PLEASE CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE DYSSING MONADYS PAGE.

Doors open: 7:00pm for a 7:30pm start
Tickets: £5/4 (100% of box office will be donated to new charity called DYS(the)LEXI
Box Office: 07917157748
Venue: The Horse, 122-124 Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7RW
Tube: Lambeth North/Waterloo

DYSSING MONADYS is part of Adult Dyslexia Awarness Week (1-7 November 2009)

No single definition currently exists to adequately define dyslexia,
including our own definition. The truth is, at present nobody
really knows exactly what dyslexia is or what causes it. However,
we do know much about the dyslexic condition and as a consequence
dyslexia tends to be described in terms of its symptoms or
alternatively in terms of what it is not. For example ‘Dyslexia is
not due to low intelligence’ or ‘Dyslexia is not a disease, it has
no cure’

In your search for information you will discover many definitions
and proposed causes of dyslexia. Writers will put forward their own
views and theories, which will generally differ from the views and
theories of others. Understandably, this is often confusing.
However, if you find yourself in this position and are wondering how
on earth you can begin to understand a condition that has no single
definition, do not despair.

Those who work with dyslexic children and adults on a day-to-day
basis quickly learn to recognise the signs of dyslexia. Although no
two dyslexics are the same, all dyslexics share enough common
symptoms to make recognising the condition possible.

Unlike others, we do not wish to attempt to impose one single
definition upon you. Instead we have listed below a few of the
common definitions currently in circulation.

Whichever definition you identify with, if you suspect that you are dyslexic
yourself or that your child may be dyslexic. Be totally honest with yourself,
because deep down inside you will known that some kind of problem exists
and that is the first step to resolving it.

Definition 1)

Our own simple definition of dyslexia is ‘Intelligent, bright or
even gifted individuals, that for no obvious reason, struggle to learn through
the medium of written or spoken language’.

Definition 2)

The World Federation of Neurology defines dyslexia as
‘a disorder manifested by difficulties in learning to read, despite
conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural
opportunity’.

Definition 3)

Dyslexia is not just a severe reading disorder
characterised by reversals. It is a syndrome of many and varied
symptoms that affects millions of children and adults.

Definition 4)

Dyslexia is the ability to see multidimensionally,
all at once, or from any one place at a time. The ability to think
in pictures and to register those pictures as real. Thus, you mix
in creative thinking with reality and change what is seen and heard.

Definition 5)

a) To read and spell requires co-ordination of many brain
functions. Problems arise at one or more functional levels.

b) Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically-based deficit in
acquiring reading and spelling skills, relative to the person’s
general intellectual abilities.

c) Dyslexia is a discrepancy between a high score on intelligence
tests and low scores on reading/spelling tests.

Definition 6)

Dyslexia is a disability that alters the way the
brain processes written material. Affects vary from person to
person. However, all dyslexics read at levels significantly lower
than is typical for their age or intelligence.

Definition 7)

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty characterised by
problems with written or spoken language such as reading, writing,
spelling, speaking, or listening. The word dyslexia describes a
different kind of mind, often gifted, over-productive, and that
learns in a different way.

Definition

Dyslexia is a congenital disturbance of brain
function causing a variety of learning difficulties, especially
relating to reading, writing and spelling.

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk
http://www.dyslexia.org.uk
http://www.dyslexia.uk.com

New research by US and Chinese scientists challenges our interpretation of how it is possible to be dyslexic in one language but not another. It shows that readers of Chinese use a different part of their brains to readers of English.

The study, led by Li Hai Tan and reported in Nature, may unexpectedly tell us some key things about how dyslexia affects the brain. Brain functioning, and indeed structure, is moulded by experience. Learning a regular spelling system such as Italian creates differences in brain organisation compared to learning highly irregular English. Italian has 26 rules to learn, which takes about six months; English takes longer because there are many irregularities (and several hundred rules). In Chinese 3,500 characters are needed to read the equivalent of the Daily Mail and about 6,000 characters to read books.

The second main difference is that in English each linguistically distinct sound, or phoneme, maps to a single letter. For example, the three phonemes in “bat” map on to three letters. If one letter is changed it makes a new word. A Chinese character maps to a whole syllable. In Putonghua, the national language of China, there are about 1,800 distinguishable syllables; each syllable can have several meanings and each meaning is typically represented by a distinct character.

