Dyslexia

Researchers have identified a single gene alteration that might be a significant cause of dyslexia, a disorder that impairs the ability to read and comprehend written words. Dr. Jeffrey R. Gruen, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine, said an analysis of DNA from 153 families showed that a gene known as DCDC2 could be responsible for up to 20 percent of dyslexia cases. Researchers have associated DCDC2 with dyslexia since 1994, but Gruen said his research is the first to assign it such a key role.

Dyslexia slowed driver Justin Wilson in his pursuit of an education and his auto racing career, but it also was part of the reason he initially spent as much time as he could with the sport and it prepared him for his future. Auto racing provided Wilson a place where his athleticism and coordination took precedence over his ability to make out the meaning of words. "I found out at 13 I had dyslexia," Wilson said between practices for a recent race. "To that point I had struggled at school.

Roger E. Saunders, the psychologist who nearly 50 years ago began identifying dyslexia in children and adults and who went on to be a founding consultant to the Jemicy School in Owings Mills, died of a heart attack Thursday at Lexington Memorial Hospital in Lexington, N.C. The former Ruxton resident was 82. "He was one of the pioneers in making dyslexia understood," said Mike Bowler, director of outreach and communications for the Institute of Education Sciences...

Seminar on dyslexia The Summit School will host an informational seminar titled "What is this thing called Dyslexia?" from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 12, on its campus, 664 East Central Ave. in Edgewater. Learning difference experts Joan Mele-McCarthy and Jane Snider will present a discussion on the history, diagnosis and defining differences of dyslexia as well as proposing a plan of educational action for school-aged children with dyslexia. Information: 410-798-0005, ext. 158. Civil War round-table discussion The Chesapeake Civil War Round Table Trivia Discussion will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, July 14, at AACC's Cade Center for Fine Arts, Room 219, 101 College Parkway in Arnold.

If you're a parent of a kindergartener or first-grader, you might have noticed some backward or transposed letters as your child learns to read and write. Some of this is normal, but how would you know if your child had dyslexia? Susan Schapiro, an educational consultant with offices in Towson and Bel Air who has studied identification and treatment of dyslexia for years, says that if you're worried, you should pay attention to the following signs. It's not unusual for a child to exhibit one or two of these signs, but three or more - especially if there is a family history of dyslexia - warrant follow-up with a professional: * Delayed speech * Mixing up sounds in multisyllabic words ("aminal" for animal, "bisghetti" for spaghetti)

It was a familiar story for many."Sarah" had been in kindergarten just a few months when teachers told her parents that she just wasn't interested in classroom activities. By first grade, she was telling her mother she didn't want to go to school anymore. By second grade, she felt like "a dummy," and frequently cried or complained of stomachaches in class.Halfway through third grade, Sarah's parents hired a tutor in an effort to turn around her falling grades.Although she had been screened before for learning disabilities with no definite results, the school tested her again -- this time finding that the problem was dyslexia and likely had been all along.

An educator from California has been named director of the Jemicy School in Owings Mills, effective July 1. Benjamin Shifrin, 47, head of Emanuel Academy of Beverly Hills, will replace interim Director Mark Westervelt, a 28-year teacher at Jemicy School. Westervelt will be assistant director under Shifrin. Jemicy School is a private coeducational school for children with dyslexia. Founded in 1973, it was one of the first schools in the nation for children with dyslexia, a neurological condition that impairs the ability to recognize and comprehend the written word.

To the rest of the world, Lois Schwarz was a gifted artist, a respected teacher and a devoted wife and mother. In her eyes, though, she never measured up because she could barely read. Dyslexia caused her mind to jumble letters and numbers into incomprehensible symbols."I felt like a borderline illiterate," she recalls. But that was before she received a bachelor's degree in art and sociology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County two weeks ago, at age 64."It took a while for it to soak in," she said from her home in the Southgate section of Glen Burnie.

