Is Dyslexia an Evolutionary Advantage Rather Than a 'Disorder'? (msn.com) 133
LinkedIn recently added 'dyslexic thinking' as an official skill.
And now the U.K. national newspaper the Telegraph reports on scientists arguing that dyslexia is not a "disorder" — but an evolutionarily beneficial willingness to explore: The experts suggested that dyslexia, which causes difficulty reading, writing and spelling, is a useful specialisation and not a "neurocognitive condition"....
About one in five people have dyslexia, and their tendency to push the envelope would have been balanced out by other members of a prehistoric society, leading to a well-rounded group with equally useful skill sets. However, Dr Helen Taylor, from the University of Strathclyde, and Dr Martin Vestergaard, from the University of Cambridge, said that dyslexia was now seen as a problem because modern education systems focused on the things sufferers struggled with and neglected what they excelled at. They reassessed past studies on dyslexic individuals and disagreed with the prevailing theory that it was a cognitive deficit....
[S]ince the invention of written language, dyslexia has been seen as a problem, not a talent. "Schools, academic institutes and workplaces are not designed to make the most of explorative learning," said Dr Taylor. "We urgently need to start nurturing this way of thinking to allow humanity to continue to adapt and solve key challenges." They posit that dyslexic people are naturally more skilled "in realms like discovery, invention and creativity" and that this specialisation stems from millennia of human evolution.... Without the streak of curiosity and willingness to investigate that is commonplace in dyslexic brains, groups of people would likely struggle to survive, they said.
"The deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn't telling the whole story," said Dr Taylor. "We believe that the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity.
The researchers argue this "explorative specialization in people with dyslexia could help explain why they have difficulties with tasks related to exploitation, such as reading and writing.
"It could also explain why people with dyslexia appear to gravitate towards certain professions that require exploration-related abilities, such as arts, architecture, engineering and entrepreneurship."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the story
And now the U.K. national newspaper the Telegraph reports on scientists arguing that dyslexia is not a "disorder" — but an evolutionarily beneficial willingness to explore: The experts suggested that dyslexia, which causes difficulty reading, writing and spelling, is a useful specialisation and not a "neurocognitive condition"....
About one in five people have dyslexia, and their tendency to push the envelope would have been balanced out by other members of a prehistoric society, leading to a well-rounded group with equally useful skill sets. However, Dr Helen Taylor, from the University of Strathclyde, and Dr Martin Vestergaard, from the University of Cambridge, said that dyslexia was now seen as a problem because modern education systems focused on the things sufferers struggled with and neglected what they excelled at. They reassessed past studies on dyslexic individuals and disagreed with the prevailing theory that it was a cognitive deficit....
[S]ince the invention of written language, dyslexia has been seen as a problem, not a talent. "Schools, academic institutes and workplaces are not designed to make the most of explorative learning," said Dr Taylor. "We urgently need to start nurturing this way of thinking to allow humanity to continue to adapt and solve key challenges." They posit that dyslexic people are naturally more skilled "in realms like discovery, invention and creativity" and that this specialisation stems from millennia of human evolution.... Without the streak of curiosity and willingness to investigate that is commonplace in dyslexic brains, groups of people would likely struggle to survive, they said.
"The deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn't telling the whole story," said Dr Taylor. "We believe that the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity.
The researchers argue this "explorative specialization in people with dyslexia could help explain why they have difficulties with tasks related to exploitation, such as reading and writing.
"It could also explain why people with dyslexia appear to gravitate towards certain professions that require exploration-related abilities, such as arts, architecture, engineering and entrepreneurship."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the story
Betteridge's law (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Betteridge's law (Score:5, Funny)
it si, you sinsenitive cold!
Re: Betteridge's law (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Normalizing mental illness is the foundation of half of todayâ(TM)s political activity
The truth of your statement has little to do with Dyslexia.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Normalizing mental illness is the foundation of half of today's political activity
As it should be. Many people here may not remember, people with some physical diseases were stigmatized also. When I was very young I remember my elders whispering saying "You know who as Cancer?". If you got Cancer back then, many people would avoid you and your family. A more modern example is AIDS in the 80s and 90s.
So yes, Mental Illness should be normalized.
You get disgust from any novel pathogen (Score:2)
I've concluded that disgust arises from fear. In particular, disgust at disease arises from fear of catching the disease.
If you got Cancer back then, many people would avoid you and your family.
Back then, people weren't aware of what was and wasn't transmissible from one person to another. They knew that leprosy was transmissible and assumed that other diseases resembling it might be similarly transmissible.
