Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-11-30 00:29
This is still a really poorly understood a subject. Specialists are still trying hard to figure out *what* is happening from the learner's point of view in order to provide effective accommodations and, I don't think, they have even made a beginning on understanding *why* it happens. Dyslexia is often described as difficulty in perceiving (not necessarily seeing) symbols in their correct sequence. In the case of music notation, it may (or may not) involve inability to correctly recognize the position of a notehead on the staff (spatial deficit) as well as a sequencing deficit of some kind.
I imagine that the exact distortion the learner experiences is very dependent on whatever may act as triggers. If bright light or high contrast is a trigger, the colored films may help. I had students during my school teaching years who did respond to them, and the previous comment is correct that some colors worked better than others *for specific* students.
Some kids can't make any sense at all of the staff or the placement of notes on it. *Sometimes* writing the letter names above the notes can help (it isn't *necessarily* laziness or lack of practice that keeps those kids from reading notes on a staff). I taught one girl who didn't respond very well to any visual aids I tried , but she turned out to have a really sharp ear and, if I played something for her or recorded it for her to listen to at home, she could play it back correctly with almost no help.
Of course, accommodations like letter names above the notes don't help with rhythm notation. And having a student learn by ear will probably be crippling eventually when he or she tries to play in an ensemble and has parts to play that aren't melodic or very memorable.
Dyslexia is part of the whole realm of "perceptual deficit" disorders, and I've seen very little evidence that even the teachers who specialize in teaching to these problems really can differentiate the specific perceptual areas causing the end result. My best advice with a school-age student would be to join forces with the student's learning disability specialist(s) at school, if there are such people there. Maybe they have already been able to identify strategies that are effective. At worst, if he/she/they are willing to help, you will have more experience being thrown into the problem than you can bring on your own. I had the advantage (if the specialist was good) of direct access, working in the school myself.
This won't help much with adult learners. With luck, they're self-aware enough, even if they've never had a specific diagnosis, to have an idea of what helps them in other areas. Music processing indeed makes use of different brain functions than verbal processing, but decoding written symbols has logically to overlap, whether the symbols are musical or literal.
Karl
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