A Practical Solution for Spelling

I'm a bilingual dyslexic . . . I can misspell words in two languages.

Now that I've lightened the mood, let's move onto more practical information. As a dyslexic, I have difficulty with spelling. To remedy this, I use a word processor for everything.

For those facing the same problem and are in need of a simple solution, simply type your message in a word processor, use the spell checker (make sure your spell checker is not low on eye of newt), highlight the message, copy and then paste in the window where you enter your message.

Jeanette Isabelle

Ar, ar, spell humor!

Jeanette: Humor, H-U-M-O-R.

Spelling-bee judge: That's correct.

The audience applauds.

Jeanette Isabelle

You the woman!

Edit: "spell" humor versus spell "humor."

great idea- thanks!

Most browsers (certainly Opera and Firefox with an add-in) do spell checking automatically - Opera even underlines wrongly spelled words.

p.s. It's humour

I assume you both meant to spell humour.
American and British English spelling differences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#

Firefox also indicates misspelled words in the fly.

According to my word processor, "humour" is the British spelling. "Humor" is the American spelling. Therefore, since I live in America, I use the American spelling.

"Black and portentous must this humour prove," -- Romeo and Juliet, ACT I Scene 1

Jeanette Isabelle

Spell checkers are not panacea. There are many words which are correct by themselves but in fact are complete nonsense in the context of a sentence.

True - but to my limited knowledge, typical dyslectic problems are NOT related to building good or bad sentences, but in translating words between (oral) language (in the mind, or spoken) and the written text. As far as I know, spell checkers are great tools for many dyslectics. (I have 4 close friends with that problem. 3 of those have a Pd.D degree... Dyslectic comes in all flavors; one of my friends had it real hard and had yellow post-it stickers all over his study with words he had to memorize... the stubbornness and devotion in that guy is incredible!)

Anyway - whatever works! I'm happy you found a good tool that works for you, J.I

Mostly Harmless is correct. I have a firm grasp of my native language and know how to build a clear, comprehensive paragraph. The difficulty is in putting letters together to build clear and understandable words.

As for my second language, I still make grammatical errors as the French grammar is different from English.

Jeanette Isabelle

Jeannette,

I am curious. Were you ever diagnosed by a neuro-psychologist, a doctor who actually diagnoses learning disorders?

I am asking, because you say you know four other people who have it. True dyslexia is extremely rare.

When my grand-niece was diagnosed with dyslexia, I did a little research. What I found was that it was the schools that were diagnosing dyslexia. I also discovered that for every child they say has a learning disability, it seems they get more federal money. Quite an incentive, isn't it?

Anyway, I also read that someone asked a neuro-psychologist just HOW they diagnosed dyslexia. The answer was a bit of a shock at the time. He said they recommend to the parents that they enroll their child in a straight-phonics reading program outside the school for six months. At the end of that time, they test the kid again. If there has been noticeable improvement, they don't have dyslexia, they are simply the victims of the reading system their school uses. If there has been no improvement, they continue searching and testing.

Sue

Jannette,

I understand that you are talking about a disorder like condition. But my point is that you can build a grammatically correct word, which will be acceptable for a spell checker program, but will be actually different from what you had in mind (mostly apply to typos, though).

For example: people often write "to" instead of "too"; I'm often catching myself writing "it's" instead of "its" for some subliminal reason. e.t.c.

First, I was not the one who said I know four other people who have dyslexia. Mostly Harmless is the one who said that.

Second, though there was some testing in schools, most testing was done in hospital settings, most notably Texas Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas. They have a learning disorder center and to the best of knowledge they don't have an incentive to diagnose children with dyslexia. Though I have undergone many tests, I don't know how many neuropsychologists were involved. The test you mentioned was not used.

Jeanette Isabelle

I do confuse homophones so, as you can imagine, my homophones are very confused. This is why my preferred word processor, Word Perfect, is so handy. It comes with a Grammatik checker so it catches many of the common mistakes. However, it does not catch every mistake of this nature. If I am unsure about a word, I use the built-in thesaurus. If it is not in the thesaurus, I turn to Google or to my 3" thick dictionary.

Jeanette Isabelle

By the way, the more advanced option would be a narration software (the Dragon Naturally Speaking is the top of the line). The AI algorithms they've implemented to auto correct the real time speech to text recognition data are much more sophisticated than anything a plain text processor might have.

Spell checkers certainly help and MS Word's grammar checker is fairly good.
I often have problems with the homophones too.

I also tend to drop letters as I type.

I think there are a lot more people with some form of dyslexia than we recognize. I think that we generally fail to recognize the milder forms. Often I notice people who drop letters and get them in the wrong order but correct for it quickly.
I am not talking about typos either.

