GuidanceChannel.com: While most people perceive dyslexia to be a curse, you view it as a gift. Why?

Mr. Davis: The very thing that the person is doing that causes a learning problem early on will actually be of great benefit to the individual later on in life. If we look at what dyslexia is composed of, we will understand why it is both a negative and a positive. Dyslexia is a result of a way that the individual is thinking – in pictures rather than words.

There are two basic ways that a human being can think -- through either verbal or non-verbal conceptualization. Verbal conceptualization is what most people consider thinking to be -- talking to yourself with words, inside of your head and without your mouth moving. Non-verbal conceptualization, is composed of images rather than words. People with dyslexia think with pictures rather than words. Non-verbal conceptualization is actually extraordinarily fast, as images occur in one’s mind 32 frames in a second, while the speed of speech is only between four and five words a second.

The truth is that every human being begins life thinking in this fashion. Verbal conceptualization cannot begin until we’ve learned language, but it’s obvious that everyone is learning and thinking long before language skills begin to develop. However, dyslexics remain as “picture thinkers.” As a result, they often struggle academically because school is based on verbal conceptualization. Consider the two different types of thinking to be like two types of computers – a PC and a MAC. Both computers can accomplish a wide range of tasks, but they run on two different programs. A MAC program just won’t run on a PC. In the same way, a “word thinker’s program” such a phonics won’t work for a non-verbal or “picture-thinker.”

All of the symptoms of dyslexia are those of disorientation. For example, when you see a written word on a piece of paper that you don’t have a picture for the meaning you go blank. It’s like your thought process loses the connection and “hangs up.” Every time it stops, you feel a little bit more confused. When you reach the limit to the amount of confusion you can tolerate, you become disoriented.

However, the good part is that when you’re disoriented, you see things from all different angles and you can explore them from different perspectives. In fact, this type of thinking can actually be a great gift. Take, for instance, theoretical physicists. Most of the population believes they are the geniuses of the world. However, many will tell you that they couldn’t be theoretical physicists if they weren’t dyslexic. They need to be able to deal with ideas that are so abstract that, without this type of thinking, they wouldn’t be able to comprehend such complex concepts. Mathematics, astrophysics, and theoretical physics are all based on change consequence, time sequence, and order. People with dyslexia are often better able to conceptualize these ideas and thus they often master them on a higher level.

GC: Would correcting the condition limit the gift or does it help the person to be able to apply it even more?

Mr. Davis: Actually, when you correct the learning disability part of dyslexia, the other characteristics are strengthened. They get simpler, quicker, and you are in control.

GC: According to one student, your program (the Davis Dyslexia Correction Method) gave him three tools to control his dyslexia: a point; a dial; and a release. What are these tools and how do they help?

Mr. Davis: A point allows him to control orientation and involves a mental image of a place where he can put his mind’s eye. For example, if you were to close your eyes and imagine an image of your grandmother, you are looking at that picture from a specific place -- what we refer to as “a mind’s eye.” By controlling the placement of the mind’s eye, we can control our orientation.

GC: So it’s the point of perspective?

Mr. Davis: That’s right. But for someone who is dyslexic, it moves around a lot. For someone to eliminate that, we simply need to get it stable in one place.

GC: So they anchor it down in one location?

Mr. Davis: Not exactly. The fact is that if you try to do that, you get extremely bad headaches. So we aren’t really preventing our mind’s eye from ever moving, we just want the ability to control it, so we can put it back when we need to.

There are actually two aspects of orientation that need to be addressed. First, is the consistency of one’s mind’s eye. If it is not moving around and stays in one place, your perception is going to be consistent. It might not be accurate, but it will be consistent. The other aspect to orientation is by getting it in the proper place to ensure the accuracy of perception. For each individual, it is in a slightly different place, so everyone needs to find their own. However, we get them started by giving them a general point and then they can fine tune it.

The dial serves as an energy dial. There are a number of stories that came out years ago about people who were Olympic athletes who would visualize what they wanted to do and were able to accomplish feats that were beyond belief. Somehow, by showing their mind’s eye what they wanted their bodies to do, they were able to accomplish it. We tried to apply this concept to managing dyslexia by controlling our internal dial through visualization. For example, say a child is bouncing off the walls and can’t sit still for two minutes. His dial would probably be up around ten. If you could get him to mentally set his dial down to four, within about 45 seconds, he could go sit in his desk, look you straight in the face and say “I’m ready to learn now.”

GC: What is the release?

Mr. Davis: The release is a way of letting go of stimuli such as frustration and so you can regain control. When people get really frustrated, they often let out a few big sighs to feel better. That’s what release is -- only with our method you don’t sigh. We teach students how to let their mind’s eye flood their bodies with that feeling. This way, when they become frustrated because of their confusion, they do a release. Then they set their dial appropriate to the activity and make sure that they are oriented (which means that their perceptions are accurate). These tools allow them to be effective in school and life.

GC: What role does clay play in your program?

Mr. Davis: The clay goes clear back to when I was an autistic, dyslexic little kid. I had two brothers that were “normal” who were allowed to have and do things that I was not. My brothers had a tree house and I was forbidden to go there. They also had wristwatches and, although I desperately wanted one, I wasn’t allowed. Somewhere in this void of being autistic, I discovered by mixing dirt and water together, you could make a substance -- and from that substance, you could make anything you wanted! Luckily, out in the backyard of where I grew up was this wonderful red clay. So I made all the things that I wasn’t allowed to have. While my brothers’ wristwatches were made out of metal and leather, mine was made out of dirt and string -- but at least I had one!

When it came time for me to want other things that were more abstract, like language, I would try to make them out of that red dirt and water. When I finally learned the alphabet, it was because I created the letters in clay, and it just grew from there.

