News & Views from Davis Dyslexia Association International
In this video, I talk about what Ron Davis discovered about his own dyslexia and how all the symptoms of dyslexia are the symptoms of disorientation. I discuss how disorientation affects people with Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, and other learning differences and how the Davis programs help to overcome these difficulties.
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Dyslexia Q&A: Advice for Parents
This is the final installment of a seven-video series from an interview style Q & A session. This video is focused on how parents can better understand and help their kids.
Dyslexia Q&A: The Dark Side of Dyslexia
This is the sixth of a seven-video series taken from an interview style Q & A session. In this video we discuss some of the hardships that dyslexic children and adults face in life.
Disorientation and Visual Confusion
When my clients arrive with visual sensory disorientations it can be a result of life stress. Or simply that they are naturally strong visual learners in a world of words where confusion causes these symptoms.
How to Tell Time
The seven most common sources of confusion for children, and how to address them.
Dyslexia Q&A: Which Program is Right for Me?
This is the fifth of a seven-video series taken from an interview style Q & A session. In these videos we explore the experience of disorientation.
Hi Carl, thank you so much for this video. You mentioned that you’ve made a ton of research yourself, I’m wondering if there is any data showing where all these ideas lie in terms of neuroscience and neuropsychology? I made a lot of research myself trying to understand the nature of my son’s problems. I can see how Davis’s koosh balls exercises train proprioception that is one of the underlying skills for academic learning and at the same time they are cross-lateral exercises that are proved to increase the connection between right and left brain hemispheres and fix left-right confusions. And clay is one of types of multi sensory activities that usually help to create proper connections in the brain to really remember something especially for children who are often kinesthetic learners. But the main mystery for me is the idea of disorientation and why Orientation or Alignment procedure work. The closest thing I can think of is mindfulness meditation technique that is somewhat similar and is also proven to grow the brain in the areas responsible for concentration but usually with time and multiple repetitions. But in your method radical changes happen within a week. So I would be grateful if you can help me understand the underlying effect to the brain that explains why Davis method works. Thank you very much!
Hi Julia. I have also been very interested in learning what is going on in the brain with the Davis orientation tools. I think that the Davis training is a form of neurofeedback, except that rather than requiring hours of practice with specialized equipment, the person simply learns to self-monitor their own bodily and sensory response. (So very much like mindfulness meditation as you suggest, but with the goal being a state of relaxed, alert mental focus). I think it has something to do with the coordination of brain waves — mental focus is associated with gamma waves. Here is a quote from a neurofeedback website:
From https://nhahealth.com/brainwaves-the-language/
Dear Abigail, thank you for your answer, this is the kind of information I was looking for. Neurofeedback does look as a reasonable explanation and sounds so impressive! I’ve subscribed to you FB group so meet you there!
Dear Carl, Thank you for your detailed answer. We are in the UK so I won’t have a chance to meet you unfortunately. My son is still only 6 but I’m almost sure about dyslexia by now. I’m going to try to start with him the Davis approach by myself an see how it goes.
By the way, it may sound weird but I think that I understand the effect of disorientation, Orientation and Alinement procedures very well. I’m sure that I’m not dyslexic (nor that I have any other mentioned problems) but I think I can imagine and literally feel everything described in the book. I always had a very good spatial and abstract thinking and can kind of daydream sometimes. But these daydreams is an acquired thing that came later in life with ability to multitask and on another hand with acquired migraines when concentrating hard on visual tasks. I’m curious if I can try to use the Davis procedure on myself to help with this migraines and concentrating? Have you heard about this kind of application of the Davis method? Thank you!
Dear Julia
Thank you for your questions. The research that you refer to is from different resources over many years, so I can not send you to any one source. Ron Davis does explain orientation and disorientation in detail in his books, The Gift of Dyslexia, The Gift of Learning. There is also some explanation in, Autism and the seeds of change by Abigail Marshall and Ron Davis.
When I google disorientation, I found that the research fizzled out quite quickly when it came to education, learning and reading. I think this is because people have not made the link between disorientation and reading, learning, and focusing the mind that Ron has because of his own dyslexia.
Your question and your reference to meditation, “the main mystery for me is the idea of disorientation and why Orientation or Alignment procedure work”.
It sounds like you are trying to understand how the Davis tools work with your son’s thinking or put another way, how orientation works with the mind or consciousness itself? It is a good question, unfortunately, there is no one simple answer that I can put in an email, and this is the reasons for my videos.
If you were dyslexic yourself, you would experience what you son does when he has a “dyslexic moment” or disorients. So, if you were given the orientation tools and did a program you would feel and understand the difference. If you are not dyslexic, you could have a facilitator do alignment with you so you could experience what it is like. This would only get you “close” you would not have the “same” experience as your son, because you are not dyslexic.
I think like many parents you may be trying to the answer the question “will this program work for my child”? When people ask this question what they are trying to do is, understand a choice they have not made yet. The only way you will know if Davis can help your son is if you do a program.
There is research on the Davis methods on the main website under ‘Research’ here is the link: https://www.dyslexia.com/
If you live in North America, please feel free to call me directly and I would be happy to answer your questions.
Yours Sincerely
Carl Nigi
Hi Julia
At six years old you and your son could do a Young Learners program with a facilitator. At that time you would find out more about the tools and how they work. The gift of dyslexia was written to help someone understand and apply some of the Davis methods to someone else not your self. Meaning, a parent reads the book and then helps a child. The book was not intended to be a “self help” book, so unfortunately you can not give the Davis tools to your self. If you have not done so already my advice would be to talk to a Facilitator in person as soon as you can.
Carl