When Donzella Curtis accepted her associate's degree in counseling at Merriweather Post Pavilion yesterday, she was the first Howard Community College alumna to graduate without having read a textbook, homework assignment or exam.Diagnosed with dyslexia so severe that she has to ask strangers in stores to read greeting cards to her, Curtis once dismissed her dreams of college and went to work as a janitor. Even then, her inability to read stymied her career.But thanks to a new computer that converts books, mail -- anything written -- into speech, the 33-year-old Columbia resident has accumulated a 3.52 grade point average, without a C, and graduated with honors with 365 fellow graduates.

A senior in the National Honor Society who maintains a solid B average at Calvert Hall College High School in Towson has been denied a chance at a full ROTC scholarship to James Madison University in Virginia by the Army because he is dyslexic. Calvert Hall officials are surprised and angry the Army disqualified Michael A. Soule, 18, of Baldwin, who scored 1,170 on the SAT and plays on the school's varsity football, rugby and wrestling teams. They have written letters to the head of the Army's Cadet Command, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and several congressmen, trying to enlist their help in getting Soule his Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship, worth $60,000 for an out-of-state student.

Eileen Higham, a psychologist who wrote a history of the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood, died of complications from pneumonia April 25 at Roland Park Place. She was 88. Born Eileen Moss on what she described in a memoir as a "bleak, windswept" Southern Wisconsin farm, she was the daughter of sharecroppers. The family farm had been foreclosed on, and "during the Great Depression the family moved frequently." She told her children she attended eight elementary schools and five high schools.

Barton Childs, a Johns Hopkins University pediatrics professor emeritus who worked in the field of inherited diseases, died of pneumonia Feb. 18. He was 93. Dr. Childs lived in Roland Park and died at Johns Hopkins Hospital. "We have lost a giant of his or any generation of medicine," said Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine. "His medical home was at Johns Hopkins, but his influence was worldwide." Born in Hinsdale, Ill., and raised in Chicago, he was an adopted child.

Dyslexia Tutoring trains volunteers to tutor low-income children and adults with dyslexia and other language-based disorders. Volunteers should have a high school diploma, good language skills, patience and a willingness to understand those with language disabilities. Tutors are trained through a 20-hour course in the Orton-Gillingham method of teaching, reading, spelling and writing. Interested volunteers will also undergo a background check and must commit to 60 hours of tutoring.

Alice Ann Koontz, an acknowledged expert in the field of dyslexic education who also played a key role in establishing programs at the Jemicy School in Owings Mills, died Friday of cancer at her Roland Park home. She was 82. Ms. Koontz, the daughter of Arthur B. Koontz, a lawyer and prominent Democrat who was a West Virginia gubernatorial candidate in 1920, and Mary Watson Sipe Koontz, a homemaker, was born in Charleston, W.Va., and raised at Burkewood, her family's estate overlooking the Kanawha River.

If you're a parent of a kindergartener or first-grader, you might have noticed some backward or transposed letters as your child learns to read and write. Some of this is normal, but how would you know if your child had dyslexia? Susan Schapiro, an educational consultant with offices in Towson and Bel Air who has studied identification and treatment of dyslexia for years, says that if you're worried, you should pay attention to the following signs. It's not unusual for a child to exhibit one or two of these signs, but three or more - especially if there is a family history of dyslexia - warrant follow-up with a professional: * Delayed speech * Mixing up sounds in multisyllabic words ("aminal" for animal, "bisghetti" for spaghetti)

It almost sounds too good to be true. By placing a couple of tinted plastic filters over the page he's reading, Eric Johnson, a 25-year-old dyslexic, can double his reading speed. Words that were once fuzzy now snap into focus. Halos that once shadowed the letters disappear."I'm able to concentrate longer on the words, read faster and for a longer period of time," said Mr. Johnson, an undergraduate at the University of Maryland at College Park. Without the three 8 1/2 -inch-by-11-inch overlays, Mr. Johnson can focus on only a few words at a time.

A COLLEAGUE of mine and her husband send their child, now 8, to Jemicy School in Owings Mills, one of the oldest schools in the nation educating children with the reading disorder known as dyslexia. They pay tuition exceeding that of a private school, but in education, as in all else, you get what you pay for. When John Henry Reilly entered Jemicy at age 7 in September 1999, he began a yearlong journal, signing his rendition of the alphabet and as many numbers as he knew. Reading experts would recognize the signs of dyslexia in John Henry's journal entries.