How Dyslexia Affects Speaking + Our Accommodation Tips!

Does dyslexia affect speaking? While it's not a speech disorder, such as when someone has trouble pronouncing certain letters, for example, dyslexia does affect speaking in certain ways, and we're going to talk about four of those in today's video.

Stay tuned to the end of this video, because we'll talk about some of our and our daughter's tips for how to deal with speaking in dyslexia. Okay, so the first way that dyslexia can affect speaking is kind of an obvious one, but I think it's worth talking about. It's when children or someone with dyslexia has to read something aloud. Again, this is fairly obvious. When we traditionally think of dyslexia as affecting reading and writing, and so obviously reading aloud is going to be affected as well.

And so I think people with dyslexia tend to, when they're asked to read aloud, to stumble over words, perhaps, to not be able to read fluently. Again, this is all fairly obvious. But also, they tend to not take in the information that they're reading, as well as if they, well, definitely if they were being read too, but also if they were even reading silently themselves, as well as feeling self-conscious, obviously, in a school setting about being put in that situation.

Right, so that's a really good point, because it will look like something like stumbling over words or less fluency, but some of the lack of fluency is also due to not being able to take in what they're reading as they're doing it. That's a really good nuance to the whole thing. Yeah, and sometimes it can be misinterpreted. Sort of a lack of volunteering to read aloud in front of the class or something like that could be interpreted as something else, shyness or introversion, when in fact it's a result of the dyslexia.

And the kind of a related way that dyslexia affects speaking, so this is number two, is difficulty mispronouncing words. So one of those ways is unfamiliar words. That might be the most obvious case, and that can often be proper nouns or place names, things like that. But it might surprise you a little more, if you're less familiar with dyslexia, that it can often be things like small words that look similar. So let me give you some examples, because we asked our daughter about this, just so we could get some examples.

From her, and she was saying in versus on is definitely one. She also said saw versus was, which is kind of interesting. You see sort of a flipping around of the letters there. Be versus me, which I would never have thought of, but she definitely does that. If and it, that F and that T definitely look pretty similar. My and by, so that's that M and B again. And this may vary a little bit, of course, from person to person, but I think there's some similarities among people too.

And then things like country and county, where it's pretty similar, but there's maybe one letter off is another good example. And I also know with bigger words, there's a tendency to sometimes to drop like the middle. Like if it's a long word and it has a middle syllable, that might get dropped, especially if there's a similar word without that syllable in place. So these are all possibilities for getting mispronounced. And I think how it ties back to that first example is that, you know, I think some of us might think, well, how could you not think of it as my versus by when you're reading?

But if you're also not taking, it kind of goes back to that first point, if you're not taking in what you're saying, because you have to focus on trying to sort of pronounce it, read it in that way, as you're reading and you're not taking what you're saying as much, then it would be natural that you don't notice that it doesn't make sense also at the same time. Yeah, that's a key point that I want to emphasize is that people without dyslexia, I think, tend to rely a lot on the context of what they're reading in order to recognize some of these smaller words.

And I think that's why we see that in people with dyslexia when they're reading to themselves or when they're reading aloud that they're not able to get the broader context. And so they sometimes can mess up those little words that seem obvious to those of us who don't have dyslexia. The third way that dyslexia can affect speaking actually involves something that is a little bit counterintuitive in that it affects math and science as well.

And so this is really interesting because we don't think of math and science as even necessarily being an academic subject that requires verbal skills. But there are in a school setting, there are many situations in which children are asked to explain problems. For example, in math class, often the class will be working on a problem all individually. And then one student will be called upon to give the answer and explain the problem to the class.

And I actually asked our daughter about this the other day as well, and her response, and I'm paraphrasing here, not quoting exactly, was, Oh, I hate explaining math problems to the class because when I'm doing the problem, I'm not thinking about it in words. And I thought that was really fascinating because it's something that that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of and it's something that I think a lot of teachers and other students maybe don't consider as well that those of us without dyslexia are so used to thinking about the world and everything we do in terms of words and are sort of more ready to explain that verbally.

And people with dyslexia are not, you know, often they're strong in visual spatial skills, they think of things in pictures rather than words, and so they're not ready to translate what they just did in a math problem or in a science problem to a verbal, a fluent verbal expression. Right. And I'm remembering too, as we're talking about this, that back when she was tested, the person who tested her, the neuropsychologist did mention that dyslexic people shouldn't have to explain their process, you know, which is interesting because you don't think of that way at all with math.

But she said that they arrive at answers and they sort of don't know why, and I don't think it's really that there isn't a process, right, but it's that it's not as verbal, not as much in words, I think, often. So that I think that connects back into that, but it's easy to forget in the context of everything. Yeah. And that's interesting. And just to point out something is that I didn't understand that when the person who did the testing told us that I didn't understand that until until very recently when when we were talking to our daughter about this.

And she explained, she's old enough now, she's in high school, she can explain exactly what's going on there a little bit better. Right. Yeah. Ready to move on to number four? Yes. Number four. Okay. So number four has to do with giving oral presentations. So this is a skill that's very highly emphasized right now in schools. Our daughter, it's a kind of an IB track pathway. So there's a lot of emphasis in IB, but it's not always just an IB pathway. Like I think it's emphasized all throughout, even in elementary school now.

