Ep. 18 - The Hidden Half: Dyslexia Misunderstood & Underserved | With the Nelm's Dyslexia Center Pt 2

One in five learners may struggle to read, yet the path to support is clearer than most families are told. We sit down with Melissa Duersch of the Nelms Dyslexia Center and Scott Simon of the Don and Millie Nelms Foundation to chart exactly how parents, teachers, and schools can move from confusion to progress. From the first red flags, mispronunciations, trouble recalling the alphabet or days of the week, to statewide screening and rigorous therapist training, we connect the dots between early awareness and real results.

We break down a key distinction: dyslexia is neurological, but the solution is educational. No medication rewires reading; structured literacy does. Melissa explains what effective intervention looks like and why Certified Academic Language Therapists (CALT) are the gold standard, requiring deep study, mentored practice, and a national exam. Scott pulls back the curtain on Arkansas’ model: early, twice-yearly screenings and a push to expand the trained workforce, while calling out the capacity gap that leaves too many students waiting. We also tackle the ADHD overlap and the risk of misdiagnosis when frustration looks like inattention.

Parents get a practical playbook for what to do right now: use audiobooks to build oral language, name and nurture a child’s strengths, and celebrate progress to fuel resilience through hard work. We share stories of students who were once convinced they were “dumb” and later found traction across subjects as confidence grew. Creativity and problem solving aren’t footnotes here; they’re often the very traits that make dyslexic thinkers stand out in classrooms and careers. If your district is deciding how to invest, or your family is looking for the first step, this conversation offers both strategy and hope.

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more families find the help they deserve.

Transcript

Framing The Challenge And Stakes

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back, everybody, to the Radical Moderate Podcast. I'm your host, Pat O'Brien, and this is part two of an episode with Melissa Dirsch from the Nelms Dyslexia Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Scott Simon, the director of the Don and Millie Nelms Foundation. Welcome back, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Thanks for having us. So on the last episode, we we talked about dyslexia. And quite frankly, I was shocked to hear the number 20% is what Scott believes. And I guess what the data would show that Americans and probably expand that to world population most likely are affected by this. That seems like a massive number to me, just in general. But then Melissa shared a story about your third child, a boy who uh wasn't like the other two and wasn't doing the things at the same level, and all that your confusing journey is of how to figure out what was going on with him, and even to some extent buying into what you were being told by, I guess, the whatever resources were available, including schools, to say, well, he's just not a good learner, and that's just the way it is. And you were kind of a mindset, I guess that's right, until like a friend or neighbor said, no, I think he's got dyslexia and here's the path forward. I think everyone would agree, especially if you listen to the last episode, that parents just having to figure things out on their own. That that's that is not a good solution. So I want to start this week by saying, what are the solutions? And like, how does dyslexia play into the formal education system, public education system? But also, I know Scott in the last episode was talking about, you know, in the very early ages, three, four, five, so much of the social effects of having dyslexia are hitting these kids. Well, not everybody sends their kids to preschool. So, like I'm I'm I'm wondering, what are what do families do? How do they educate themselves? How do they even know, you know, like I'll say this, and I I have my wife has taught me so much. I've only been married for a year and a half, and I've got it, I've I've learned so much from her. And one of the things she used to uh I've got two stepkids, and the one thing she said about him is anybody can have a baby, right? Like, I mean, smart people, people who aren't as smart, anybody can have a baby, and they don't give you a manual. And most of it is you just figure it out. And and and how curious are you about what to do? Um, so whichever one of you wants to start, a baby's born, you know, like how does anyone even how does a parent know that they're they should be looking for something? Melissa, you're sorry.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

