Dyslexics who grew up in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s had almost no help. Little was known about dyslexia.

At age forty-seven, Sandi Dillon decided to join a dyslexia study. She, along with other adult dyslexics, was a subject in a study on reading. Sandi underwent an eight week reading intervention.

Scientists at Georgetown University then studied the effects of the reading intervention by doing brain scans of the subjects.

Sandi said this of her intense lessons, “It was a lot of drilling and a lot of studying that first eight weeks and I guess training another part of my brain…to make it all fit.”

“If you take an adult who’s had a lifelong reading problem, like Sandi, the ways that the brain may change as a result of an intensive intervention may be somewhat different than a younger child where the brain may be somewhat more malleable.”
Dr. Guinevere Eden, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for the Study of Learning

The study showed, through brain scans, that the adult dyslexic’s mind can be trained or re-wired. Hard work can bring about change.

Adults like Sandi Dillon are proof that a reading intervention can alter one’s life.