OT: Dyslexia Any one can give me some first hand knowledge?

The seniro is a new guy I have taken to mentoring. He is very enthusiastic ,willing to learn very good work ethic. I wish I had a dozen guys with those qualitys. A fifty years old he has decided he wants to be a mechanic mantainence man but has no background in mechanics.

I have decided to stick with him as long as I can. But I keep noticing little things about his comprehension.
Today I was showing him a cross section drawing of a 2sp ZF transmission we are working on. He kept looking at it and turning it every way trying to make sense of it.

Would a dyslexic person be able to under stand something like that. It has gears bearings shafts cardan joints seals clearly shown with all different shading. There have been other signs that he struggles with understanding how things function and has told me that he is more of a "hands on guy" when it comes to learning.

I'll stick with him for as long as it takes but the more I understand maybe the better progress I'll make.

I have told him that any thing I say to him is not personal just business and not to take it any other way.

There's more to this but it just dawned on me that he might have dyslexia. Any thoughts?

Sounds more like he can not visualize a drawing as a functioning assembly. Maybe show him all the parts on the drawing as you guys diss assemble it and put it back together. Once he sees and touches the actual parts and you show him that part on the drawing, he might get a better understanding.
Doesn't really sound dyslexic to me, more likely a lack of experience with drawings?

He does not have dyslexia. Dyslexia is an inability to order things correctly. The inability to understand spatial or object relationships is autism, the opposite of dyslexia. Dyslexic people are often very good at spatial reasoning and good at understanding multidimensional information such as drawings.

The reason why your employee is having a hard time understanding the drawing has nothing to do with his mental architecture, it is because of lack of education. Learning to interpret drawings is a complex skill which you take for granted, but in reality understanding maps and drawings takes learning and experience. In fact, if you show a photograph of themselves to a primitive person who has never seen such a thing before, they will be unable to understand it. It will look like just a mishmash of colors to them. You think that photographs of people are obvious, but that is only because you have seen thousands and thousands of photographs since you were a child, so you have learned how to interpret them.

Drawings are the same way. Without education and experience with drawings, a person will be unable to understand them. I had an employee who was American but he was very poorly educated and had obviously not payed attention in school and I could not even teach him how to solve a right triangle. You would try to teach him, "This is the hypotenuse and these are the legs of the triangle" and 5 minutes later he would still be confused about which side of the triangle was the hypotenuse. Once a person passes a certain age they lose the ability to learn abstract spatial reasoning.

I had an instructor who said at the beginning of class that he'd realized people absorbed information in different ways. Some could read and understand, Some needed to hear it. Some needed to see it done. So he made sure that with everything he taught, he made sure there were several avenues to it so everyone could get it.

Fast forward some years and I'm talking with my organization about how we get new people up to speed if we can't just hire experienced tool and diemakers. So I talked to one of our vendors in Chicago who had an apprenticeship program and he said something interesting. The shop builds both dies and molds, and apprenticeship applicants might go into either track. But at the screening and application stage they give them a 2D and 3D visualization test. Some guys could do well with 2D, but not very well managing 3D objects in their heads. In that case they could do the diemaking but not the moldmaking program.

So your guy just may not be able to look at a cross section and build it in his head. But he might well be able to understand with hands-on if shown what he needs to look for and sort out. You might try some deliberate different methods and see where the light comes on. Of doesn't.

Dyslexia is not a single type, in my case I mix up ideas, I grew up thinking I was clear stupid because I could not read a book. I read a bit and understand it OK, read a bit more and all of the sudden I can't tie it to to what I read first, so I start again, read it from the begining, pass where I got mixed up but pretty soon I am jacked up again, it takes fourty forevers to read a book. I can lay in bed going to sleep while my wife reads the same book to me and in the morning I understand the book, go figure? I can follow a repair manual, step 1 bla, bla, bla, step 2 bla, bla, bla. Show me an assembly drawing, map. chart, etc you might as well let your dog run thru the mud and over the paper, it is meaningless to me even though I likely have made every component in the past and could build most of it from memory. I had an instructor in my third year of JC and have me come in for some testing, told me They could teach me to read, by then I was making parts in a machine shop and never went any farther with it. I am good with numbers, better than most and don't mix them up any more than the average bear, I mix up ideas.

