Blacks, Latinos Confront Dyslexia Diagnosis Gap

By the time he reached 7th grade, Izer Martinez had attended eight different schools. He wasn’t a problem child. He hadn’t been kicked out. He and his parents were simply trying to find a school that would look past his dyslexia to see what he could achieve. 

Martinez spoke about his experiences Monday at a conference that launched the Multicultural Dyslexia Awareness Initiative, a new program from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. The conference drew more than 150 attendees from across the country to discuss how they could use advocacy and education to increase awareness of dyslexia among black and Latino communities.

Martinez served as a poster child for a new message: that the under-diagnosis of dyslexia among minorities is a pressing civil rights issue.

Dyslexia, a developmental reading disorder, causes difficulties with spelling, reading, writing, and finding the proper words when speaking. A child might be unable to read the word volcano, or might say the similar-sounding ​“tornado” when presented with a picture, even though he or she knows what a volcano is.

Though children with dyslexia may be labeled ​“dumb” or ​“lazy,” the center’s co-director Sally Shaywitz said, the disorder is actually marked by high levels of intelligence. Dyslexics tend to be creative, ​“out-of-the-box” thinkers and possess strong reasoning skills. Studies have shown that in dyslexia, a child’s reading ability and IQ level are worlds apart, even though people often take reading ability – or inability – as an indicator of intelligence, Shaywitz said.

In the United States, more than 10 million children live with the disorder. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability and affects one in five children.

Yet, the disorder often goes undiagnosed. Issues with reading may get attributed to a lack of intelligence or effort. Teachers of undiagnosed students may never have heard of dyslexia. Many dyslexics aren’t diagnosed until high school, college, or even middle age. Some never receive an explanation for their struggles with reading.

This under-diagnosis is even more pronounced among minority communities, according to Shaywitz.

The purpose of the conference, one of the initiative’s leaders, Keith Magee, said, is not only to inform, but to gather information about what can be done to diagnose and then support those with dyslexia.

“There’s an overwhelming number of children of color who are untested and undiagnosed,” Magee said. ​“People know there’s a literacy issue, but they don’t realize it’s dyslexia.” By bringing educators, policymakers, faith leaders, attorneys, and scientists together, he said, the initiative hopes to build a movement for change.

Treating dyslexia is an issue of civil rights, organizers emphasized. ​“All these people are marginalized,” Magee said. ​“There are all these barriers they can’t cross because they haven’t been accommodated.”

These accommodations include extra time on school exams and standardized testing. Additional time allows dyslexic students to reconcile their slow reading speed with their high level of thinking, Shaywitz said. It gives them a chance to show what they know. ​“Without time, even the most knowledgeable person can’t show that knowledge,” Shaywitz said. In one study, test results shot up from 12 percent to 75 percent correct when dyslexic students received extra time.

Informing teachers about the disorder and placing dyslexic children in small classes will also help, Shaywitz said.

Other conference speakers included the singer and actor Harry Belafonte, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Victor Villasenor, and an associate dean of the Duke School of Medicine, Dr. Brenda Armstrong.

In one panel, three teens – Gloria Clark, Joseph Harris, and Izer Martinez – described their experiences with the disorder. The three provided suggestions for a 6th grader in the audience who just learned he has dyslexia. Sit in the front row in class. Find what makes you passionate about school. Get involved with sports – a realm where no one will know you’re dyslexic, Clark said.

“Find the beauty of it. That’s when it’s going to get better,” Harris added. ​“And once you find it, it’s like oh my gosh.”

For Harris, this beauty is his talent in art and architecture, an ability he credits to the creative thinking often found in those with dyslexia.

For Clark, it’s a love of reading and writing. As a child, she worried she’d end up homeless because she couldn’t read. Now, she is a published author and she performed one of her original poems for the conference.

Martinez, who’s from Chicago, bounced around between eight schools before finding one in Buffalo, New York that specializes in helping kids with learning differences. He now studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He went from goofing off in class as a child, a tactic to avoid having to read aloud, to sitting in the front row in college lecture halls and tackling hundreds of pages a week in assigned reading.

Though having dyslexia can be difficult, Clark said, the important thing is to keep trying. ​“Don’t give up. I used to tell myself that every day before school,” she said. ​“It’s going to be hard, but don’t give up.”

The initiative will hold five more conferences by the end of the year in locations across the country: Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, and Cleveland.