The journey started towards my final year of primary school. I didn’t know I was dyslexic and just thought it was my classes that were really difficult. I couldn’t keep up to my friends and I simply thought some people are born clever and some aren’t. I concluded I just wasn’t a smart person.
I was called stupid by many because not only could I not read, I couldn’t understand school work too. I was always at the bottom of the class that I became very depressed. “Why am I so dumb? Why can’t I grab anything taught in class?” I often cried out.
Reading disorders occur when a person has trouble reading or understanding what they read. Dyslexia is a type of reading disorder. It generally refers to difficulties reading individual words which can lead to problems understanding the text.
It is a well-known reading disorder that specifically impairs a person’s ability to read. Individuals with dyslexia have normal intelligence, but they read at levels significantly lower than expected.
Although the disorder varies from person to person, there are common characteristics: People with dyslexia often have a hard time sounding out words, understanding written words, naming objects quickly, and spelling words the way they sound{ take cot for court as an example}
I continued to resent myself for not grabbing the lessons taught, until I learnt that the great Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein also suffered from Dyslexia.
“The most influential physicist of the 20th century, was dyslexic? How was he able to make those great theories?” I wondered.
I discovered how to manage dyslexia when I got to senior secondary school. I got to know that being dyslexic doesn’t stop one from having good grades in school and definitely not from being successful in life. I started using my dyslexia to my advantage. In fact, I often called it a gift from God.
Most times I see things more holistically (Seeing a bigger picture). I tend to see things from an entirely different perspective. It’s like people with dyslexia use a wide-angle lens to take in the world, while others use a telephoto. Each is best at revealing different kinds of detail.
I began to excel In my academics and I graduated as one of the best students.
Dyslexia can’t be cured, but it can be mastered or tamed. You can’t overcome it, you can only work around it and make it work for you, but it just never goes away. That’s probably a good thing, because if dyslexia goes away, the other gifts you learnt to do with it would go away too.
The best experience I have with dyslexia was developing a photographic memory. I got used to picturing letters and words in my memory without having to read them.
Research shows that people with dyslexia tend to think in pictures rather than words. Some people with dyslexia could stare at paintings by day and paint them from memory at night.
Further more, those with dyslexia are well known for having sudden leaps of insight that solve problems with an unorthodox approach. This is an intuitive approach to problem solving that can seem like daydreaming. Staring out of the window is how dyslexics work; letting their brain slide into neutral and ease itself around a problem to let connections assemble.
But don’t even try convincing a teacher that staring out of the window is how your brain works!
Once again I’m dyslexic, I think outside the box, I’m intelligent and I can do what a normal person does.
Have you ever come across a dyslexic person? If so, share your experience about him or her in the comment section.
Written by
Ahmad Abdullah
University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
Very nice work. But there are cases in which someone might be very good at physics and maths but find it very difficult to comprehend anything in chemistry, is this kind of condition considered as Dyslexia too??
Thank you.
I guess, this depends on what you really enjoy most , if you don’t enjoy something then you’re less likely to do better in it or might even have a lower interest in it than you have for other courses or subjects.
Also, the perspective from which your tutor takes the course might not favour your point of view regarding the course.
Wow.
Amazing stuff.
Truly an eye opener.
Kudos to you
Glad to hear this.. Thank you
Please what specific measures did you take to manage dyslexia? Ahmad Abdullah
Dyslexia is mostly common in children where by they experience difficulty in reading and learning . As the child grows older, he/she will learn how to manage his/her dyslexia either on their own or through therapy. A learning disorder shouldn’t stop them from excelling so they try as much as possible to improve and in the process, they discover their own best way to learn and understand.
Therapy such as consistence typing of words on a keyboard can help, but this condition can’t be cured and can last for years or be lifelong. Lastly it is usually self-diagnosable, Lab tests or imaging is required.
Lab test or imagining is Not required
@Silver, Try watching this exceptional Bollywood movie “Every child is a Special one ” .. It’s a story about a dyslexic young boy
Intriguing!!! Photographic memory!!! Quite interesting how a disability can become a superpower