Dyslexia has several forms and folks are affected in ways others are not but like any handicap, you are only handicapped if you choose to be.

Oh ya, I spell poorly but I don't let that bother me too much either.

I have told him that I have been tearing mechanical things apart since I was a baby and that was over 70 years ago,now 76.And I am aware that because of all the training and experiance I have had I try not assume that everyone else is supposed to find these things easy.

But as I said there's more to the story and when he was struggling with the cross section after I had him dissasemble the clutches and gear packs and also have had him help assemble the last unit. I began to wonder if maybe something else was going on. I have known some people that claimed to have Dyslexia but would never have known if they hadn't told me.
Having the clutch in hand and not being able to pick it out on the cross section kind of puzzled me. I am used to finding service manuals ,parts books ,schematics and what ever information I need before I tear down any machine part for the first time and that is something else he will have to learn.

I'm trying to teach the new guys to be more than just parts replacers. The company will probably have to hire some machinists as I don't think I have enough time to teach them. Our other day shift fab,weldor , machinist mechanic is going probably at the end of the year.

We have had a few good machinists but they wern't good mechanics and visa versa. Really good mechanics are hard to find. I don't know how much longer I'll last but I hope long enough to leave the company with some good people when leave.

kustomizer said:

Dyslexia is not a single type, in my case I mix up ideas, I grew up thinking I was clear stupid because I could not read a book. I read a bit and understand it OK, read a bit more and all of the sudden I can't tie it to to what I read first, so I start again, read it from the begining, pass where I got mixed up but pretty soon I am jacked up again, it takes fourty forevers to read a book. I can lay in bed going to sleep while my wife reads the same book to me and in the morning I understand the book, go figure? I can follow a repair manual, step 1 bla, bla, bla, step 2 bla, bla, bla. Show me an assembly drawing, map. chart, etc you might as well let your dog run thru the mud and over the paper, it is meaningless to me even though I likely have made every component in the past and could build most of it from memory. I had an instructor in my third year of JC and have me come in for some testing, told me They could teach me to read, by then I was making parts in a machine shop and never went any farther with it. I am good with numbers, better than most and don't mix them up any more than the average bear, I mix up ideas.

Dyslexia has several forms and folks are affected in ways others are not but like any handicap, you are only handicapped if you choose to be.

Oh ya, I spell poorly but I don't let that bother me too much either.

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yup it is a pita i read by memorizing the words thank god for spell cheek i am more of a visual person and sound i love the sound of machines but if some brat is crying i am like a bull that see red if its interesting to me i remember it but don't ask what my drivers lic. no. is i could care less

ratbldr427 said:

The seniro is a new guy I have taken to mentoring. He is very enthusiastic ,willing to learn very good work ethic. I wish I had a dozen guys with those qualitys. A fifty years old he has decided he wants to be a mechanic mantainence man but has no background in mechanics.

I have decided to stick with him as long as I can. But I keep noticing little things about his comprehension.
Today I was showing him a cross section drawing of a 2sp ZF transmission we are working on. He kept looking at it and turning it every way trying to make sense of it.

Would a dyslexic person be able to under stand something like that. It has gears bearings shafts cardan joints seals clearly shown with all different shading. There have been other signs that he struggles with understanding how things function and has told me that he is more of a "hands on guy" when it comes to learning.

I'll stick with him for as long as it takes but the more I understand maybe the better progress I'll make.

I have told him that any thing I say to him is not personal just business and not to take it any other way.

There's more to this but it just dawned on me that he might have dyslexia. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I'm Dyslexic and ADD , but don't have trouble visualizing complex things in 3d , - sometimes I might flip or rotate things CW or CCW or Left versus Right in my minds eye.

As to blanket statements about autism or autistic spectrum some I have known can have very high levels of spatial reasoning and conversely some can have very "outsider Art" totally different visual understanding of the word.

