dysTalk

Hello!

I gather that this site is about learning difficulties in CHILDREN so maybe this wont be relevant. A friend of my son (23, Dyslexic) asked whether it was possible that he might have dyslexia - but only in speaking rather than reading or writing. He says that he finds it very hard to transfer his thoughts into coherent sentences.

This came as a big surprise as the boy in question got a good degree recently from Bristol University. He said that's exactly it: no problems at all with written English, real difficulties with the spoken word.

Does anyone know anything about this, or has heard of a similar situation in others?

03/09/2008 19:28:34
Caroline

My 9 year old son is dyslexic. I have just been to his parents evening and his teacher told me that she sometimes finds his speech difficult to understand. This was mentioned to me in the past so I referred him to a speech and language therapist who couldn't understand why he was hard to understand because, after a long time testing him, his speech was perfectly clear?! This remained a complete mystery to me as well. I am beginning to wonder if it is when he has to think hard about something that he is finding it difficult to transfer his thoughts into clear speech. I am wondering whether or not this is a common problem for people with dyslexia. I haven't heard very much about the subject.

17/10/2008 19:51:46
Michelle Key

Lots of dyslexic and dyspraxic children have speech difficulties which reflect problems in organising their thoughts, words and speech movements so as to effectively reflect their thoughts. Sometimes, as Caroline suggests (message3/9/08) it can affet one modality more than another so that it may be hard to turn the words into speech more than the thoughts into words. Many speech therapists only test speech output in single words and sentences, which is not always enought to show up problems in spoken langauge formulation in less formal settings. My advice is to try again and see if you can find a therapist who WILL consider such problems.

27/10/2008 14:02:10
Lesley