So yeah, it's interesting because when um when parents are bringing their oldest child to us to see if if um if dyslexia might be a cause of their difficulties, they're typically older. Maybe um if the child is severely dyslexic, they might come first or second grade. But if they um aren't as severely dyslexic and they've been um compensating, they can make it till about third, even fourth grade before the problems become real. Um when they bring their second dyslexic child, it's kindergarten, right? Because they know what to look for. And so I think just building awareness in the communities and in our education settings of what it what is it that we're looking for, because it's not actually the letter reversals in first grade, because that's that's developmentally normal. Um, what we're looking for are oral language difficulties, difficulty remembering the alphabet, days of the week, months of the year, those kinds of things, um, mispronouncing words. Um, my fourth child also had dyslexia, and for her, I knew exactly what I was looking for. And she had older siblings and they were always making quesadillas in the microwave, and she would say, I want a diarrhea. I was in, no, no, no, honey, you want a quesadilla. She would say, Yes, quesadillar. No, still no. So I knew very early that she was gonna need um attention with phonemic awareness and developing some of those oral language skills that would help her be more successful in reading. It still took remediation for her, but we were on it. We knew right away. So building that awareness and that knowledge in our communities is really important.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Here's a question: it is it is any of this hereditary? I mean, how why do people get dyslexia?

Screening, Laws, And Arkansas’ Model

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So um, there's more than 100 genes um related to dyslexia. Some of them, you know, are environmentally expressed, but it runs in families. You know, it's related to your genetics. So building off what Melissa said, um, there's some good resources on the NELMS Dyslexia Center website on what parents can look for. Oftentimes there's links to other organizations like understood.org, great organization supported by a variety of foundations around the country that provides a lot of information for parents. What's fortunate is if you're a parent in Arkansas, you know, wondering about how your child is, because Arkansas has so many laws related to dyslexia, and we have a department of education that's really focused on it and working on it. One of our state leaders is named Vicky King. She's awesome, really leads the community. Um, students are being screened, you know, twice a year in the early ages, you know, for dyslexia and other learning differences. And then, you know, are supposed to be getting, you know, the proper instruction. So that's from the laws and the department of education, but how that translates down into the world, you know, within the public schools is very, very varied.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Let me before I want to go back to the schools, but I had a thought. What about doctors? You know, pre-doctors who are giving them their shots and this sort of thing. Have there been efforts to try to get doctors to screen in in any form or fashion so that you could catch it earlier?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Doctors are not trained in dyslexia. It's been my experience. They really don't know what they're looking for. Um, and I don't know if there is there are a lot of efforts to change that.

Medical Versus Educational Debate

SPEAKER_01 6:40

But also, let me add. But what we do, and part of the dyslexia center's work is just a tremendous amount of outreach in public programs. So have met with, you know, even though they've only been open, you know, for less, you know, a year and a few months, have met with a half dozen, you know, different groups just sharing information to help people who are working with young children sort of learn what to start looking for and know where to go for information. Because though the dyslexia center's, you know, fee-based, you know, nonprofit for its assessments and therapy and training, you know, it also has a community mission. And the way Don built in the funding and the structure for the organization is that, you know, we could attract the best trained, experienced people, and they have the time to help. You know, people pay for the services, right? But they are there and they have the bandwidth to help people navigate through this. And that's what they do, you know, day in, day out. And so that's either for the professionals in the community working with kids and for payments.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Well, it sounds like schools is going to be, you know, the best and fastest place to start. But I just want to throw out there that if there's a dean of a medical school listening to this, my question would be if people, you know, by whatever year of your residency, you know that you're going to be a pediatrician. Why, why would there not be some more extensive formal training for them to say picking up these early signs? Because it sounds like like with any type of thing, the sooner you start understanding that it's there, that the better. And I guess a question also along those lines, do we generally consider this a medical situation versus an eye situation? That in like who, if a doctor was doing it, is it more likely that an eye doctor is going to pick up on this? Because, or it's it to me, it sounds like it's a medical condition. It's a neurological condition, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Well, that's a little bit of the controversy and why why we love controversy here on the radical moderate.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Well, it's it's part of why it's not um treated in as consistent a way across states and and places, because it is actually it has not been considered a medical condition because there's not a medical solution. The solution for it is educational. So the testing that we do for it is educational. Um and that's kind of where it stands right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Gotcha. You th there's no no pill or anything like that that's gonna help you. Well, that makes sense. It yeah, it just seems like there's a gray area there, and maybe that that maybe that helps explain why we've come so long with understanding that this is a big deal, but not really with this uniform approach. So let's try to talk about the uniform approach. What let's talk about teachers specifically. I mean, they're probably the ones who are getting who are understanding this on the front lines because they're trying to teach and they're probably seeing the differences with children. What did how did teachers become educated themselves on this sort of thing?

