Helping a teen or preteen discover their strengths can be transformative. It can build confidence, purpose, and resilience. The process takes curiosity, patience, and a willingness to look beyond grades.
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The Dyslexic Advantage Documentary Explores How the Dyslexic Minds Drive Creativity and Innovation
The Dyslexic Advantage, is poised to reshape public understanding of dyslexia. The film moves beyond the usual narrative of struggle to highlight one of the world’s most prevalent learning differences as a powerful engine for creativity, problem-solving, and discovery. Produced by the non-profit Dyslexic Advantage, the film argues that the unique cognitive wiring of dyslexic individuals—who make up nearly one in five people—has been a driving force behind some of humanity’s greatest achievements in science, art, and entrepreneurship. For decades, the conversation around dyslexia has been overwhelmingly focused on its challenges, particularly in reading and writing. While these difficulties are real, this narrow view has overshadowed a remarkable truth: many dyslexic individuals possess a distinct advantage in their way of thinking. The film […]
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The Gift of Seeing People and Events from Multiple Perspectives [Premium]
There is a talent cluster that we’ve seen among dyslexics in diverse backgrounds, and it’s a gift of being able to see people and events from multiple perspectives. Within the MIND strengths framework, this could be in I for Interconnected Thinking, N for Narrative Thinking, or D for Dynamic Thinking. It is a gift to be able to visualize or or imagine a simulation of how people and events can be seen from different perspectives, and it allows empathy for people and situations that others might miss, or a connection of events that others see separately, and predictions that provide positive opportunities for bettering one’s situation or the world, or staving off problems. You might notice children who seem unusually empathetic or observant about the […]
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Is There Anything I Shouldn’t Do? [Premium]
We’re often asked to give suggestions of activities or jobs that might be bad matches for people who are dyslexic, but the best answer is almost always, “It depends.” Dyslexic people tend to excel in creative activities that may include some or all of the MIND strengths (Material Reasoning, Interconnected Reasoning, Narrative Reasoning, Dynamic Reasoning). Difficult activities for dyslexics tend to include secretarial work because of its demands on proofreading and transcription, and rote repetitive jobs that require that tasks be done the same way every time. However, there are few absolute prohibitions when it comes to different activities or fields. In many fields or careers, challenges may arise, but in most cases these can be overcome with workarounds, technology, partnering with someone else, or […]
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Discovering Strengths [Premium]
How do I develop my strengths? How do I develop my strengths in my kids? We get asked these two questions a lot. It does seem that if you ask people how they found their careers or life’s passions there are twists and turns and there seem to be serendipitous events that make a person take one path vs. the other. But it probably is a good idea to have more conscious thought involved with careers or it may be more likely that you (or your child) could end up in an unsatisfying and poorly fitting career. HOW DO MIND STRENGTHS FIT INTO THIS PICTURE? Dyslexic MIND strengths were the result of surveying this community and comparing them to non-dyslexics. It doesn’t mean […]
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Revised and Updated The Dyslexic Advantage: Q & A with Dr. Brock Eide
* MIND is an acronym from the first edition of Dyslexic Advantage. It stands for Material Reasoning, Interconnected Reasoning, Narrative Reasoning, and Dynamic Reasoning. Q: It's been 11 years since the first edition of The Dyslexic Advantage was published. Why is it...
Competence and Confidence in the Early Years
"The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others." - Erik Erikson In the late 1950's and early 60's, Erik Erikson, Harvard professor of Psychology, proposed 6 stages of psychosocial development that supplanted other theories of...
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Connecting the Dots with John Chambers of CISCO [Premium]
“A lot of leaders would say they’re curious. I can tell you from personal experience that most leaders are not. They don’t ask a lot of questions, rarely challenge conventional wisdom, stick with what they know, and often turn to sources that reinforce their existing point of view… my curiosity about things I don’t understand has been a critical factor in my success as a leader.” – John Chambers I recently came across a book review of Chambers’ book by Emma Wallace, a fellow dyslexic who works in a very different industry, fashion. Despite these differences, Chambers’ description of strengths resonated. “Not only has dyslexia meant that for John (and myself) it forced him to learn important skills early on: persistence, finding your […]
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Dyslexia and Mapping Out the Mind [Premium]
When Dan Pink wrote his book about the world needing more skills of the Conceptual Age, many in the dyslexia community couldn’t help but notice that his list looked a lot like common lists of dyslexic strengths: – Artistry – Inventiveness – Big-picture thinking – Pattern recognition – Empathy The implications for education and careers were straightforward. The goals of education and satisfying work should not be mere mastery of information, but a mastery of concepts that could be used flexibly to solve problems and create things that are new. Pink is not a neuroscientist; he is a popular author and observer of trends. Where are we now in our understanding of “dyslexic thinking”? There are many interesting lines of thought coming together these […]
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Dyslexia and Social Studies [Premium]
Many dyslexic students are natural storytellers and may even have a passion for history and analyzing various aspects of society and social change. As a subject Social Studies can be difficult for dyslexic students, so the question is how to build on strengths, but bypass challenges due to extensive reading and writing demands, and rote memorization. Dyslexic Strengths in Social Studies: Strengths in Social Studies may reflect all 4 of the dyslexic MIND strengths: spatial strengths in geography or movement of people, Interconnected reasoning strengths may allow students to see complex events from multiple perspectives and through multiple lenses. Narrative intelligence may help them immerse themselves in stories of the past and analyze decisions of different people experiencing different events. Dynamic reasoning strengths […]
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Starting from the Positive Side of Dyslexia [Premium]
Last week I had a chance to talk with Aillie McKeever of the Schwab Learning Center at Stanford. In 2019, before COVID pandemic had fully taken hold here in the US, Stanford’s Schwab Center had decided to prioritize strengths in their approach to each and every student. They announced a “paradigm shift” to a strength’s based model of education. Every student would have a folder with a strengths section included in their assessment. Neurolearning shared its MIND Strengths Questionnaire with the center to examine the impact on students there. From Aillie: “In 2019, the MIND Strengths questions were included in this interview for every new student. Doing this seems to amplify students’ recognition of their strengths. As Learning Specialists leading the interviews, we noticed that […]
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Dyslexic MIND Strengths… for Kids!
Q: What can you tell me about MIND strengths and dyslexia? A: MIND-Strengths was a concept that we developed in our 2011 book, The Dyslexic Advantage. Both the book and the concept had their origin in our observations that dyslexic people not only shared certain kinds...
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