Plunk Bartley Mayhorn down anywhere in the world – then watch and listen.
It’s quite likely the Morgantown man will be able to launch into a conversation – and not just in English.
He can also carry on in Japanese, Mandarin and Arabic.
“I’ve always liked words and language,” he said.
Maybe that’s because he had to work so hard at both when he was a kid.
Why?
See above.
Upside down.
His dad, Bartley Sr., made the discovery at the kitchen table.
And his mom, Karen Mayhorn, made more than one drive to Charleston to lobby lawmakers and state Department of Education officials on his behalf, on the days thereafter.
“We knew he was smart, but we also knew he was struggling,” Bartley Sr. said.
“We worked with him every day. He worked at it every day.”
Homework at the Mayhorn house in Marion County meant lots of time logged at the kitchen table, with lots of textbooks being bandied from one set of eyes and hands – to the other.
“I’d read a paragraph and the pass the book to Bartley, and he’d read a paragraph,” the elder Mayhorn said.
“One day, he said, ‘Don’t turn the book around, Dad.’ That’s when we found out he could read better with the words upside down.”
Bartley Sr. is an engineer by profession, and it didn’t take long for his trained brain to cut to the essence.
“I said, ‘My kid’s dyslexic.’”
Getting the word out
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and The Dominion Post has been using its Sunday pages to profile those affected by the processing disorder that’s just as understood – as it isn’t.
Bartley Mayhorn Jr. is a founding member of the Bonnie Bailey Foundation, a Morgantown-based outreach group that has been taking Monongalia County’s school district to task, along with all West Virginia public schools in general, for not fully addressing the issue.
Which means screening, being certified to teach students with dyslexia and going with consistent, universal teaching methods for the disorder.
That’s because there weren’t a lot of resources out there at the time for the 39-year-old who went to East Fairmont High School, in neighboring Marion County.
Compensating – and working around it
Bartley Jr. went on to study forensic investigation at Fairmont State University, where professors there worked with him as he gamely navigated dyslexia daily on the march to his degree.
Dealing with dyslexia is work.
Words can undulate, strobe-like on the page.
Letters can appear to “spin” or be reversed.
But the brain has ways of compensating, he said.
“If somebody is telling me something, I’m like a tape recorder,” he said. “It’s just there. I think that’s where the thing with the languages come in.”
Support group
Winning the first round in the dyslexia fight, he said, means getting tested, and diagnosed.
If you’re on the receiving end of said diagnoses, he said, that means acknowledging it, and working through it – or around it.
If it’s your kid who is diagnosed, he said, that means being patient.
“My mom and dad were everything,” he said.
Diagnostic resources for dyslexia weren’t as prevalent in the 2000s, when he was attending school at East Fairmont High in neighboring Marion County.
A supportive teacher became his chief cheerleader and advocate, he said. She was older and nearing retirement, but the quest to help Bartley Jr. achieve recharged her calling.
“Mrs. Conner. I’ll never forget her. I don’t know how many trips she made to Charleston with my mom.”
Sometimes, the elder Bartley said, it’s the character of your offspring.
“He was a good kid, and he’s good man.”
What would Bartley Jr., who is a parent and a world traveler, say if he hopped on a time machine to talk to his 12-year-old, pre-diagnoses self?
“I’d say, ‘You’re smart. Remember that. Don’t let anybody tell you that you aren’t. Your brain just works differently, that’s all.’”
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