Marg, that ball sounds like a blast. It's the sort of thing I could mesmerize myself with for hours.
I definitely do not have dyslexia, and I'm pretty certain that eye tracking is not an issue for me. I was able to read and write at a very early age, and apparently had quite a case of Little Professor-itis when I was very little (lecturing guests on the rules of the house when I was 2, that sort of thing).
The tape-looping phenomenon seems to happen only when I'm trying to say something out loud. Funny...after reading this thread yesterday, I caught myself forming a thought that I was about to speak, and tried to pay close attention to what was going on in my head.
The thought appeared fully formed in my mind. I had an idea of what I wanted to say, but I had to sit and parse it for a moment, before I could make it clear to myself. I worked it through, realized that it wasn't exactly right, and then re-did the beginning of the thought. Once that was done, I re-did the ending a few times, then spooled the whole thing through in my head 2 or 3 times until I was sure of it.
Only then did I go and find my husband and tell him what I had been thinking. The whole process took about 3 minutes, not including speaking the thought out loud.
It's akin to the process others use when they make drafts of written communication before sending off the final version. Strangely, when I write, I can just spill my thoughts and they seem to come out clearly. The processing difficulty is a bit like translating something from one language to another in my head. I have to translate the written thought into a verbal form before I can say it.
You've mentioned that your difficult child 3's first language was the written word. I wonder if he's "translating" written into spoken, the same way I do?
All the best,
Trinity
