The Dyslexic Advantage

A topic that I'm very much interested in right now is dyslexia - for the simple reason that Joshua was diagnosed with a form of it this summer and we're putting in a lot of effort to make sure that he gets the best support that he can. So with this in the background I'm always looking for articles that cover this problem and here are a couple of great ones:

Book Excerpt: The Dyslexic Advantage

Q&A: The Unappreciated Benefits of Dyslexia

What I particularly like about these articles is that they re-frame the standard view of dyslexia as an affliction, almost a disability. Instead the authors point out that dyslexia occurs simply because the brain is wired differently and that this alternate structure confers many powerful advantages such as an ability to see the 'big picture', enhanced spatial reasoning and an awareness of relationships between disparate fields of knowledge where these links are invisible to others.

I certainly have an acute awareness of the last strength since for whatever reason my brain seems to see the world differently to most people and it can't help but come up with crazy connections between all sorts of thoughts. Now I'm not dyslexic but there's a tangible benefit to being able to think beyond the mainstream in my view (even if most of my crazy ideas remain just that - both crazy and no more than intangible ideas).

Anyway the book looks like an interesting read (so I'll probably buy it) and there's even a website: http://dyslexicadvantage.com/.