Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. And welcome to the DAC Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We are so happy that you could join us. We're both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will be covered in this podcast. Parents are not alone, and we want to give a voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed in school, in the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 18 of Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast.
Topic today is dyslexia in adults. But first, it's time for the concept of the week. So concept of the week is our opportunity as practitioners to pull back the curtain a little bit, let you in kind of on an intervention session. So each week we tackle a concept that we would be teaching in intervention. Today's concept is a morpheme.
So a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. So, for example, the word cats has two morphemes. The base word cat and then the suffix s, meaning more than one.
Preheat also has two morphemes. Pre is a prefix that means before heat is to heat.
Unbreakable has three morphemes. We have a prefix, we have the base word, and we have a suffix.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: And what do those mean?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: So un.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Not break. To break. Able to. So not able to break.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Yes. Good.
Our students really enjoy when we get to morphemes.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: I would say. Yes, me too. That's some of my favorite stuff to teach.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: So today we're talking about dyslexia and adults.
So many adults have dyslexia but don't know it. As a reminder, it is estimated that 20% of the population has dyslexia, and it is entirely possible to graduate from high school and college having never been tested for dyslexia.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So while early interventions are the most effective, you can still have very successful outcomes with dyslexia interventions as an adult.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: So dyslexia signs in adults are similar to those in children.
So some common dyslexia symptoms in teens and adults can include.
So reading. Adults with dyslexia may have trouble reading aloud. They may read slowly, or they may not understand what they read. They may also have difficulty with spelling, and they may confuse words that look similar, like cat and Cot and then writing too.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Adults with dyslexia, they might have trouble writing, taking notes, explaining things in writing. They may also be poor spellers.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Speaking adults with dyslexia may have trouble pronouncing words or may feel like the right word is on the tip of their tongue, but they can't get it out. And they may also have trouble responding on the spot. Remember, dyslexia is a language disorder. And so, you know, speaking words is also can be part of that.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, those connections just aren't quite as robust typically in a dyslexic learner. So being able to access the correct word for the situation can be really tough, especially those really close distractor words.
Also with listening. Right. So adults with dyslexia may have trouble listening and maintaining focus, especially if there are distractions. They may also appear to be listening, but they're actually thinking about something else. Right. Dyslexia also affects our executive functioning and that is part of that. Being able to attend to the tasks in the first place.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Correct memory. Another thing is adults with dyslexia may have short term memory problems such as forgetting conversations, important dates or names of people. This is also part of that executive functioning skill set.
We also see this with being able to organize those type of things like important dates and when things are due.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Those type of things, even like those kind of incorrect associations too, like oh, I could have swore so and so's birthday was the 28th, but actually that's the sister or something like that.
Another symptom of dyslexia in adults, really more of a consequence. But adults with dyslexia may experience quite low self esteem, shame or humiliation. They may also appear to be highly intelligent, but underperform at work and school. Kind of that old you're just not living up to your potential kind of thing.
Highly associated with adults with dyslexia who were not diagnosed as children.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Correct learning may also be difficult with an adult with dyslexia. They may have trouble learning a foreign language, doing math, word problems, and they may learn best through hands on experience demonstrations and visual aids because they can use other parts of their brain to learn those kind of concepts.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
So kind of some examples of things that we've heard from adults or things that are out there. Adults with dyslexia kind of, you know, my boss can't understand why I don't write better reports.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: I'm often not the quickest reader, but I'm often the quickest thinker.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I just don't want to Go for that promotion because I won't pass the test. I'm sure I could do the job, but I don't want to take that written test.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: And I really can't read much at all. And I usually say I forgot my spectacles or my glasses or other things that I might need so that I don't have to read.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah, as long as I use spell check, I'm fine. Just don't ask me to write it out by hand.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: People say that I'm careless or forgetful, but I really try and I get.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Furious with myself and I haven't had a clue about filling in forms.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Dyslexia is lifelong difference. And with the right teaching and support, great things can be achieved.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we talked a little bit about those mental health outcomes associated with dyslexia.
You know, a lot of. A lot of that is mitigated by an earlier diagnosis. The statistical outcomes for children who are diagnosed young with dyslexia. I'd receive that proper intervention. Statistically, those students go on to achieve higher salaries, not be burdened as much with that. That feeling of failure.
And that internalized something. I hear a lot from the adults in my life. I have several adults in my life who have dyslexia who may or may not have been diagnosed as a child.
And some of that just like I just feel stupid.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: And a low self confidence also tends to play into that too. So maybe they don't try to go for a promotion just because they don't have the self confidence to do that, even though they could do the job.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and not even that confidence to approach a boss and say, do you think I could have an extension on that one report? You know, I'm really working on it. I've got this and that going on.
Will you play a little ball with me? Even being able to do that is such a struggle.
Often even admitting. Right. That there is a problem with reading that just comes with such a stigma. And I do. It has been my lived experience that that's even worse in adulthood, especially our older generations who that strongly associated. Even though that's not true. You know, here me say that is not. That is not true. Dyslexia and intelligence are not correlated with each other. If there is any correlation.
