"During my youth, I was quite asocial. I had a lot of difficulty with the world. Every ten years, I found, it got a little better. Now things are going quite well." - Jacques Dubochet There's no better reminder that awareness needs to include the positive side of...
PACIFIC STUDIO VISIT: Interview with Michael Graham about his ‘Dream Job’ Making Museum Exhibits
This past summer, our high school volunteer Krista, my son, and I had a wonderful opportunity to visit Michael Graham, High End Fabrication Program Manager for Pacific Studio in Seattle. Michael has what many would call a dream job - making exhibits for museums all...
How Dyslexic MIND Strengths Integrate with Multiple Intelligences [Premium]
In our book, The Dyslexic Advantage, we spoke about the 4 MIND strengths common in adult dyslexics: M for Material Reasoning, I for Interdisciplinary Reasoning, N for Narrative Reasoning, and D from Dynamic Reasoning. These skill clusters and talent sets had parallels in brain systems and processes as well as careers, domains of expertise, and areas of innovation. Multiple Intelligences is a concept that was introduced by Howard Gardner of Harvard to identify specific modalities that went beyond a single intelligence or general ability. The seven he initially characterized were: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical mathematical, bodily, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. The ones he considered adding later were naturalistic (able to classify natural forms, ecological ‘receptiveness’), existential or spiritual, and teaching -pedagogical in telligence. Somewhat related […]
Why Dyslexics Excel in Real Estate
"When I see a property I can instantly construct a new house on it. I can see exactly how that house is going to look, and I can walk through every room in that house, and out into the garden, and everywhere. I can turn my thoughts into reality...I can do a detailed...
Dyslexic Visionary Architect Lord Richard Rogers [Premium]
“Richard Rogers’ late entry into the 4th Year was not successful. He has a genuine interest in and a feeling for architecture but surely lacks the intellectual equipment to translate these feelings into sound building. His designs will continue to suffer while his drawing is so bad, his method of work so chaotic and his critical judgement so inarticulate”. “…there is no disputing that he is one of the most influential architects of all time…” Richard Rogers was definitely a late bloomer. “I was an appalling student all of my life. In fact, I always like to say, I enjoyed much more the last third of my life, than I have in my first third…” Rogers is best known for his work on the […]
Discoverer of the Titanic – Dyslexic Ocean Explorer Robert Ballard [Premium]
“When I was a child, I wrote a letter to an oceanographic institution in California called Scripps (Scripps Institution of Oceanography UC San Diego). It was a Dear Santa Claus letter. “Dear Scripps, I want to be an oceanographer.” I’m sure I misspelled it, because I’m dyslexic. They gave me a scholarship.” – Robert Ballard When I was seventeen, 56 years ago, I went on my first expedition. We got caught in a storm, hit by a rogue wave, and I thought that was so cool. I was too young to be afraid. I just fell in love with adventure with a purpose, where you go out there and overcome the obstacles that you’re always faced with, and then you find this secret, whether it’s a shipwreck […]
Shakespeare and Dyslexia – Making Words Physical [Premium]
Today is National Shakespeare Day, and dyslexia and Shakespeare have been on our minds. We recently mentioned that Lloyd Everitt (yes, he’s dyslexic) is the youngest actor to play Othello at Shakespeare’s own Globe Theater. But we’ve also been thinking about Shakespeare recently because, on our trip down to California, we had the pleasure of stopping by the Oregon Shakespeare Company’s Rebecca Carey, the head of Voice and Text. Rebecca has an accomplished career that includes acting herself as well as teaching and consultant roles with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Oxford School of Drama, Broadway, and American Repertory Theatre. Rebecca is also co-author (with her husband, David Carey) of The Shakespeare Workbook and Video, a brilliant practical course for actors that includes such topics […]
Higher Creativity of Dyslexic Children and Adolescents – New Research [Premium]
“…dyslexic children around the age of 10 years old were found to be particularly creative in our study…” – Kapoula et al. University Paris PLOS One 2016: 11(3). From creativity researchers in Europe, some striking new information about how well dyslexic students and adolescents performed on the Torrance Test of Creativity Thinking compared to non-dyslexic peers. Particularly large differences were noted in the areas of originality and elaboration. Figure 1 shows A, the test prompt, B, the drawing from an art student, C, a drawing from a non-dyslexic student, and D, a drawing from a dyslexic student. “When comparing the most creative group of students (i.e., from ENSAD) and the most creative group of dyslexic children and teenagers (i.e., from BRUXELLES) (Fig 2F, Table 9), the only […]
Dyslexia Cybersecurity CEO Lior Div – Hacking the Hackers
"Dyslexic people process visual information differently than most people, so instead of starting with letters or sounds, I looked at sentences or even paragraphs as a whole, and then broke them down into parts. That process – starting with the big picture and breaking...
Why Are So Many Dyslexic Student Good at Science? [Premium]
MIT Professor: What Every Person with Dyslexia Should Know – The Full Story
Superstar MIT Professor Catherine Drennan (HHMI Scientist too - the top of the top in the world) shared her personal journey with dyslexia. She was in remedial classes and had to repeat a grade, and saw her self dropped lower and lower through all the reading groups,...
