Letters flip, words switch places, and letters look the same. This is what reading and writing can be like for someone with dyslexia.
People may believe that someone with dyslexia is not trying hard enough. People may believe that they are lazy. However, these are some of the many misconceptions about the learning disability.
A person may be born with dyslexia, as it can be genetic. While some people who suffer from dyslexia get it from a traumatic brain injury.
Dyslexia comes in many forms, such as:
Phonologically,affecting the ability to sound out words.
Surface, which makes it difficult to read entire words.
Rapid naming, which can make it nearly impossible to recognize commonly used words, such as names or colors.
Visual dyslexia, which can make words appear blurry or as if they are moving.
There are more rare types of dyslexia that are also considered much more severe.
Deep dyslexia, where individuals affected may be prone to semantic errors, such as misreading the word apples as fruit.
Developmental neglect dyslexia is even rarer, where the beginning of words is misread or ignored entirely.
Despite the many forms dyslexia can take, any type of dyslexia is an incredible struggle to live with. Dyslexia was only recognised as a learning disability in 1963 and acknowledged in school in the 1980s. This has caused our society to not be built to accommodate people who struggle to read.
Signs and instructions are word-based, making things like education significantly harder for a child with dyslexia.
Dyslexia can affect a person’s self-worth as it can make them feel insecure, especially when left undiagnosed.
Liliana Legge, who went to school before dyslexia was acknowledged, stated: “People [would tell me] you are not smart [or] I’m not trying hard enough.”
Even though dyslexia is more commonly acknowledged now, it is still incredibly difficult to get through each day.
People without dyslexia can not understand their struggle, if you want a visualization, imagine being unable to read the names of places that surround you, that is how people affected by dyslexia may see the world.
That may be part of the reason there are so many misconceptions about dyslexia. People who are not affected by it will never be able to truly understand the struggles, so they make assumptions.
Legge said that some of the most common misconceptions she has heard were that she is just “being lazy, not trying hard enough, or not paying attention.”
This is the unfortunate reality of so many children and adults with some form of dyslexia. Trying their hardest to succeed in a world that doesn’t have the accommodations they need and deserve.
Dyslexia is not all disadvantages, often being linked to a higher level of cognitive abilities, such as visual-spatial reasoning and complex problem solving. This can lead to more success in areas like entrepreneurship and art.
The success in these topics may be due to the fact that people with dyslexia have to overcome challenges daily in order to thrive. They learn to analyze everything, resulting in thinking outside the box.
Many researchers believe that Albert Einstein suffered from dyslexia due to his struggles with language in school. Though this theory is debated, it has been getting more and more recognition.
While dyslexia is a lifelong struggle, many people manage to overcome it and find a passion that they excel at.
Though the world is not built to accommodate them, diagnosing and offering assistance for people with dyslexia has come a long way, and is still changing to make it as accessible to everyone as possible.
Hopefully, one day, everyone will have the accommodations they need and deserve.
