Teen beat disorder through hard work

Connie Sisco knew something was wrong when it took her son, Alex George two years to remember the letter “T.” Sandwiched between an older sister and a younger one, Alex seemed like a really bright kid. “But,” she recalled, “he couldn’t remember letters.”

He struggled through first grade, and in second grade underwent a battery of tests. “My heart grows cold when I remember … ” said Sisco. A neurologist at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital approached her with tears in his eyes. “The doctor said, ‘He’s the kindest boy, but frankly we can’t understand how he processes any information at all. We don’t even know how he can walk.’ ”

Doctors discovered that during Alex’s traumatic birth, the part of the brain that processes information was damaged. His diagnosis? Auditory/visual processing disorder.

All Alex knew is that he was different from other kids. “I saw letters kind of flipped around, or they all looked the same to me,” he said.

He was mortified when his teacher assigned fellow students to read to him. Alex said, “It got worse, the closer I got to middle school. It got more and more embarrassing.”

The family moved from Spokane to Colorado, where he continued to be taken out of his classroom for special-education classes, which didn’t seem to help. “They were too easy for me,” he said.

Sisco said her son’s special-education teacher told her Alex worked harder than any kid she knew. “But he still wasn’t progressing.”

In middle school, Alex read at first-grade level. His mother recalled, “He would run the three blocks home from the bus stop to tell me what his homework was. I asked, “Why don’t you just write this down?”

But Alex’s visual processing disorder made it impossible for him to distinguish homework assignments from all of the other words written on the white board. “I felt trapped,” he said.

Finally, in desperation Sisco took her son to the Colorado Reading Center. The founder and director, Patricia Lamouria, assured the skeptical mom that Alex would be reading within three months.

Lamouria was wrong. Alex learned to read within three weeks.

Sisco explained that the center employed the Helen Keller method of “fingers on the mouth, hand on the jaw,” in combination with brightly-colored alphabet blocks, to re-route Alex’s brain.

While driving home with his mom at the end of the third week, Alex started reading the words on the dashboard of their car, then he looked out the window and read the streets signs they passed.

“Can we go to McDonalds?” he asked. That visit to the fast food restaurant marked a turning point.

Alex said, “I always had to say, ‘I’ll have the Number Two — it was embarrassing.’ ” But this time he proudly read the menu and ordered for himself. “I felt normal for once.”

He didn’t stop at restaurant menus and street signs. He chuckled. “I started reading the newspaper!”

When the family moved back to Spokane, Five Mile Prairie School proved to be a good fit for Alex. His teacher, Jane Wright, said, “I met Alex when he was a sophomore, and his mom told me he was very behind because he hadn’t learned to read until middle school. They said they didn’t expect him to graduate on time.”

But the self-directed learning approach offered at the school made a world of difference to Alex. “He has worked really hard to catch up,” Wright said. “He passed the WASL last year and is reading on grade level.”

Grades used to mean nothing to Alex, but now he said, “If I get a ‘C’ I freak out.” Even more amazing, the boy who once couldn’t read has written a science fiction novel and is almost finished with a second.

He’s interested in becoming a police officer or joining the Air Force. “I started weight lifting when I came to Spokane and I love it. I want to do something that will keep me in shape.”

And to other students who struggle with learning disabilities Alex has this to say: “Don’t give up! I almost gave up, but now I have hope for the future.”