Okay i though it would be smart to let people on this know i have a learning disablity called dyslexia now for those of you who dont know what dyslexia is it a disablity where its hard for me to spell things and understand alot of other stuff it also mies up my letters so some might of write one thing but i'm reading another and and one more thing there is like different levels of dyslexia there can be people who would be fine even if they had it or people like me who would have to be taken out of lauge classes like french and spanish because they would be to hard for me now if anybody else has any questions about dyslexia just post here and ill try to answer your question

In my high school, you were allowed to have oral exams if you were bad at writing down your thoughts. As such my case, or you had a disability that affected your writing/spelling.

I have a very minor case, meaning a bad sense of direction, not being able to tell left from right most of the time and messing up on words. I've had years of therapy to get to my point where it barely affects me anymore with my disabilities. I would ask for tests where you can do the answers orally with a writer beside you to write down the answers.

It helps a lot, trust me. I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis. My brother was diagnosed in his high school senior year with a learning disability much worse than mine. It should be offered since it sounds like you're in the U.S.

I also highly, HIGHLY recommend reading: "The Short Bus" it's for anyone with disabilities and the author was not only learning disabled but dyslexic who got a masters in writing.

Another girl I read about has dyslexia and became a vetinarian. Don't allow others to dictate your life. I worked hard despite everything everyone told me with my mom's support to get where I was when everyone else said I couldn't.

One thing that I'd like to get out here is that "disabled" is, at least in my opinion, an incorrect term. Just because you have something wrong with your brain doesn't mean you are totally unable to do certain things. Most dyslexic people are able to read and write at only a slightly lower level than average (and higher in some cases that aren't as rare as people think) after being given the right kind of help. In some rare cases (like mine) people don't even use many of the accommodations offered to them. Among the accommodations that I am offered are:
Testing in a separate room
Extra time for tests during class
Turning in all homework for the week on Friday instead of the day it's due (Except big things like month long projects)
And a few others that are easily accessible to neurotypicals who know the system well enough anyway. I only use that first one, and even then only during exam weeks. And I'm doing just fine.

On Dyslexia: Yes, it can be a disability, but only in cases that for Autism and Mental Retardation would be called "low functioning." I believe that's called Word Blindness for Dyslexia. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sorry for the rant (if it is one), I'm just sick and tired of people using disability and disorder interchangeably. They aren't the same thing. A disability prevents a person from being able to use certain skills while a disorder forces it to be learned in an unconventional way. High and mid-functioning Autism, high functioning Mental Retardation, ADD, ADHD, synesthesia, and most if not all forms of Dyslexia are disorders, not disabilities.

You have to realize disability is a word that has been used for most of my life. Mental retardation is the equivilant when I was growing up calling an African American the N word. It was used a lot, but my parents would act the same way as me saying retarded to the same way if I used again, any curse word.

When I was a kid, there was no high-functioning, low-functioning or any other labels to the disabilities. The reason why my older brother wasn't diagnosed into his senior year was because no one tested back those days to SEE if there was a problem. The reason why I was diagnosed so early was because I showed very early signs of having what is now called Asburgers. Which is a combination of Autism, ADHD and a learning disability. I didn't speak until I was six years old, I didn't hear until I was three, when I was growing up, anyone with a mental disorder as you put it. I will never call it what you do, btw, was labeled as learning disabled/autistic/adhd and so on.

A hundred years ago, if you were in ANY way mentally or physically disabled, you went into an insane asylum or on the streets to beg. Helen Keller and many others made huge strides to improve peoples with disabilities, whether it be physical, mental, or any others, lives. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was made around the seventies or eighties if my memory serves correctly. It's only been very recent that people with ANY disability/disorder have been able to go to school, let alone attend class, or have handicapped facilities for people in wheelchairs. Service dogs have become an add-on even later than that.

Today, yes, we have made major improvements on finding out the different disorders/disabilities of people and thankfully are catching it a lot sooner. But when I was a kid, most kids who were diagnosed early ended up in an institution with a crash helmet where they literally ran into walls all day. My mom dug her heels in to stop me from going, and after seeing what happened to several classmates of mine when they did make the transition to regular school, it was a disaster in most cases. A lot barely recovered or didn't at all due to the early education.

I had an uphill battle to reach where I have, and yes, I had a ton of teasing. I was a loner and got bullied constantly through all grades because of my disability. I sucked it up in most cases and yes, under your definition of disorder, I do have one. But I grew up using that word and having retardation being used as a swear, or a derogatory term. The word disorder was NEVER used to define what I had. Neither was high-functioning autism or asbergers until I would say the last three to five years ago. It's a habit that will take me a long time to break, and it won't happen every time I hear a rant telling me every time I say it I'm wrong and I should say it the PC way. Even if you are right, which I don't know if you are.

And yes, there are a ton of different parts of the special education (again, what it was called when I was in high school) program. There's even more when you go to college. Including one great one in Maine called North Star that offered me counseling, tutoring and several other things when I was going through community college. You can find a lot of help out there.