Training Teachers And CALT Standards

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Well, that's also been an area where we are trying to make improvements. Um, for a long time, there was very little dyslexia information given in higher education. Um we've known, we've we've had really good research on dyslexia, on um what it looks like, how to treat it. We've had good programs, good information for decades. The problem is getting it from the research community, the dyslexia community into the education community. Um, and that's another thing that's happening in the state of Arkansas where um is that is an example to the rest of the country. Um, we are getting dyslexia education programs into higher education. Um, we've got a partnership with uh University of Arkansas right now to help um teachers who are pursuing higher education um in reading have a dyslexia component to um to their education. And they can actually fulfill some of those requirements by completing the CALT program, which is what um which is part of the training that we do at Nelm's Dyslexia Center to prepare people to be therapists to work with students with dyslexia. And that's really what needs to grow in the state of Arkansas. We need to have more um therapists trained to the those standards, um, that that certification standard. And we we can talk about that a little bit more if you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Do you call that type of therapy, does it have a specific name? Because I'm thinking it's probably not speech therapy necessarily, because that's not worth it.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

No, it's actually called um academic language therapy. So academic language is reading and writing, basically. So it's reading and writing, um, reading and spelling therapy for students with dyslexia. Um and we have professional organizations um that exist to um maintain standards for people who are trained in that dyslexia therapy. Um, we have um one of those organizations is called ALTA, um, and we have a chapter here in Arkansas that's very active. Um, and they kind of set the standards for what dyslexia therapist training looks like.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

By the way, y'all are really uh pumping up Arkansas. It sounds like somebody did some good work over the years to get this started. It's very good to hear. Um, Scott, what can, you know, in time in terms of the educational system and how teachers can can find the resources and that sort of thing, like where do you think we are on that in general? And then what do you think are the next steps?

Capacity Gap And Rigorous Preparation

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Um Thanks for asking. Well, what's great is you know, the Department of Education is really emphasizing the opportunities for teachers that are working with kids with dyslexia to get trained properly. So they're giving those kids what they need. And becoming a certified academic language therapist is really the gold standard for the background and the knowledge, you know, to help those students. Um, based on just a little bit of, you know, numbers work, we probably need at least one of that level trained dyslexia therapist teacher for every public school building, at least. And larger buildings, they'll need two. And so we need 1,500 certified academic language therapists in the public at least in the public schools alone. That doesn't count the private schools. And you're just talking about the state of Arkansas. Just the state of Arkansas.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Do you have a sense of how many we do have?