A more modern example is AIDS in the 80s and 90s.
I'm guessing that was largely related to people not yet knowing what does and doesn't transmit HIV infection. Compare the deliberately excessive measures that authorities too
Re: Betteridge's law (Score:2)
crass (Score:2)
Re:crass (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm dyslexic, but diagnosed fairly late; in my teens.
This idea that dyslexia is a talent, or an advantage, frankly, is insulting. Society is patterned around those who are not dyslexic. I don't need someone to patronize me and tell me that my dyslexia is some kind of advantage. If there's a better to way compensate than the ways I've already learned, that's what I need.
Re: (Score:1)
This idea that dyslexia is a talent, or an advantage, frankly, is insulting. Society is patterned around those who are not dyslexic.
While that's absolutely true, it can simultaneously be an advantage in some situations. What I found to be officially insulting is quoting a royal who thinks it's an advantage. Like sure, if you're totally fucking useless, have no responsibilities, don't have to pay for anything or even manage money yourself, then the drawbacks don't affect you. That doesn't mean she's wrong, but find someone less suspicious to cite, right? Because lots of things that affect people in more normal circumstances don't bother
Re: (Score:2)
Which Royal you talking about? The only people quoted in the article are Doctors Taylor and Vestergaard, and a non-profit lady named Kate Griggs.
Re: (Score:1)
Several articles were quoted, I was talking about this one [telegraph.co.uk] (the second link.)
Re: (Score:2)
Several articles were quoted, I was talking about this one [telegraph.co.uk] (the second link.)
Your link is paywalled.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah. It's like telling the really tall kid they'd be good at basketball. Totally insensitive.
Re: (Score:2)
Tell the tall, asthmatic kid, not that I'm a kid any more. I only have to hear it about 1 time in 10 that I go out these days, but I get uglier as I get older so I presume less people want to chat for that reason.
Re: (Score:2)
They probably do not want to talk to spoiled wannabe socialists
Why not? You do.
who have grown up with the protection and benefits of capitalism and yet want to deny those advantages to the future generations.
What I grew up with was sucking hind teat to the boomer generation, whose prosperity was based on America war profiteering during WWII. We sold fuel, metals, and other supplies to the third re!ch. The government knew it was happening, let it happen, then seized the profits of some of the companies involved at the end of the war — which we delayed entry into while our WWI allies were getting bombed into cinders. Pretending that I enjoyed the benefits of capitalism while the nation crumb
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
My child is dyslexic and homeschooled. She isn't diagnosed by anyone because that field is pseudoscience but the behavior is obvious in our reading time. I haven't taught her any way to compensate, simply accounted for it in feedback and approach to teaching her. I first noticed when she struggled with distinguishing b's and d's. Despite the occasional word and number shuffle she most definitely does read and reads at a level several years beyond her peers.
Moreover, she shows no indication of concern over t
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, yes, The predictable plea to authority fallacy follow-up.
Without the pseudoscience there is no condition to diagnose. Merely labels for subjectively assessing trends in perfectly normal variance of thought and neural structure. Their 'diagnosis' has about as much connection to the laws of nature as the dewey decimal system. Their methods of resolution effectiveness on par with the mental manipulation of mesmers and scientology.
"Here, now that you've walked into my office let me show you how you fit wit
Re: crass (Score:1)
Well, are you more creative, inventive and exploratory?
I know that SAP employed a large group of autists in their QA department because, when sufficiently trained and with the right working environment, these people can absolutely smoke a âznormalâoe person in that department.
As such, I wouldnâ(TM)t call it an advantage - but a unique talent.
Re: (Score:1)
Fuck off you triggered cunt. They aren't talking about YOU. They're talking about why possibly the condition was allowed to exist in an evolutionary sense. There are many people who haven't been able to learn in the traditional read and memorize school systems, who yet have very high IQs, and I don't give a fuck if you're one of them because it doesn't sound like you give a fuck if I am one. You're another self centred wanker who wants to be offended whenever you can. I personally found through trial and er
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's both (Score:3)
At least as such terms are defined today.
It's clearly a drawback in some cases, and as it represents a failure to be able to accurately perceive something, it seems like grade-A everyone gets a trophy horseshit to claim that it's not a drawback. But it could also be a benefit in some situations, and a healthy society might well need dyslexics. So while TFA probably isn't exactly wrong, it is an example of black and white thinking.
