Reversals
People who reverse letters and have problems with:
Position-in-Space,
Directionality, and
Position-In-Time-Space
May show or they may be described as having:
Dyslexia
b/d Confusion,
Mirror Writing,
Strephosymbolia,
Transposition, and/or
Laterality Problems.
What is Reversals?
Reversals are among the most common characteristics of the Learning Disability Syndrome. Students who reverse letters (i.e., b's, d's, p's and q's) are experiencing difficulty with position-in-space. Many people use this symptom to determine if the student is dyslexic. The student's confusion is in what position the parts of the letter occupy in relation to one another (Is the circle to the left or to the right of the straight line?) or the position the symbol occupies in the overall space of the paper (With b and p confusion, is the straight line above or below the blue line on the paper?).
Students with positional problems often have trouble with directionality (left-right) and mastering the language concepts of space (in-out, on, over, between, up-down, back-front, north-south, etc.). Another position-in-space problem in reading is the confusion about the position of letters in words (Is it cloud or could, china or chain, broad or board, etc.?). The reading of words entirely in the wrong direction (saw for was) seems a very well known, well understood and well recognized aspect of position-in-space difficulty. Some individuals with severe position-in-space problems will reverse the order of words when they read (for instance, "Can I go to the movies?" for, "I can go to the movies.").
When these position-in-space problems exist, the student often has difficulty in math (perhaps reading 6 for 9 and 32 as 23). This student may add a column of numbers, compute 65 correctly, and put down the 6 and carry the 5 rather than noting the 5 in the answer and carrying the 6. Learning to tell time with a traditional clock; using a zero as a place holder; place value; fractions; and positional aspects of long multiplication and long division are all areas where the student who reverses letters might experience stress.
Problems with reversals or position-in-space distress cause obvious reading problems and sometimes less obvious math problems. Be sure to read the section about Reading or Dyslexia.
Students who reverse are often primarily visual learners. This seems a contradiction. Why would you choose to manage the visual information available from the surround as your primary information gathering pattern when you have such troublesome visual problems as reversals? It is important to remember that position-in-space reversals are not problems with form. The individual who reverses may be quite efficient with visual form.
Identifying Reversals
The individual with positional difficulty may have trouble telling right from left. Young students especially might well place letters or numbers in strange spots on their paper. They are described frequently as having spatial relation problems, being directionally unstable, and being unlateralized.
One should remember that position-in-space difficulty relates to physical space as well as time space. This means the individual with position-in-space difficulty can be confused about the time of day that something actually occurs (without relevance to time telling, but rather to whether is it in the morning or in the afternoon, does math follow reading or does it precede reading, etc.). As we mentioned earlier, they may also have difficulty learning to tell time because of the heavy positional understanding required to understand the information on a traditional clock face. Digital clocks are an asset for the Learning Disabled person with position-in-space problems. They allow individuals with difficulty in this area to perform in an acceptable manner in front of the public, but they leave the student with less practice. They are shortchanged and even farther behind peers. Time telling problems are a greater liability these days because the amount of practice available in time telling using a traditional clock is more limited than in the past. The average math textbook addresses telling time with a traditional clock enough to formalize those things one used to learn at home, at the library, at the movies, etc. Now that the largest number of clocks in our homes is digital (on the microwave, the VCR, and the clock radio), the amount of exposure to the traditional clock face is much less. The math curriculum and math testing in school remain the same (without providing the extra practice or the actual instruction now so important). Therefore, students with position-in-space reversal problems often find their way into the middle grades without being able to tell time efficiently.
Students with position-in-space difficulty sometimes have trouble learning the language of position (prepositions on, under, in, by, etc.; adverbs up, down, etc.; and other language that conveys position-in-space).
This might be considered a disorder of input and integration. Position-in-space competence adequate to master symbols (b's, d's, p's, q's, 6's, etc.), letter order (Gary or gray), and word order should be expected by the time a student is six and a half years old.
When one is confused about these concepts after the age of six and a half, we can predict that time telling, place value, fractions, and Algebra might all require some extra effort down the road.
Dyslexia is a term used frequently for individuals with learning disabilities. Dyslexia means a failure to learn to read efficiently though you are bright enough to read and you've been exposed to basic reading instruction. In the popular use of the word it has grown to mean the condition which causes one to reverse letters (like b and d or m and w), to reverse words or read backwards (saw for was), etc. As discussed above, this reversal pattern is more precisely described as a position-in-space difficulty. Poor auditory processing of linguistic information is usually the critical dynamic causing reading failure.
If this student does have inefficient reading, was exposed to basic reading instruction, and is intellectually capable of tasks as challenging as reading, the term dyslexia would apply. We are negative about the use of labels, but this term is so frequently encountered its relevance needs to be discussed and understood, whether or not there are reversals.
The presence of position-in-space reversals in the student's approach to reading would increase the likelihood of others (teachers, doctors, diagnosticians, etc.) using the term dyslexic when describing the student.
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