ADHD Overlap And Misdiagnosis Risks

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And currently we have a few hundred you know, certified, we the collective dyslexia community. So there's a lot of work to do. So we know, you know, we know what's needed. The profession is well, is well organized and growing. And so now it's just training more teachers that are interested in this field. And it's a lot of work and investment. You know, it's a two-year program, 200 two years, 200 hours of classroom, 700 hours of clinical work with students. So seven young students, 700 hours of practice because dyslexia, you know, exists in a three-dimensional continuum. A great line when you've met one student with dyslexia, you've met one student with dyslexia. So these teachers need need only very explicit training, but a lot of experience with all sorts of students so they can be able to, you know, give them what they need. And so it's a big commitment. Most of the trainees that go through these programs say, yeah, this is a lot harder than my master's. And then they have to do 10 observed lessons that are graded, you know, by their instructors who also acts as mentors, and then they have to pass a national exam. So it's very rigorous. But what we see, you know, in Arkansas across the country is that if you're a student and you have somebody who's actually trained to be able to help you learn how to read, you're gonna learn how to read. Unfortunately, you know, most of the country doesn't have you know organized dyslexia programs. And even in Arkansas, you know, currently, we allow um people with six hours of training um to use a curriculum to work with students with dyslexia. That is not enough. Those students deserve more. And my analogy would be this hey, if you're if you if your child is having problems and they go to the doctor and they go, oh my gosh, you know, they've got a brain tumor. Who do you want working on your child? You know, do you want a dentist working on your child or a dental hygienist? No, you know, you want, you know, a doctor who's, you know, done brain surgery. And so that's what we need. More well-trained people working with our students. Most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Something that popped in my mind, it I'm wondering if there's any misdiagnosis because of the behavioral issues that sometimes dyslexic kids who haven't been told they're dyslexic have. Is there, does there become a misdiagnosis that maybe they've got ADHD or something similar? And then they do go to a doctor and now they're on pills or medication when that may not really have anything to do with what's going on. Is that something? Am I just off base there, or is it something that you see happen?

SPEAKER_02 16:44

So it's interesting about ADHD because it does co-occur with dyslexia about 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Aaron Powell, so it's it's hard to know. Like they're like, oh no, they got ADHD. It's like, yes, but they've also got dyslexia.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah, but I can tell you from my experience, a lot of times um teachers will go straight to an ADHD, or you know, yeah, or parents or community, you know, you will go straight to ADHD because you're you're more familiar with it. Um and I have seen students, I have done assessments for students who come in um who, you know, their parents say, ah, the teacher thinks it might be ADHD. But I work with the student and we also look at working memory, which is highly correlated with ADHD. So I do the testing with the student and I see no signs of ADHD. Um, you know, I don't diagnose that, but I but I can I definitely believe you're right. There is, um, there are certain behaviors that students will have, not because they have a focus or attention problem, but because they're frustrated and they don't know they, you know, they're they're given tasks to do that they can't do. And um, so they act out because that covers their um their lack of knowledge. So then it, you know, it could become a behavior, um, kind of a masking of what the real problem is. So I know that does happen.

What Parents Can Do Right Now

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Well, it was not really what the your center is focused on, but one of the things that I've just wondered about is is there been a rush in this country to say, well, that kid's ADHD, let's give him some medication. And then now somehow that's going to solve the problem. And I don't doubt that many kids need some medication. I wonder if some kids are getting over-medicated. That's just something I'd like to explore. Having said that, on this side with the dyslexia, medicate, there's no medication that would help anyways. And it, I think what Scott said a minute ago was it's pretty much a hundred percent success rate once you go down the road of, hey, you've got dyslexia. We know what to do. We just got to get you to somebody who can help you do that. So you don't need medication at all in that regard. And yet, if you were to go out there, I think in the public, you'd hear a lot more about ADHD and that sort of thing, a lot of discussion, and it's a big deal and all that. And I feel like you'd hear a lot less about dyslexia when it's like dyslexia has got a very clear pathway solution, non-medication based. And so I think those, it it sounds like there's a little bit of an intersection there. Um maybe another episode with it with a different with a different guest. What one of th we've been talking a lot about the education system. Let me ask about just families in general. Let's say that you're in an area that maybe doesn't have the certified therapists at the schools, and but you're you want to get started right now. What can parents do themselves to be empowered and start at least trying to mitigate some of the effects that the dyslexia is having on their children?