Re:Maybe it's both (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a layman's misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution does not aim towards advantages, or even survival of the fittest. Evolution is not an optimization algorithm. Some species gain very distinct disadvantages due to evolution or become less fit. Evolution is all about reproduction, what gets to carry on your genetics. Sometimes being fit means you can reproduce more, but sometimes the same feathers that attract mates will attract predators.
Also, very often traits are just side effects of other things. Humans don't have blue prints, it's a lot of chaos theory about how turning on and off hormones at just the right time causes things to form during development. Maybe the same developmental methods that create vision also creates migraines. Why do some people have webbed toes? It's not to help swimming, it's a side effect of toe development.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's a layman's misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution does not aim towards advantages, or even survival of the fittest. Evolution is not an optimization algorithm. Some species gain very distinct disadvantages due to evolution or become less fit.
That's a layman's misunderstanding. "Fittest" means fittest for the circumstances, it doesn't mean most athletic.
Re: (Score:1)
And there are species are are less fit for the circumstances, because of evolution. The classic example, the tail on the peacock. It does a good job of attracting a mate so that you can pass on genes, but it's inconvenient, slows down the bird, ruins the camouflage (compared to peahen certainly), etc. Bird species have several examples of species with features that seemingly exist solely to satisfy the picky females.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps you should read up:
a) what the general theory is about the tail of a peacock - and -
b) what the observation about how a peacock defends himself against predators says regarding a)
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't make it not an optimization algorithm: evolution is not convergent, and anyway the loss function is dynamic and a very long way from convex. That means that local minima can exist in some awfully peculiar places.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it is also important to understand that evolution is often better looked at as working on entire ecosystems instead of individual species. This is why evolution does not just trend towards everyone having 100 babies a year like rabbits. Because, yes this would increase an individuals success, but the ecosystem would collapse if wolves did this.
Evolution will make deer slower if this is easier than making wolves faster.
The only reason a newly hatched crocodile is more competent than a 12 year old hum
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I find I have some problems with numbers as well. If I sit down with a spreadsheet (or even paper, but what year is it?) I can work out the answers to reasonably complicated questions, but if I try to do the math in my head I often go wrong. Thank science for computers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's clearly a drawback in some cases, and as it represents a failure to be able to accurately perceive something, it seems like grade-A everyone gets a trophy horseshit to claim that it's not a drawback.
Agreed
But it could also be a benefit in some situations, and a healthy society might well need dyslexics.
I also agree with this, and would add that a society might become healthier by looking for ways in which dyslexics' characteristics could be put to good use. I think this also applies to ADHD, from which I suffer.
So while TFA probably isn't exactly wrong, it is an example of black and white thinking.
Yes, and as you alluded to above, it smacks of wokeness. Have you noticed that wokeness is often a response to the intransigence and inflexibility of what it's opposed to? So many of these societal trends are just swings of the pendulum.
Re: (Score:3)
I think the gist of the claim isn't that there aren't tradeoffs but rather that the net is positive. I can certainly say that is the case for ADHD/higher functioning autism.
Look around and the most popular people in any field may not be on the spectrum but almost universally the best are. If you have these symptoms they are trivial to recognize in others and they are all around us. Whether it is a doctor/lawyer/engineer/developer etc it doesn't matter. Results don't lie.
You mention wokeness and I don't thin
Re: (Score:2)
We are taking over the world and wokeness is part of the effort by the heathers to take it back.
The people with social skills just wind up forming cliques to keep everyone else down... because they're better at it. Hence the proliferation of bullshitters among the executive suites.
Re: (Score:2)
Hence the proliferation of bullshitters among the executive suites.
And with politicians the world over.
Re:Maybe it's both (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as a dyslexic person the title of the article is without question wrong. In no part because dyslexic is defined as a dis-junction between ones IQ and ones reading age and there is more than one cause. For example the number of times I have had clueless idiots tell me that I just need the right coloured glasses is frankly not funny. Consequently treating it as a single cause condition as the article title suggests is bogus from the outset.
Further I cannot think of a single moment in my entire life where being dyslexic has been of any benefit what soever. It has been a life long burden which has caused huge problems in my education and career. Even to this day I will avoid certain tasks because they are so problematic. The author of the article is a condescending shit frankly.
What is most shocking is that in tests in the UK over 85% of males in young offenders institutions when tested where found to be dyslexic, where maybe 10% of the population in general is dyslexic.
If you want a sure fire way to reduce crime then make sure that dyslexic are not failed by the educational system. Of course that won't happen as it will take at least 15 years before you start seeing the impact and very few politicians think in that sort of time frame. I seriously doubt the statistics in the UK are different in other countries on this.
