Jun 24, 2010
Alexia: The inability to see words or to read, caused by a defect of the brain
Novelist Howard Engel woke up one morning unable to read.
Since then, he’s learned a technique to read using his tongue and he’s written two books.
NPR has the story, and here’s an animated summary…
(via)
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Stunningly fascinating! What a marvelous mechanism God has created in our mind/brain.
Thanks so much for sharing this. (It sounds like it would come from an Oliver Sacks collection!) I will share this with my language-based-learning-difference teacher colleagues. They will enjoy!
I particularly appreciate and support that differentiates the processing of language with the eyes verses the hands. Tracks along with the idea that employing different learning modalities is truly helpful, generally speaking, and especially in acute cases like this.
I’ve noticed that after 4 years of teaching students whose minds struggle with text processing that I start to “see” text as they would see it–even if I’m not 1/800th as debilitated by it. The disability has its own logic.
That was very interesting. I shared part of my story with you Abraham and basically that’s my deal. I have this alexia or alexia without agraphia I was told it’s cald. I wrote a note in the hospital and then couldn’t read it, I taught myself to read by pretend drawing the letters with my fingers and I also am a terrible speller. My text to speech software keeps me going as my reading is still super slow… Anyway that was fun to see – at first I thought there was going to be stuff written that wasn’t sounded out and then it would have been painful or I would have needed someone to read it to me for sure.