Learned Helplessness and Dyslexia: Breaking the Cycle

Learned helplessness is something I observe all too often when working with a new student. Learned helplessness is a phenomenon that occurs as a result of a person repeatedly being forced into an uncontrollable negative circumstance. After some time, they stop trying to change the negative circumstance- even when they are later able to do so.

When it comes to many children who have dyslexia, the uncontrollable negative circumstances are, sadly, most overt in their daily school lives. Precious few schools employ a structured literacy approach to teaching children to read and write, and this makes the task of reading and writing grade-level material an overwhelming and unattainable task for a large number of students. Older grades employ read-to-learn curricula, placing key concepts perilously out of reach for struggling readers. These repeated opportunities for failure quickly leads to internalized feelings of helplessness. “I can’t” becomes a daily mantra. I hear it often during early sessions with a new student.

Learned helplessness is a vicious cycle, as illustrated below:

1. Repeated failures: The cycle begins with repeated failures that are not the fault of the child and are out of their control. Neglecting to provide structured literacy instruction is the norm at most schools, and without such instruction students with dyslexia are denied opportunities for success in academic subjects. Their assignments bleed red and they are constantly made aware of their lower performance in comparison to their peers.
   

2. Negative self-beliefs: Students internalize the incessant onslaught of negative feedback as negative beliefs in their capabilities.
   

3. Lack of motivation: They come to believe they will fail before even trying, which only increases their likelihood of further future failures, or of giving up entirely and not completing assignments.

The more years of schooling that a student has to endure without intervention, the deeper ingrained the cycle becomes. This is one of many reasons why early intervention is so important. It is never too late, however, to start breaking the cycle of learned helplessness, and to empower people who have dyslexia.

Breaking the Cycle

The good news is that there are ways to completely derail this circular track of learned helplessness. One reliable way to do so is to provide opportunities for success.

Note that when you are first starting on this process there will still be negative self-beliefs and low motivation to contend with. With each success, however, the cycle can get weaker. And, with a lot of care, a new cycle can begin:

How to Provide Opportunities for Success:

1. Start small: Remember how overwhelming new tasks can be.
   

2. Start at their level: Or, potentially, a baby step below their level. You don’t want the task to be overwhelmingly difficult, nor boringly easy.
   

3. Increase difficulty gradually: And keep going back to earlier steps- both to reinforce the concepts and to remind them of what they ARE able to do.

A note about choosing books:

It’s important to be very careful when buying books for your child to read. Decodable readers at your child’s level can allow your child to experience success in reading. Decodable is the key word, as there are many books marketed towards struggling readers that are not fully decodable and can lead to further feelings of frustration for your child. Look for books that are logically sequenced and follow structured literacy principles.

Let’s help our dyslexic thinkers feel empowered again!

Coming up: I’ll be writing about the other two parts of the cycle- mindset and motivation.