I was incredibly lucky that my mother was a primary school teacher and she recognized the problem and put in huge amounts of time and effort so that I could succeed and go to university.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the insights.
I was incredibly lucky that my mother was a primary school teacher and she recognized the problem and put in huge amounts of time and effort so that I could succeed and go to university.
Were there any specific teaching methods she developed that you found most useful?
Re: Maybe it's both (Score:2)
Grinding hard work. There where tears and tantrums (this is all 40 years ago), but she just stuck at it. I remember missing lots of playing out while I had to do work. My first English literature assignment at 14 was utter torture, took probably two weeks of my summer holiday been coached by my mother. In the end I got a B, which is not bad. Ultimately I got a degree and a masters. Only person to my knowledge in my primary school class that has a masters. I still avoid written stuff to this day. Got an ADR
Re: (Score:2)
Grinding hard work.
It would seem that you've achieved better educational levels than most people, so kudos and well done to you. I would bet that your mum is proud of you for the effort and what you have accomplished.
Re: (Score:2)
... the 6, 7,8 time table where a nightmare still don't know them, my mental arithmetic sucks but I have a degree and masters in Physics.
Times tables, and mental arithmetic, are - I am convinced - a complete waste of a brain. It's like insisting that you must learn to cut a quill pen before you're allowed to learn to write
Curiosity and Willingness - Misappropriation much (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
> I find it very weird and possibly even offensive that somebody is trying to 'claim' that people with dyslexia are more curious or willing to explore than 'typical' people.
Why is a claim offensive? Lets explore the alternatives:
- Claim is false. In this case, the claim is just not true, some experiment should reveal this. End of story. Who would be insulted by false claim? You just correct people who make the claim.
- Claim is true. In this case, it is a fact. Why would you get offended by a fact? It ju
Re: (Score:2)
We've already done it with things like autism. Now it's dyslexia. Maybe stuttering next?
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub [youtube.com]
NOW DO ADHD (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
that's not fair, dyslexia is actually real.
Re: (Score:2)
fMRI is more real than your 1970's opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
except fMRI is not used to diagnose that made up disease. it's still diagnosed by "clusters of behavioral symptoms" according to the same totally unscientific (i.e., mashed together by the "majority opinion of a select council") dsm manual that, yes indeed, dates back to the 70s.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed it isn't used for diagnosis. Yet it shows the people who have been diagnosed have very clearly different scan results from non diagnosed patients in an fMRI.
https://www.frontiersin.org/ar... [frontiersin.org]
There's a cite which in turn cites many studies on it.
The only open question is, are you going to read it, educate yourself, and become a better person, or will you continue to come across as an ignorant thundercunt demeaning sufferers of a very real disease.
I think I know the answer already so go fuck yourself in
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
well, tbf then there is the small issue of hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy people who have been diagnosed by a bunch of modern shaman for decades and put on a prescription of dangerous drugs with severe and disabling side effects. of course halfway of that treatment those are guaranteed to have developed some actual pathology. but you do you, just let it out on me if it makes you feel better :)
besides that study you cite is very early research, not conclusive at all, and comes a bit late for all those victims.
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry Mr. Trump, you'll have to wait in line.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Today, a high percentage of traveling salespersons have ADHD.
And so there are disadvantages to human communities as well.
Reading and Spelling are two different things (Score:2)
Reading and Spelling are two different things, having problems in one does not mean you have problems in the other, and putting "reading problems" into the category dyslexia makes no sense at all. Because having reading problems is a *real problem*, spelling mistakes are no problem. It is just arsine behaviour of idiots who think spelling is easy.
My reading problem is pretty simple: I do not see your spelling mistakes, or mine. As from context and "first pattern matching" - every damn misspelled word materi
Re: (Score:2)
-its imsple aptrten rgnitoecnoi
Results confounded by the environment? (Score:2)
In a mostly-literate society, having dyslexia will tend to push you to things you are good at that don't require reading, leading to over-representation in things like the arts.
Find some non- or mostly-non-literate societies, test this hypothesis, and report your results.
More of this nonsense.. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Just imagine a slydexic agnostic. Always having to wonder if there really is a Dog.
Re: (Score:2)
The usual joke is about a dyslexic insomniac agnostic, who lies awake all night wondering if there is a dog.
Re: (Score:2)
If you hate Tumblr-cum-Twitter so much, then why are you spending enough time there to become so invested in it?
