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Dyslexia Conference Attracts Teachers and Students to Mississippi College


Educators and parents attending a Fall 2015 dyslexia conference at Mississippi College.

About 100 educators and students will learn more about dyslexia at a regional conference at Mississippi College.

Participants are coming from Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee for a series of meetings on the Clinton campus February 11.

An estimated 40 million Americans are impacted by this language-based learning disability characterized by poor word reading skills, and spelling difficulties. It’s much more than spellings words backwards. Comedian Jay Leno and film director Stephen Spielberg are among those who struggled with dyslexia for decades.

Activities at MC Thursday will include a panel discussion led by students with dyslexia. The group includes Kassie Cox, a Choctaw Central High senior. Last summer, Kassie was named first runner-up in the Choctaw Indian Princess Pageant. Kassie has shared her struggles with dyslexia with audiences with the Choctaw Tribal Schools and at Mississippi conferences. She aspires to become a physician.

Others on the panel include Mollie-Grace Jumper, 17, a junior at Pine Grove High in Ripley. The varsity softball player serves as president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She’s faced dyslexia since she was a second-grader.

Ryan Smith, a West Lauderdale High junior from Meridian, will discuss his challenges. He’s a member of the school’s drum line, serves on the student council and is a certified lifeguard. Ryan was the first client evaluated and diagnosed with dyslexia at the Mississippi College Dyslexia Center in 2006.

The MC School of Education master’s in dyslexia therapy program is co-sponsoring the program with the Dallas-based Academic Language Therapy Association.

Others addressing the conference include keynote speaker Dr. Nancy Cushen White, a clinical professor at the University of California-San Francisco. She brings 30 years of experience working with people experiencing reading difficulties.

The list of speakers includes Rachel Bergin Smith, a dyslexia therapist with the Choctaw Tribal Schools in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Amy Perkins a math and science teacher at Jackson Prep. Perkins is the mother of three children with dyslexia. Alison Webster, a speech-language pathologist at the DuBard School for Language Disorders at the University of Southern Mississippi, also addresses the forum.

The conference begins with an 8:30 a.m. registration and continental breakfast for visitors at MC’s Anderson Hall in the B.C. Rogers Student Center.

For more information, contact Shirley Tipton of the Mississippi College School of Education dyslexia therapy program at 601-925-3250.