Dyslexia: Disability or Talent?

Imagine sitting down after a long work day to relax with an enjoyable book or grabbing the morning newspaper along with your cup of coffee to catch up on last night’s sports heroics, and instead of losing yourself in the dramatic storyline or breathing a sigh of relief when you realize your team miraculously pulled out a victory, something unimaginable occurs. Almost instantly, you begin to feel dizzy, you develop a slight headache, letters and numbers begin to move out of sequence or become blurry, and everything seems out of order. You try harder to focus and no matter how hard you try to read the words, the letters that you are staring at aimlessly seem to have no understandable pattern.  In frustration, you slam down the book or newspaper and frantically search for answers. This horrifying and frustrating situation is exactly what a child or adult experiences with dyslexia.

Occurring when the brain does not properly recognize or process certain symbols such as letters and numbers, dyslexia is the most common cause of reading and writing difficulties in the United States. It is believed that as many as 15% of the entire population may suffer from some sort of dyslexia. That percentage equates to almost one billion people worldwide struggling everyday with a simple process that most of us take for granted. People struggling with dyslexia often have difficulty identifying sounds in spoken language. For example, young children with dyslexia may experience great difficulty with letter sounds and identifying rhyming words, two critical skills necessary for successful readers. Not only is dyslexia a language problem, it also negatively affects overall comprehension and visual understanding of all patterns and symbols. Such effort has to be put into reading individual words that overall understanding of the sentence and ultimately the text becomes cloudy. As text becomes more and more complex, the inability to read and understand material produces situations of frustration and confusion across all academic areas.

Although dyslexia is viewed across the globe as an impediment or a disability, new research is beginning to surface on the pros or actual advantages of having dyslexia. A series of recent experiments have displayed that people with dyslexia display distinct perceptual abilities, such as very sharp peripheral vision. Whereas typical readers tend to focus on the center of the visual field which is a crucial skill for skilled readers, people with dyslexia focus on the outer peripheral visual field.  Although they struggle with reading by lacking the central focus, people with dyslexia possess a keen ability to understand the broad scope or attend to the whole picture. Thus, people with dyslexia tend to excel in certain artistic and scientific fields of study. Along with these academic fields, sports enthusiasts would love to know that people with dyslexia excel at specific positions in sports such as point guard in basketball and quarterback in football. Their ability to survey the field or the court and quickly take in the entire picture allows them to read defenses and make quick decisions that promote success. Other careers such as filmmakers and military leaders require this broad scope or ability to see the entire picture in order to be successful. Famous political and military leaders that carried the “label” of dyslexia and yet helped shape and mold the country we live in today include names such as Dwight Eisenhower, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Stonewall Jackson, and George Washington. Looking at dyslexia through this lens, it could be viewed as a talent, instead of an impediment or disability. 

Each and every person around the globe discovers things in life that they ultimately excel in and certain things they consistently struggle with. Unfortunately for people with dyslexia, the primary struggle is reading, which is the essential component to academic and overall life success. Although this struggle exists, students and adults diagnosed with dyslexia should not throw in the towel. Many successful researched-based programs exist in schools and universities throughout the country that focus on assisting people with dyslexia by overcoming their struggles with reading fluency, comprehension, and language. The key is for teachers, parents, and family members to offer guidance, support, and reassurance that there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Academic and life success is possible through hard work, dedication, and determination. Dyslexia is not a dead end street without return access. It is merely a construction site along the way that requires a person to take a short detour or alternative path to ultimate success in life. This detour may be a longer route, take more time, and require more turns, and sometimes seem off the beaten path, but if the driver displays patience and discipline, the ride could actually reveal hidden talents along the way and open up new, scenic routes to success.