From my experience, dyslexia is a characteristic of three things: the ability to use disorientation in your thought and recognition process, primarily being a picture thinker to the age of nine, and reacting to the confusion with disorientation. Instead of trying to learn how to live in spite these characteristics, the Davis Dyslexia Method works to eliminate what makes them problematic.

That brings me back to the clay. To communicate to the “picture thinker” we have them make a clay image to represent the meaning of the word so they can visualize it. Every word is composed of three parts -- what it looks like when we see it, what it sounds like when we hear it, and what it means. Using clay, a person is able to create a visual image for what a word means. The next thing that he does is create what it looks like. So he takes the clay and makes the letters of the word. Then he adds the sound to it. For example, for the word “the” he says to his clay model: “You are ‘the,’ meaning one which is here or which has been mentioned.“ At that point, he’s created all three parts of that symbol: what it looks like, what it sounds like, and what it means -- all in the same place at the same time. It doesn’t matter whether he thinks with sound, the visual image of the word, or with the meaning. He has all the pieces. From that moment on for the rest of his life, that word will never again cause disorientation. When he sees that word written on a piece of paper, immediately he sees what he made out of the clay. There is no blank spot.

GC: And that blank spot is what you would call a trigger word?

Mr. Davis: Yes. The trigger words cause the blank spot which leads to confusion. When one experiences a sufficient amount of that confusion, disorientation will occur. When the disorientation occurs, his brain is not seeing what his eyes see, but rather what he thinks his eyes should see. His brain is not hearing what his ears hear, but rather what he thinks his ears should hear. His auditory sense is either louder than it should be or not as loud as it should be. His balance and movements are reversed. He is going to feel like he’s moving if he is sitting still. If he is moving, he is going to feel like he is sitting still. And his internal time clock is either going faster or slower than normal. Everything becomes distorted. So everything that he learns when he is disoriented is inaccurate and he has no way of knowing that he got it wrong.

GC: Some organizations assert that phonics is the only way to teach reading to students with dyslexia. One of their arguments is that it is much more efficient to memorize 44 sounds, as opposed to almost a million words. Can people really go through that whole process with the clay for every word?

Mr. Davis: First of all, we don’t need to do it for every word because there are only 217 trigger words. Secondly, dyslexics can make the 44 sounds, but they won’t mean anything to them. They can’t think with them. There are places where phonics are valuable, I’m not saying there is no reason for them to exist. But as far as using them to teach reading to someone who is not a word thinker, it’s torturing them! When I was seventeen years old an attempt to teach me to read using phonics was tried and it was literally painful. I couldn’t think with the sounds of words. I just couldn’t do it, and to this day I still do not think with the sounds of words. My mind is silent. I still think in pictures.

While this type of thinking led to many struggles with language, it brought mathematics and I together as very good friends early on. When I was eight years old, I could do trigonometry, even though I didn’t know what my name was.

GC: But you were doing trigonometry!

Mr. Davis. Yes. Well you see, there is a beauty in mathematics. You have to think with the pieces and you have to be able to do it with imagery. If you do it that way, it is extremely simple -- even abstract concepts like negative numbers. Many struggle to imagine something that doesn’t exist. But if you’re able to visualize it and then fully grasp such a concept, you’re off to the races! There is no aspect of math that you can’t do. All math is composed of order versus disorder, sequence, and time. Oddly enough, it is the same thing that music is composed of. I believe music and math at that level are actually the same thing -- just expressed through different means.

Words, on the other hand, didn’t become a very big part of my life until I was 17 years old. I didn’t learn to talk in sentences until then. Prior to that, I wasn’t completely mute, but unless I was really familiar with you, you would never hear me make a sound -- and if you were really familiar with me, you would have to interpret everything that I said because I would say it ten times more than what would be needed. But I would be repeating the same words, maybe 2 or 3 times. What would be different would be the sequencing of the sounds. Finally, after high school, I had a fantastic speech therapist. Dr. Meredith Evans taught me how to talk in sentences. When they finally gave me an I.Q. test, I literally went from being an idiot or an imbecile to being a genius.

GC: If there is one thing you would want to tell teachers about how they can help students with dyslexia, what is it?

Mr. Davis. If children with dyslexia have the feeling of certainty, they can do anything, but if you take that feeling of certainty away from them, they flounder. They are like fish out of water. If they allow that dyslexic child the time necessary to get a lesson to the level that they feel certain about it, the student will not develop a problem.

We have a K-3 classroom program that’s called the Davis Learning Strategies. It is something that complements existing curriculum. My goal was that the student participants would not develop learning disabilities. In six years of pilot studies done in the United States, not a single child in any of the classes was referred to any form of special education and in all the programs at least ten percent of the students were referred to accelerated programs – which is twice the national average! We even had some as high as forty percent! This is not just a program for children that would develop learning disabilities. It teaches the basics through picture thinking -- and as a result, no one is left behind.

ABOUT RON DAVIS

In 1980, at age 38, Ron Davis overcame his own severe dyslexia when he found a way to quickly eliminate common perceptual distortions. For the first time in his life, he could read and enjoy a book without struggling. After independent clinical research and working with experts in many fields, Ron Davis perfected his program for correcting dyslexia in adults and children.

In 1982, Ron Davis and Dr. Fatima Ali, Ph.D., opened the Reading Research Council Dyslexia Correction Center in California, achieving a 97% success rate in helping clients overcome their learning problems. In 1995, the Davis Dyslexia Association began formally training others to provide the same program. There are now 403 individuals worldwide who have completed training and have met rigorous standards to provide Davis Dyslexia Correction.