Years had gone by. Years of searching, sometimes not even knowing what I was looking for. It was the challenge of trying to figure out so many different learning issues with the children in my life.
I'd seen kids who were thrown through a loop when 1+ 2=__ was presented.
They could count out three objects, but couldn't fill in that blank on the paper.
There were kids who could read the word "the" in one sentence, but not the next.
Kids who had been taught about commas, but couldn't 'see' one in a book.
It was overwhelming.
I went back to school and switched careers. I got another degree and a teaching certificate. I became a special educator and attended teacher workshops, in-services, classes, training's, seminars and I still had questions!
It may sound a bit dramatic, but at times I didn't even know what I was trying to find. That's the truth. Now I call it dyslexia, but years ago, dyslexia was barely talked about.
When one of my elementary school students was diagnosed with attention deficit I took notice. The real kicker was that less than a year after the ADHD diagnosis the doctors changed their minds. Now my student was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome.
Okay, I thought, now we have something. I packed up for St. Louis to attend a workshop on Tourette's with a world renowned specialist. It was an interesting workshop down by the St. Louis Arch. Something bigger than the Gateway-to-the-West occurred during the workshop.
At one point while this renowned speaker was describing his work I had a thought, “How does this overlap with dyslexia?”
When he allowed questions I raised my hand and asked, "How are Tourette's and dyslexia related?"
He replied that he could not answer my question. Now I really wanted an answer! At the next break in the lecture I stood in line, to ask him face to face about dyslexia.
His response was to send him an email and he'd send me his research. I never heard from him again. But at this point in my life I'd been searching for too long to let that stop me.
At this point it wasn't about me or my questions, it was about the kids. Those wonderful, funny, cheerful kiddos who had gifts and talents in everyday life, yet they just couldn't seem to learn. It just didn't make any sense.
That's why I was still searching.
I continued searching, until one day I had an answer! More tomorrow on how I found an answer!
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