From what I have seen most forms of dyslexia seem to affect the highly intelligent more than the average person too. Why that happens I don't know and can't even make a guess at.

I happen to know a woman who is mildly dyslexic and is a technical writer. I could joke about that being why so many manuals so hard to make sense of, but she writes very clearly because she has had to proof read her own writing all of her life.
It is a constant habit with her.

My wife was diagnosed with dislexia (and yes, withe a LOT of testing) - there was some debate if she had dislexia, or disgraphia

She has serious issues with "pitch" - you can play a note 2+ octaves apart, and she can't tell you which is higher/lower

Mozilla Foxfire with Aspell installed. Effective, simple to use, and, best of all, free.

A practical solution for spelling? If only there was some sort of book, a book that not only provided the correct spelling of words, but their proper pronunciation and definition, too . . .

Sometimes, old-tech is still right-tech.

Didn't Dr Johnson attempt to create such a device as a practical solution some centuries ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH5AaZS7RpA

And I believe it still has not even today been fully completed.

Every single word.

That will work ... maybe. If you can't spell it how are you supposed to look it up.

And:
"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way." —Mark Twain

Google Chrome also does spell-checking.

I use some of the decentest grammars available to us rednecks. Google chrome don't have no good grammar though.

My mother would be so ashamed.

Word spell check is a life saver for me. Colleges do not have a sense of humor with spelling, grammar, or homophones. Scary thing is I am a better proof-reader than most of my professors. I catch their typos! I am afraid that even educated people, with out a disability, are losing the rules of English.

Try this out.

Copy you last post, IN CURSIVE! Its sounds easy, but try it out. Scary huh?

In Microsoft Word; wrongly spelled words are underlined in red. You can right click on one to get alternate spellings suggested.
The Sock

Also don't rely 100% on the spell checker, for example words flashlight I see listed as flash light a lot because some spell checkers insist its two words. Microsoft ActiveSync is a bad one, its one word but firefox says its misspelled unless you put in a space and its a very problematic piece of software that when I was using it I always had to search for the issue of the day and some forums count the space so you had to do two searches to look for your answer as half the time people had it wrong.

Words like that you just add to the dictionary in the spellchecker when it flags them.

I get that problem with the searches too. Sometimes it helps to do a search with a word spelt incorrectly.

Yea, I add them but I have seen a lot of times where people just trust the spell checker and split the word.

I was diagnosed dyslexic when I was 21 years old. Whilst I was at school it was not really understood so they didn’t recognise it.

I recently got retested and it was confirmed I was severally dyslexic. I don’t hear certain sounds which meant when I was learning to talk as a little one I could not hear the sounds that formed some words.

Another problem I have is that often when I am reading, words disappear off the page or the words scramble. Or I can see a sentence in my head but I can’t get it down on paper.

Computers have really given me the confidence to write. I love writing but it does take me ages. Spell check really helps but you have to know the word you are writing down, if you misspelled the word but put another word down and don’t recognise it as being wrong you have a mistake but spell check can’t recognise it as being wrong.

Many people ask me why don’t you use a dictionary; I do but to use a dictionary you need to know how to spell the word in the first place. If you don’t know how to spell the word you could be looking for hours and often in the completely wrong area. I find a handheld electronic dictionary very helpful and carry it with me most of the time. I type in the word how I would say it and if it is wrong it gives me a selection of words. If I don’t recognise the correctly spelt word I can click on one of the words to check the definition.

Dyslexia is not a hindrance to me as it gives me a very pictorial mind. I see many 2D images in 3D such as building plans and maps. I can also see and recognise patterns very easily. It has not stopped me getting on. As I said I love writing, I have written magazine articles and many web reviews. I am in the process of writing 3 different books. And, I am doing a journalist degree course and a creative writing course.

Something that helps me but not perfectly is write then read the article, then sometime later reread it. Once I have cleared my head of what I wrote. For something like a forum I might reread it 15 mins later but an article or book I will reread it the next day if the deadline permits.

I too like to write. I could not do what I am doing now without the collaboration of others; I'm involved in a science fiction project taking years to write. A project I thought would take four years, may take five or six.

While I find satisfaction in reading a completed piece, the real fun is in the research.

Jeanette Isabelle

Funny you say that because it is the research that I enjoy the most. Secondly it does not mater how good your writing is, it is the quality of your research that makes a piece of writing interesting or not. It has to be written in an interesting way too of course.

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.

Brilliant!

It is said that true dyslexia is somehow related to autism, and the people that have both are often extremely creative.

Sue