"Take chances. Take risks. Don't be afraid of what's around the corner. Embrace it." - Glenn Stearns New on Discovery Channel is an 8-part series based on a real-life wager. Glenn Stearns is a super successful billionaire who overcame life hurdles like growing up in...
Women in STEM: Kim Mann
Kim Mann is a software architect, and she might not have found her career path if a 9th grade geometry teacher hadn't decided to allow Kim to solve problems her own way. Up until this point, Kim had always been penalized for using her own ways of solving a problem...
Teacher of the Year Again, CHAD BEAM
"My teachers loved me first and taught me second..." - Chad Beam 3x Teacher of the Year Chad Beam has won Burns High School's Teacher of the Year for the 3rd time in 2019. From the Shelby Star: "That floors me. I'm the dyslexic kid. I'm teaching what I...
Dyslexic National Geographic Photographer Michael Shainblum
Michael Shainblum is a photographer/filmmaker who specializes in a wide range of photography including night-cap, aerial, travel, adventure and more. Michael: "As a kid, a lot of people would succeed in certain ways that I couldn't. It took me a really long time to...
Great College Application Essay
Here is one of our favorite college application essays of all time (shared with permission): Please provide an answer below if you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application. When I started the process of looking for...
Mark Ruffalo – The Hulk – “I am Dyslexic”
In a brief Twitter exchange, Mark Ruffalo, aka The Hulk / Bruce Banner from the Avengers shared that he was dyslexic after being asked about why he mentioned in an interview that he had difficulty reading. The multi-talented actor is an Oscar nominee, director,...
Test Accommodations for Students with Dyslexia Under the ADA – DOJ Statement
The Department of Justice has also released video clarification of key rights for students regarding testing accommodations under the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act. The entire video is located at the bottom of this post, but we are highlighting a section...
Being Dyslexic – Actor John De Lancie
"I was not a good student, and the reason I was not a good student is that I didn’t know how to read… I was dyslexic, but at the time that was not really a word that was used. What was used was “mildly retarded” or “slow.” I ended up flunking out of a couple of...
Helping Severe Dyslexia – Part 2 Word Learning and Vocabulary [Premium]
In our previous post on Severe Dyslexia, we talked about 6 steps required to read: 1. Seeing 2. Visual Recognition of Words 3. Matching Letters and Words to Sounds – Phonemic Awareness 4. Matching Words to Word Meaning 5. Saying Words 6. Comprehending Text In that post, we talked about how different readers may have difficulty with the visual aspects of reading, whereas others have trouble with sound. Other areas where children or adults can have trouble are in the areas of learning and remembering word meaning, speech output, and finally reading comprehension in text form. It’s important to be able to target these areas because it helps prioritize needs and also could explain while more progress isn’t being made. One student may need intensive remediation in […]
Dyslexia | Environmental Law Pioneer David Schoenbrod
David Schoenbrod is a pioneering environmental attorney on faculty at New York Law School. Since his start in doing anti-poverty community development under a program initiated by Bobbie Kennedy, he has used out-of-the-box dyslexic big picture thinking to trigger a...
Q & A: Can I be a Doctor if I am Dyslexic? [Premium]
Answer: Yes. Absolutely. There have been many famous physicians who were dyslexic, and many today that you might not know who are dyslexic because many don’t identify in the workplace and many more weren’t formally identified. The typical profile of a dyslexic physician is to have had early troubles in elementary school, then a jump in abilities in middle to high school, and then further jump up in college and medical school. There are probably several reasons why medicine can be a popular occupation for adult (often gifted) dyslexics. First, it is a complex domain to master that nevertheless also requires an ability to grasp the big picture, make decisions, and execute a plan. Medicine is based on science, which is a strong suit and […]
How Dyslexia Changes at Different Ages [Premium]
With all of the advances in our understanding of early intervention, dyslexia in older students and young adults often gets short shrift. The paper by Dr. Kathleen Niesen and colleagues has some interesting findings that have important points for identification, accommodations, and understanding of both the challenges and strengths of adolescents and young adults with dyslexia. Importantly, the authors made this point: “…if dyslexia was not diagnosed earlier in schooling, young adults do not qualify for accommodations even if as adolescents and adults they meet research criteria for dyslexia on evidence-based assessment. Such assessment practices do not seem fair or sensible or consistent with the spirit of the Americas for Disabilities legislation.” The point made was that dyslexia missed in the early grades usually meant dyslexia […]
