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Beneath the Surface, Between the Lines

The word ‘dyslexia’ comes from the Greek words dys, meaning ‘poor’ or ‘inadequate’, and lexis, which translates as ‘words’ or ‘language’. Though dyslexia is a learning disability, it is by no means a reflection of intellectual potential or ability.

 

“While reading and writing can be challenging for dyslexia individuals,” explains the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand, “big picture skills like problem solving, creativity, high level conceptualism and original insights are often real strengths.”

 

It’s estimated that up to 10 percent of the population is dyslexic—including around 70,000 Kiwi school kids—yet, staggeringly, it was not accepted as an official condition by the Ministry of Education until 2007. However, recognition of some folks’ innate struggles with reading or writing has been around since the late Victorian era, when it was known as ‘word blindness’, with German ophthalmologist, Rudolf Berlin, being the first to coin the term ‘dyslexia’, in 1887.

 

The following decades saw significant advances in understanding the condition, with papers published in medical journals in Europe and the US. In 1949, the Orton Society—later the International Dyslexia Foundation—was established, and 13 years later the Word Blindness Centre opened in London. Even though the British government officially accepted the existence of dyslexia in 1987, by which time there were also numerous support organisations, the idea of the ‘middle-class myth’ prevailed.

 

“Through this, dyslexia was construed as a pseudo-medical diagnosis used by middle-class parents to explain their children’s poor performance in reading,” notes Dr Philip Kirby for The Psychologist, “an argument that has dogged campaigners ever since.”

 

It’s a tragedy to consider how many capable souls missed out on opportunities to fulfil their potential over the years, as perfectly summed up by Susan Hampshire in her tome, Susan’s Story: My Struggle With Dyslexia: “When society allows a dyslexic to sink, through ignorance or prejudice, it is not only the dyslexic who loses.”

 

Earlier this year, renowned Kiwi chef Adam Dickson spoke of his four-decade struggle with dyslexia, and how, even though he had been tested for the condition as a child, his teachers lacked the skills and resources to be of any help. He describes himself as “the dumb kid, hanging out with all the other ‘dumb’ kids” who “put in all the lowest possible classes”, leading him to develop his culinary skills “out of necessity”. Dickson has since worked as head chef at events for the Sydney Olympics and America’s Cup, cooked for Hollywood stars, and penned recipes in books alongside the likes of Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver—who is also dyslexic.

 

Verve takes a look at further inspirational figures who have overcome—or perhaps, rather, channelled—their dyslexia to excel in their chosen fields.

Tom Cruise

He may be one of the world’s most recognisable actors now, but Tom Cruise has admitted to having to “learn to quietly accept ridicule” as a “lonely” child owing to his dyslexia. Cruise was diagnosed with the learning condition aged seven years and says that even beyond his school days and into his acting career, “I felt like I had a secret”. It was, he says, a toughening-up experience that taught him how to focus his attention: “I became very visual and learnt how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.”

 

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie created iconic cultural characters such as Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple during an extraordinary writing career that comprised dozens of detective novels and 14 collections of short stories. In 1971, the British scribe—who also penned the world’s longest running play, The Mousetrap—was made a Dame. Not bad for someone who admitted to being the “slow one in the family”, struggling with writing and being “an extraordinarily bad speller”.

 

Richard Branson

Richard Branson says that it wasn’t until later in life that he discovered his dyslexia to be the cause of his short attention span that led to many of his teachers to brand him thick and lazy. By the time the billionaire entrepreneur came to pen his autobiography, Like a Virgin, he realised dyslexia had come to be his “greatest strength”. “If you have a learning disability, you become a very good delegator,” he tells Bloomberg. “Because you know what your weaknesses are, and you know what your strengths are.” Too many bosses are too controlling, he adds, they’re unable to let go, meaning “they never grow a group of companies like Virgin”. Branson is believed to be the only person to have built eight billion-dollar companies, from scratch, in eight different countries. Now he has his sights set on space.

Jamie Oliver

Speaking with the Radio Times in 2017, Jamie Oliver said that upon discovering a kid has dyslexia “you should get down on your knees, shake the child’s hand and say: ‘Well done, you lucky, lucky boy.’” The learning condition certainly hasn’t held this superstar chef back, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to his TV shows, cooking tomes and eateries.

 

Leonardo Da Vinci

Probably the most surprising appearance on this list, as he probably possessed the greatest mind in the history of mankind, but many scholars believe Leonardo da Vinci to have been dyslexic. His notes—often written backwards—were strewn with major spelling errors and he was famously disinterested in school. Even some of his revered portraits possibly betray his dyslexia due to their misaligned eyes likely caused by 2D (rather than 3D) vision—a common result of the condition. According to Salvatore Mangione, MD, associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University, dyslexia is likely “one of the things that made da Vinci so creative, made him Leonardo”.

 

Albert Einstein

The man responsible for the general theory of relativity (one of two pillars of modern physics), the world’s most famous equation (e = mc2), and Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein, is thought to have likely been dyslexic. As a child, he was a late talker, a late reader, and later failed his college entrance exams. Even at his intellectual peak, the physicist was famous for his bad memory and wrote letters to various contemporaries that told of his ongoing struggles with language. In correspondence with psychologist Max Wertheimer, Einstein revealed, “I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.” And he told physicist Robert S Shankland: “Writing is difficult, and I communicate this way very badly.”

Dyslexia Data

  • Dyslexia is part of a collection of conditions called specific learning difficulties, or SLD
  • It is not uncommon for dyslexics to also have attention deficit disorder (ADHD)
  • Dyslexia is up to three times more likely to affect boys than girls
  • Symptoms include problems with rhymes, numerical sequences and mixing up letters in speech and/or writing
  • Dyslexics may also take longer to process and remember information
  • There may be a clear gap between a person’s oral and writing skills
  • Directional abilities may be affected, including struggling to differentiate between ‘left’ and ‘right’
  • Motor coordination might be also be stunted
  • How does one test for dyslexia? Generally an educational psychologist is consulted and the child will take a series of tests to determine his/her abilities.
  • In New Zealand, Dyslexia Awareness Week occurs in October, with the attention of not only raising awareness, but understanding what can be done to support those with the condition

 

For more information, visit the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand at dyslexiafoundation.org.nz