Occupational Disorder and Dyslexia

As a result of Dyslexia and related Learning and Attention Deficit Disorders, an estimated one out of every four Americans in the workplace cannot properly read, write, spell, calculate, remember — and concentrate. And if the “mildly” impaired in and out of management as well as those with disadvantaged backgrounds are included — a staggering 40% of the workforce will experience previously unexplainable difficulty in maximizing their potential. Even worse, a silent majority will suffer from a wide range of debilitating symptoms and impaired self-esteem — often tragically leading to alcoholism, drug abuse, anxiety and mood disorders, as well as a predisposition to “stress-out,” burn-out and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And needless to say, their inner tendency towards impulsivity, impatience, frustration and anger secondarily affect not only occupational but all interpersonal, family and marital relationships. And via a vicious cycle, personal conflicts will invariably boomerang and thus further deteriorate job performance, and the reverse.

To help, the Federal government mandated equal opportunity for the handicapped. And caring professionals advised both employers and employees about helpful compensatory techniques while attempting to inspire millions of discouraged adults. Thus the “occupationally disordered” were provided with an impressive list of gifted individuals in all walks of occupational life who succeeded despite or because of their dyslexia. These included a list of proven, suspected and even made-up or fantasized famous dyslexics, i.e., Einstein, Edison, daVinci, Bill Gates and Charles Schwab, Tom Cruise, etc. But for every success story there remained countless failures. And sadly, even the gifted and successful dyslexics were far from “cured.” Indeed, many inwardly felt as dumb and in need of help as did their failing counterparts.

Quite clearly, in the absence of a coexisting medical breakthrough and a resulting therapeutic, preventative solution for Dyslexia and what I termed “Occupational Disorder,” all the above efforts served as might “a life raft in a tsunami.”

Foreground — The Medical Breakthrough

Due to a fascinating and forever expanding research effort now spanning more than four decades and encompassing the examination and successful treatment of well over 30,000 children and 5,000 adults, I definitively proved that Dyslexia or LD was a syndrome or cluster of many and diverse reading and non-reading symptoms, each varying in intensity from severe to overcompensated and gifted. And that all symptoms affect both children and adults. The symptoms result when scrambled signals due to a dysfunction within the inner-ear and its supercomputer, the cerebellum (or “non-thinking” brain), fail to be adequately recognized and dealt with by normal thinking brain reading and non-reading processors.

This simple concept was consistent with the facts that only balance, coordination and rhythmic neurological signs diagnostic of an inner-ear/cerebellar dysfunction were found in dyslexics irregardless of their age. And it explained 99.9% of the facts characterizing thousands and thousands of dyslexics while leading to new methods of medical screening, diagnosis, treatment and even prevention. By contrast, the prior mistaken conviction that dyslexia was due to an impaired reading processor within the thinking brain led absolutely nowhere scientifically since this disorder was first recognized in 1881.

The Dyslexia Syndrome

To understand both young and old dyslexics and their syndrome as well as Occupational Disorder, you have to recognize that hundreds of their diverse symptoms are derived from at least 15 major areas of impaired functioning — involving reading, writing, spelling, math, memory, speech, sense of direction, space and time, concentration/distractibility, activity/impulsivity, fears/phobias and mood, balance/coordination/rhythm, self-esteem, etc.

Dyslexia = LD = ADD = Phobias = Occupational Disorder

It is also crucial to know that the dyslexia syndrome encompasses a score of differently named inner-ear-determined disorders, including: LD, ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dysphasia, dysnomia, speech dysfluency, central auditory processing disorder, dyspraxia, pervasive developmental delay, Asperger Syndrome, phobias, “occupational disorder”, etc.

The Resulting Occupational Disorder and Syndrome

The analysis and medical treatment of thousands of dyslexics, gifted and otherwise, revealed the continued presence of their symptoms into adulthood — albeit modified over time, as well as their favorable response to medical treatment.