It's thought of as an important skill. And I think a lot of people would think that dyslexic people would like that better. And I think in some cases they do, you know, depending on getting on personality things or if they have, or if they're nervous about speaking or other things like that. However, there definitely are factors that affect giving the presentation that have to do with dyslexia. So if you think about, I think one of the easiest analogies is how we often understand that it's difficult to take notes from the board, right? The looking back and forth and seeing exactly where the letters are in the lines and going back and forth very quickly.

Because you have to find your place each time and seeing what's happening. So that's, that's similar in giving a speech. So teachers often emphasize how, because they, for fluency reasons, they emphasize, don't memorize it, don't write it all down. Just have an outline. But that is that kind of, if you think about giving a speech and trying to do it from your quick notes and looking, looking at them and to be reminded, it's very much that quick looking at something that's reading words and then coming back and then, and then looking again at a certain time.

And that fluency of doing that is much more difficult for someone. Yeah, even just reading your slides. So if you've prepared a slide in Google, slides or PowerPoint or something, even just, like literally looking at the slide and reading the content of the slide to the class is much more difficult for someone with dyslexia. And I think that that's, that's something that can be a little bit confusing for teachers and for parents because some children with dyslexia have naturally compensated by becoming better at memorizing, becoming sort of enhanced their oral skills.

And so, it's a little bit counterintuitive maybe that giving a presentation, especially if there's any length to it is going to be potentially difficult and stressful for them because of the trying to, talk while looking back at notes or looking back at slides and, and reading, jumping to a little bit of content to, to read. Right. And this is reminding me again of, of when our daughter was tested because, very early on, I think she was only in first or second grade. This was actually a very early part of the whole testing journey. but what we did find out from that was because they were testing a lot of different skills, even though they actually didn't realize she was dyslexic yet.

They found out that she was really high, something very high, like graduate level or something like that in oral memorization. And so I think we realized at that point that she was compensating because we were starting to understand what was going on, but it was pretty shocking that that compensation had happened to that extent. But I think that can often be true, but it was more about memorizing and being able to hold all that in her brain at once.

Right. And I guess I just want to add one more thing with, with respect to the oral presentations is that again, this can be misinterpreted as a shyness or a lack of willingness to, to be in front of the class when, I think it's always worth looking a little bit deeper and figuring out if there's another, and this is true for any child dyslexic or not, to look for sort of more, more of the underlying reasons about why they might be resistant to doing something like an oral presentation.

Yes. Okay. Now we'll shift gears a little bit. We've talked about four ways that dyslexia can affect speaking. And now we're going to talk about four potential accommodations that dyslexic children can use for that in school. The first one is recording a presentation ahead of time or pre-recording a presentation. This is something that our daughter has employed with some frequency actually. and it's something that is, and it's something that is, it's nice because in this, different day and age different from when we were in school, the technology is right there on your, your phone or your iPad or your laptop, in order to, pre-record a presentation.

And then the teacher can play that for the class. and so that allows several things. One is, it, it allows the, most importantly, it allows the child to do multiple takes if they need to. So if they mess up, if they're unable to, read their notes quickly enough, they can record it again, or they can, pause the video, look at their notes, take the time they need to understand what they're about to say, to, fix a pronunciation or whatever.

And then do the actual, recording and then they can take a little bit of time to edit that down into more of a cohesive presentation. So another tip is to have your dyslexic child rely a little bit more on memorization than is typically suggested. they don't necessarily have to memorize the whole thing, but especially if there were pieces of it, let's say there's like a particular part that doesn't flow naturally or they know they're always looking back as they practice. That could be a good technique to use. and then just in general, they might need more practice.

So just trying to be patient with if they want to practice for you a lot more times. I know our daughter, maybe not as much recently, partly because of doing the recordings, but, previously would want to practice a lot with us. And, and she does get somewhat nervous with speaking. So it relates to that as well. But I think even for, for people who aren't nervous about speaking, it could be due just simply to needing that more practice to sound more fluent. Do you want to do another tip?

Another tip for accommodation tip for managing, the issues that can come up with speaking when you're dyslexic is if it's a group project and if the teacher allows it, the person with dyslexia can do perhaps more of the prep work, more of the preparation and let the other group members do more of the presenting. Now, some teachers won't like that because, presenting is considered oral presentation is considered a very, important skill currently in school and it is super emphasized.

So, so that won't, this won't always work, but some teachers, especially, once they understand that a child has dyslexia and once they understand about the accommodations will, will be accommodating, so to speak, around letting a dyslexic child do a smaller share of the presentation in exchange for doing more of the prep work. All right, our final tip has to do with participation in class, so it's also important often for students to participate in class and, sometimes is even part of someone's grade.

And this is our daughter's own thing that she does, so we're going to add it as a tip here, which is that she will tend to speak early on, either early on in class or when she's confident about something. And the intention there is, it's sort of a psychological thing, knowing that if she's already spoken in class, then the teacher is less likely to call on her, arbitrarily later when she may be less confident about something.

So that's what we wanted to talk about today, how dyslexia can relate to speaking fluency and skills. And so hopefully you found some of this helpful. Have you ever noticed your own cases where this is true for your child? Feel free to put those in the comments below. We'd also love to hear any tips that you or your child has for dealing with, speaking and dyslexia. If you're on YouTube, we'd love it if you would like, share, and subscribe.

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