Roger Saunders

Roger E. Saunders, 82, an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia, died Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006, in Lexington after a brief illness. A private memorial service will be held at Sisk Butler Funeral Home in Bessemer City March 11 at 2 p.m. A public service will be held at the Jemicy School of Owings Mills, Md., at 11 a.m. on April 8. Mr. Saunders spent most of his professional career in Baltimore, Md., where he studied, tutored, diagnosed and taught generations of students in the fields of reading disorders and dyslexia and where he maintained a private practice for 35 years. Dyslexia is a condition that causes those who have it to have trouble learning to read and spell mainly due to a problem in phonemic awareness (phonetics). These individuals are of average and above average intelligence. As Mr. Saunders put it in a profile written about him by the Baltimore Sun in 2001, Maryland was a wasteland for treating reading disorders when he moved to the city in 1957 to serve as director of psychological services for the Baltimore County Board of Education. Children with dyslexia in many cases also have behavioral problems, and educators at the time tended to slot them as emotionally disturbed or retarded and blamed such influences as poor parenting, he said. They saw the behavior, not its cause. Dyslexia is neurologically based, not emotionally based, he told the Sun. Mr. Saunders mentored several generations of educators and tutored, in some cases, a third generation of children with the condition. He also served six years as associate professor at Loyola College, Baltimore, where he served as head of the Reading Department, Graduate School Division. He was a key figure in the development of the Orton Dyslexia Society, now known as the International Dyslexia Association, serving as president for six years. Since joining the IDA, he attended every annual convention for approximately 50 years. During his presidency he directed the first World Congress on Dyslexia in 1974 in cooperation with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. In 1976 he was recipient of the Samuel F. Orton International Award, given annually to the person who has contributed most to the field of dyslexia. In 2004 he received the Margaret Byrd Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the field of dyslexia. He helped establish the Jemicy School for dyslexic children in Owings Mills, Md., the Odyssey School in Baltimore and, more recently, the Rawson-Saunders School in Austin, Texas. Mr. Saunders also was a founder of the nonprofit Maryland Associates for Dyslexic Adults and Youth (MAYDAY), now known as the Dyslexia Tutoring Program. Mr. Saunders was born in East Gastonia and grew up there and in Bessemer City. He earned an associate's degree from Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, then served in the Army Air Force during World War II. Afterward, he earned a bachelor of arts degree from Louisiana College in 1948, followed by a master of arts degree in clinical psychology from Southern Methodist University in 1950. He completed his internship in clinical psychology at the Bowman-Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, where he served on the faculty in the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry. There he studied under June Orton, widow of Dr. Samuel T. Orton (1879-1948), who in 1925 had identified dyslexia as a medical diagnosis requiring an educational treatment. Mr. Saunders retired from his practice in the early 2000s and moved to Lexington to be closer to family, but he remained active in the International Dyslexia Association. An inveterate traveler, Mr. Saunders had visited more than 50 countries, many of them multiple times, and in 1997 spent a month teaching English in the Ukraine and Poland. With his flowing white mustache and goatee, the cane-carrying Mr. Saunders was often mistaken for Col. Sanders of fried-chicken fame. Mr. Saunders also played an instrumental role in the rediscovery of American Impressionist painter Martha Simkins (1866-1969), from whom he had rented a room in Dallas while a student at SMU. The onetime student and/or associate of John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase and Mary Cassatt had given up her career by the time she met Mr. Saunders and was running a small boardinghouse at the time. The two developed a friendship that endured until her death. Mr. Saunders spent years trying to interest the art world in her work, which finally came to fruition with a four-city traveling exhibit of her paintings and a cover story in "American Art Review" magazine in 2003. Surviving are a sister, Jeanne Davis, of Lexington, and six nieces and nephews. Memorial contributions in Mr. Saunders' memory may be made to the International Dyslexia Association, 8600 La Salle Road, Chester Bldg., Ste. 382, Baltimore, MD 21286; the Rawson-Saunders School, 2600 Exposition Blvd., Austin, Texas, 78703; the Dyslexia Tutoring Program, 711 W. 40th St., Ste. 310, Baltimore, MD 21218; or The Greenhills School, P.O. Box 15392, Winston-Salem, NC 27113.