SPEAKER_02 19:47

That's a really good question. Um, parents might not be trained to deliver structured literacy programs for their kids, but there are a lot of things that they can do while they're waiting for that intervention or searching for that. Intervention to build their child up and to find um to find their strengths, to find those gifts that those, that those, that their children have and invest in those gifts. Um there also, I, you know, when it was my first dyslexic child, I thought, oh, I don't want to give them audiobooks. That feels like cheating. But audiobooks actually are the best, some of the best tools you can use with your dyslexic children because the the better their oral language skills are, the easier it will be to remediate dyslexia. Plus, they get this love of stories, this enjoyment of the stories. They they start to understand the uh functions of literacy of literature. Um, and all of those oral language skills that you're building with them with audiobooks. So as a parent, what I would, what I always recommend, um, you know, you might not be in charge of their intervention, but there's so much you can do to build that child up. Give them a love for literacy, but also find their gifts. Um, find out if they're, you know, an amazing mathematician or sport, you know, if it's sports, if it's cheerleading, if it's, you know, whatever it is, invest in that child so that they can build the resilience that it's going to take to become literate because it's hard. It's hard for them. Even though we have the right tools, even though we're competent and we're giving this remediation in the best way possible, it is still hard.

Strengths, Confidence, And Lifelong Identity

SPEAKER_01 21:26

They're doing a ton of work. These kids work incredibly hard. I mean, with their therapist, they are wiring their brain for reading when their brain is not wired for that. It's wired for other things. A bunch of other, you know, major neurological advantages. I mean, it hurts. The other, can I build on some things you said? This because it really is the most, you know, parents almost have like two jobs. First, all right, make sure your students are getting what they need. You know, get them a certified academic language therapist. But then be in their corner. Don't hover over them worrying. Figure out what they're good at, celebrate that. When they're making progress, celebrate it. A friend of mine was talking about his son just a couple of days ago. You know, super bright kid, very athletic, problem solver, leader, but you know, has dyslexia, so really difficulty in reading. So all the expectations on grades are just, hey, don't worry about it. But what this dad was telling me is in history class, you know, big class, excellent high school, and it's history. So lots of reading, lots of writing. But when the teacher needs somebody to go above and beyond on an insightful situation or question, there's only three people he's going to pick in class, you know, the person who's going to be the valedictorian, another, you know, very, you know, intellectual and accomplished student, and, you know, this person's son, because he's the thinker. He's the out-of-the-box thinker, he's the problem solver. And so just that that teacher notices that student's ability and goes to him and highlights it, and that his parents, the student feels comfortable telling his parents, and his parents say, Yep, because he knows you're one of the smartest ones in that class. You're the one that's going to have the insights. Just celebrates that thing is going to help boost that ch student's self-esteem so they can power through all the difficult work that they got to do and all the embarrassment and stuff that just comes with being a student, you know, in a traditional educational program. So noticing their abilities, celebrating them, helping them find their passions and their strengths, working on those, let that be part of your home life. That's going to be the best gift you can give those students. That's going to power them through.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

I want to throw out a premise and just tell me if I'm being crazy or if there might be a little bit to it. If you just knew that a child had dyslexia, let's say there were some genetic markers or something, and by age three, he's like, oh, that kid's got dyslexia. And you were prepared with all of the resources to just address that particular situation. In some ways, could that child be somewhat advantaged over people who don't have it? Because they like you've talked about all these great entrepreneurs who overcame it. Is there a chance that that they might actually be in a better situation for success in life? Or you just what are your thoughts on that premise?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

I'm going to interrupt for a second. So the entrepreneurs didn't overcome it, they just lived with it. They understood their gifts and their strengths, and they explored and exploited those. And that's one of the important concepts for anyone with dyslexia or parents to know. It's going to be with you for your whole life. It's got challenges, but there are neurological advantages. So the sooner you recognize it and deal with it, the sooner you can go on figuring out who am I? Who am I going to be? What am I going to rock and roll with?

