The Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia is joining its efforts with MTSU graduate students to give them the opportunity of hands on experience in dealing with people suffering with dyslexia.
Students in the Psychology Department and the Education Program at MTSU are being given this experience along with students and teachers around Tenn. The program provides testing and monitors the progress of the students while under the supervision of the staff.
"There are many misconceptions about what the symptoms and affects of dyslexia are," said Karen Jones, supervisor of Dyslexia Services and former psychology student. "Dyslexia is not reading backward but instead is a specific learning disability that makes reading, spelling and related skills difficult."
The Katherine Davis Murfreesboro Chair of Excellence in Dyslexic Studies was established in 1989 as a professorship in the College of Education and Behavioral Science at MTSU. Diane Sawyer is serving as the chair of the organization.
A $230,000 financial endowment allowed the center to be opened in October 1993. Sawyer oversees the center and works to keep a stable environment to help insure the continuing of her practice.
The Tennessee Center for Study and Treatment of Dyslexia offers services to K-12 students in the form of assessment. It also provides professional development workshops for K-12 teachers so they can better assist their students. The center is affiliated with MTSU and provides awareness workshops for attending students who are in pre-service education programs.
Sawyer has been working with students and families trying to evaluate and support students with dyslexia. Sawyer proposed that the Tennessee General Assembly provide a grant to establish a centralized center for the study and treatment of dyslexia.
The goal of the dyslexia center is to help not only students but also school personnel who have been unable to address the specific problems children with dyslexia face.
Jones said that having dyslexia does not make a person any less intelligent.
"I learned that there are many bright kids who struggle to learn, read and spell," Jones said.
The center has helped to provide around 50 students across Tenn. evaluations each semester. During a students visit to the center, they either come to be evaluated and see if they have dyslexia, or they are returning for follow up testing to ensure they are making progress.
In addition to their student services, the center also provides consultation services to school personnel. In these consultations, a staff member works with a teacher in order to find the root of a student's reading or writing difficulty.
Rather than providing tutoring at the Dyslexia Center, the power is put into the hands of the school. Jones said the goal of the center is to get schools to implement their own intervention programs in order to help students with dyslexia.
Students who are taking the Dyslexia Studies class at MTSU are required to learn about intervention and have the opportunity to tutor students as a part of their class.
The Dyslexia Center is the only one of its kind in the nation and has been helping struggling students for years. With their traveling workshops, the topic of dyslexia is becoming better understood.
The main goal is to help the students, teachers, parents and whoever else is involved understand dyslexia and develop ways to improve the child's skills so dyslexia does not inhibit their ability to learn and progress the same as any other child.
Sawyer said that there is no cost for assessment and consultation services, so anyone who is looking to gain a better understanding of a fairly common learning disability should seek the services provided by the center staff and graduate assistants of MTSU.
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