A highly condensed summary of the symptoms defining the occupationally disordered include:

• Difficulty listening to, recalling and/or implementing simple and certainly complex instructions — even during ordinary conversations and instructions.
• An inability to organize, plan and follow through on required work-related tasks — intensified by background noise.
• Daydreaming rather than remaining alert and externally attentive.
• Careless errors characterizing job-related information and activities due to misreading, miswriting, miscalculating, misremembering, reversing, omitting, improperly inserting and/or forgetting — previously called “Freudian slips,” which I now term “dyslexic slips.”
• Difficulty writing down details legibly without frequent errors.
• Impaired expression of thoughts and details, mis-speaking as well as problems with recalling important names and even faces.
• Directional and spatial uncertainty — resulting in confusion as to where to be and how to get there.
• Difficulty sensing and/or judging time: forever late or early to compensate, never leaving sufficient time to complete tasks.
• Inner-ear determined fears of leaving home, driving a car — especially on highways, riding an elevator or escalator to work sites, speaking or just sitting before colleagues and management, etc.
• Impulsive/talking, moving and acting — distressing both employees and management around them.
• Hyperactivity triggering an inability to stay put at a given task, job, home or marriage — resulting in constant movement and drifting from task to task, job to job, friend to friend, wife to wife, etc.

Early Screening and Diagnosis

Early Screening and Diagnosis of dyslexia became possible due to my evolving inner-ear insights. This led to early treatment which minimized or avoided the otherwise inevitable academic, emotional, and occupational fall-out. By selectively utilizing a highly accurate diagnostic questionnaire, targeted inner-ear neurological, psychological and neurophysiological examinations, I arrived at almost a 100% diagnostic accuracy.

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Medical Treatment

Most important, following proper medical diagnostic procedures, I was able to obtain rapid and often dramatic improvements in over 75–85% of treated children and adults with Dyslexia, LD, ADD or Occupational Disorder. This highly effective medical therapy utilizes combinations of simple and safe inner-ear-enhancing antihistamines as well as related medications and nutrients similar to that utilized by the astronauts to prevent disorientation and “space dyslexia” at zero gravity. Of great significance, 80% of patients will no longer need medications after 2–4 years of treatment. It’s as if the medications teach the brain how to maintain compensation without them — providing unique insights into eventual cures.

The diverse improvements voiced by countless children and adults are truly astounding and remarkable. The “wordblind” could suddenly read, the “pseudodeaf” began hearing clearly and rapidly responding, the dysgraphic wrote legibly and straight, the dyscoordinated or dyspraxic become more agile, stuttering and stammering or dysfluency and disarticulation disappeared, those with dyscalculia began calculating, the foggy, distracted and hyper or ADHD became focused and calm, the “unfeeling” began feeling, the “brainless” suddenly “got a brain,” and all started feeling smarter and smarter. And on and on these improvements went until it became crystal clear just how much dyslexics or the learning disabled had previously suffered in silence while in school and at home — and eventually at work.

Treating the Occupationally Gifted and Successful

Hopefully the following reported improvements typical of many others will clearly demonstrate to readers that even the occupationally gifted and successful desire, require and benefit from medical treatment — even gaining significantly enhanced self-esteem:

• A brilliant math professor with dyscalculia slowly began mentally adding, subtracting and multiplying.
• A gifted musician and conductor with dyslexia and related ADD suddenly began reading music and books, and experienced both enhanced concentration and greater “perfect pitch.”
• A talented but dysgraphic artist capable of magnificently drawing her words and sentences (i.e., calligraphy) slowly began to reflexly write in legible form.

Needless to say, these and many other vital clinical insights, especially dyslexic imperfections within gifted functioning, had completely escaped all prior investigations.

Prevention

Prevention of the dyslexia syndrome suddenly became a realistic goal. By medically treating preschool children for previously unrecognized inner-ear-determined symptoms (i.e., delayed crawling, sitting, walking, imbalance and dyscoordination, delayed and impaired speech etc.), I was able to improve both their current problems and minimize or prevent the typical academic Dyslexia or LD and occupationally disordered symptoms from arising later on.

Summary

By holistically combining medical and non-medical therapies when needed, it became possible to obtain nearly a 100% improvement rate. In addition, productivity, job satisfaction and self-esteem were dramatically enhanced in the workplace, gifted CEO’s and successful management included. With further research and early treatment of the dyslexia syndrome, we may now envision that all can eventually feel as smart as they really are and attain the dreams and occupational ambitions that otherwise would never be theirs. Moreover, prevention and cures are now almost within our scientific horizon and grasp — especially since this research has been independently validated in worldwide studies and is now referred to as “highly original” and “decades ahead of its time.”

For additional information please read the best selling account of his recently updated research, Smart But Feeling Dumb.