I was approached by a student at the Roehampton Institute who is studying sports psychology, and had been told by her tutor that she suffered from dyslexia. I interviewed her to ascertain what problems she encountered. As she was a mature student, I was interested as to why the condition had not been recognised before. I found her very articulate and knowledgeable, a heavy reader over a wide subject area.

I thus questioned her on her writing and use of computers, but she reported on having experienced little problems in putting her thoughts onto paper, and computers presented no problems. Asking more questions as to why she was a dyslexic, gave the answer that a tutor had diagnosed her as such.

When she wrote a report after reading an article, albeit sometime after, she wrote word perfect what she had read, as per the article. This had been categorised as dyslexia. I defined this as photo recall, and required a different writing strategy, by including quotation marks in the appropriate places, and to remember to place the authors name after the quote, as she could mostly recall all the details when she was writing a report.

Case 2 - David

With a colleague, Mr William Robertson, (tel (UK)01357 522200), whilst teaching computing skills, especially word-processing to school leavers at the Aberdeen ITEC, we had one student, David, who became very disruptive when given exercises to type or key-in articles. His work was never completed, and he was always evasive as to why the work was not complete. It became apparent that the student was dyslexic, but had not been diagnosed in his academic life, and an investigation was begun to overcome the problem.

Initially we sent him to an optician, and although his eyesight was perfect and did not require corrective lenses, it was found that a mauve tint to the glass improved his recognition of characters, but not enough to overcome the dyslexic symptoms.

Per chance, we were also running a Computer Aided Design (CAD) course, and asked David the dyslexic sufferer to help set-up the computers as he adapt at manual work. Once shown the AutoCAD package, he took a great interest, and he was able to reproduce with ease and with little error what he was shown to draw, and to produce other well designed drawings.

He was unable to use the help screen, or manuals on the package, but once shown or verbally told, he retain the knowledge and actioned the task.

After training, David was found work with a major offshore oil industry suppler (AMEC) in their CAD department, on the understanding that he does not have to read manuals. Instructions are relayed via a Dictaphone or verbally, and he now works with electrical multi-level drawings, involving colour coding for which he does not have any problems.

Case 3 Sten

Sten Cummins is a very articulate person, 30 years of age, who had shown no signs of reading problems prior to me, but whilst on courses it was noted that he took no notes. He always asked questions until he fully understood what was being taught, and was the life and soul of the party. He has since told me that as a child he was certified as dyslexic and "statemented", (a term he says used to define dyslexics).

It came as a surprise at a presentation we had a talk on dyslexia by a visiting American psychologist, Sid Jacobson Ph.D., who asked if any sufferer of dyslexia would volunteer for an experiment. Sten volunteered.

The demonstration was started with Sten reading aloud in his seated normal. He stuttered, mispronounced, as he sat in a near foetal position with the book on his lap. He was stopped and asked to relax to remember a pleasant situation, and hold the book in a comfortable position in front of his face at not quite arms length, as he sat in an upright pose.

He started to read again, looking at the book as a whole, with what is know as soft vision. This time, although not perfect there was a marked difference, and Sten was much happier with the result. For this research he reported that he remembers that experiment and the difference it made to him, and now tries to use the same technique in everyday life situations.

I then invited Sten to try an experiment using the same techniques, but this time using a computer screen. The results were just as above. By seeking an open pose, his recognition of characters and words improved.

Case 4 - Peter Cohen

Pete Cohen was diagnosed as having dyslexia at an early age, but in a mild form. He struggled throughout his early life with his handicap, but found a niche in sports psychology, working with many sports persons including a major County Cricket team. His other passion was to help people with weight control, and his ambition was to write a book containing his work on the subject.

A meeting with Dr Richard Bandler the founder of Neural-Linguistic Programming, resulted in Pete finding a passion for reading and writing. Pete produced two best sellers in Slimming With Pete (1998), Pete Cohen & Judith Verity, Crown House Publishing Limited, and Doing it With Pete (1999), Pete Cohen & Judith Verity, Crown House Publishing Limited,.

Case 5 Mark

Mark works in small financial business as an office manager, and enjoyed supporting the four computers installed in the offices. He is a very confident young man, enjoying sports, and kept very fit. His aim for his future career was to join the army, and he prepared himself bodily for the forthcoming interview with the MOD recruiting office.

He was rejected by the Army as he was told he had dyslexia. Unknown by anyone he had compensated for the condition in his school and early adult life.

Other Factors

Position of reading/display matter.

It had been found by Kathleen La Valle, that often a dyslexic person when reading, and having problems, is very tense and in a bent position, i.e. leaning over looking down at the material in a foetal position. From experience, it was found that if the person was in a relaxed mood, not in a confrontational situation, and in an open pose, with the material at 90 degrees to an upright head, then the material is read and absorbed easier. See Case 3.

A one off experiment was conducted due to lack of participants, where a computer screen was placed low and directly in front of the dyslexic. A word processed document was displayed on the screen and the person asked to read the text. Some difficulties were experienced.

The computer screen was repositioned so the persons head was forced to rise being directly in front of him, but further away. When asked to compare the two situations, the dyslexic preferred the later position.