Adrienn Castillo-Garcia

Dyslexia Course, Fall Semester 2015/16

A Case Study on a Dyslexic Student

B.Sz. is a 16-year-old high school student. He attends a prominent secondary school
in the capital. He has dysgraphia and speech processing disorder. He was diagnosed
at the age of 7, at the end of his first school year. His symptoms were first recognized
by his school teacher, who informed his parents that the young pupil had difficulty
making a difference between the letter b and d. This took place in November and it
took another six months for the parents to take him to a specialist and get him
evaluated. In his lower primary school years he took part in horse therapy1, which
seemed to help him cope with his difficulties a lot and these days he visits the schools
speech therapist on a weekly basis.
I met him during my short teaching practice and had the chance to teach him for a
short time. Apart from him, I had a deep discussion about his case with his head
teacher and English teacher (my mentor teacher) and his mother, who struggles to
overcome all the obstacles her son has been facing the last 10 years. I aimed at
understanding the everyday problems he has at school, the controversial feelings he
might have towards his condition and the difficulties his teachers may have dealing
with his special needs.
From an outsiders point of view, he does not look any different from his classmates
except for the fact he is very quiet and reluctant to speak in class. He prefers not to
make eye contact to avoid any attention from the teacher. During the communicative
tasks he looked uncomfortable and even if he was grouped with his friends, he did not
speak unless he was forced to. On the other hand, in his test his writing was clear and
his spelling was beyond my expectations. His teacher indicated that she normally
accepted his answers if they made some sense and ignored any spelling or even
grammar errors. It was clear to me in the sentence transformation task in which they
had to change sentences to the third conditional that even though he had learned the
rules, he could not recognize any necessary logical changes in the sentences so that
1

Equestrian therapy (also known as equine therapy or Equine-Assisted Therapy [EAT]) is a form of
therapy that makes use of horses to help promote emotional growth. Equestrian therapy is particularly
applied to patients with ADD, anxiety, autism, dementia, delay in mental development, down syndrome
and other genetic syndromes, depression, trauma and brain injuries, behavior and abuse issues and
other mental health issues (Source: http://www.equestriantherapy.com/ ) They also apply it to
dyslexic patients. See more info on the Hungarian Horse Therapy Association website at
http://www.lovasterapia.hu/

Adrienn Castillo-Garcia

Dyslexia Course, Fall Semester 2015/16

they meant the same thing. I was supposed to accept his solutions because he, at
least, learned how to produce third conditional sentences, however, on the long run I
believe he will not benefit from such allowances as he will never learn from his mistakes
if his attention is not drawn to them. He did poorly in the test but he did not have the
worst results.
As for his motivation to study, he and his mom say his initial enthusiasm is always
accompanied with a later downfall as he finds it hard to digest that he has to work
harder to accomplish the same things as his brothers, who do not have any special
learning needs. He reads the most in the family but he does not have any joy in it. Also,
he is in an age when students tend to become less motivated in education and simply
want to be left alone. This makes his parents work more difficult since he does not
require help on his own but has to be encouraged all the time and even if they feel they
do their best to help him succeed, sometimes they think there should be more effort
put into this matter. They try to keep his studies under control as they say, but he
himself does not seem to put enough work into studying. It is also visible on his grades:
his teacher has a special grading system where not only tests are counted into the
grades but also minor tasks, extra homework, voluntary work (essays, film reviews,
book reviews, etc.). This means that even if he underperforms in formal testing, he has
the chance to improve his grade by doing extra tasks, reading, watching films or simply
doing his homework. In this system the work is not required to be without mistakes so
every effort is appreciated. I personally find this method really motivating and it seems
to be working for most students but he does not use this opportunity to raise his grades.
Moreover, lack of motivation leads to lack of special learning methods in his case. He
does not know of any tricks he could use in order to memorize words or understand
grammar and he is unfamiliar with any help he could get apart from his parents,
teachers or his speech therapist. He is still in the process of accepting himself and his
condition, therefore he acts very passively in his own learning process. One example
is the fact that he studies together with his parents. He learns English with his father
and as his teacher claims, this primarily includes his father writing his homework
assignments in order to help him receive good grades. He and his family deny this but
his teacher says the essays and other writing tasks are so well-elaborated and
sophisticated in terms of vocabulary and grammar that it is obviously not his work. It is
very unfortunate because even if he manages to solve the problem of bad grades on

Adrienn Castillo-Garcia

Dyslexia Course, Fall Semester 2015/16

a temporary level, he does not progress in his English, which will ultimately lead to his
having fewer opportunities in job market later on. In addition, this method seems to
apply for other subjects, as well, so he looks deprived of any responsibility for his own
education.
All in all, it seems to me that special allowances made for my target student are not
beneficial to his studies as he uses them as excuses for not putting enough effort into
success. His teacher attempts to integrate him into the classroom while there is no real
inclusion taking place, however, the grading system and the communicative approach
the teacher represents could help this inclusion, as well. His parents are seen very
supportive, yet also very overprotective, which has counterproductive effects on him.
Their lack of information on his condition and the help he might need results in him
trying to fit into the system by spending extra time learning with the same method his
brothers learn instead of trying out special tricks/methods that would suit his needs
more. As a result of continuous struggle to keep up with the other students, he feels
his condition is an educational disadvantage as well as a social one.