Dyslexia is a Load of Billshut!
To start, I am looking into how dyslexia is portrayed. I asked a group of students aged 20-26 who did not have dyslexia to explain to me what they thought it was. Most people referred to it as a disability in relation to difficulty in reading and writing, and could not elaborate further. Others described it as a reading problem whereby the letters in the word switch places, making it incredibly hard to comprehend. There is more than one type of Dyslexia and due to this reaction toward the subject, there is not enough public information about this condition. Most of them used the word ‘disability’. This word is described as an ‘a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities, a disadvantage or handicap'. The word ‘Disadvantage’ stands out to me, as I disagree with it being classified this way. People struggle but it doesn't make them any less intelligent, any less creative. In fact, it proves that our minds are more active and unique.
Some people think that because dyslexia is linked to the brain, it could be categorised as a mental illness. This is not the case, although 30 years ago dyslexic people were often cared for by psychiatrists. This demonstrates that people then didn't understand the condition. Nowadays dyslexia is accepted especially as all the research has provided more informative information.
There is no medical reason why people become dyslexic. Most research points towards it being genetic, but some investigations think that there is more behind it. Some believe that it could be down to stuff like premature birth, low birth weight or possible exposure during pregnancy to nicotine, drugs, alcohol or infection that may alter brain development in the foetus. Alternatively, it may be due to individual differences in the parts of the brain that enable reading. There are some additional theories which link dyslexia to other conditions, for instance, an increased risk of having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder aka ADHD which can cause people to take a drastic look at dyslexia and think of the worst-case scenario, or overreact to what the real problem is. Unfortunately, there is no stable evidence to prove any of this.
I discussed my condition with my parents, and asked them what it was like bringing up a daughter who was dyslexic, and whether they thought they had dyslexia themselves. I questioned them separately, so they were unaware of each other’s answers. I talked to my mother first and asked her when she first realised, I had reading/writing difficulties. She replied, “It was around year three”. She thought I was just a slow reader like her and didn’t think it was dyslexia. I asked her if she now thinks of herself as dyslexia. Her response was that she often wondered, but its too late now to be tested. When she was in school it held her back, shook her confidence as being slow meant you were thick. In her university, there was a different way of learning, a more independent and creative way, so there was no holding her back. My mother believes that when she was younger the school was uneducated with the difficulties of writing and reading, however, this has advanced over the last two decades.
My father only found out when getting reports back from primary school that my comprehension was far behind the rest of the year. I wondered if like my mother I got my dyslexia from him, and from his point of view, no. He stated that his strongest points are reading and writing and that if dyslexia is genetic it was not from him.
I wanted to ask them if they think dyslexia is a disadvantage, they both replied no. My mother responded with that it's only a disadvantage if you let it be. My father replied with I don't think any disability is a disadvantage.
When my parents were talking about my experience, they said that the school only supported the children who had severe cases of dyslexia. They were not good at helping and supporting the milder cases. This was why my mother and father had to employ a tutor who understood my condition. She helped me find my strengths and work on my weaknesses in a way that boosted my confidence and made me believe in myself. She helped me to understand that I learn things differently to everyone else and that doesn't make me weird or wrong.
Now I want to produce work, which makes people understand what it's like to be in an academic environment and to have a learning condition. I want to elaborate how I see the text overlap with a slight delay, so people observing the text see something which is massively confusing, however, to me its normal, it's the way I have always visualised text.