The LD Advantage
Basic Information:
How Doctors See Dyslexia:
Dyslexia is a learning difference that not only involves difficulties in reading and writing but also coding and information sequencing.
Coding - the learning and retrieving associations between verbal and visual information.
Information sequencing - the ability to put information in chronological order.
- The word dyslexia is derived from the words "dys" which means poor and the word "lexis" which stands for word on language.
- 5% of people in America have dyslexia in its sever form and 10% of people in the United States have a mild case.
- 30% to 50% of individuals have both dyslexia and ADHD
- Ireland has more individuals with dyslexia then anywhere else in the world
- Boys are 2 times more likely to have dyslexia then girls.
Possible Causes for Dyslexia:
The main causes for dyslexia are still very much unknown. Though countless studies, scientists have narrowed the root cause of dyslexia to a few possible hypotheses.
- Scientists have found two specific genes that are associated with dyslexia and have discovered that fifty percent of kids with dyslexia have family members that are also dyslexic
- Scientists have discovered anomalies in the actual make up of brain cells that, include collections of slightly ‘misplaced’ cells (called ectopias) and some minor disordering of the of the regular layering of cells in the cortex. They are often particularly concentrated in the left hemisphere regions involved in language processing, although their distribution varies considerably between individual cases...These ectopias are typically occupied by an unusually rich and diverse pattern of connections to other brain regions, which may account for the apparent increased creativity that is sometimes observed in people with dyslexia
- another study on dyslexia has found difference in the activity of the cerebellum, “which plays an important role in cognitive development, particularly in the automatisation of skills and ‘rote’ learning
Famous People With Dyslexia:
- Winston Churchil
- Albert Einstein
- John F. Kennedy
- John Lennon
- Mozart
- George Washington
- Robin Williams
- Walt Disney
- Steven Speilberg
- Charles Schwab
All information on this webpage is taken from the reading "Understanding Dyslexia" published by they Open University. You can download this textbook for free on iTunes U.