Creativity, Policy Wins, And The Why

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah. And so to give you to just from my own personal experience, my second child who had dyslexia, my fourth child, but my second one with dyslexia, I knew from, you know, the time she was a toddler that there was probably dyslexia. It did not make learning to read and spell any easier for her, really. Um, you know, no one, you know, she always talks about how no one thought she was smart until about fourth grade. You know, she was never chosen for the gifted program. I worked with her in structured literacy program from before kindergarten. It still took her longer to learn how to read. That's just the situation. That's just the nature of dyslexia. It takes time. But she always had, she always understood. It was always just part of who she was. Um, she accepted it as this is just what challenges me. And she um by fourth grade, they knew she was smart anyway, you know, and she's just been incredibly successful at school. Um, she she advocates for herself. She says, My handwriting is terrible and I need to do this and this and this. And she'll go to, you know, even in high school, she's in college now, but um, even in high school, she would go to her teachers and say, These are my challenges, this is how I'm gonna work around it, and you're just gonna live with that. And they would say, Okay. And she just did tremendously well. And and um, she wants to be a toy designer. That's her dream. And I'm pretty confident that that's what she's gonna do. She's incredibly determined. So it can be an advantage, but it doesn't take away that dyslexia, just like Sky said.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

You never completely solve what's going on. Well, we've got a couple minutes left in this episode, and uh I'm gonna hearken back to a couple episodes back. I had talked about a book called The Element by Sir Ken Robinson. And the the premise is that there's a lot of different kinds of intelligence, much more than like an IQ test and that sort of thing. And one of the things he says is that creativity is just as important and perhaps more important than literacy. That's one of the core things that he talks about. And and listening to you guys uh during this podcast, I'm picking that up in a big way. And I know there's a lot of things we didn't get to, but it sounds like Arkansas has, you know, has done a really solid job of institutionalizing through the law that this is a priority, and then you know, you're filling things out. But I think that I think, you know, if if anyone takes something away from from this whole uh podcast series with you guys, creativity is a massive thing and leads to amazing educational opportunities and probably life opportunities. I'm gonna give each of you, you know, just about 30 seconds or so to try to sum up, you know, and I'll ask it this way. What is your why? I don't want to sue anything. Like, why do you get up in the morning every day and why are you a part of this versus something else? You could do other things in life. So I'm Scott, I'm gonna start with you. Why do you do what you're doing for this foundation?

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Well, I would just thank Don and Million Alps. I mean, it's incredible what they're doing. You know, they're dead, they've, you know, taken care of their kids and their families, and they're dedicating their remaining resources, you know, to help students and adults with dyslexia and make the whole world a better place for them. And it's just, you know, feel incredibly fortunate, you know, to get to work on something like that with cool people and all of you know the awesome people at the center who are also dedicating their lives to it. I mean, it just feels good. There's just a lot of people working together to make things better for these students.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Melissa.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Well, I echo that. It is such a joy to be able to do this, um, to do this every day. We we are saving lives. I've seen it in my own family. I've seen what it did for my son to understand how he could be successful and watch him be successful and my daughter. And these kids who come to our clinic and these are, I'm sorry, these kids who come to our center and their families who come in so worried, so concerned. Um, you know, are they gonna be okay? Are they gonna succeed in life? And then to just be able to say yes, and then to be able to help them and to watch them grow and to um watch them. I've literally had children come in and sit under the table crying and tell me that they're dumb. And then over the course of six months, just watch their entire countenance change. And their parents will say, they're good at math now and they're good at history and they're good at all these things, because then I said, Well, I haven't been teaching them math. It's not the math, it's the confidence that they need to know that they're smart and that they can try new things, they can be good at things. Um, so yeah, it's it's the opportunity to save lives and save families. Um and that's it's it is a joy to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Those those are really those are really good whys. And uh I I'm really glad that the two of you can join me today. I I I would just in conclusion tell my audience if you are listening to this and you're in this situation or know a neighbor or that sort of thing that's in this situation, reach out uh to the NELM Center or reach out to someone. Just get started because if if you think there's a problem, there probably is. I mean, 20% of the population is is what you've stated today. And uh I I am it would be easy for me to get up and do what you guys do given how passionate you are about it. Folks, that wraps up this episode. I want to thank everyone for listening to the POV of POBIC.