compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
"Tired of all who come with words, words but not language, I went to the
snow-covered island. The Wild DOES NOT have WORDS. The unwritten
pages spread themselves out in all directions! I come across the mark's
of roe-deer's hooves in the snow. LANGUAGE but NO WORDS."
What links Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Winston Churchill, Alan Sugar,
Richard Branson, Jamie Oliver, David Bailey, Will Smith, Jack Laws and
countless other high achievers in a huge range of fields?
In this paradigm-shifting book, neuro-learning experts Drs Brock and
Fernette Eide describe an exciting new brain science that reveals that
people with dyslexia have unique brain structure and organisation. While
the differences are responsible for certain challenges with literacy and
reading, the dyslexic brain also gives a predisposition to important skills
and special talents.
While dyslexics typically struggle to decode the written word, they often
also excel in such areas of reasoning as mechanical (required for architects
and surgeons), interconnected (artists and inventors); narrative (novelists
and lawyers), and dynamic (scientists and business pioneers).
The Dyslexic Advantage provides the first complete portrait of the
dyslexic brain.
With much-needed prescriptive advice for parents, educators and
dyslexics, The Dyslexic Advantage provides the first complete portrait
of dyslexia. Supporting their claims with groundbreaking science and
interviews with successful dyslexics and innovative teachers, the authors
of this essential book show how the unique strengths of dyslexia can be
captured for success at home, at school and at work.
This book isn’t about dyslexia, but about the kinds of individuals who are
diagnosed with dyslexia. It’s about the kinds of minds they have, the ways
they process information, and the things they do especially well. It’s not a
book about something these individuals have. It’s about who they are.
Most books on dyslexia focus on problems with reading and spelling.
While these problems are extremely important, they’re not the only -
or even the most important- things that individuals with dyslexia find
critical for their growth, learning, and success. As experts in neuroscience
and learning disabilities, we’ve worked with hundreds of individuals with
dyslexia and their families. In the process we’ve found that individuals
with dyslexia often share a broad range of important cognitive features.
Trying to understand what dyslexia is all about while overlooking the
talents that mature individuals with dyslexia characteristically display
is like trying to understand what it's like to be a caterpillar while
ignoring the fact that caterpillars grow to be butterflies.
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We now know that the brain uses two contrasting strategies to handle information about the world. Each strategy is fundamentally different and therefore quite difficult to translate into the other-which is not at all surprising, given the brain's need to accommodate the requirements of such different modes of operation. It is apparent that both strategies are needed in the long run. For some time now, human culture has been almost entirely dominated by tools and technologies that support the sequential brain strategy-linked with words. However, quite suddenly, in historical terms, a new set of tools has been dumped into our laps. We should expect that moving from one strategy to the other will have powerful consequences.
"Thinking like Einstein" - Thomas G. West
Advantages accompanying dyslexic processing style:
Acronym used for four areas of strength: MIND.
Memory
Most individuals with dyslexia favour episodic over semantic memory. Students with a strong episodic memory often remember facts better when they catch them in story format, whether the stories are real or fanciful. Individuals with strong episodic memories also tend to remember using examples and illustrations rather than abstract concepts or definitions.
They take in information better when they think in terms of cases or examples, rather than abstract or non-contextual definitions. In contrast, students who favour semantic memory will do best when they can boil down specific examples into general principles or underlying themes.
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
Material reasoning: A 3-D Advantage
M-strengths are abilities that help us reason about the physical or material world - that is, about the shape, size, motion, position, or orientation in space of physical objects and the ways those objects interact.
M-strengths consist primarily of abilities in areas that can be termed spatial reasoning. In particular, excelling in spatial reasoning involving the creation of a connected series of mental perspectives that are three-dimensional in nature-like a virtual 3-D environment in the mind. Basically, the strength enables people to see 3-D images in their mind and walk round them, take them apart and reconnect them. Many M-strength children with dyslexia display their creative potential quite clearly outside of the classroom with building, experiment, drawing or creating.
Difficulties
Letter reversals, answering apparently “simple” questions-especially writing (because the ideas that the students are attempting to express or often so complex), many M-strength people with dyslexia reason in largely non-verbal ways and often find it difficult to translate their thoughts into words (often discrepancy between conceptual understanding and ability to express or demonstrate understanding in words).
Key points about M-strengths
Occupations and fields for this strength:
Engineer, mechanic, construction, mathematician, interior designer, industrial designer, Illustrator, graphic designer, architect, medicine, painter, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, landscaper, aeroplane pilot, air traffic controller, dentistry.
Teaching methods - Reading
M-strengths usually benefit from methods that engage their strength in spatial imagery. These typically involved various forms of visual, positional or movement-based imagery. Finding a method that stresses the particular form of spatial imagery that an individual excels in (e.g. kinaesthetic, visual) can greatly increase the likelihood of success.
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
Key points about I- strengths
Occupations and fields
Computer or software designer, scientists, environmentalist, inventor, museum director, designer, choreographer, dancer, musician, actor, chef, historian, philosopher, comedian, nurse, therapist, trainer.
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
Key points about N-strengths
Occupations and fields
Poet, songwriter, novelist, journalism, screenwriter, counselling, psychology, ministry, teaching, coaching, politician, game design, lawyer, sales, advertising, public relations
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
Key points about D-strengths
Occupations and fields
Entrepreneur, Chief Executive, finance, small business owner, business consultants, logistics, accounting, economics, medicine, farmer.
What to include and leave out of writing
I, N, or D-strengths may include excessive or irrelevant details because they often see so many connections and levels of meaning between ideas. For students who have difficulty narrowing down their ideas, it often helps to decide in advance what the focus of their writing will be. One useful strategy for limiting focus is to use the " 5 W/H " approach, where the student decides which of the potential questions (i.e., who, what, when, where, why or how) to answer and which to ignore.
People with strong verbal imagery and or particular weaknesses in word retrieval or verbal output often include too few details. This can be either because they “see” so much detail in their heads that they forget how little they have communicated to the audience or because it takes so much effort for them to put their thoughts into words that they experience working memory overload before they can get everything down on paper. Students with problems of this kind often benefit from reading their work aloud or being asked to form a mental picture of their subject using only the words on the page.
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
Ideas for Assessors:
In order to develop the findings from The Dyslexic Advantage a question could be added to
the diagnostic interview prompts which asks, 'What hobbies did you enjoy doing as a child?'
The answer to this could help the assessor to understand which of the four strengths the person
might fit into, they then could potentially develop or discard that theory during the assessment.
This could lead to specific strategies in the recommendations part of the report.
For example:
M-strength - children that create, build, make e.g. Lego
I-strength - children that develop a keen interest in a specialist field e.g. botany
N-strength - children who can create complex stories, who can ‘see’ and imagine vivid scenes e.g. writing stories, plays
D-strength - children who invent, recreate and develop ideas e.g. merge Lego, Meccano and their train track in order to create the desired result.
We would love to hear from anybody using strategies like these who would like to share findings.
Information taken from: Eide, B & Eide, F. (2011) The Dyslexic Advantage. London: Hay House UK Ltd.
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