Dyslexia, what it is.

Dyslexia is a disability that affects many people across the world including me, which is why I have written this article. Not only has it been detected in thousands of people but more often, and rather worryingly, it goes undetected and this leads to more problems that I will come onto.

What is dyslexia?

Well firstly it is a word that is incredibly hard to spell, and if you are dyslexic, doubly so!

Dyslexia is a disability that, as far as I can tell, means that some parts of your brain that normally are associated with words and meanings are not correctly connected up. It generally appears as a problem with being able to spell and is therefore though of by many that the dyslexic either just can’t be bothered to learn or is generally unintelligent. Dyslexia is also passed down through generations; well at least in my family it is, as my mother, brother and I have it and even a grandmother and great grandmother.

Symptoms

Well, being a ‘sufferer’ myself I can tell you that being dyslexic not only means that you can’t spell (and when you do it often comes out spelt phonetically) but:

• that when you spell it often comes out phonetically;
• that reading is an arduous slow affair and your reading age is lower than it should be (I’m 4 years below);
• that the names of people and places are extremely hard to remember unless you are familiar with them;
• that learning spellings of words takes a long time; that foreign languages can be difficult to master;
• that simple maths such as subtraction and division can be extremely difficult even though you can differentiate quotients in your sleep;
• that picturing symbols, shapes and 3D objects are easy to do;
• Possibly it can, on a lighter note, mean that you can do Spoonerisms¹ like it’s normal speak.

Now that’s a long list and there’s many symptoms I haven’t mentioned here, but any particular dyslexic may not suffer from all these problems, and likewise if you do recognize some of these things in yourself it does not mean that you are dyslexic.

However, if you were just reading that and thinking, yes I really find it hard to spell, and can never remember names of people, and in maths I can do complicated algebra but the whole division thing is a complete mystery, than maybe you could be dyslexic. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with being dyslexic, in fact it can be helpful, and it certainly does not mean that you are stupid, often quite the opposite and most dyslexics are intelligent for example Einstein was!

Of course it is best to detect it early, such as in primary school because this give the then child time to work at overcoming it. And overcoming dyslexia is certainly possible, at least to a great extent to where it no longer appears as a problem. Having dyslexia also does not mean that you cannot get past GCSE’s, I have just got 3 A’s as A-level and am now studying aeronautics and astronautics at Southampton university, anything is possible and it should not be allowed to hold anyone back.

So what now?

If you have been reading this and it’s been making a lot of sense then you will probably want to know that to do now. It really depends upon your age.

Young folk: - if you are in fulltime education go to you school/college and try and find if there is anyone who specializes in dyslexia, for example a special needs teacher and talk to them explaining what you think could be dyslexia and find out whether it is or not. This may get you referred to an Education Psychologist who will properly assess you to see how dyslexic you are. They will also write a report on you which is very important in getting you help later on². This report should allow you to be entered into acceptance for extra time in external exams (GCSE, A-Level and University), which can be up to 25% or the discounting of any bad spellings. This extra time (which I received) allows for you to work at your own rate, as things generally take longer, so that you are on a more level field with the rest of the population taking exams³.

Older folk: - So your not in fulltime education, that means there’s no help then? Well no, there is help for example you can visit the following links to find someone to talk to. Being trained they will be able to help you more that I can (not being in work or trained), possible techniques to help overcome it, or just the ability to find out why you find these things difficult.

The Heart of the Problem

The main problem is that teacher and education authorities do not recognize that dyslexia is real and that it can have the effects that it does on sufferers. I have been told before now that ‘I wasn’t dyslexic, just thick’ (that was by a teacher at Junior school) and I had the comment ‘Dyslexic, what’s that?’ by s interviewer at Imperial College London. So you can see that acceptation that this exists is almost more of a problem than dyslexia itself (because they can do something about it) and something really needs to be done so that education authorities will give support to children who have this so that it can be overcome during their schooling. Do consider writing or phoning your local education authority to find out what support they off, and if none why not.

And Finally

The aim of this article is to help people to become more familiar with this problem so that LEA’s and teachers recognize dyslexia and can therefore begin to detect it in children quickly so they can overcome it. It may also be that case that you think that you may be dyslexic, in this case hopefully easing your mind of the worry that you are really stupid because you can’t spell etc. Or maybe you may recognize this in a family member or friend so that you can ease their mind and begin to get dyslexia recognized fully by all.

Having dyslexia won't make every dyslexic a genius, but it is good for the self-esteem of all dyslexics to know their minds work in exactly the same way as the minds of some of the world's great geniuses. What follows is a list of famous people who are dyslexic: