Dyslexia and Anxiety
Or: If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right! (Anon)
The term ‘dyslexia’ is now widely known and tends to be used to refer to several diagnostic categories: dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADD and ADHD.
The central features of the dyslexic profile, such as issues with concentration and short-term memory recall, problems with reading comprehension, the expression of ideas in writing andword finding (anomia) can also present in an even wider range of conditions, such as:anxiety disorders, schizophrenia,as well as in acquired form in victims of torture or accidents.
The proposition here is that the biggest single issue that students with dyslexia have to deal with is anxiety, whether this is explicit or implicit.
Anxiety is not in itself a bad thing. If there is too little, there is no motive to act. If there is too much, there is paralysis, and this is where it becomes problematic. Much of what will be said in this article places dyslexia within a context of wider questions of human functioning. What distinguishes the students that we deal with in the DSA, ie what constitutes a disability, is the intensity; this ‘too much’ that is debilitating and prevents the subject from being able to function effectively or sometimes at all.
What brings about this ‘too much’ is trauma and its source can be spectacular or obscure. Here, trauma is taken up as ‘something that cannot be assimilated into the body of knowledge.’ As a consequence, it brings knowledge itself into question, and the thinking subject ‘falls apart’ as the body of knowledge is shaken. This is universal, although recovery rates may vary from momentary to a lifetime.
We see the effects of this ‘falling apart’ in the range of symptoms[1] present in dyslexia,eg, mental blocks;problems withconcentration and short-term memory; panic;the disorientationmanifest in the translation of ideas into 3D space, such as: text doesn’t make sense to others, issues with structure and layout, and arguments being ‘all over the place’. These arethe symptoms that would present in any mind that is at the limit point of it’s portfolio of symbolisations.[2]
Students with dyslexia attribute the challenges that properly belong to knowledge itself, ie:it is inconsistent and incomplete, to their own lack of ability to know. Hence, how knowledge is delivered is very important. If it is handed down as if the student should already know, this will act as a trigger to anxiety. If it is presented as a work in progress, it becomes assimilable.
Students with dyslexia cannot accept propositions at face value, as they are concerned with the truth value of knowledge. Hence, the validity of propositions has to be tested against experience beforethey can be used. Students who present without learning difficulties are usually not concerned with the truth value of propositions in an absolute sense, and so can be tactical in their study.
Short-term memory gets a bad press. It functions as an interface between the subject and the outside world, prioritising the demands that are placed on him/her, precisely determining what is most important to the subject, to act on this and forget the rest.
Students with dyslexia normally have difficulty with saying ‘no’ to demands placed on them. The consequences of forgetting are usually relatively trivial, whereas the consequences of not being able to forget are potentially devastating. Hence, forgetting functions as a safety valve that prevents overload. De facto, it isthe, ‘no’, that operates in practice, since to fulfil the demand was not feasible in the first place.
Commonly, memory enhancing techniques are recommended in response to this. While these are useful, the subject needs to be alerted to this way of interpreting limits in short-term memory. Further, the development of time management and organisation skills enablebetter decisions regarding the feasibility of taking on commitments at any one time, as well as increasing the capacity to multi-task.
Hence, dyslexia can be read as an ‘anxiety disorder’, although it is also a way of reducing and treating that anxiety through symptoms such as short-term memory ‘deficits’ and concentration drift, failing examinations and limiting intellectual achievement.
The effect of an outbreak of anxiety, however subtle, is that the subject bails out of the problem-solving process (loss of concentration) before they have a real chance of completing it. The repetition of this experience reinforces a pre-existing belief that they are not capable of completing the task. Many of the support items offered to students under DSA, such as technological aids and adjustments that enable short-cuts through study tasks, .aim to gradually extend the time that a subject is able to persevere in the task and so discover that it is, indeed, possible that they solve it.
Specialist Learning Support aims to develop skills and strategies. Here, students can ask questions and find the missing links that previously made it impossible for them to use particular concepts. Another important area, which would repay further consideration, is the development of abstract skills that come into play without the subject even being aware of them. An example of this is the development of perceptual organisation skills where necessary, eg dyspraxia.
Where anxiety is explicit, eg panic attacks around examinations or submission deadlines, students should be referred to the counselling serviceswithin the University or to their GP. This enables them to speak about that which is nonsensical, ie that which erupts into the centre of their work and blots out the possibility to make new constructions. By giving this non-sense a place and a value, it does not have to present as a disruption to other activity to the same extent. In the longer term speaking about what distresses them enables the subject increasingly to take their own position as a starting co-ordinate, rather than being ‘swayed’ by what other people have to say, which has to be second. It works to construct an orientation.
‘Chi-based’ disciplines(Yoga, Tai Chi) are very effective for the dyslexic position. In a way that cannot be readily articulated, these disciplines foster a better working relationship between the mind and the body, without recourse to conscious thought which is what slows things down; putting to work what would otherwise present as ‘excess’ energy; as well as to foster the capacity to hold a position (endurance and stamina).
[1] Symptoms are an effect of an encounter with, as well as a way of treating, something that is unmanageable.
[2] Symbols are the structures that the mind uses and constructs, where necessary, to translate the subjective experience of the world into terms that are consonant with the generally agreed version of things.