John Bridgman didn’t learn to read until the fourth grade.
In the first grade he was diagnosed with dyslexia, a brain-based type of learning disability that impairs a person’s ability to read. According to the International Dyslexia Association, as many as 15 percent of the population have some symptoms of the disability.
Bridgman was lumped into general special-education classes within his Central Texas school district, but after two years he wasn’t progressing. Frustrated, his parents forced the school district to provide the proper services for his specific disability, and he was placed in a newly created district program that used materials from the Scottish Rite dyslexic curriculum.
In this new environment, Bridgman finally excelled and finished the program in two years, surprisingly reading on a college level.
“I still remember when I couldn’t read the instructions on my grade-school homework,” he recalls.
This May, the 27-year-old Bridgman, who forged his own educational path with the support of his parents, will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and an unspoiled 4.0 grade point average. It was his love of learning that dictated his success, even if life kept placing obstacles in his way.
Despite Bridgman’s reading advancements in public school, his parents still noticed deficiencies in other areas such as spelling and writing, which were at second-grade levels. So his mother, Jane Bridgman, chose to home-school him starting in the ninth grade.
“He couldn’t spell his middle name,” she recalls. “I felt like if John had a chance, I wanted to give it to him.”
Using GED manuals and requiring him to read 40 hours a week, Bridgman improved his spelling and earned his GED – something that was not a given. He then took classes part-time at Austin Community College for several years before transferring to the university. And as uncertain as he was about succeeding academically in a university setting, he was equally undaunted by the challenge at hand.
“I really didn’t know how well I would do in college,” Bridgman says candidly. “But having a learning disability did not deter me at all. In fact, it made me more determined.”
Employing new tools and techniques that helped him cope with the learning disability, he excelled in his engineering, English and language courses at the university.
“I’m at the level I can compete -- without handicap -- with everyone else,” says Bridgman, who recently took a Japanese language course and made an “A.” “It says to me that I’m still improving.”
Bridgman’s next educational chapter is graduate school where he has been accepted into the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s nationally ranked program. His focus is in embedded systems, digital signal processing and issues of concurrency. He hopes to teach someday to inspire the next generation of engineers. Yet, his story seems to do that on its own.
Not long ago, Jane Bridgman couldn’t read the handwritten notes her son left for her. She’s not even sure he could.
“Now, I wouldn’t hesitate to encourage him to write a book. He’d write a fabulous book,” Jane Bridgman says. “Through this, he has learned to endure; he’s gained character. I’m probably going to cry my eyes out when he graduates.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
To encourage students like John Bridgman through their studies, click here to support the Engineering Scholarship Program.