Dyslexia and intelligence have an inverse relationship, meaning that people with higher intelligence actually are more likely to have dyslexia. But that's, you know, that's going to take a lot of advocacy work to get out that message and have it be believed.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: So some people that come to see us, our center, when they're adults, they come for many different reasons. We have people who come that just want to learn how to read.
They know they can't read, and so they want to find that enjoyment in reading. We have college students that are trying to get through college, and they realize, as we talked in another episode, the more difficult the content, the harder it is for you to use your compensation strategies. And so those students tend to start realizing something's going on in college.
We also have adults who need to take a test for. They're either in the trades and they need to take a test, or they're trying to get a promotion and they need to go back to school. And then they find out it's really tough for them to do that. And so they come to our center for many different reasons, but for basically the same reason. Because they can't read.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, I think something that really is important, individuals with dyslexia, you know, they're not alone with struggling with reading demands in the workplace.
Approximately 40% of high school graduates lack the literacy skills employers seek.
That was, man, all the way back in 2005. There have been some splashy new headlines in the last couple of weeks here that are indicating that both the reading and math gap has widened quite significantly after our last data set was taken.
So back in 2022 is the latest published data available on that.
That's research backed.
But this gap. Right. That's getting even wider. And this is including everybody, not just dyslexic learners.
So an adult with dyslexia. Right. They may have trouble with those work training courses, even these literacy classes, if they're not presented in ways that can accommodate those learning needs.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And another for students with untreated dyslexia, they may. They also don't benefit from years of reading and exposure to certain types of texts. And this also gives them a disadvantage to hold them back in certain areas because their vocabulary tends to be lower, background knowledge tends to be lower, and comprehension skills tend to be lower.
It affects their reading, their writing and their spelling, and it can be difficult for them to express their knowledge and ideas in a way that is expected wherever they're working.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And just even exposure to classic literature. Right. Some of those classic phrases that do come from those classic pieces, if you have not read those texts, they do not translate to the movies, people. They don't.
So you have. You have a group of adults that also struggle socially in a lot of contexts. They can't hold their own in a conversation. If parts and pieces of that. It is expected that you have read an article or even, even listen to a book. I mean, some of the sad, sad, sad statistics are. There is even in an adulthood if you can get a student maybe to limp along with audiobooks when they're in high school, but if they're struggling to read, they're also opting out of other forms of literature in adulthood. And they're not even getting it from there either.
So that gap just gets. It gets wider and wider and thus contributing, right to that, the poor mental health outcomes.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: But adults with dyslexia can succeed in the workplace with training and other written materials that are inaccessible format job tasks can be restructured.
They can use assisted technology, for example, a text reading system.
There's reading pens, speech recognition systems, portable word processors with spelling and grammar check capabilities.
So to dive a little bit more into that, you can get almost anything read to you now with technology, which really helps.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a game changer.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: It's a game changer. Yeah. And then you can also do speech to text, which means you're talking and then it writes that. But you definitely need a proofread because sometimes they find words that.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Whoa.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: What? That wasn't even close to what I said. Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: You know, and watching to those, the grammar pieces. Right. Speech to text does not automatically insert punctuation, does not automatically capitalize words that need to be capitalized all the time. And it does. It takes a while to learn that kind of technology.
So yet again, it's a great piece of technology. It is one I recommend to all of the students who come see me here, but not without being properly trained on how to use it correct.
Adults with dyslexia who have a diagnosis of dyslexia are protected in the workplace under the Americans with Disability Act.
It is a federal civil rights work law. It's designed to prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities who are able to work, want to work, and should be able to do that job.
So ada, it can protect individuals both in the hiring process and when they actively have a job.
Something to keep in mind, though, is a key principle of ada, right? It protects the individuals with disabilities if they have a documented diagnosis, which dyslexia would count as a diagnosis, as a diagnosis, if that's somewhere on paper.
If you just think you have dyslexia, that does not count.
That you, you can have a conversation at work, but you're not protected under the same law as if you do have that diagnosis on paper.
You also must be able to do the job that you're hired to do with or without reasonable accommodations.
So that's kind of murky territory. Right, Right.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Because everybody defines reasonable accommodations differently.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Very differently. And you do have to be able to do the job with or without those. So while an accommodation can help you at work, you must be able to do what the employer deems to be the necessary work tasks, with or without them.
Yeah.
So what should you do if you are an adult who thinks they have dyslexia? We come across this quite a lot in our practice.
We are a practice that primarily sees children, but we also see our fair share of adults in this practice.
One of the things we do here is assessments. Often those are children, not always.
But one of the things we do know. Right. Is dyslexia runs in families.
I have seen it several times that I will do an assessment on a child and then their parent gets the report and goes, wait a minute. This also sounds like me.
I wonder if I should explore that as well. So.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: And in the past, it wasn't discussed and it wasn't tested for when.
