Dyslexic Athletes:  Why vocabulary matters.

As the fall sports season ends and the winter sports season starts, my phone gets busy with calls from concerned parents and sometimes coaches. “What should I do? How do I help this kid? I see their potential and can tell they are passionate about the sport, but communication can be perplexing.”   

The first thing I say is that you need to understand that dyslexia is a specific way of thinking that requires being able to visualize the meaning of a word to understand it fully and to think or perform with that word.  Without a clear picture, a dyslexic individual might have only a fuzzy idea of the word or concept, which causes confusion and doubt.

Helping the dyslexic athlete

Dyslexic athletes must begin their season with a thorough, visual understanding of the sport’s specific vocabulary. Even experienced athletes may need clarification about some concepts. Coaches should ensure these athletes understand the sport-specific words they might use, spending some of the first practice explaining or demonstrating the concepts if needed.

Coaches should also ensure they include words used differently in their sport, such as direction and position.  Words like “up” and “post” can have very different meanings in different sports:

• In hockey, you move the puck up the ice toward the offensive zone, while in baseball, a player is next up.
• In basketball, a post refers to specific areas on the court, while in football, a post relates to a route a receiver might run, and in soccer, a post is the upright bars of the goal.
• In gymnastics, splits are positions with one leg forward and one back, while in swimming, splits are the times of individual legs of a long swim.

Each of these uses reflects the sport’s unique context and gameplay mechanics, illustrating the versatility of terms and the confusion a dyslexic athlete might experience (especially when playing multiple sports).

For older athletes who have been doing their sport longer, a word like “up” or “post” is known from their years of interest in their sport and most likely isn’t causing much of a problem. The processing of  However, these words can slow their processing for younger athletes as they try to decipher what they are expected to do.

Dyslexic athletes have unique challenges. They do not understand if they do not have a picture of a word or concept in their mind. The fix for this is to ensure the image in their mind is accurate to the vocabulary being used.

Looking for additional help for your child?

The Davis Dyslexia program is a fantastic program for children or adults. It helps them learn how they best learn, gives them self-regulation tools, and clears up 218 common trigger words that cause disorientation (many are directional). See the rest of my website for more information.