Breaking the Code: One Mind at a Time

A year or so after my son was born years ago, I was in downtown Colorado Springs at a festival and happened upon a booth for the local Adult Literacy group. My husband, George, suggested I talk to them and perhaps volunteer because of my passion for literature and my linguistics background. (I have my BA from Colorado College in Classics or Ancient Greek and Latin, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa.) Just like that, I participated in a training and was volunteering with adults. Though the trainings were helpful, I found the approach lacking and tried supplementing to fill in the gaps. But the process was still discouraging, though I made some wonderful friends. It seems that if a person is fundamentally illiterate as an adult, there is a very powerful yet distressing reason. And the volunteer “literacy” approach might not do the trick, unfortunately.

Several years later, I found myself a mom to a 7 year-old son who was struggling in school. Though I had read to him practically everyday for most of his life, he was struggling with the basic lexicon of our language. He couldn’t consistently recall necessary sight words, had no idea how to sound out new words, had indecipherable handwriting, and couldn’t spell to save his life. While reading books, words would spiral endlessly into a black hole of letters, letters and more letters.

How could this be? We were a literate family and he seemed bright, especially verbally, very often speaking ad infinitum from sunup to sundown. His energy level was unbounded by normal restraints, and the same could be said about his impulse control. We used to say he was “solar powered.” At a back to school open house in second grade, I noticed his handwriting compared to others was immature and just plain scary. I also couldn’t really understand what he was writing because the spelling was so bad. When conversing with the teacher soon after, she mentioned that he would duck under his desk during “phonics” instruction, but he was in the medium reading group so I shouldn’t be concerned. She was sure these issues that raised alarms in me would abate through maturity. I was not so convinced.

In fact, I raced across the street to a child psychiatrist friend and neighbor, relayed my concerns, and he referred me to the Denver University Department of Developmental Neuropsychology. And my phone call to them began a sometimes frightening but ultimately enlightening journey that continues to this day. I can say with complete awareness that I, along with my husband, George, raised a child with learning disabilities, and we all survived the tumultuous ride. The previous sentence says an awful lot. To me it was like an ocean of whirlpools and storms but also brightness and light reflecting off of gentle water. We made sure to get an accurate, thoughtful evaluation and diagnosis and were never ashamed to use the word dyslexia at a time when people recoiled at “labeling” children in such ways. We made sure to procure the right kind of remediation that continued for years. We consistently practiced with clinicians, therapists, coaches, etc. And sometimes we fell, but we always got back up. I use the word we because ultimately the whole family was involved. But in the end, the credit belongs clearly to my son, now in his 30’s. I remember asking him, after he had had enough remediation to read, what he thought the letters meant before remediation. He said, “I knew they were important; I just didn’t know what to do with them.”

Most of my clientele know the story, how he was the first at Palmer IB to have a 504, first at Palmer IB to get extra time on his IB exams (with the help of a pretty incredible IB director and counselor) and ended up graduating from Yale University, with accommodations that were easy to procure from one of the finest universities in the world. I know that many people would look at these accomplishments and think that he must have had it easier than others. If you think he didn’t have to fight, if you think he didn’t have to battle ignorance, if you think he didn’t have to dismantle the barriers the system installed to derail him, you would be mistaken indeed. He is a pretty incredible guy to have navigated these waters, and their inherent turbulence, with such success.

This entire lifetime of knowing about my son’s learning disabilities meant I would learn from him how to help others, as well. I drove my son to Denver for remediation twice a week. I didn’t flinch when I told the elementary school principal I would be doing that in his 2nd grade year. They had insisted to me that his learning issues were developmental, so they really had no grounds to prevent me from finding the most impactful instruction. In order to help my son, I learned the best of the research tested remediation programs, taking extensive trainings with Lindamood-Bell and others. I was fortunate enough to encounter some amazing mentors in the community and congruent to that, I was the President of the Learning Disabilities Association Colorado Spring chapter for 2 years. Now, I have been practicing for almost 25 years in the Colorado Springs community and have over 30,000 one-on-one sessions with students with learning issues.

For years, I fought for my son to receive proper instruction and fair treatment from teachers and the school system. After hiring others initially, I helped him navigate through remediation and the educational system until he found independence. Since and during that time, I have assisted more families that I can count through similar journeys, as a linguistic and reading specialist, as an advisor, and as an advocate. And most importantly, I have learned from these students and their families, just like I learned from my son.

Please read their stories in my Testimonials and view their portraits in my Gallery and read my Blogs for advice. Feel free to Contact me as you and your family embark on this journey.