In essence, research has shown that dyslexic people are very good with pictures, but not with symbols. Dyslexic people tend to become great artists, great architects, working with visual beauty. It is the symbols of the world -- the letters, the numbers, the charts of information -- which they have difficulty in deciphering.
Dyslexic children are often first diagnosed when they get into elementary school and hit the basic symbols of life -- the alphabet and numbers. They confuse similar-looking letters such as p and q, b and d. They write them backwards at times. They're not good at reciting numbers in order, or days of the week. But they are often great with music, art and visualizations.
Dyslexia is a mental condition -- 1997 it was fully established as "a congenital and developmental condition". Dyslexia symptoms are not the person's fault for being "lazy" or "stupid". It cannot be fixed with surgery or drugs. It is a part of a person's makeup, and can be accounted for and dealt with, just as with any other learning disorder, by proper teaching practices and supplemental activities.
links
Dyslexia Institute Checklist of Symptoms
Dyslexia Treatment Using Speech Images
Kinesthetic Learning - Lesson Plans for Printing ‘b’ and ‘d’
Books
Ebooks
About the author
Susan Kramer has been teaching yoga, meditation and dance to students of all ages and abilities since 1965.