How will these differences be reflected in brain organisation? Learning Chinese creates specific demands on the areas for remembering visual patterns. English readers make more use of areas for phoneme processing.

This ability to analyse syllables into phonemes is the key problem in dyslexia. Dyslexics have difficulty segmenting the word “that” into three separate sounds – so fare much worse in learning English than Chinese.

Reported prevalence of dyslexia is much higher in English (about 5-6%) than Chinese. I surveyed 8,000 schoolchildren in the Beijing region, with Yin Wengang of the Chinese Academy of Science, and found that about 1.5% were dyslexic.

This kind of evidence suggests that a single underlying deficit of the ability to analyse words into phonemes can cause dyslexia for any reader, but will be more severe where phonemes are involved. A European team led by Uta Frith of UCL reported in Science a few years ago that English, French and Italian dyslexics all showed the same abnormal activity involving the brain system underlying phonemic analysis.

In Alan, this theory predicts accurately that the affected language will be English, since Japanese does not require analysis into phonemes.

Research by Frith’s team shows that small variations in brain organisation are due to orthography, with Italian making more demands on the phonemic system, because it is regular, and English making more demands on the naming system because words cannot be read correctly using phonic rules and have to be named – for example: colonel, yacht, pint. We assume the part of Alan’s brain that deals with phonemic analysis is not working efficiently, which causes a problem reading English, compared to Japanese.

The first surprise in Tan’s study was that a key peak in brain activity in Chinese readers fell outside the network typically used by European readers. The second surprise was that dyslexics showed lower activation in several key reading areas compared with normal Chinese readers, but this was in a very different brain area from Frith’s European dyslexics.

Both Frith and I have argued that dyslexia has a universal basis in the brain that affects phonemic analysis. Tan and his colleagues, by contrast, conclude that “the biological abnormality of impaired reading is dependent on culture”. If we are right, Alan uses the same brain network for English and Japanese, and the malfunction only affects English reading. If Tan is right, Alan has separate networks for English and Japanese, and only the former is affected.

A lot will turn on which of us is right. Dyslexia frequently runs in families, and there has been much research trying to identify the genes responsible. If dyslexia is governed by culture, then Chinese dyslexia may be caused by a different genetic anomaly than English dyslexia.

· Brian Butterworth and Joey Tang are in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London

I am now going to email the E&D departments of other London Uni’s and see if they can incorporate the festival into their awareness week events.

Pennie

DYSSING MONADYS is set to prove the literary world wrong with a new festival for dyslexic story makers opening at The Troy Bar in Hoxton Street, on Monday 6 October – 24 November 2008, as part of Adult Dyslexia Awareness Week.

missfit productions, the engine behind the festival, believes that being diagnosed with dyslexia is no longer an embarrassment. DYSSING MONADYS encourages dyslexic practitioners to come out of the creative closet and prove that their dyslexia is a gift.
“Although people with dyslexia learn differently and struggle with ‘Left Brain’ activities, they are often, original storytellers.” Festival Director, Lennie Varvarides.

DYSSING MONADYS is working with over 20 dyslexic practitioners and aims to be a permanent, annual fixture in the literary scene. The festival boasts of 8 nights full of new writing for theatre, film and poetry by British and International makers. For a line up of performances each Monday night in October and November, please visit, www.missfitproductions.org

END

Festival Details:
Date: Every Monday of the week
From October – November 2008
Time: 7:00pm Tickets: £5/4 Box Office: 07917157748
Place: Troy Bar, 10 Hoxton St, N1 6NG
Tube: Old Stwww.missfitproductions.org dysthelexi@gmail.com
For up to the minute info and pictures please visit: http://dysthelexi.blogspot.com

Notes to the Editors
miss fit productions was launched in 2006 and aims to promote new writing for theatre, while also providing a new platform for filmmakers and poets to tell their stories too. missfit productions set up the WRITE SIDE OF THE BRAIN festival and the DYS(the)LEXI festival for dyslexic writers. Under the DYS(the)LEXI brand we now produce DYSSING MONADYS.
For more information, images or interviews, please contact festival director Lennie Varvarides directly on 07917 157 748.