There's a sub group of dyslexics that have what is called scotopic syndrome , where the contrast of the page (black and white line drawings) in particular OR basic black and white contrast of the written page can cause problems. [Color page filters or particular colored glasses can help with that - in some cases.]. Sometimes printing things out on grey paper can help. BAD fluorescent lighting can be a problem too. I can see most fluorescent's flicker in the corner of my eye. Unidirectional light sources rather than scattered light is more helpful.

Many dyslexics complain of words / letters moving around on the page , - the page appears to breath and only a part or fragment of a word appears in focus at any one time - hence making reading and spelling comprehension very difficult.

@ratbuilder427 maybe dig up some 3d animations of the sub-systems you have drawings for and color code the 2d drawings accordingly.

A mass of variously shaded diagonal lines and bearing cross sections in black and white IS a challenge for 'Scotopic" -type- Dyslexic.

Familiarity with the systems in practice and the drawings would help. -Color coding could be a useful exercise - but as has been said earlier "peeps" in most cases have to be taught to interpret drawings/ various sections.

It may be your diligent employee might not be that visual.

A lot of dyslexics are unequally "Gifted" - more visual but on the other hand there are also un-visual / non -visually gifted dyslexics also.

?

Hard to know without working with the person you are wondering about.

kustomizer said:

Dyslexia is not a single type, in my case I mix up ideas, I grew up thinking I was clear stupid because I could not read a book. I read a bit and understand it OK, read a bit more and all of the sudden I can't tie it to to what I read first, so I start again, read it from the begining, pass where I got mixed up but pretty soon I am jacked up again, it takes fourty forevers to read a book. I can lay in bed going to sleep while my wife reads the same book to me and in the morning I understand the book, go figure? I can follow a repair manual, step 1 bla, bla, bla, step 2 bla, bla, bla. Show me an assembly drawing, map. chart, etc you might as well let your dog run thru the mud and over the paper, it is meaningless to me even though I likely have made every component in the past and could build most of it from memory. I had an instructor in my third year of JC and have me come in for some testing, told me They could teach me to read, by then I was making parts in a machine shop and never went any farther with it. I am good with numbers, better than most and don't mix them up any more than the average bear, I mix up ideas.

Dyslexia has several forms and folks are affected in ways others are not but like any handicap, you are only handicapped if you choose to be.

Oh ya, I spell poorly but I don't let that bother me too much either.

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My spelling sucks too, that's why sometimes I go off on someone as I read it wrong or didn't read it 2 or 3 times.

I have it too. I had to take special reading class as a kid. I still have issues reading I can be reading along and all of a sudden I can't remember what I read, even though I turned the pages. I really have to concentrate to get it. I can read hydraulic prints but am lost on electrical prints. I love looking at machine manuals and blue prints and get it, no problem. It is all different in all folks I figure. Sit down and ask him....don't ask us, ask him, he will probably would love that your asking. As I read your post I also thought take some photo's. I loved looking at pictures and never read the articles....LOL wink

Richard King said:

My spelling sucks too, that's why sometimes I go off on someone as I read it wrong or didn't read it 2 or 3 times.

I have it too. I had to take special reading class as a kid. I still have issues reading I can be reading along and all of a sudden I can't remember what I read, even though I turned the pages. I really have to concentrate to get it. I can read hydraulic prints but am lost on electrical prints. I love looking at machine manuals and blue prints and get it, no problem. It is all different in all folks I figure. Sit down and ask him....don't ask us, ask him, he will probably would love that your asking. As I read your post I also thought take some photo's. I loved looking at pictures and never read the articles....LOL wink

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they say a picture is worth a 1000 words when i was in 5th grade i love to get the popular electronics and copy the schematic . we had a set of world book encyclopedias i would sit for hours looking at the pictures before i could read . funny thing [not ha ha] i have an Alfred Morgen radio book from back then and some of the letters and numbers that i wrote in there back then are backwards

Richard King said:

..don't ask us, ask him, he will probably would love that your asking.

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Seconded.

He's no longer a teenager. He's been dealing with "whatever" all his life. Even if he doesn't understand what "they" call it, he knows what the effects are on HIM.

