Most people with learning difficulties are not only very ungrounded, but also very distractible.
This distractibility is exactly where the connection between eye movements and learning difficulties lies.
Have you ever asked a person with, for example, trouble with reading comprehension how s/he saw a page of text when presented to him/her?How did this person see the page of text in his/her imagination?What did the text do?Did it move?In what way?Or here's another question: did this person see only one screen in their mind's eye, or did s/he see several screens - with different action on each of the screens?And we can go even further with questioning: when you asked this person to see the page of text in front of him/her, did s/he actually see it or did s/he try to hear or feelit first?Or did s/he try to do the seeing, hearing, and feeling all at once - and then blanked out with confusion and overwhelm? Our eye movements, pictured here, are unconscious and we all display them when processing information from around us in different sensory channels.
The next time you think of observing the eyes of someone you're having a conversation with, you'll clearly see how their eyes move
So there's little wonder that reading comprehension, which requires that we visualise [that isvisualise - not hear and/or feel, let alone all three at once!] the content of what we're reading in order to remember it, will be impossible.
The solution here will be to separate all the sensory processing and put each type of processing back to where it belongs as per image 1 above.
Working with eye movements also brings the additional benefit of helping people improve their memory.
For example, if you want to remember a PIN number, visualise the 4 digits written down and put the image up into the side where you normally look to retrieve something you remember visually, such as a face, place, or object.
Of course, knowing which side it is will require knowing thyself, which requires observation.
For observation, ask people close to you to observe your eye movements over a period of a few weeks while in conversations with them.
Once they confirm which side your eyes move to every time you remember a sight or sound, feel an emotion, or have a chat with your internal voice, you'll be able to employ your eye movements consciously to improve your memory and processing of information in general.
This distractibility is exactly where the connection between eye movements and learning difficulties lies.
Have you ever asked a person with, for example, trouble with reading comprehension how s/he saw a page of text when presented to him/her?How did this person see the page of text in his/her imagination?What did the text do?Did it move?In what way?Or here's another question: did this person see only one screen in their mind's eye, or did s/he see several screens - with different action on each of the screens?And we can go even further with questioning: when you asked this person to see the page of text in front of him/her, did s/he actually see it or did s/he try to hear or feelit first?Or did s/he try to do the seeing, hearing, and feeling all at once - and then blanked out with confusion and overwhelm? Our eye movements, pictured here, are unconscious and we all display them when processing information from around us in different sensory channels.
The next time you think of observing the eyes of someone you're having a conversation with, you'll clearly see how their eyes move
- up to one side [sides don't matter - each person is wired differently] when the person is describing something that s/he remembers or is creating visually,
- straight ahead or what looks like "through you" with "soft" eyes when the person is defocused, daydreaming, pausing in the speech to access the next image in their mind's eye, or searching for more visual representation of what s/he's talking about,
- midline to one side when the person is describing something that s/he remembers or is creating as sounds,
- down to one side when the person is describing something that's/he remembers or is creating as feelings, and
- down to the other side when the person is having an internal dialogue [or discussion or chatter] with him/herself about what s/he is - or you are - speaking about.
So there's little wonder that reading comprehension, which requires that we visualise [that isvisualise - not hear and/or feel, let alone all three at once!] the content of what we're reading in order to remember it, will be impossible.
The solution here will be to separate all the sensory processing and put each type of processing back to where it belongs as per image 1 above.
Working with eye movements also brings the additional benefit of helping people improve their memory.
For example, if you want to remember a PIN number, visualise the 4 digits written down and put the image up into the side where you normally look to retrieve something you remember visually, such as a face, place, or object.
Of course, knowing which side it is will require knowing thyself, which requires observation.
For observation, ask people close to you to observe your eye movements over a period of a few weeks while in conversations with them.
Once they confirm which side your eyes move to every time you remember a sight or sound, feel an emotion, or have a chat with your internal voice, you'll be able to employ your eye movements consciously to improve your memory and processing of information in general.
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