Eh! So what’s dyslexia?
Thus began the saga that got me here. It was the start of a conversation with friend
who informed us that she had been diagnosed as dyslexic. Only when we heard her description did it
occur to us that our eldest son might be dyslexic. He was tested at school and he was. He was re tested at university and it was
confirmed. But where did it come from? According to my wife, it was me. We were, she claimed, wired up the same.
It took a while to get round to it (nearly 3 years) but as I
had decided that in my 50’s there was some tidying up to do in life then it was
natural that getting this question answered would be part of it. So as a 51st birthday present to
myself I booked the test with an educational psychologist. There are no prizes for guessing the
answer. But I can’t be dyslexic I can
read and write OK - apparently not!
Whilst I fit a typically ‘spiked’ profile of big strengths and big
weaknesses, I discovered that I am a very slow reader (timed test) and what I
took to be forgivable distractedness turns out to be pretty bad short term
memory. I honestly assumed that everyone
on meeting someone for the first time kept repeating their name in their heads
in order to try and remember it whilst creating funny mind pictures.
My reaction to this revelation?
Well to be honest I don’t know I’m still coming to terms with
it. In the first instance it was relief,
so that’s why I feel so tired when I’ve been reading. Suddenly a lot of things about the way I
think and see the world made sense so there was a great sense of liberty. On the other hand, however, grim images of my
school days and ‘dodgy grades and marks’ began to force themselves into my mind’s
eye and old embarrassments were revisited.
Curse or Blessing
Is this good or bad?
I just don’t know. I think,
overall, that it’s good to know – self knowledge and all that but I don’t like
labels because often they turn into classification and once classified people
try to limit you or perceive you in a particular way. I am also wrestling with some
of the literature that I’m beginning to come into contact with. Is it a problem or is it a ‘gift’ as one book
claims. My guess is that it will be both
and that that’s just unavoidable. I can
see how the processing of written information has and does affect me. At the same time I can also see how in my professional
life it has greatly helped me. Whenever I
need to speak a group of people I don’t need written notes, I just create
pictures in my mind that I project into the space in front of my eyes so that I
can see the picture and the audience at the same time and let the pictures
guide me. No need for loads of words and
built in flexibility if I need to depart from my ‘script’.
A touch of Philosophy
‘Nature is often hidden; sometime overcome; seldom extinguished.’
And yes, I have looked it up several times because I can’t
memorise it.
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