DYSLEXIA (Word Blindness) – Homoeopathic Treatment
Recently a Hindi film named Taare Zameen Par drew a lot of recognition even at the International level where it has been nominated for the Oscar Award. The film is based on a child who is “differently abled” and has Dyslexia. The behavior pattern of the child was not properly understood even by his parents. The sufferings of this child are being shared by many a children in our society. Due to unawareness and indifference of people such children are put into the category of Disabled and branded as Retarded children. Whereas this film has been an eye opener for such cases.
It is heartening to know that world’s greatest scientists like Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were also Dyslexic. Had these personalities been also considered Disabled, the Scientific world would have been much Poorer today without the contributions of these great scientists.
Dyslexia or word blindness may be discovered when a child learns to read. It is a disorder due to a flaw in the child's perception. He is unable to sort out the order of words within a sentence, or the letters within a word. Dyslexic children have normal intelligence. They can be taught how to read if given special teaching.
Dyslexia, means "difficulty with words" . So far it has been a problem which was not being understood properly. Very often it used to be mistaken for mental retardation, now dyslexia is no longer an alien word in India where between 5 to 12 per cent of school going children are believed to be dyslexic. And as the problem gains recognition, a remedial approach is also sought for.
Dyslexia-difficult to pronounce and even tougher to detect, these children are simply unable to relate their cognitive process to their physical environment. Associating the words with the pictures, reading and writing is the basic problem which children or dyslexics have. As their perceptual ability is weak. Numbers written on the board do not mean anything to them. Frequently, the problem is one of mirror-image for example, the alphabet "b" appears as "d" or if inverted image where the letter "p" is mistaken for "b".
At the same time the memory of the dyslexics tends to be exceptionally good, in fact many children substitute memory for reading. They ask their parents or somebody to read stories aloud to them, and memorize the text or the contents. Interestingly aware of their coexistence of intelligence and inability, they invariably use their intelligence.
While the exact cause of dyslexia is not yet known, scientists believe the misconnection between the left and right halves of the brain is one cause for it. While dyslexia could be inherited, poor schooling and health are aggravating factors , not the causative factors.
The initial signs of dyslexia can be detected between the age of 6 and 8 years, when the child does not respond to reading and writing, despite being taught adequately. These children (dyslexics) do show common traits, as the grip on their pen or pencil is awkward, their handwriting is wayward, or they goof on simple arithmetic problems as well.
Though the presence of these factors does not always signify dyslexia, dyslexic kids are known to have these problems.
Other Signs of Dyslexia :
- The child appears brighter than his reading or writing suggest.
- He makes up stories based on illustrations unrelated to written text.
- He is late in learning how to read time or tie his shoelaces.
- He confuses between left and right.
- He can't remember things that are sequential e.g. order of days,months and numbers etc.
- He makes anagrams as tired for tried or united for nuited.
- He reads aloud to himself.
- He is generally left-hander.
- He puts stress on the wrong syllables while reading, not while talking..
- He reads backward e.g. on for no, or saw for was.
- He ignores punctuation marks.
- He puts syllables in the wrong order e.g. buts-stop for bus-stop.
- He shortens the words e.g. rember for remember.
- He makes typical spelling mistakes like chidl for child, bad for dab, n as u, and m as w.
- He spells words as the sound e.g. busy to bizy and might to mite.
- He omits letters e.g. train spelt as rain.
- His walking is not coordinated.
- He is bad at copying from the board.
How to rectify dyslexia?
Cognitive control therapy is developed by Harvard Medical School. Now it is being accepted by and large. Recognizing that dyslexics have problem with their auditory and visual senses and language expression, the Cognitive Control Therapy focuses on dyslexic's tactile senses. Under this children are taught addition, for instance, not through numbers, but through visual aids. For instance : 4+5 is taught by placing four blue balls and five blue balls next to each other. More serious cases are made to feel the shape of the letters of the alphabet so that they can identify their curves or turns. For writing, the normal ruled exercise books are not recommended. In the classroom, dyslexics need to be spoken to softly. For them, the writing on the board should be very clear, and allowances made; more time to complete work, no red marks on their books, and less homework.
If dyslexia is identified at an early age, dyslexics can avoid the humiliation of being branded as slow or lazy, and utilize their exceptional skills productively.
They require awareness, empathy and Homoeopathy.
Treatment :
XEROPHYLLUM: Dull , cannot concentrate mind for study.
Forgets names.
Writes last letters of words first
eg. WAS to SAW
Miss-spells common words
eg. October to Optober.
Case.
Mr. T.S (12 Yrs) and Miss D.K (10Yrs) both brother and sister were problem for their parents and teachers. As they were not behaving in the school and at home as any other normal child. Parents were getting desperate as every now and then they were called at school for non performance of the children. They had been changing Schools after schools in the last 7-8 years but with no result. It was by sheer chance that their father Mr. S.S, who came to my clinic for his BP problem, was waiting for his turn and was going through my book ,”THE PROBLEM CHILD AND HOMOEOPATHY”. While flipping the pages, the image in the book on the chapter of Dyslexia caught his attention and he read the whole chapter. After reading it, he realized that his children were facing the same problem as mentioned in the book which had not been understood uptill now and he regretted the way they were treated by everyone. Because of this unawareness of the parents and the school authorities, the children were humiliated. Then he explained the whole case of his children in detail to me. Both the kids were brought to my clinic and proper case history was taken. Accordingly they were treated with constitutional homoeopathic remedies and counseling of both the children and the parents was done. After 3 years of treatment, both the children found a new lease of life with homoeopathy and they could compete with other children of their age group.
