Adult dyslexia: Anyone else dealing with this?
in Health ·
Since I'm 59, I guess it’s kind of ridiculous to be asking about this stuff. But... I don't know. It feels like I'm running into more and more blatant signs of dyslexia lately. Things that lana10 listed here:
Main indicators of dysgraphia:
• messy, illegible handwriting – I've always struggled with bad penmanship and staying focused enough to keep things readable. If I actually try to make it neat, I have to focus entirely on the physical act of writing, which kills my creativity... I'm not capturing thoughts, just transcribing. To manage, I use varying pressure—thin vs thick strokes, like they taught me back in school—and I have to force the letters to be bigger. If I'm just trying to get ideas down, I can barely even read my own writing later.
• skipping or swapping letters within a word
• mirror writing
• running words together
__________________
Mirror writing—I have no clue what that is, though the other two points happen to me constantly. I'll write "sma" instead of "sam." Or I won't separate words. That's why I can't write by hand anymore; I have to use Word because the red underlines catch my mistakes. Everything I mess up, I only realize once I go back to read it.
Mostly, I type with just two or three fingers, glancing back and forth between the keys and the screen. Maybe (and maybe intentionally too) it's happening because of poor technique—my motor skills when writing... I'll leave this sentence here as an example: It might be due to poor technique. So, even though I wrote "sma" (there it is) while looking at the keys, I end up hitting a key that isn't even adjacent, let alone right next to it. (I still type faster than I realize, but I'm still hovering over the keyboard, looking at it all at once, sort of hunched over... probably looks weird to everyone else.
Not to ramble on forever, but can dyslexia show up later in life? Is there any actual research or papers on that, or just what you guys think? Since I also deal with astigmatism, I was wondering if dyslexia could "develop" in a similar way. See, someone born with astigmatism usually has their brain and eye muscles compensate for it while they're young. That's why the issues often surface later—for me, it hit around age 48 when driving started wearing me out. After two or three hours behind the wheel, my head would spin. My ophthalmologist diagnosed the astigmatism immediately, gave me glasses with some specific cylinder correction to fix how light hits the eye, and that fixed it. Now, it feels like something similar is happening. It's just like certain types of concentration or reactions aren't under control anymore. It's acting slower than my actual writing.
If you're still around—virtually, I mean—I'd appreciate an answer. Thanks, John 😕
Main indicators of dysgraphia:
• messy, illegible handwriting – I've always struggled with bad penmanship and staying focused enough to keep things readable. If I actually try to make it neat, I have to focus entirely on the physical act of writing, which kills my creativity... I'm not capturing thoughts, just transcribing. To manage, I use varying pressure—thin vs thick strokes, like they taught me back in school—and I have to force the letters to be bigger. If I'm just trying to get ideas down, I can barely even read my own writing later.
• skipping or swapping letters within a word
• mirror writing
• running words together
__________________
Mirror writing—I have no clue what that is, though the other two points happen to me constantly. I'll write "sma" instead of "sam." Or I won't separate words. That's why I can't write by hand anymore; I have to use Word because the red underlines catch my mistakes. Everything I mess up, I only realize once I go back to read it.
Mostly, I type with just two or three fingers, glancing back and forth between the keys and the screen. Maybe (and maybe intentionally too) it's happening because of poor technique—my motor skills when writing... I'll leave this sentence here as an example: It might be due to poor technique. So, even though I wrote "sma" (there it is) while looking at the keys, I end up hitting a key that isn't even adjacent, let alone right next to it. (I still type faster than I realize, but I'm still hovering over the keyboard, looking at it all at once, sort of hunched over... probably looks weird to everyone else.
Not to ramble on forever, but can dyslexia show up later in life? Is there any actual research or papers on that, or just what you guys think? Since I also deal with astigmatism, I was wondering if dyslexia could "develop" in a similar way. See, someone born with astigmatism usually has their brain and eye muscles compensate for it while they're young. That's why the issues often surface later—for me, it hit around age 48 when driving started wearing me out. After two or three hours behind the wheel, my head would spin. My ophthalmologist diagnosed the astigmatism immediately, gave me glasses with some specific cylinder correction to fix how light hits the eye, and that fixed it. Now, it feels like something similar is happening. It's just like certain types of concentration or reactions aren't under control anymore. It's acting slower than my actual writing.
If you're still around—virtually, I mean—I'd appreciate an answer. Thanks, John 😕