hem.
When he was a child he was slow to begin talking, since
then he has never shut up.
He is one of the noisiest children in the class,
alternatively he is one of the quietest children in the
class.

Both parents and partners

He stands out as being very different in some way.
He always gets hold of the wrong end of the stick.
He continually interrupt me when I am trying to talk to
him, and it is not only me, he does it to everybody.
He must be messiest person on the planet.
He accumulates rubbish and he hates throwing anything
away.
The things I say go in one ear and out the other,
usually because his mind is very obviously somewhere
else.
He seems like two separate people trapped in the same
body, one day he is on an emotional high the next his
emotions are in the gutter.
He can recite long pieces poetry, word perfect but he
can not recite the alphabet.
He can calculate the area of a circle without
difficulty, yet he can not recite any of his times
tables from memory.
Everyone as good and bad days but sometimes he seems
like two separate people, something he did with ease
yesterday, today he can no longer do.
Sooner or later he looses everything.
No sooner do we arrive, than he wants to go.
He no idea when he as out stayed his welcome and it's
time to leave.
He never stops talking, you would think he would run out
of things to say but he never does.
He's a dreamer.
He talks in riddles, usually to other people who seem to
talk the same way.
I am always finding him staring out into space, lost in
his own thought.
He can't stand being coped up inside, he likes to be out
doing things or going places.
He wants people to like him but he has know idea how to
go about achieving this.
He is the most disorganised person I have ever met.

Adults

He drives me mad, he is always fixing something. It's
like he's obsessed with taking things apart just so he
can put them back together again.
He has no sense of danger or speed and he drives like a
madman.
He never uses a map, even if we go for a day out, we
often drive hundreds of miles away from home and he
always knows were we are and all the different routs
home.
He constantly shakes or taps his feet especially when
seated.
He changes like the wind, one day he is calm the next
day stormy
The few friends he has, have no idea what he his talking
about most of the time.
He can turn his hand to anything.
How can one person know so much about so many things,
yet can not spell simple words correctly?
He quickly becomes over emotional, one minute the
comments I jokingly make about him have no effect the
next they depress him terribly.
He reads the most tedious academic books.
He is not put off by anything.
He is intelligent but has to rely on me to tell him when
he is being tactless ,annoying or upsetting people.
He can fix anything, he says he can literally see the
problem.
After struggling for ten minutes to thread a needle, I
give it to him and its done in a second, yet if I throw
him his car keys he's sure not to catch them.
As a child I tried and tried to learn my times tables
but never could. It only took seconds to lean the tune,
I am now in my forties but I still do not know the
words. It is strange, that I could not learn them
because I can recite long passages of poetry from
memory, that I learnt back in my school days.