Looking at the Dyslexic Brain
The brain can be divided down the middle lengthwise, into the right and left hemisphere. Most of the areas responsible for speech-language processing, reading, numbers, logic, writing and analytical thought come from the left side of the hemisphere. The area which the creativity, imagination, intuition, 3D forms, music and art awareness comes from the right hemisphere.
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Left and Right Hemisphere and the Functions
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This suggests to me that a dyslexic person could be more controlled by the right hemisphere of their brains rather than the left side. This makes me believe that dyslexia is a condition whereby the brain is wired up differently. The part of the brain controlling the reading and writing, instead of it being connected to the left side of the brain, it is actually linked to the right side. Because the brain does not understand it, the brain tries to make it interesting by moving letters, overlapping letters and confusing one word for another. This theory is also discussed on the website I looked at earlier ‘We Can Learn from Dyslexia How to Think Creatively’ which states that dyslexia is defined as your brain being weird and having no cure. This article outlines that dyslexics uses the frontal lobe and the right brain to read and write whereas non-dyslexics use the left side.
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Non-Dyslexic brain scan when reading. Dyslexic Brain Scan When Reading.
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In dyslexia, the brain swaps words which look alike or even makes up words instead (e.g. lapse/relax, would/world, though/through, work/word). Dyslexics can also suffer when it comes to their short-term memory but excel when it comes to long term memory. They may also be slow to master words but when they have the grasp of it, there's no stopping them. Dyslexia isn't just a reading impairment but a reflection of a different pattern of brain organisation and information processing which can be played at positives instead of negatives, change what is difficult into a strength. When it comes to what dyslexics excel at is the ability to perceive information as mental scenes (episodic memory). I discovered this information out while reading 'The Dyslexic Advantage' by Brock Eide and Fernette Eide.
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Examples of Different ways Dyslexics see Words.
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When a dyslexic tries to explain things, they can’t find the words, however, they explain things better through visuals and metaphors. This is because of how they envision it in their own heads and how they struggle to communicate the information in the same way as everyone else. This makes everything more interesting instantly, but not everyone can see it that way.
Reading and writing is a dyslexic person's weakness, but this weakness stands out more than any other weakness. For example, if someone's weakness was drawing, and they were incredibly bad at drawing, it doesn't stand out, it's not a big deal, because you believed that it won't affect you later in life. Here the education system doesn't see anything other than reading and writing as important enough to make an issue, but it's all on the same level, not being able to do one aspect shouldn’t affect your future.
Every brain is brilliant in its own way, they all have different functions to be able to have strengths in areas where other people don‘t. You can’t only have just strengths because it’s the weaknesses which make you human.
In an article online called ‘Dyslexia in the Brain: What Does Current Research tell us?’ they talk about what they believe they understand from a dyslexic brain. The article describes it as a ‘problem' in the brain because they don't understand it, or because it’s not the same as most of the brains in the world.
