Posted by Greg Crider on April 30, 2001 at 12:51:49:
In Reply to: Dyslexia posted by Anon. on April 30, 2001 at 12:06:08:
One of my old friends was considered mildly mentally handicapped in high school, but he was a phenomenal tuba player. His reading problems were so severe that he barely made it out of high school, yet he took lessons from a prominent orchestral tubaist, played with a well-known youth orchestra, and played for years in a roving pep band for an NFL team. A non-standard IQ test taken his junior year rated him at near-genius in several areas, but learning disabled, particularly regarding reading. His dyslexia extended to the written word, but strangely not to music. He struggled with a music degree, dropping out of it after a bit more than a year, and by dint of tremendous effort and lots of help from wife and friends, finally made it through. He was a popular and very effective vocational teacher for many years. Tell your student never to give up; he'll be all the better for the struggle in the end, and he will gain a gift of music that can stay with him his entire life whether or not it becomes his profession.