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A
popular theory is that reversals are caused by a neurological deficit. In
other words, there is something wrong inside the brain of the person.
However, this theory overlooks an important principle, i.e. that our
perception of anything depends on our past experiences.
Before
one can read or learn anything, one has to become aware of it through one
of the senses. Usually one has to hear or see it. In other words,
perception must take place. Subsequently one has to interpret
whatever one has seen or heard. In essence then, perception means
interpretation. Of course, lack of experience may cause a person to
misinterpret what he has seen or heard. In other words, perception
represents our apprehension of a present situation in terms of our past
experiences, or, as stated by the philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804): “We see things not as they are but as we are.”
The
following situation will illustrate how perception correlates with
previous experience:
Suppose a person parked his car and walked away from it while continuing
to look back at it. As he went further and further away from his car, it
would appear to him as if his car was gradually getting smaller and
smaller. In such a situation none of us, however, would gasp in horror and
cry out, “My car is shrinking!” Although the sensory perception is
that the car is shrinking rapidly, we do not interpret that the car
is changing size. Through past experiences we have learned that
objects do not grow or shrink as we walk toward or away from them. We have
learned that their actual size remains constant, despite the illusion.
Even when one is five blocks away from one's car and it seems no larger
than one’s fingernail, one would interpret it as that it is still one's
car and that it hasn’t actually changed size. This learned perception is
known as size constancy.
Pygmies, however, who live deep in the rain forests of tropical Africa,
are not often exposed to wide vistas and distant horizons, and therefore
do not have sufficient opportunities to learn size constancy. One Pygmy,
removed from his usual environment, was convinced he was seeing a swarm of
insects when he was actually looking at a herd of buffalo at a great
distance. When driven toward the animals he was frightened to see the
insects “grow” into buffalo and was sure that some form of witchcraft had
been at work.
To
summarize, in order to be able to interpret size constancy, one must have
had enough exposure to wide vistas and distant horizons. In the same way,
in order to be able to interpret position in space — the learned
perception that makes it possible to distinguish a b from a d
— one must have had enough exposure to relevant experiences. Relevant
experiences include the ability to distinguish left and right and the
ability to cross the midline.
The
human body consists of two halves, a left side and a right side. The human
brain also has two halves, which are connected by the corpus callosum.
Mindful of the wise words of Immanuel Kant that man does not see things as
they are but as he is, it is inevitable that a person will
interpret everything in terms of his own sidedness. A child, who has not
learned to interpret correctly in terms of his sidedness yet, who has not
learned to distinguish properly between left and right, will inevitably
experience problems when he finds himself in a situation where he is
expected to interpret sidedness. One such a situation, where sidedness
plays a particularly important role, is when a person is expected to
distinguish between a b and a d. It is clear that the only
difference between the two letters is the position of the straight line —
it is either left or right.
It is
important to note that people who are confused about left and right cannot
use mnemonics or memory aids while reading, as is often advised by
experts. Susan Hampshire, for example, advises that children should
remember that “left” is the side on which they wear their watch. This
never works to improve reading ability. It can be compared to learning a
language. One cannot speak a foreign language if one only has a dictionary
in that language. One has to learn to speak it. In the same way one
has to learn to interpret sidedness. As all the other skills
foundational to reading, the ability to distinguish between left and right
must be drummed in so securely that the person can apply it during reading
(or writing) without having to think of it at all. |
