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Quotes |
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| A selection of quotes from people who, literally, suffer from having dyslexia, but who have been able to receive varied forms of assistance in overcoming their problems. | ||
"I remember crying buckets when I saw Wanda lying on the sofa reading for the first time, about 14 years old. Also the huge pain when Grant, in his teens, couldn't do a course in Worcester College. It was at this stage I heard a radio programme on voice recognition technology and phoned the Ministry of Defence as it mentioned this was used in aircraft. I was told that the most advanced
research in the world was in Newcastle, by a Peter Kelway, and was given
the phone number. I phoned Peter's office and said my interest was in
helping dyslexics. I was told 'This is no good for dyslexics.' I asked
why and was told, 'Because the British Dyslexia Association tell us it
is not suitable'. I said, 'That's no answer to me, can we try it?' which
we did, in front of Professor Roland Meighan, and in his dining room.
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| "Kenny Logan
said: "I was a thick, farmer's son all through my schooling. I was
made to feel small and stupid and I had a knot in my stomach on the school
bus going in every day. "I got away with it through confidence, but I had a reading age of seven when I left school." When Kenny signed for London
rugby club Wasps, he said: "I wasn't scared about playing international
rugby, just about filling in the gas bill. I used to send the forms back
to my mum to fill in for me." |
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| "The
racing hero continued: "That very day, at the age of 42, was like I
was saved from drowning. I was told the reason for my stupidness.
"I thought I was just
stupid, dumb or thick because I couldn't spell or read like other people.
In those days dyslexia wasn't something that got identified in many schools."
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| ""When
I was about 7, I had been labeled dyslexic," he told People magazine
for its July 21 issue. "I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading,
then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything
I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb." Tom Cruise July 2003 more... 
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| " He commented:
"I'm still scarred by the experience of having to read out in class
when I was eight years old and being unable to do it." "Before my dyslexia was discovered, being at school felt like being put into a job that I wasn't qualified or competent to do. I'd sit there every day staring into space, trying to survive the experience." "Before I tried BrightStar
it was a bit like spending my life driving through a fog in which information
was either hidden or coming at me at a very late stage. Like a lot of
dyslexics, I had short-term memory problems and poor organisational skills." |
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| "When
I was a kid they didn't call it dyslexia. They called it... you know, you
were slow, or you were retarded, or whatever. And so, I learned from a guy
who was running a program who I met one day and he had written out on a
board a sentence. And I said to him, "You know, I can't read that."
And he said, "Why not"? And I said, "Because it doesn't make
any sense to me." So he said, "Well, write down what you see under
each. Whatever you see, write exactly what you see underneath." And
so, he brought me to letters by coordinating what I saw to something called
an A, or a B, or a C, or a D, and that was pretty cool." Whoopi Goldberg June 1994 more...
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| "Despite
the string of stage and screen hits that she now has to her name, Hampshire
has had to work hard to overcome difficulties which would have put an end
to the career of a less determined lady. Her dyslexia, which makes reading
scripts and learning lines a constant uphill battle, went undiagnosed until
she was thirty. ‘I always knew that I was a poor reader, and when
I was very young, they thought that I was mentally retarded,’ she
recalls. ‘I had an extremely supportive mother, a very kind brother
and two sisters, all of whom helped me, and I made very good friends at
school; I’d do things like clean out their satchel’ –
it’s that handbag thing again – ‘and they’d help
me with my prep.’ Although Hampshire found ways around the panic and
fear involved in not being able to identify letters or numbers, the process
of learning a significant role was something else altogether. ‘Early
on, even though I knew acting didn’t quite mean standing up and saying
whatever you wanted, I had no idea that I’d be expected to wade through
twelve scripts at a time. Over the years, I’ve devised my own way
of doing it, which is to allow myself masses of time: what takes you fifteen
minutes to learn will take me two hours, and I have to do it in patches
because the dyslexic brain goes into cut-out after a certain time. Nowadays,
I always learn my lines pretty well before I start rehearsals, otherwise
I make such a fool of myself at the first reading. I pretend to read it,
but in fact it’s already there.’" Mandy Morton & Nicola Upson Interview with Susan Hampshire more...
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"I
struggled with reading in elementary school as the words grew harder and
more challenging. My reading comprehension was terrible. I was isolated
from the main students and put in special classes for slow readers. I
remember being forced to read short stories and then answering questions
about what I read, but I found a way to cheat." |
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Needle
Sized Art |
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Speaks Volumes is registered with the Charity Commission
for England and Wales and has the charity registration number 1119867.
It operates in the UK; its members have a high level of interest in enabling
all members of society to communicate freely via the written word.
The registered Office for Speaks Volumes is Burntlands, Rochford, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, WR15 8SHCopyright© Speaks Volumes 2007. |
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