One of the greatest benefits to the Davis™ Program is helping clients understand how they think. This leads to understanding why it causes problems and, best of all, that we have the tools and techniques to correct the root cause of the problem. The root cause is disorientation.

It is important to understand why the problem is happening in order to be able to correct it.

There are two components of dyslexia:

• A natural ability; a gift to see mental images as if they are real.
• The ability to perceive these images from different perspectives.

These abilities create the "gifts" people have. People feel "they have a knack for doing something, without realizing their special talent comes from the same mental functions that prevent them from being able to read write or spell very well." (Davis, Ronald D, and Eldon Braun. 1994, 1997. The Gift of Dyslexia. Perigee Trade. p. 6)

Our thinking style can explain why ability becomes a problem when it comes to language and its symbols.

Thinking Style

There are two different ways of thinking: Verbal and Nonverbal. Intelligence does not play a role in this distinction-it is simply a difference in learning and thinking styles.

Verbal Thinkers

• Think with the sounds of words rather than pictures, with an internal dialogue.
• Compose mental sentences, one word at a time, at about the same speed as speech.

Nonverbal Thinkers

• Mainly think in pictures of concepts or ideas.
• Think with 3-dimensional, multi-sensory images that evolve and grow as the thought process adds more information or concepts.
• Do not experience much, if any, internal dialogue.
• Process what happens so much faster than verbal thinking, that it is usually subliminal.

Learning difficulties are explained by understanding that dyslexics prefer nonverbal thinking.

Mistakes happen when dyslexics perceive letters and words from different perspectives. They become confused and disorient.

The symbols, such as letters, numbers and punctuation, must be seen from one perspective for accurate recognition.

Davis techniques resolve confusion and disorientation, and result in optimum learning opportunities and performance.

Disorientation

Small words like "the" and "is", as well as approximately 200 other sight words, do not have picture meanings associated with them — whereas a real life object, such as pencil, does have picture meaning.

As dyslexics read, they picture the meanings of words.

Sight words, however, do not have picture meaning.

Therefore, the reader becomes confused and disorients.

"Each time the picture-making process is stopped, the person will experience a feeling of confusion because the picture being composed becomes more incoherent. Using concentration the reader can push past the blanks and continue but will feel more and more confused the further he goes. Eventually he will reach his threshold of confusion. At this point the person becomes disorientated." (Davis, 1994, 1997, p. 13)

How does disorientation affect reading, spelling, and comprehension?

• Words on a page strung together, with no spaces, making it nearly impossible to decipher words within it.
• Words are "hovering" or even sliding off of the page.
• Words appear or disappear (addition or omission of words in the text).
• Transpositions of words, like: was/saw, on/no, from/form.
• Transpositions with individual letters within words, like: b/d/p/q, f/t, u/n.
• Speech sounds can be difficult to make.
• Extreme concentration is required.

Bottom-line: Disorientation prevents the information from being perceived accurately.

To see what it feels like for a dyslexic to read, click here.

From this new understanding, we now have highly effective treatment procedures to correct perception and the resulting learning disabilities.

For more information on these procedures, see The Solution page.