DYSLEXIA IS NOT A COMPLEXITY?

I first came across this statement 10 years ago when I laid my hands on the book, The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis, an American who was diagnosed with autism and dyslexia. That caught my attention.

Ron went on to elaborate that “dyslexia is a product of thought, talent and a special way of reacting to the feeling of confusion.” I will be breaking down Ron’s explanations into bite-sized posts in the coming days.

I hope the information will give you another perspective of looking at dyslexia and possibly direct your next step.

What is dyslexia? It is a language based, specific learning difficulty that impacts reading, spelling, comprehension, handwriting (dysgraphia), math (dyscalculia) as well as balance and coordination (dyspraxia).

Dyslexia has to do with the way the brain is wired. While most of us use our left brain to process languages, dyslexics use their right brain or the creative brain, which is responsible for daydreaming and imagination.

Dyslexia is not due to a lack of intelligence. For a dyslexia diagnosis, a person’s IQ needs to be at least in the normal range. That said, a below average IQ may not necessarily indicate the absence of dyslexia. Ron was initially tested to have low IQ and was labelled as “uneducatably mentally retarded” at the age of 12, but was later discovered to have an extremely high IQ of 137. In other words, a person cannot be dumb and dyslexic.

For a child with dyslexia, he/she is often misunderstood as being lazy, not interested in learning, not trying hard enough and/or gets distracted easily. As parents, I am sure such thoughts crossed our minds.

In the next post, we will be looking at the symptoms of dyslexia. These symptoms are often red flags that alert parents to their child’s struggles. Stay tuned!