The Journal News from White Plains, New York • Page 45

THE JOURNAL-NEWS, THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1985 7U LA A Program helps deal with 'word blindness' perception disorder la the mountains of eastern Kentucky and across several other states in Appalachia, volunteers are working with children suffering from dyslexia, the so-called "word blindness" first described by scientists in the 1890s. Not only are the children improving, but they are finding out that they are in the company of such people as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Bruce Jenner. By BILL BERGSTROM Associated Press Writer HINDMAN, Ky. (AP) Henrietta Conley avoided the crowd as a schoolgirl because she forever was baffled by things others found simple. Not until she was grown up did she find a way to remember right from left.

"I was so glad when I got married," she recalls. "When I pull my wedding band off I'm lost." School was a problem for her daughter, Kimberley, too. "Whenever I was in a class and the teacher called on me to read aloud I'd think 'God, not me Kentucky University and later at the University of Alabama, said the "word blindness" first described in the mid-1890s stems from impaired development of perceptual-motor skills. Dr. Samuel T.

Orton, a University of Iowa psychiatrist whose research led to founding of the Baltimore-based Orton Dyslexia Society in 1949, cited altered right and left brain development. In 1982, Dr. Norman Geschwind, a Harvard Medical School neurologist, suggested that the same altered brain anatomy can lead to gifted-ness in other areas. Some encouraging examples for dyslexic children are Thomas Edison, who was unable at age 19 to spell or write a grammatical sentence; Woodrow Wilson, who was 11 before he learned to read, and Albert Einstein, who was declared a linguistic dullard. Today's children also identify with more contemporary dyslexics, including Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner and former Vice President Nelson A.

Rockefeller. Rockefeller described struggling with "words that seemed to garble before my eyes" and advised, "Don't accept anyone's verdict that you are lazy, stupid or retarded. You may very well be smarter than most other children your age." Those are encouraging words for children who have reached that verdict themselves. "I always felt 'God, I'm so When you find out you're not the only person who has the problem it's reassuring," said Kimberley Conley, now a tutor in the Hindman program. "-j-.

I fTw i wis itmm I messed up, too," the 17-year-old Kimberley says. "I was reading 14 words at a time and it didn't make sense at all." Wearing her ring, Mrs. Conley, AP photo Lois Combs Weinberg works with Glen Ramey during a class in Hindman, Ky. for children with dyslexia. 35, can cope.

"If I'm driving and someone says turn left, I always look at my hands. You learn how to deal with it." But Mrs. Conley and others with similar problems in the mountains of eastern Kentucky didn't know what "it" was, or that the problem dyslexia also linked them with such luminaries as Thomas kept wondering about some of her students. "I'd say, 'You're intelligent, but you're not giving me anything on Then she discovered the prob lem in her own child. But with training, Twyla Jacobs, a high school sophomore, lost her "I don't care, I'm dumb, I'm stupid" attitude, her mother says.

"She's speaking out, she's very self-assured now. It really works." Psychologist Charles L. Shedd, who researched dyslexia in the early 1960s at Berea College, Western Edison and Albert Einstein. That changed after Lois Combs Weinberg of Hindman, puzzling over her intelligent son's reading problems, began inquiries that led her to the Kentucky Association for Specific Perceptual-Motor Disabili Wait No More! other counties across eastern Kentucky, including Perry, Letcher, Pike, Knott, Leslie, Breathitt, Martin, Johnson, Floyd and Clay. An advertising campaign was dropped because the waiting list kept growing.

Parents train as tutors for the weekly 312 -hour classes. They work with the children of other parents to maintain a degree of detachment. Pairing off at long tables, each sits eye-to-eye with a student, a hand on the child's back or shoulder. A raised or lowered voice or a few minutes of work standing up often serves to recapture a wandering mind, and the command, "Look at me," is repeated constantly around the room. Children dutifully repeat letters, letter combinations, and then whole words, write them down and trace them with a finger on a rough board to add touch to the senses brought into play.

"They are trying to get the child to focus in on the word and look at it clearly," Ms. Unruh explains. Dyslexia does not disappear, she says. But with improved concentration and knowledge of the likely mix-ups, students eventually catch most of the mistakes themselves. A low-carbohydrate diet also helps, says one parent, Burneda Chaffins of Garrett.

"Give mine some chocolate and you cope with a monster." Some students advance as many as three or four grades in reading ability in six weeks, Mullins says. Their frustration eased, the children stop "becoming the class clown or getting in trouble all the time," Mrs. Unruh says. "The chips on their shoulders go away." Ruby Jacobs, a Caney Elementary School sixth grade teacher, says that in 21 years of teaching she ty, headquartered in Louisville. That group provides materials for dyslexia programs in North Carolina, Virginia and Iowa, as well as the Kentucky cities of Louisville, Springfield, Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, Mayfield, Richmond and now Hindman.

Program coordinator Lori Un-ruh says dyslexics often reverse letters in reading words. For example, "left" becomes "felt," "tub" becomes "but." They also have trouble with left-right, up-down orientation, so letters like and are confused. Children with dyslexia also often have trouble paying attention, following directions or sitting still. Their performance on IQ tests is inconsistent, strong in some areas and weak in others. Mrs.

Weinberg started the Hindman program six years ago with a group of four parents tutoring four children. Word spread and the Hindman elementry school took over coordination of the program. Since then, several hundred children have been screened for dyslexia, says Mike Mullins, the school's executive director. The after-school program at Hindman last year had 128 students, and a 13-week summer boarding program drew 53. Classes also were established in JI ViVfrA J.

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