Re: (Score:2)
Dyslexics strong in engineering? (Score:1)
Now, it’s true there are some technical jobs that reward the ability to sit at a single task, focused like a laser, for 8-12 hours per day. Yes, maybe a condition that forces reduction in human in
Re: (Score:2)
I’m highly skeptical that dyslexics have an advantage in engineering. Most engineering requires extreme levels of literacy and strong communication skills.
I'm highly sceptical too but as a dyslexic programmer I can say that I am highly literate and I enjoy communicating and have never had a problem presenting to audiences etc. Documentation is a little slower as I have to check spelling more carefully than some do but that's probably a good thing.
Where it really hampers me is in very-short-term memory of numbers and novel terms. I can read a number, ctl-tab to another window and get the number completely wrong. I have to cut-and-paste a lot more than normal.
Re: (Score:2)
Your post also suggests more variability in dyslexics than I had previously thought. I’ve known several people with dyslexia who found it simply exhausting to read for anything beyond a very short stretch. They adapted and found careers just not technical ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. So the difficulties can be limited to specific circumstances where work-arounds exist.
Your post also suggests more variability in dyslexics than I had previously thought. I’ve known several people with dyslexia who found it simply exhausting to read for anything beyond a very short stretch. They adapted and found careers just not technical ones.
I read a lot but I do get the classic dyslexia thing of the letters moving around even as I look at them, which is disconcerting and part of the problem I have with numbers and unfamiliar words. However, when reading, the jumble is rarely enough to make it impossible to understand the word and it doesn't bother me except when context allows for two words with the same shape but different meanings like "elusive" and "effusive". I get cross when people post things that are incorrectly spelt because that can r
Maybe (Score:2)
Like how blind people develop other senses like hearing to a greater degree. To make up for their visual deficit. People who don't do well with text may have to develop other means of knowledge acquisition and different mental models to solve problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
blindness is an evolutionary advantage
Where acute hearing is an advantage, yes.
So in world War I we sent physicists (Score:2)
On, it is not (Score:1)
I've never been a fast code reader (Score:2)
and I suspect it's because I have a mild form of dyslexia. It takes my ahead a little while to make sure it's interpreting text correctly, which looks a tad cockeyed and jumbled upon first glance.
But I do tend to come up with creative solutions and different viewpoints on system and UI designs. I suspect my brain "jiggles around more" in that it shoots back and forth between different views on things. It's like I can feel it throwing darts on the wall to see what "sticks" in terms of viable candidates. It w
Re: (Score:3)
I've been known to be very fast at reading code and, especially, at scanning code for errors. But I don't think it involves much reading. It's a pattern matching ability that starts with strict formatting practices, turning the display of comments off (because they interfere with seeing the format), and setting the character size small to get many lines on the display.
I actually learned in college when I had to utilize a Radioshack COCO computer with a 32 column display to avoid the long waits at the card p
Sounds like (Score:2)
There were a lot of phrases in there that set off warning flags in my mind.
Let's see how the peer review goes.
Shakespear spelled his/her name ... (Score:2, Interesting)
... differently every time he wrote it. Fixed spelling is a relatively new invention of the modern world and there is clear indication that it uses cognitive load that could otherwise be used for creativity and broader wording skills.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Shakespear spelled his/her name ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a luxury of English (Score:2)
Interesting. In other more constrained languages - most blatantly Hebrew - precise spelling is essential because a different letter will result in a totally different meaning. In Hebrew vowels are not written, just the consonants.
Re: (Score:2)
precise spelling is essential because a different letter will result in a totally different meaning.
That happens in many languages. E.g. were, where. Was, Has, Had, etc.
Nevertheless it is pretty clear from context what the correct meaning is, or should be.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you might be talking about the illiterate Stratfordian farmer named shakespear, who no one really believes is the same person who wrote the plays.
Large scale studies? (Score:2)
They posit that dyslexic people are naturally more skilled "in realms like discovery, invention and creativity"
I'm willing to go along with this hypothesis but before we accept it as truth, we need to have large scale studies to understand if there is any correlation.
At this point they are merely jumping to conclusions without any solid data.
Sure... (Score:1)
> They posit that dyslexic people are naturally more skilled in realms like discovery, invention and creativity
Nice of them to posit something that has no way of being measured.
Then again, maybe the fact that one of the greatest sources of (and outlets for) creativity is written fiction is all the measurement we need.
I wonder what superpower I get from my complete inability to juggle. Probably "emotional intelligence" or "spirituality".
ludicrous (Score:2)
Nothing in the links suggests that the "alternative thinking" exhibited by dyslexics is anything more than compensatory.
