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Dyslexia: specific learning disability or just a learning difference?
As a dyslexic and as a dyslexia specialist I often see the words dyslexia and disability together in the same sentence. The insinuation being that somehow my brain and the brains of all dyslexics are broken or do not work properly. That because we are dyslexic we have to wear the label disabled from the day we are assessed until the day we cast off our mortal coil. Why also do I keep on seeing the phrase, “suffers with dyslexia”, like dyslexia is some terminal illness? I have to say I do not suffer with dyslexia at all.
If being dyslexic means our brains are broken or that we are disabled then how is it that people such as: Einstein, Theo Paphitis, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci and Bill Gates, to name but a few successful dyslexics, manage to become successful in their own fields of work? Why is it that 30% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic?
Yes, of course being dyslexic does mean we are not so good at doing some things such as spelling or reading. But being dyslexic can enable us to excel in architecture, music, art or engineering. All of us, dyslexic or non-dyslexic, are good at some things and not at others. Some people can excel in Math and not in English, or excel in sports and not in art. Yet if we are not good at sports or math at school we are not labeled as disabled. We are not told that our brains are broken or wired up incorrectly. However, we are if we are dyslexic. We do not send a young child who is not good at sports to an educational psychologist but we do send a young child with dyslexia.
Dyslexia does not mean we are disabled or that our brains are broken it just means that we learn in different ways to people who are not dyslexic. Children with dyslexia are not taught by teachers in ways that enable them to access the curriculum and succeed in education.
Many of our children with dyslexia still leave school with their dyslexia unassessed. Yet good teaching practise for children with dyslexia at school is good teaching practise for all children at school. Still many young people with dyslexia leave school without even the basic skills of reading and writing.
So I am asking the hard questions:
Why is it so many young male dyslexics end up in our prison?
Why is it that 20% of the long term unemployed are dyslexic?
Why is it that poor literacy and lack of basic skills caused by unrecognised dyslexia costs the UK economy £1 Billion a year?
This excerpt from a 2009 report from the Literacy Commission says it all:
The vast majority of dyslexic children could be taught to read and write in mainstream classes but are condemned to a lifetime of illiteracy by under-funding, a report by education experts claims. The Literacy Commission is expected to report that up to 98% of Scots children with dyslexia could overcome their problems if ministers switched cash from current priorities, such as healthy eating initiatives, and recruited more teachers and classroom assistants. There are thought to be about 80,000 Scottish children diagnosed with dyslexia, many of whom will leave school "functionally illiterate", meaning they have a reading age of less than nine-and-a-half.
People with do not suffer with dyslexia. They suffer with an education system and society that simply fails them.