[Blindmath] Blindmath Digest, Vol 48, Issue 14

[Vincent Martin]

Peter:
I am mostly an auditory learner and have been for most of my life.  My
Retinitis Pigmentosa was not diagnosed, until I was a senior in
undergraduate school and was about to complete two engineering degrees.  I
could readily read with my eyes at about 600 words per minute and I was not
the fastest reader in my family.  I now can easily read, covering my ears
with headphones and using certain speech synthesizers, at over 700 words per
minute.  I have read at over 800 words per minute for extended periods of
time, This depends on what text I am listening to and the type of speech
synthesizer though.  

I can readily read Braille, but I prefer to have speech output in
conjunction with it.  The multi-modal input makes certain information much
easier for me to read.  I can read the most complex mathematical equations
and problems and be stymied and then add the speech component to it and
everything makes sense.  When I take notes, I utilize a myriad of
approaches.  I am notorious for reading every book that I read at least
twice.  If it is for enjoyment, I blow through it as fast as I can and then
read it again to enjoy the complexities of the story and the metaphors and
analogies employed.  If Iam reading information for later use, such as for
work or school, I will routinely just bookmark whatever I am reading and
just continue.  I can then go back and shoot to the relevant bookmarks, and
read around this section to determine why it was important to me.  I just
completed a book about exercise and the effects it has on brain chemistry
and I totally read the book while running on the treadmill over a few weeks
period.  I put over 100 bookmarks on the RFBD produced  audio files and then
went back to personally write down the notes that I had bookmarked.  This
method requires you to activate the reticular in your brain when you
actually write something down.  Whether you write it down in Braille, or
type it, you are imprinting the information into your memory better.  I
started to do this by accident, before I had even studied it in Psychology,
so it made me quite happy to know that my study techniques wer what I was
using to outpace the sighted people in class.