by Linda G. Tessler, Ph.D., Psychologist, Bryn Mawr, PA

I was honored when The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) asked me to be a contributing author of this issue. Me, a contributing author? An oxymoron! As a child I could never have imagined the word "author" and my name being said together. The truth is, the first time IDA asked me, I declined. I teased and said, "This isn't a publicity stunt. I'm really dyslexic." I remember thinking how very hard it is for me to write an article that makes sense. All the information is jumbled up in my head. How could I get it straightened out? My sentences, my grammar, my writing. I may make an impression when I speak, but I write poorly. After all, once a dyslexic always a dyslexic.

Then came the transition, from panic to resolve. I realized I must remember all the psychological accommodations I teach my patients in therapy. I needed to slow my mental state way down. I needed to create goals that were obtainable. I had to stop focusing on the whole project and think of small steps instead. For example, I knew I could take the first step and write a workable outline. I needed to work very hard and resign myself to the fact that I would work harder on this project than other contributing authors who were not dyslexic.

If I go over and over the article; if I ask many people to help me, to edit, to go over it again; if I don't quit until I'm satisfied; if I hand in the article early allowing for potential problems; if I handle my frustration by taking a break whenever writing gets too difficult; if I discipline myself to go back to working, even when I'd rather not; if I impose, once again, on my loved ones to support me through a difficult assignment – then maybe I can do it. I can write something worth reading.

In essence, I needed to use the accommodation techniques that would be presented in this issue of Perspectives. Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic promised to be there again for me as they have been so many times in the past. They volunteered to put any articles I needed to read on tape.

They promised to put this issue of Perspectives on tape so that I, and other dyslexics, could read what is written.

Today, people regard me as successful and assume I can do things I can't do. Yet, when I was a child, people assumed I couldn't do things I was able to do. Like most individuals with dyslexia, I did not fit a mold as a child. And I still don't. One memory stands out in my mind.

When I was in ninth grade, I took a standardized test which measured aptitude toward spatial relations. It was given to the entire class. I scored the highest mark in the ninth grade. However, the experience turned out to be such a humiliation that I never even told my parents about one of the very few successes I ever had in school.

I was, of course, a poor student, always in the very lowest section; always in remediation classes, which never helped me get out of the lowest section. So, how could I score so high? School officials could not believe it was possible. They were convinced I had cheated. My teacher called me to the front of the class and asked me whose paper I had copied. The forces in charge could not modify their image of me. They could only see me as someone who had cheated.

Two days later, my teachers apologized. They had looked at all the scores of the students who had taken the test. No one in the room had done nearly as well as I had. They finally realized I could not have cheated. I still cringe remembering the pain of that day.

©Copyright Tessler, Summer, 1998

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