CBC St Johns School, Parklands, Cape Town Corner Parklands Main Road and Dorchester Drive,  Parklands (see map below) Phone: 021 556 5969 May 20th at 2pm, Axel Gudmundsson gives a talk about learning difficulties seen in a positive light. Audience  Any of the following: School and LEA administration, SEN staff, teachers and parents. The talk is open to anyone and entrance is free. Duration: About 90 minutes + Q&A. Cost: Free Ron Davis has discovered that behind the learning difficulties are generally gifts waiting to be harnessed. Dyslexic people are visual, multi-dimensional thinkers. They are intuitive and highly creative, and excel at hands-on learning. Because they think in pictures, it is sometimes hard for them to understand letters, numbers, symbols, and written words. They can learn to read, write and study efficiently when they use methods geared to our unique learning style. The cause for dyslexia lies in the tendency to think in pictures. People who primarily think in words (experienced like talking to oneself in the mind) do generally not develop learning difficulties. This is because the teaching methods used in normal schools are generally speaking designed for the word thinkers. This tendency to think in pictures is also responsible for a brain which has great processing power. THE MECHANISM OF DYSLEXIA  According to the research by Ronald Davis at the Reading Research Council’s Dyslexia Correction Center, dyslexics view the world very differently from others. You might say they are wired up differently. While most people perceive the world linearly, dyslexics perceive in whole pictures. Also, most people have a fixed point of reference from which they perceive the world outside them and around them. Dyslexic individuals have a peculiar capacity to move the reference point from which they perceive objects. These differences can be very helpful when examining objects because the dyslexic can view objects from many perspectives very rapidly. However, it is a serious handicap when viewing linear symbols, such as letters or words. The solution to the problem of reading and writing is to somehow represent the symbol as a picture. Many words, for example, are easy to picture such as house, car, cat and dog. Others, such as a, the, and, and have are far more difficult to picture. Most teachers, even in special education programs, do not know how to help a person picture these words. As the dyslexic individual tries to make sense of these symbols, they shift their perspective, or where they view from, and this causes letters on a page to move around, reverse themselves and even to disappear completely. A sequence of events occur when a dyslexic individual attempts to read or write as a normal person would: The person encounters an unrecognised word, symbol or object. The person begins to examine the object or word from many different points of view. This causes words or letters to reverse, turn upside down or disappear as the person changes their focal point. Incorrect information is collected about the word or object. Mistakes are made in learning or reading. The mistakes cause emotional reactions and frustration. Compulsive solutions (crutches) are adopted, such as intense concentration. These compulsive solutions inhibit the learning process and lead to frustration and low self-esteem. The Davis methods have proven successful in dealing with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, hyperactivity, ADD, ADHD and Aspergers syndrome. We would appreciate if you could register on the form below for the talk, in case you intend to come. GD CBC St Johns Talk 20 May 2011 GD CBC St Johns Talk 20 May 2011 Below is a map of the school's location. You can zoom out to get a better idea of were the school is, or zoom in to see the school from a street view. CBC St Johns School, Parklands, CT CBC St Johns School, Parklands, CT