Students live with dyslexia

Luna Oceguera is a junior health science major and a McNair scholar. She was diagnosed with dyslexia in fourth grade and it wasn't until Oceguera started college that she had access to any useful resources.

But Truman students have options of overcoming their learning disabilities. Disability Services offers ways to assess learning disabilities and provides methods to help students succeed in the classroom.

"When I was really young, my dad noticed that I wasn't reading or doing the same things as other kids," Oceguera said. "B's and D's are always switched. Reading and writing is always hard, math is really hard. But with practice and skill you can overcome it or use tools."

There are students, at all levels, who don't do well on tests, who cannot keep up with their coursework and, in some cases, decide not to continue with higher education, said Dorothy Henson-Parker, a licensed educational psychologist."

 "I've had many students talk to me who say they couldn't do the reading," Henson-Parker said. "I think there may be a lot of students who don't go to college because they think and, in fact they can't, do the reading in the amount of time that they have to do it in, they can't do the class work in the amount of time they have available to them."

Truman's Student Resource Center helps students with learning disabilities locate a note taker, can provide a student reader for various assignments or refer students to use available IT technologies or screen readers for online content.

The center has various resources, but it takes time for the student to discover which method works best for them.   

"What has made the difference here at Truman and what has always made the difference for me, are my professors and people who want and are willing to help me," Oceguera said. "Who with patience, even though they have already explained it in class, take the time to let me come to their office hours or come back when it's not their office hours go and explain things more in depth or in a different way so I can understand."

Private and public campuses are required to provide necessary services for students with disabilities to participate in campus activities, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The students who visit the Student Resource Center might already have a preferred way to learn but others still are discovering what resources are available for their use, Vicky Wehner, coordinator of disabilities services said.

"Many of our students will tell us that, when they have dyslexia, sometimes letters are reversed," Wehner said. "Sometimes lines drop down into the line that they are trying to read. And that by using color transparencies it helps so that the lines stay where they are supposed to stay."

The exact causes of dyslexia are not completely clear and sometimes it can be a perceptual difference or sensitivity to light, which causes distortions of text seen on a particular page, according to the International Dyslexia Association's website.

"It wasn't that they couldn't read, it's that they couldn't see well enough to read," Henson-Parker said. "It's not a problem with visual acuity it's a problem with the way in which the mind's eye perceives a text. This in turn affects students' comprehension."

Newer techniques to address perceptual issues include the use of color transparencies or thin plastic sheets that are colored with various tints, Henson-Parker said.  The method of using a colored screen over a printed page screens out parts of the visual light spectrum that causes distortions to appear on the page, Henson-Parker said.

Wehner said a student visited her office and was frustrated that she couldn't read more than 25 pages a night. After she chose a color from a trial kit, the student said she read 150 pages in one evening. The Student hadn't ever been able to read more than 15-20 pages in a night.

"If it works for them, it is a great plus for them to be independent and do it themselves," Wehner said. "I have a son with dyslexia and that's how I came about looking for this information and when it worked for him I figured, wow, this could work for some of our students."