Just try harder?

Is it about trying hard enough?

You may recognize these five items I've listed as areas you or your child experiences difficult with from time to time.  It's a list I recently received from a business trainer.  You can see her response to these difficulties:

1) Is Listening a problem? Try harder.
2) Do you struggle remembering names? Try harder.
3) Staying focused too hard? Try harder.
4) Communicating difficult? Try harder.
5) Conversations are tough? Try harder. 

While "do your best" is her point let's take a little deeper look at what's happening here. Why are these things really so hard?

It's easy to let your feelings take over sometimes. But feeling like someone isn't trying hard enough has it's own downfalls. Truthfully, as dyslexics we are often trying harder than you could ever imagine. 

Listening
Let's look at the first item on the list. Listening.  

I recently read a blog about Auditory Reversal written by Matthew Turton.  He describes auditory reversal to mean the process of the long term auditory retrieval system being stronger than our auditory storage system.  Turton compares the hearing process to how magnets might work together. 

The amount of information it pulls out of auditory storage is determined by how strong the retrieval magnet is.  While storage is weak, retrieval is fairly strong... when remembering auditory information such as instructions or a conversation, (a child may) pull out additional pieces of information that were not part of the original conversation. 

These additional pieces of information are usually loosely related in some way and relevant to the conversation.

What this means in real life is that what we should hear (the sound or voice waves are coming towards us) and what we remember hearing or what we accurately hear (our auditory process and our brain is working in harmony) can be two different things. 

If you've ever tried to redirect a child who's engaged in his or her favorite activity, such as watching an entertaining television show, you know how difficult it can be to get your message across. Their focus is directed elsewhere. 

Real Life
I'll use an example with my five year old grandson. The two of us were doing the Davis Koosh ball activity the other day.  I made the mistake of beginning the activity when the television was on. When I tossed him a Koosh ball the first few times he haphazardly reached at it, missing every time.  Realizing my mistake I turned off the T.V., we both re-focused and he easily caught the Koosh balls the rest of the time. (And he was able to throw them back to me without causing them to whiz in all directions past my head or landing yards away from me!)

Here's one way Davis Dyslexia would explain the difficulty with listening and not being focused:   

The dyslexic or A.D.D. child uses disorientation for entertainment; he may be disoriented for hours on end creating the imaginary world he plays in. 

Difficulty with listening can be a dyslexic symptom that we may easily brush aside adamantly claiming the other person isn't paying attention; in truth, they may be trying harder then we can imagine. Remember to take into consideration factors such as the environment [T.V. on], the other person's emotional state [had a hard day at school], even how they're feeling that day [do they have a cold, allergies ..] before claiming someone isn't listening to you.

Remember!
Give everyone a little kindness because we're really trying harder than you might imagine!

Read more about Davis Dyslexia: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/add.htm#ixzz2EsZrI8rx

Matthew Turton://www.getyourbreakthrough.com/blog/bid/240423/You-Never-Said-That-Auditory-Memory-Dysfunction