I was humiliated in front of my entire post graduate management class (4 years part time while working 70 hour weeks, Masters degree) by the lecturer who laughed at me after my presentation, saying she awarded me the prize for using my hands the most, i.e.gesturing while making my final exam speech.

Gestures help me to seek the right word for the concept I can visualise, but find difficulty in expressing verbally. I didn't go to the graduation ceremony just after that, even though it is one of the achievements I value most in my life, because I was so upset and angry.

If I can "describe" the concept in the air I can usually find the path through my brain to find the right word.

Mrrzy said: "You can only be dyslexic, apparently, in English and French, or other languages with poor phonetic spelling. It doesn't happen with Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, or anything spelled phonetically, nor with languages whose spellings that have nothing to do with pronunciation, like Chinese."

I'd like to know the references to studies about this, because I don't think I agree, based on my own experience. I mix up syllables. So I always have to stop and work through the logic to find the right word, e.g. between superstitious & suspicious "SuPerStiSH" vers "SusPiSh". And I can never remember the name of Staminade. I have to work it through in my brain, and now I have a help word, SomethingAde - So-Me-th-INg-ADE. Sometimes I wonder whether stuttering is related, because I stutter when I am trying to pull the word out of that strange archive in my brain where the words reside.

I studied Latin at school. It's just as easy to mix up Latin words (similar to Italian) as it is to mix up English. Sounding out words works when I am reading, but doesn't help when I am talking and trying to find the right word.

And Lizzie has shared some personal emotions here, which I can relate to. We had a very nice teacher in 3rd Grade but she made me feel like a total loser in that class, especially when I asked what I thought were fair questions. (Give her some slack, though, this was back in 1963. Dyslexia wasn't something teachers were taught to look for.

And befoer soemone says I don't look liek a dylsexic, that's becasue I correct my typos befoer I submit.

Helen