Many of the world’s greatest innovators are dyslexic. These creators with a capital ‘C’, more often than not, arrive at their conclusions through wild leaps of their ideas rather than incremental, step-by-step invention. This pattern, which appears in so many accomplished people in every type of field and discipline, should be telling us what to look for in its raw form in young people, and what the end goal of the educational process should really be. A great case in point in Google’s X Lab Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller. Astro doesn’t talk a lot about his dyslexia, but he did relate this story about his dyslexia at an educational conference: “As a student in school, I fell into the habit of doing things […]
Nobel Prize Winner Carol Greider
Dr. Carol Greider was folding laundry at home when she got the call in 2009 that she had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. She decided to wake up her kids and tell them. "Do we have to go to school?". "No you don't," she said, and she took them in to work with her...
Singer Songwriter Actress Jewel
Jewel is a multi-platinum singer-songwriter, poet, and actress who found success playing in coffeehouses in San Diego where she was discovered by a music manager and signed with Atlantic Records in 1994. It was 1996 when her first album took off, climbing to #11 on...
Famous Dyslexic Mathematician – Norbert Wiener
There have been many famous dyslexic mathematicians throughout history. Today, math-gifted dyslexic students might find their outlet for numbers in careers such as finance and investing, or engineering in some aspect of computer technology. Norbert Wiener of MIT was a...
RESEARCH: Dyslexic Brain – WRITING: More Connectivity, Not Less!
In research that was just published last month, investigators at the University of Washington were surprised to find when investigating pathways involved with writing - that brain connections of dyslexic subjects were more extensive and more far ranging than the...
Calculator Use: Accommodation or No?
A teacher writes, "I have a new student who transferred from a public charter school. She has an IEP accommodation for a calculator use for anything involving math calculations. But I'm wondering whether providing a calculator is changing standards? Is she learning...
How to Respond to Negative Self-talk
From Imperfect Families: Empathize: Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what they may be feeling. “That writing assignment’s pretty challenging, eh?” Rewrite the script: Instead of “Writing is hard. I’m stupid,” your child could say, “I’m working hard on...
The Curious History of Mirror Writing [PREMIUM]
“As a researcher, working over two decades with hundreds of children and adults with dyslexia, I’m convinced that Leonard Da Vinci was dyslexic.” – Dr Maryann Wolf, author Proust and the Squid Mirror writing occurs commonly in dyslexic and non-dyslexic children between the ages of 3 and 7 years, however a subset of children will have persistent difficulties with letter reversals – and these children (or adults) will be more likely to have significant dyslexia or other LD. It at least one study, mirror writing was thought to occur in only ~ 10% of dyslexics, but its been estimated to be 30% of lefties. Even if mirror writing is only a significant problem in a minority of dyslexics – this rate is 16-fold higher than […]
Designing for Dyslexia
Despite the fact that dyslexics are over-represented in Art & Design, the field of User Design is surprisingly late to designing for dyslexia specifically in mind. It may be that some design is as good as it is because there are already dyslexics in design teams...
Music and Dyslexia [PREMIUM]
For our last book, it was when we were getting ready to wrap up our interview with compact disk inventor James Russell, when the question “But when are you going to ask me about music?” came up. Music, we learned was a huge part of Jim Russell’s life (and still is) and interest in inventing that eventually lead to his electronic work (Jim was an audiophile who helped set up a complete commercial radio station before he graduated high school). Since that time, we often had folks mention how important music was to them either recreationally or professionally and we recognized the talents in children as well. One need not look far back into music history to find suggestions that some of the most famous […]
Dyslexia at Work: Say This, Not That
Academic studies of dyslexia in the workplace have all arrived at the same conclusion: the vast majority of adults with dyslexia choose not to disclose or ask for accommodations in the workplace. Of those who do disclose, they often disclose to some but not all of...
MATH: When Words Get In the Way [Premium]
For dyslexic students, the language of math can confuse and obscure. Teachers, tutors, and parents should be aware that language could be interfering with math performance and not mathematics itself. From Dyslexia and Mathematics: Here is an example of a dyslexic student’s sharing of how she becomes confused by what a teacher is saying. The capital letters indicate words that required her to stop and think. Teacher: “We are going to TAKE 25 FROM 61. WRITE DOWN 61 first (I sometimes wrote the first figure I heard before the second one). WRITE DOWN 25 UNDERNEATH it. Put the 2 UNDER the 6 and the 5 UNDER the 1. Draw a line UNDERNEATH. Start at the bottom on the RIGHT. Take 5 AWAY FROM 1. […]