dear Anonymous

Anonymous said...
People with dyslexia are just NORMAL people. Some are very intelligent, some are stupid, most are average. Some are incredibly creative, some couldn't think how to escape from a wet paper bag and most are average.

Dylexia does not come with a creativity 'gift'. Some dyslexics are very creative in the same way as some people with red hair are too! You are creative people who happen to be dyslexic - or dyslexic people who happen to be creative - however you wish to view it.

This matters because of what you are inadvertantly saying to ordinarily creative dyslexics (the vast majority) who feel doubly hard done by or even worse, doubly stupid because they don't seem to have this 'gift'.

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dear Anonymous

thank-you for your message. dyslexics are normal people. if only we knew what normal was. maybe it matters maybe it doesn't. dyslexia is generally diognosed using what is called a discrepency model, which means it is identified when there appears to be a discrepancy between expected and actual attainment (Snowling, 2000: 16). this generally means you cannot be dyslexic and stupid, however, if you are suggesting that dyslexia shoudl be diogosed through the pattern model (miles) then i can see your view point - although this perspective is widely criticised for being too broad. thus the very methods of diognoses is thought on the one hand exclusive and on the other over inclusive, which problematises the very notion of dyslexia.

this is i guess where the who 'dyslexia is a myth' preposeal came from - documeneed on tv last year and followed up by the 'death of dyslexia conference' - where most speakers tended to agree that dyslexia DOES exist and the commenst it is a myth was generally unhelpful

you say that "Dylexia does not come with a creativity 'gift" well ... there is evidence (miles) that dyslexics are generally psychologically different rather than soley having an impariment in relation to reading and writing. and there was some suggestiong that it could be linked with creativeity (west, 1990). in this view one of dyslexias attributes would be 'pattern' or visual thinking - this is an idea that has come into circulation and support over the last decade or so and an aspect highlighted by a significant number of independent researchers (Geschwind, 1982; Gordon, 1983; Rourke & Finlayson, 1978; Winner & Casey, 1993; Winner, Casey, DaSilva, & Hayes, 1991).

i am a bit of a postmodernist at heart - and tend not to believe in any absolute authority - therere i believ ein multipe truths. however i can assure you that it is certainly not the aim of my work to make "the vast majority" to feel "doubly hard done by .... doubly stupid because they don't seem to have this 'gift'" ... rather to create a space in which dyslexics brace the idea of seaking, sharing idewas, and exploring their potential so as to create change. the change i would like to see is to move away from the perspective that having dyslexia is a curse ... or something that needs a cure ... and to have more dyslexics doing something about defining their own needs, rather than having them defined by non dyslexics ...

I am most grateful to (wonderful dyslexic) rebecca longcrane who inspired me with this thought on the matter ...


After seeing the colourful graphs and
complex data we begin to dismember ourselves.
Our minds are chopped up into good and bad.
I can’t do this but I might be able to do that.
It’s a mental dissection, where a scalpel is carefully,
lovingly, drawn along the innards of the mind,
slicing the brain, separating it into
clear, transparent, distinct sections.
What you’re good at and what you’re not so good at
can’t be connected; what hurts you, gives you pain,
can’t be a part of what saves you.
It’s a rule, a law.
To see the two as one is out of the question.