The contrasts between humans that look and live much the same, one to the other can be night-and-day dramatic in their underlying differences.

Some have trouble remembering what they just read?

Others are the exact opposite. Cannot forget it.

This case could be simple, after all. Some just do NOT "get" a flat, black on white, "2D" drawing's relationship to the full featured, living colour, "feel of it in your hands" THREE-D in the real.

Others.. see THROUGH the metal.,, in more than FOUR dimensions, several possible future alternatives visualized in the eye of the mind, and project where it will wear or possibly fail in the far distant future.

Remember the description of Kelly Johnson, Lockheed "Skunk works" wizard aircraft designer?

"That G'Damned Swede can see air!"

Long before "computer simulation", he was visualing how that wing would act at different speeds once it was BUILT and was flying for-real.

"Seeing air" ahead of actually building and testing is how he could guide his team to what worked faster by avoiding dead-end detours that would NOT work well.. or even at all.

Well folks.. some of YOU among the "reading challenged".. can also visualize future shape - the OUTCOME of work still in progress.

Or work not yet even STARTED...

And the possible future of failure modes if started differently.

Proof? You don't very often have to fail and start-over, do you?
You are able to go directly to a successful conclusion.

.. can you not?

And you have BEEN DOING THIS for your working lives. And you may be doing it better and FASTER with lower error-rate than average as well.

Whom is it as has a handicap?

Is it, really, a handicap at all?

Or just one part of a broader skillset that does what it needs to do rather better than average, not worse than average?

Everybody has to be good at SOMETHING?

Trick is to identify it ....and make a decent living off it.

Now.. which of you rowdy lot are going to prove me wrong with the proof you are not really "here", but actually died of starvation 30 years ago because you couldn't do f**k-all?

Helluva a way to win an argument.

Bring it!

I admit I’d never thought dyslexia affected the comprehension of a line diagram, I do see folk regularly who cannot for the life of them visualise a section drawing, I do plans of houses quite a bit, often when showing the drawing of the existing and proposed building there is a complete inability to visualise the end product, rooms, hallways, it merges into a big confused mess in their heads, usually when facing this I am forced to make a scale foam board model to scale, even then it can be touch and go without little 1:50 furnishings, sometimes I feel like I’m building dolls houses, it not that these people are stupid, dyslexic or anything it’s that they have never been exposed to building or engineering drawings at all, it’s rare that a drawing is pictorial, they tend to be sections through a plane with no perspective, shadows or light, those areas best left to graphic illustrations, and hatching really messes them up so I think the introduction of a section of a gearbox, probably the most complex engineering assembly may well have been a sensory overwhelming experience, shade in the casing, and use a highliter on some primary bits to give a contrast, good your trying, people get given up on too easily these days, imagine yourself suddenly working in a laboratory facing complex organic chemical representations, my instinct was WTF is that
Mark

I can say that the diagnosis of Dyslexia is often a cop out by teachers that cannot teach. I have a student that I tutored electronic engineering to. He has since graduated and is now an instructor himself and working on his masters, but he cannot read. His mouth works and he speaks the words, but the comprehension of what he read is not there. This also shows up in his speech patterns. I'm working on solving that by working on his speech. I believe the reading comprehension will follow.......we will see.

I'm thinking the employee just needs some time, and more exposure to the tools at hand.

The tools being drawings, and section views.

I work with 3-d daily, and many cross sections.

But I can't figure out how these work:
LINEA 25 PERFILES DE ALUMINIO - Thermowin

As I have no knowledge or experience in the wide world of windows....

I'll offer that it's probably a sign of our times. Not his particular issue, but the way we feel the need to assign any/all deficiencies in a person to some sort of higher understanding. It stems from the 'intellectualism' that has pervaded our world, and it ultimately allows us to 'own' him as he sucks at our Teat of Kindness and Understanding.

It's not longer enough to say 'He's a dumbass when it comes to reading a drawing". Now, we seek to identify just why he is a dumbass, and then apply a label to him. The last step is deciding which color ribbon to use. "He struggles with reading drawings because he has DumbAsses' Syndrome, and as a special needs person with DAS, he qualifies for counseling and 35% disability. That's why I'm wearing a lavender ribbon over my left breast."