I don't even know when they started testing for that in schools. But I know that, or at least addressing it in schools, because it's probably rare, very new of when they're even saying the words, so.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Adults shouldn't feel like.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Any kind of way about not catching this or not knowing.
I mean, a lot of the story that I hear from those adults, those kind of. Often it's parents of a child I've just assessed, and they're kind of like, yeah, I always have really kind of felt this. But this was not.
This was not even. Even 10 years ago.
And I was for. For sure teaching then. This. This kind of talk about having dyslexia, being an adult with dyslexia, struggling with reading, that was still pretty taboo.
It would not have been a.
It would not have been a sign of strength to show any kind of vulnerability. I think a lot of that has changed in our kind of recent past for the better. That's also, I say, really good, too, for those parents who are kind of like through the lens of their child examining.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: These are kind of the things that I used to struggle with too, or still do struggle with.
What a beautiful piece of the relationship you can have with your kid. What a great way to connect over something and to help them along.
So some of the things that I recommend. Right. If those parents are going, okay, so what do I even do if I think I have dyslexia available at our website, we do have a red flags list, so. So warning signs of dyslexia checklist.
I always recommend running through that. Some of those things that are on there. Right. Struggled with reading or writing, being a poor speller, all of those trouble finding those words, all of that kind of stuff.
If you're looking for accommodations at the workplace or at the college level or to take an exam for a promotion, I'm always going to recommend that they get tested so that they can put that diagnosis down on paper if. If it's true. Right. Like, let's find out. Let's find out if it is or is not. And if it is, let's put it down on that paper. And that will give you the option of requesting those accommodations.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Correct. And what we do a lot is education with our students that are adults, lots of students that come for colleges. We talk about how do they advocate for themselves at college, how do they get their accommodations? Because there's different ways you can do that in the college arena.
You know, the. How they can use services that are already there for all students. Like there's always usually some place where papers can be reviewed by a peer or teacher or tutor and they can. Anybody in the college can use that. What a great way to use your resources.
So I mean, just knowing that, that you can ask for it and we are really encourage them to go up, be very upfront about it. It is different if you tell somebody at the beginning of a semester when you first start a job, hey, I'm going to need spell check because my spelling's not the greatest. Okay, that's not a problem. You know, but like in the middle of a big project at work or in the middle of a semester and you start having some really big problems with something, that is not the time that you can ask for help.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: The day the paper is due is not the day to ask for the extension.
That is not it.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah, because of course people want to help, but they can't help if they don't know. And if it's in the middle of something that's a major thing, like the middle of a semester or a middle of a big project for work, they're not going to be able to help at that point.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. You know, and just like any human on the planet, it's important that we learn about ourselves. What are the things we know we're really good at, what are those things that we know we're going to struggle with. And for our students with dyslexia or any disability for that matter, having those conversations early with those kids and talking about, all right, what are some ways to predict some of the holes that we might fall into? We might. We can't protect them from everything. But what are some. Some predictable tripping hazards for myself and how do I get access to that help? So if you are an adult walking around and you're going, I might, I might have dyslexia.
I, I do, I recommend, I recommend a diagnosis for all the reasons that I mentioned. And most of the adults that I have come across who do get a diagnosis, the vast majority of them report a go like, okay, relief.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Right, Relief. Relief of now I know what happened and why and how to help myself.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and we, we see adult clients in intervention routinely. So this is not.
You're not alone. It's not weird, you know, one in five people, remember?
[00:26:00] Speaker B: One in five people.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: So what's going on beyond dyslexia for you, Maggie?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So as we record, this will come out quite a few weeks after Christmas. But as we record this, we are approaching Christmas. We are one week out from Christmas Eve. As we record.
Oh, and saying that out loud just made that rough.
So we are totally in that preparation. It is the week before Christmas, quote, unquote, break, which means it's spirit week all week.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yay. Us too.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: All week.
So we are muddling through the crazy at the moment.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: What about you?
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think like we said, it's December and in addition to having two birthdays and Christmas, we decided we found a new location for our main location.
So our Elm Grove office are moving really literally down the street. We're still going to be in Elm Grove, but we found this beautiful suite.
Currently, we're. We've kind of just added rooms where we're at and so we're kind of all down a hallway that's not connected. We're going into this really beautiful big suite and I'm really excited to have everybody together so we can work as a team and be able to collaborate a little bit easier.
So, yes, my chaos has included moving.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: This month in December, which, for the record, everybody, we live in Wisconsin.
So it's cold.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: And windy.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Not snowy. Currently.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yet.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Yet yet yet.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: So we'll see what happens. But we'll keep you updated.
But we are super excited that you are listening. So please follow us on social media if you have questions. We do have a Facebook page now that you can ask questions. You can go to our YouTube page and ask questions, or you can go to dyslexiaachievementcenter.com and which is our website. And we have a way to a contact form there that if you have any questions or want any topics discussed, you can reach out to us.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: And if you like our show, please be sure to follow us and give us a rating on your favorite podcast players. That's truly how we reach more listeners. So thanks, everybody.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Cheers.
