Dyslexia

BrainPOP
BrainPOP
  • 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00Well, that's not a word.
00:08Oh, year.
00:11I thought it was something else.
00:14Dear Tim and Moby, what is dyslexia?
00:20Does it mean that you see everything backwards?
00:22From Jane.
00:25Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects a whole lot of kids and adults.
00:30It mainly causes problems for people when they're reading,
00:32but it can make writing, spelling, and math difficult,
00:35and sometimes even listening and speaking, too.
00:38But dyslexia is not about seeing letters or words backwards.
00:43Yeah, lots of people think that, but it's just not true.
00:47People with dyslexia have trouble recognizing certain words,
00:50and that makes it tough to read.
00:52Well, a person with dyslexia might see a word like...
00:58Okay, and then your brain has to link the letters you see
01:01with how they're supposed to sound.
01:07I'm looking at this and thinking,
01:09effluent?
01:10Telephone?
01:13Hey, it's not funny.
01:14Remember what a tough time you had
01:16putting together that model plane last week,
01:18and then I did it in five minutes?
01:20Different people have different strengths.
01:23So, like I was saying,
01:24the letters on the page are not matching up with the sounds in my brain.
01:28I can get it with some practice.
01:30Uh...
01:31El...
01:32Elf...
01:33Elef...
01:34Elephant, yeah.
01:37But there's no guarantee it'll stick.
01:41I might see the same word tomorrow
01:43and go through the same work to match up the sounds in my head
01:46with the text on that page.
01:48Well, it's not all bad.
01:50It's kind of like breaking a code,
01:52matching up the sounds with the right letters or groups of letters.
01:55But it is hard work.
01:57No way.
01:58Being dyslexic doesn't have anything to do with how intelligent you are.
02:02In fact, people with dyslexia are often incredibly intelligent, creative thinkers
02:06who have a gift for problem-solving and thinking outside the box.
02:10People with dyslexia do have to work extra hard in school, at home, everywhere.
02:15The good news is you can find ways of learning that work for you.
02:19Dyslexia appears to be more common in boys than girls.
02:22And it's not something that you outgrow.
02:25There are plenty of successful people in the world who have dyslexia.
02:29Yep.
02:31Researchers have been able to figure out a lot about how the brain works
02:35by using something called functional magnetic resonance imaging,
02:38FMRI.
02:39It's something like an X-ray that lets researchers see a picture
02:42of a person's brain activity while they're doing something, like reading.
02:45The more we learn about dyslexia, the better we will be at identifying it
02:49and developing different learning strategies for kids.
02:56Oh, I'm ready.
02:57I've been thinking up words this whole time.
03:01Let's see. D-Y-S...
03:07There. Dyslexia.
03:10I'm pretty sure it's spelled right, but you might want to go ahead and challenge me anyway.
03:14It's worth about a million points.