I prefer the old way. "Don't give that job to Billy. He's a dumbass when it comes to reading a drawing and he'll fuck it up six ways from Sunday. Just let him run the bandsaw. That son of a bitch can cut 1,000 pieces within .010" on that saw and have it done in a single shift. His sister's got big ol' titties, too."

GregSY said:

I prefer the old way. "Don't give that job to Billy. He's a dumbass when it comes to reading a drawing and he'll fuck it up six ways from Sunday. Just let him run the bandsaw. That son of a bitch can cut 1,000 pieces within .010" on that saw and have it done in a single shift. His sister's got big ol' titties, too."

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OK.

Now that we got Billy in the right job....

It's about your BOT syndrome... and the red "Remove before flight" ribbon on yer zipper..

Don't know a name for it and "it" could be a lot of things. I have a terrible time with modern drawings of complex things, drawings that use all the same line widths, show no hidden lines and pack way too much on an A-size page. OTOH, I can read my drawings just fine and can also read drawings made by skilled people before CAD came along. Drawing is a language and you have to understand the meaning of the "words". It's a learned skill, not something you're born with. Cross-sections can be difficult and until you see the part or a 3-D model, they might not click. He might just need to be taught how to read drawings. Or, he might not absorb info well that way no matter what you do.

Conrad Hoffman said:

Don't know a name for it and "it" could be a lot of things. I have a terrible time with modern drawings of complex things, drawings that use all the same line widths, show no hidden lines and pack way too much on an A-size page. OTOH, I can read my drawings just fine and can also read drawings made by skilled people before CAD came along. Drawing is a language and you have to understand the meaning of the "words". It's a learned skill, not something you're born with. Cross-sections can be difficult and until you see the part or a 3-D model, they might not click. He might just need to be taught how to read drawings. Or, he might not absorb info well that way no matter what you do.

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Well. if you want a guy to repair a transmission.. the "drawing" he needs the most.. IS.. ta da.. the transmission itself.

Catch 22.

If you have the transmission and no drawing, you repair the transmission.

If you have the drawing and no transmission, you may as well go and clean the loo.

I defy you to install new metal parts into a paper drawing OR one on a screen without doing more harm than good.

Now.. if he has BOTH, same workspace and moment in time?

Could was he learns to associate the two?

A case of the transmission repairing the man?

Humans are funny that way.

Stranger things have happened:

The Story Behind the Frog Swallowing the Snake Photo

You'd have to know humans? Or maybe only motivators, such as hunger?

Got a funny one for you, our secretary was moving to a new job so she interviewed and trained a replacement.

We start getting sent to wrong apartments and it was real confusing at first

Then I noticed,

She sent my boys to apt 201?

Turns out it was apartment 102 that made the request.

THAT

KEPT

HAPPENING.

She’s still with us and has gotten ALOT better, now we tend to verify the numbers before keying into someoneÂ’s home who has no clue why were there.

I went to grade school in a town of 450, the school was K-8 with 2 grades per class and a total of 75 students. Dyslexia wasn't "a thing" there at that time, the retards were just put in the back row and the teacher could come by more in an attempt to get us up to speed without disrupting too much the normal kids up front, for the most part it seemed to work OK, or at least we didn't much know the differance. I knew I didn't read like the others and the kid next to me couldn't write either, kept making his letters and numbers backwards. there were 3 of us back there, the third in looking back was Autistic I think. We all went through school as best as we could, poor grades where reading and writing were for 2 of us, I did well in math but the one mixing up his numbers and letters never could get it. We all went off to High school, I stumbled through the normal one and the other two were sent off to something called "continuation?" and graduated a year and a half early. The guy with the mixed up numbers and letters is managing an America's tire store ( he can actually use a computer pretty well, too bad we didn't have one for him back then ), I lost track of the other guy.
Other than the retards in the back of the class we never had labels I am aware of until JC for me and I shared my experiance with the other guy but he was changing tires, paying his rent and happy enough. I had a job in a machine shop and quit going to school.