No matter how hard I study, school is really hard. Tests are really
hard for me. I remember I was always dreaming about, there's no time for me to
finish the test. I finished the front side and then the time's up,
but when I turn it back, it has like a whole page of another assignment. I'm
just so scared. My name is Yimeng Cui. I'm 26 years old. I go to the School of
Visual Arts. I study design and entrepreneurship and I'm going to be
evaluated for learning and attention issues.
The first time I experienced that word dyslexia, I was talking to my classmates in the kitchen.
They were asking me, "Hey Yimeng, did you read this book?" I wanted to read, but I just somehow
can't. They are so curious, this "Why, if you want to read a book, why can't you?"
And just like, "You might have dyslexia." I was shocked because first of all I don't
know that word. I run back home and started Googling dyslexia. They said if
you're dyslexic, it's hard for you to read. That's definitely me. And you read
slow, that's definitely me. And sometimes you confuse left and right. I do that all
the time. And I have all of this. I want to make sure I have dyslexia. I struggle
for a long time with no answers.
I'm going to be evaluated. I am very nervous.
The thing that strikes me the most about Yimeng is that she is a young woman who
really wants to find answers. What she wants to know is why do I learn this way,
why am I having trouble in certain areas, why does it seem so much harder for me
than for other people. And the relief will come in just finding answers to
understanding who she is. Adults are different than children in the
evaluation process. In some ways they're very motivated to come in, but they're
also oftentimes more anxious. They've struggled with something for a very long
time. Tell me a little bit about why you're here today.
It's mainly because I have a lot of trouble with reading. What Yimeng can
expect in the evaluation is that she's going to be doing a lot of different things.
Because she's having issues with reading and math and written expression, we're
going to do a lot of tests of writing and reading and math. We'll also do some
tests of planning and organization. So all of those things will be part of the
evaluation, and depending on how she does today will depend on what kind of tests
I'll use. I'll be making decisions throughout the testing whether or not I
need to do a little more of this or a little bit less of that. So what do you
hope to get out of the evaluation today? I want to know if I have it. You mean that
you really have dyslexia or not? Yes, yes. If I have, and then everything makes sense. So, I think, you know,
you'll find that you'll have fun with a lot of it, and some of it you won't, but
that's OK. The hard part will go faster than you think.
When you came to me wondering if you had a learning issue, you were correct.
You do have dyslexia, but the other thing that sort of surprised me in your
evaluation was that you do have some issues with attention that you mentioned
yesterday, and that they are impairing enough that I would say that you also
have a diagnosis of ADHD. One of the things the test results show is that
you actually have a very good ability in math, but that I think some of the other
challenges that we're going to talk about today will show why sometimes it
feels like math is a struggle for you. Does that surprise you? It surprised
me a lot. Having seen the test data itself, makes her story all the more
poignant for me to hear and think about. She was searching for something that
could have been answered a long time ago, or a problem that could have been
answered a long time ago. I feel relieved. It's something that I expected. It just, I
have dyslexia, that's why my brain works differently than other people.
Is there any recommendation that, you know, you can give it for me, and what
should I do to improve all of this? I think one of the first things to do is
just sort of think about all of this for a while. You kind of have to think
about the things that I'm going to recommend are like a toolbox, and you
don't take every tool out of the toolbox for everything. What I would suggest is
thinking about how soon you want to do some strategies for reading, and I can
talk to you then about getting support in that area of reading fluency. I think
also thinking about whether or not you want to figure out how to sort of
accommodate your working memory issues and executive function issues, and we can
put that into place for you too. Part of it is up to you. Because you are a young
adult, we don't have to worry about next school year. You can really think about,
what do I want in order to be more successful in my job, or what would allow
me to be happier in life even. I feel relieved
when I walk in the room and then I hear the result. Now I get an answer.
So now my plan was really going back to China, and I really want to open my studio one day.
I'm really happy to share the news that I have dyslexia. I would be able to tell my
mother, my father, my sister that that's why I was so struggling in school. They
don't even know what dyslexia is. Most importantly is for me, it helped me understand
myself better. Awareness is key, so just knowing who you are makes things better
already. The most important thing we can learn from Yimeng's story is to not wait
so long to get an evaluation. The risks of not getting an evaluation are pretty
significant. I've heard kids describe it as if they're always walking uphill with a
backpack on their back, and everyone else is running downhill. Always feeling not
as good as someone else. Parents are afraid to seek the evaluation. They're
afraid that the evaluation will lead their child to feel worse rather than
better. It's still extremely helpful to get answers as to why you're struggling,
and it is never too late to get support and accommodations for any issues that
you've had throughout your life. Be able to understand myself better. It's more
about helping me grow. It really helped me to go forward.