My son is now 25 and a college graduate. He was diagnosed with dyslexia in the 3rd grade. We were under the impression that it just affected reading/writing/spelling. But he has also struggled with language expression. When someone asks him a question, he has a pause time—so he can think through the question and form an answer. We found out that this is also a part of dyslexia.
Our question is: Is there anything that can be done to help the pause time? So that it doesn't take as long for him to form his answers?
While he was in school, I took classes and read many books. Then I tutored him and we had a 504 plan. Now, we are just interested if there is something or someone that may help him.
Thank you for you time.
My colleague at the Literacy, Language, and Learning Institute, Dr. Lauren Katz, has particular expertise working with the older dyslexics, so I checked with her on this one. This is what she said:
"Pause time could be happening for any number of reasons—e.g., struggling to interpret/process the question, trouble with finding the right words to answer the question, or constructing a clear and accurate response/sentence. While I suspect that not a lot could be done to to eliminate or substantially decrease the pause time, it's possible that he could learn how to compensate for whatever it is that is interfering with his ability to respond more automatically."
So, he might benefit from some therapy. It's not unusual that a child/student does fine at one point in his or her development and then as demands change and new challenges arise, he or she struggles in an area that may or may not have been difficult before.
I hope this is helpful.
