Social and Emotional problems with Dyslexia

[charliegirl]

This came in my Wrightslaw newsletter. I learned some things about dyslexia I have never heard before.


In Social and Emotional Problems Related to Dyslexia, psychologist Michael Ryan describes the high price children pay when they have school problems. These social and emotional problems are not specific to dyslexia. We urge parents and teachers to read this article - it will help you understand what school is like for your children and students.

www.ldonline.org/article/19296

[rakuflames]

Apr 8, 2008 11:25:29 GMT -5 charliegirl said:

This came in my Wrightslaw newsletter. I learned some things about dyslexia I have never heard before.


In Social and Emotional Problems Related to Dyslexia, psychologist Michael Ryan describes the high price children pay when they have school problems. These social and emotional problems are not specific to dyslexia. We urge parents and teachers to read this article - it will help you understand what school is like for your children and students.

www.ldonline.org/article/19296

While it's important to know that's possible, I think parents should also know that a lot of kids with learning disabilities don't have emotional or social problems. The majority of my LD students did not have those problems and some were quite popular.

[misty]

You have a point, Raku. My daughter has ADD & Learning disabilities & she's never been a behavior problem & she has tons of friends. Although, It did take her until this year to find a best friend.

I read the article though & I think it can really help a lot of parents understand their kids. Especially the anxiety part. Shannon did have a lot of anxiety, frustration and anger over math before she was diagnosed with a math ld. Once she started getting the help she desperately needed, those feelings were replaced with a sense of accomplishment, a knowledge that she really could learn math & she stopped trying to stay home sick from school.

[lillian]

My son is ADD/LD and is a social animal with many friends. Years ago when he was going through school refusal, I went to have lunch with him daily in the school's cafeteria. I just knew there had to be some bully picking on him, and I wanted to see it for myself. What I found was quite the opposite. His classmates loved him. They crowded around him at the lunch table and asked to sit with him. The bullies, in his case, ended up being the teachers, unfortunately, but even with the teachers bullying him, he was able to maintain friendships.

So...I guess what I'm trying to say is that we went through serious school refusal, which led to my home schooling him the last two months of school, therapy for nine months to deal with his school issues, his coming to us in fifth grade and asking if we thought he might be a "little retarded" but assured us that was O.K. because he had good social skills and figured he would make it in life anyway (this is when we actually had him "labeled" with dyslexia and sat with him and researched it on the internet, finding lists of famous and successful people with dyslexia for him to relate to), his refusing to write because he didn't want his classmates to see his handwriting and spelling, etc. In other words, we've dealt with LOTS of emotional issues, but, somehow, those have not greatly effected him socially. He's been able to make great friends and keep his friends for years, once he makes them.

[rakuflames]

Apr 8, 2008 16:02:38 GMT -5 misty said:

You have a point, Raku. My daughter has ADD & Learning disabilities & she's never been a behavior problem & she has tons of friends. Although, It did take her until this year to find a best friend.

I read the article though & I think it can really help a lot of parents understand their kids. Especially the anxiety part. Shannon did have a lot of anxiety, frustration and anger over math before she was diagnosed with a math ld. Once she started getting the help she desperately needed, those feelings were replaced with a sense of accomplishment, a knowledge that she really could learn math & she stopped trying to stay home sick from school.

Oh abvery *friendly* personely. It's really important to pay attention to the whole child and not just focus on the LD. But while a feeling of failure can be the cause of these problems sometimes, sometimes it's part of the LD.