Dyslexia

Dyslexia runs in my family.  My mother had it. I have it in a limited way.  I have problems with numbers.  Now, this would not be too great a problem except that I am a CPA.  I learned to catch my mistakes and correct them.  I started CPA practice in the pre-computer age so that everything was done on worksheets by hand.  The figures on the worksheets were added with the aid of a calculator.  At my first job in 1983, the partners all used Addo-Xes, an electro-mechanical calculator.  These would often physically jam and have to be repaired.  I was and still am, blistering fast on a 10 key. I found that I was faster than most 10 keys and would jam the processor many times.  The main problem I have is orally processing numbers.  If you say your telephone number to me real fast, I cannot understand.  I have to hear a number very slowly and write it down as I hear it.  A few years back I was negotiating a tax liability with the IRS and the agent gave me the IRS offer real fast.  I said "Stop, I cannot process numbers, please write it down." I got the strangest look.

Addo-X

One of my brothers had dyslexia for letters really bad.  He had great difficulty reading. Fifty-six years ago, my father hired a tutor to come to our home to teach him to read.  I remember a small card table would be set up on our front porch which was semi-enclosed and folding chairs opened. I would sit in on the lessons and at three years old, I learned to read.  The teacher's name was Miss Church.  I got far more out of the tutoring than my brother. 

At four years old, I could read from the King James Bible.  My father took a movie of me reading the 23rd Psalms at that time. When I started first grade I couldn't figure out the stupid Dick and Jane books.  It made me so mad that the cat Puff would say "mew" instead of "meow" like all the cats I have had said. The words were so simple and the progression so slow it was the most boring experience I had ever encountered to that point in my life.  Elementary school continued this slow process of education throughout.  I soon discovered that the first six months of the start of each new school year was spent teaching what we had learned the past school year.  It wasn't until we were half way through we would be taught new stuff. Apparently, summer vacation would result in a complete brain scrubbing so each fall we students were coming in with a tabula rasa and had to be re-taught the basics.