“Striving for perfection can get in the way during the early stages of the creative process.” — David Kelley David Kelley is recognized as one of the world’s leading design innovators. He is also dyslexic and dysgraphic. In addition to founding Stanford University Design School, David co-founded IDEO, a design company that, among other things, designed the prototype for the computer mouse that we know today. In The Art of Innovation, David’s brother Tom wrote about how David loved to make things as a little kid, and as early as he could remember, he believed in the process of starting somewhere and continually improving something until it really works. When Tom was only six, he remembers David improving how he built snowmen until he decided […]
Sony Santa Monica Game Designer Stephen Oyarijvbie
"Don't get frustrated with yourself. There are things that you're going to struggle with. Lean into the things that you do well, those strengths...and don't dwell on how people treat you. You're smart and probably smarter than a lot of other people. The world isn't...
Dyslexic Advantage at Stow Library in MA
Last week, Brock and I gave a presentation on the Strengths of Dyslexia at the Randall Library in Stow, Massachusetts via Zoom. Tina McAndrew, director of the Randall Library, got the idea to apply for a grant from the American Libraries Association after speaking to...
Dyslexic Toymakers and Gamemakers
Many dyslexic kids and adults are great at games - all sorts of games. Not surprisingly, some decide to make games themselves and then some choose careers in some aspect of the game industry. There may be an ability to see game play from multiple perspectives...
Dyslexic Storytellers [Premium]
Although many of the physical and mechanical aspects of writing are difficult, many of the greatest writers of all time are dyslexic. Why does storytelling come naturally to so many? Dyslexic people have powerful emotional, personal, multisensory memories. As a result, it’s easy to recall the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the past and once the hurdles of getting information down on a page are overcome, stories can come to life for others. Not everyone has these gifts – in fact, a lot of people don’t. A common dyslexic strength is “episodic simulation”. The word “episodic” refers to what scientists refer to as episodic memory, memories for episodes or experiences that have a specific place and time. Our surveys of dyslexic and non-dyslexic people […]
Severe Dyslexia Reading [Premium]
Q: My daughter is severely dyslexic and is having trouble making progress reading. She is homeschooled. How can I help? A: Ideally, the best person to provide specific information about your student’s dyslexia is the professional who performed a comprehensive assessment. The following information is not specific to your daughter, but more general information in the hopes some of it may be helpful to you. Many severely dyslexic children have trouble perceiving or remembering sounds, sound-letter associations, or the letters that comprise the different spellings of words. If a student has significant working memory limitations, she or he may also have to learn in little bits which may add to the time words are mastered. RE-LEARNING AGAIN AND AGAIN If the problem is that a […]
Emotions: Name Them to Tame Them
One of the most neglected issues in the field of dyslexia is the topic of social and emotional health. We now know that as a group, dyslexic people are more emotionally sensitive than non-dyslexic people and because emotion memories may be so strong in dyslexic...
Asynchronous Development [Premium]
Asynchronous development refers to an unevenness in development which may include wide differences in various aspects of cognition, physical development, and emotional development. The unevenness in these different aspects of development can create paradoxes (being ahead in some abilities as well as behind) and opportunities as well as stress. Asynchronous development was first introduced in the academic and educational literature in the context of gifted children – children who showed wide discrepancies between strengths and weaknesses and who were sometimes referred to as being “twice exceptional”. In the figure below, an example of score variations is seen in a gifted student with dyslexia. Where the standard scaled score for age is 100, this student had strengths in verbal comprehension with a score of 140, whereas […]
Should I Help with Homework? [Premium]
“His mother had read everything to him and in medical school his wife was reading aloud all books and references…there was some opposition to his continuance in medical school on the part of the dean and one other faculty member, but the opposition subsided… After his graduation a report came from a distant medical school hospital stating that this man was the best intern they had had for some time. He passed his American boards in internal medicine and became the head of a group practice clinic in a large city…” — Lloyd Thompson, Reading Disability Should you help with homework? The answer is YES. There is a qualifier on that – you should help but only to the point that you’re helping your student […]
My Child Won’t Go to School: What to Do About School Avoidance
By Dr. Dan Peters of Summit Center "Things were fine last year and now he wakes up with a stomachache and says he doesn’t want to go to school. It takes me forever to get him out the door. We are often late. He ends up screaming at me and telling me I am the worst...
Helping Your Student with Intensity [Premium]
“Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation. “ — Ross Greene, The Explosive Child The difference between the experience of one student and his or her dyslexia can vary a great deal depending on temperament. In psychology, temperament refers to consistent differences in emotional disposition and behavior that are biologically-based and relatively consistent over time. Temperament is part of a person’s personality, which also includes intelligence, humor, interests, and talents. Among the various temperamental differences, certain “difficult temperamental traits” may make some school experiences (like remediation or pull-out) difficult to accept. Examples of difficult temperamental traits include: negative responses to new people or situations, slowness to […]
The Beautiful World of Jarrett Camp
"I use my dyslexia as a form of artwork. When I create a composition of a piece, usually there's another piece upside-down." — Jarrett Camp Jarrett Camp is an award-winning fine artist based in Los Angeles. He is a stipple artist who creates large works that...