Local resident trying to raise dyslexia awareness
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on September 27, 2015 1:50 AM
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and Goldsboro resident Chasity Phillips is trying to get the word out that it's a real problem that affects one in five people.
The licensed counselor has a dyslexic daughter, 11-year-old Mabry, who was diagnosed with dyslexia, or language-based learning disorder as it's commonly called, last year.
"We had our suspicions," Mrs. Phillips said. "She didn't talk until age 3. We're a military family and when we lived in Florida, she started speech therapy. But in third grade, we noticed things weren't improving.
"Then she was diagnosed with ADHD, but none of her medications were working. I kept telling the teachers and doctors that something else was wrong."
But it wasn't until the family moved to Goldsboro and saw specialists at East Carolina University that Mabry was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Mabry couldn't remember facts and was having problems with processing things, writing and math.
"It's basically that a person has normal intelligence, but when you see their work, they don't look like they're smart," Mrs. Phillips said.
But there is hope.
"With support and help, a dyslexic can be a normal person," Mrs. Phillips said. "But it's a battle with our educational system when it comes to dyslexic children. Teachers don't have any training about specific learning disabilities, and they don't understand that children with dyslexia need multisensory programs. They need evidence-based programs in school that teaches the children how to read and write."
It got so bad that Mabry would cry and beg her mother daily not to take her back to her school.
"A few weeks before school let out, she told me she wanted to die," Mrs. Phillips said.
To give their daughter what she needed, the Phillipses took Mabry out of public school, and Mrs. Phillips now homeschools her.
"We teach her how to speak into dictation software and are using programs originally created for blind people, audio books so dyslexic children can learn to ear read," Mrs. Phillips said. "A great book for any parent with a dyslexic child is 'Decoding Dyslexia.'"
To help make others aware of the challenges dyslexic people face, Mrs. Phillips went to the mayor and got a proclamation stating that dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that affects one in five people regardless of race, gender, age or socioeconomic status; that it's neurological in origin and affects the way the brain processes information and is characterized by difficulty with reading, writing and spelling despite normal intelligence.