LD Blog

In the community of people concerned about Learning Disabilities there are many people with good hearts and faulty facts. I stumbled across a blog entry entitled “Dyslexia a most misunderstood condition” from Yabba Yabba that illustrates this. Alex Rodriguez of Melboune (AU) used an encounter with a youth as a springboard to discuss dyslexia.

Whilst waiting for a bus the other day, a young teenager (that we can refer to as Fred), shabbily dressed, unshaven, came up to me. We had a short discussion and through this discussion he told me he was “Dyslexic.” It turned out, he was one of those hideous individuals who left school early, a high school drop-out. He did not get a long at school and so he left. He told me he was working as well as studying at TAFE (Tertiary And Further Education); I congratulated him for continuing his education, though I did not condemn him for leaving school early - I see there being no reason to further alienate him from the community.

Like Fred (?) above, most people would have heard of someone at school or at work referred to as being Dyslexic or being politically correct, having a condition called, “Dyslexia.” Often, people with Dyslexia are thought of as being stupid, thick or less intelligent than people that are normal, they may be either, but it is not the condition itself that makes them this, though it may enhance the overall effect.

It’s nice that Mr. Rodriguez has provided a sympathetic view of Learning Disabilities (e.g., individuals with LD are not “thick”), but in the remainder of the article, he’s presented a lot of misinformation. He perpetuates the reversals myth and the modality learning styles idea and he recommends meditation as treatment.

Sometimes I wonder whether any attention is better than no attention.

Link to Mr. Rodriguez’s article.