Asserting it's a fortunate extra ability is like claiming blindness is a benefit because they can hear better.
And cherry-picking successful people merely shows that it's possible to still be successful, not that dyslexia itself is causal to success. That's an idiotic assumption.
For example, all the people I know who have dyslexia are pretty dim as well, having trouble stringing not just s
Everyone is different, no-one cares (Score:2)
Given how superstitious and violent prehistoric society was, it is far more likely the consequence of failing to fit-in, was a rock to the skull. Even today, one needs to be 'normal' before one can be eccentric or successful. We might talk about tolerance and diversity but there's still a definition of 'normal' that everyone must meet. Sure, everyone is different but we must be like other people about more than work, food, sleep and sex. For example, "I can do it so you have to do it too". We don't thi
References to the original study (Score:4, Informative)
As someone who is dyslexic, I agree with the authors' statement that "The deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story". Given evolution tends to stamp out variations that lead to deficiencies, it's very likely that at some point in the history of human evolution whatever brain structure leads to dyslexia also led to something valuable too. Maybe the benefit comes from being inclined towards "exploration" (the label certainly fits me) or maybe it's something else, but as a general rule genetic variations that are widely prevalent generally had some benefit at some point. It makes sense to try to understand what the benefit was and find a way to harness it for good in the modern world, rather than telling kids "you're broken because you're different".
It's an advantage ... (Score:2)
In many Universities you get an extra 30 minutes during exams.
Hardly (Score:2)
They always try to cross the bridge that says '100 pounds maximum' and die.
How soon until the reverse correlation is applied? (Score:2)
Maybe (Score:1)
Dyslexia may render the individual less capable of detailed work relying on others to do that, forcing them into management type work.
Functional autism, while putting off most people for social disabilities, enhances detailed work ability in narrow, specialist areas. This makes them more useful to society at the expense of participation. So they receive the capacity to make cool things but not reap much of the rewards. Rejection from society further emphasizes this sort of dynamic.
No. And Autism does not give you superpowers (Score:2)
This article is like the ones that bring up autism, selectively looking at the one in a billion that are like rain man, and not the other billion -1 that struggle with everyday life.
My daughter has dyslexia and dyscalculia. She goes to a school for children with special needs. She will not be able to complete normal (academic) high-school, but will follow an alternative program.
She struggles with every subject that requires reading, which is about everything. There is so much that will remain closed to her.
Re: (Score:2)
Hasn't computers solved much of this? I still look back fondly on when I had the time to spend 12 hours a day reading, but audio books are so convenient and wont cause your eyes to feel scratchy after reading 400 pages in a day.
With the purchase of like a $70 android tablet, cannot everything be explained verbally (are graphics and diagrams hard for dyslexics)? And cant she dictate everything she has to say to a voice to text converter?
Re: (Score:2)
She's been able to use a computer in class with some special font that is made to have the characters more easily to read and write.
The don't provide most of her work electronically, so the computer doesn't help as much as it could.
Dyslexics of the world, untie! (Score:1)
Or traditional learning is a non-advantage...? (Score:1)
So I RTFA, and one potential takeaway is that being dyslexic a) forces you to innovate solutions and/or forces you to work on your other strengths to compensate (the article claims that Churchill was dyslexic and since Churchill managed to excel...,) and/or b) it implies that traditional learning for non-dyslexics is potentially brain numbing, i.e. normals have less impetus to innovate solutions or they tend to group-think since they experience less friction within "normal" society/paradigms. Or it could b
Why not both? (Score:2)
That's a layman's misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution does not aim towards advantages, or even survival of the fittest. Evolution is simply change, and reproductive change in response to that change in advantage that this change confers can change over time.
Evolution is not an optimization simulation. No one is keeping score. There is no 'end of the game' where some species is declared winner. Keep in mind that an evolved trait might not confer any advantage at all.
Maybe itâ(TM)s neither⦠yet? (Score:2)
Ah ... yes ... (Score:2)
It's not a cognitive deficit, it's a cognitive variant. Computers can enhance it with spell check...
so much ignorance... (Score:1)
First, a thought. If something affects 20% of the population, it's not a disability, it's a neurodiversity.
Second, the problem with dyslexia in this country is the ignorance and lack of education and training around it. My daughter is severely dyslexic, was unable to distinguish bdpq until 4th grade. The local public school was garbage, their sped teacher was literally making up curriculum because the school lacked training and curriculum. My daughter was on a path to being illiterate. We caught it early, a
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Hahahahah