People with dyslexia often feel frustrated, anxious, and self-conscious, experiencing a sense of mental overload, confusion, and exhaustion from working harder to read and process information, leading to low self-esteem, anger, and social avoidance, but also possess strengths like creativity, big-picture thinking, and strong problem-solving skills. It's a mix of internal struggle, emotional challenges, and unique cognitive strengths, not a lack of intelligence.
Visual Distortions: Real Examples of Reading with Dyslexia
While trying to process language, people with dyslexia may experience any or all of the following: Text blurring and sentences going out of focus. Wide gaps between words or phrases. Bunched text that appears to be in groups.
Although most children with dyslexia are not depressed, they are at higher risk for intense feelings of sorrow and pain. Perhaps because of their low self-esteem, children with dyslexia are often afraid to turn their anger toward their environment and instead turn it toward themselves, which can result in depression.
Rather than being a sequential thinker going from one idea to the next, many dyslexics thrive in environment that allow and foster simultaneous thinking in which ideas are connected via different routes than a straight line.
There is a common misconception that dyslexia only affects the ability to read and write. In reality, dyslexia can affect memory, organisation, time-keeping, concentration, multi-tasking and communication. All impact on everyday life.
Dyslexic individuals often excel in creative fields like art, design and storytelling. Our brains are wired to think visually, making us great at generating unique ideas and seeing connections where others might not.
Famous actors like Johnny Depp, Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom all have dyslexia. Pablo Picasso's teachers described him as “having difficulty differentiating the orientation of letters”.
Some common dyslexia symptoms in teens and adults include:
Establish a routine
Dyslexic learners may find it difficult to maintain concentration for long periods of time and may get tired quickly, so it's a good idea to create a routine which emphasises 'a little and often' rather than trying to squeeze too much work into a longer session.
Understanding and supporting individuals with Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and Dyspraxia is essential for fostering an inclusive and effective learning environment. These disorders can also coincide with other conditions such as ADHD and Autism, requiring a comprehensive approach.
Although dyslexia is not an emotional disorder, it can lead to feelings of anxiety, anger, low self-esteem and depression. Anxiety is the emotional symptom that adults with dyslexia experience the most.
Have difficulty with personal organisation, time management and prioritising tasks. Avoid certain types of work or study. Find some tasks really easy but unexpectedly challenged by others. Have poor self-esteem, especially if dyslexic difficulties have not been identified in earlier life.
People with dyslexia have the ability to see how things connect to form complex systems, and to identify similarities among multiple things. Such strengths are likely to be of particular significance for fields like science and mathematics, where pictures are key.
Complains of dizziness, headaches or stomach aches while reading. Confused by letters, numbers, words, sequences, or verbal explanations. Reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.
But if a child has a low IQ and additional problem with dyslexia, that just is going to mean that they're going to have even more difficulty learning to read. But knowing that, most people with dyslexia are, at least, average or above-average IQ. So, it is not related to intelligence at all.
Research by the University of Strathclyde has found that people with dyslexia are much better at being curious and exploring new ideas and more likely to be found in careers where this is an advantage, such as art, media, architecture, creativity, engineering and inventing things!
Confusion between left and right. Struggling with tasks like tying shoes. Mixing up sounds and syllables in long words. Trouble memorizing important things like their address or phone number.
Children with dyslexia have a higher risk for sleep disorders like not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep at night. Kids with dyslexia might also be at higher risk for breathing problems while they sleep.
Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world didn't let his dyslexia hold him back.
General signs to look for are:
No, dyslexia is not a form of ADHD; they are separate neurodevelopmental conditions, but they often co-occur (comorbid) because they share some symptoms like attention issues and can affect similar brain functions, though their core problems differ: dyslexia is a language-based learning disorder, while ADHD involves inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Many people have both, making proper assessment crucial for targeted support, as dyslexia impacts reading/language processing, while ADHD broadly affects executive functions like focus and self-regulation.
by Annie Hitchman. The biggest lesson I've learned is that being dyslexic is so much more than struggling with reading and writing. Being dyslexic means that you think and process information on the right side of your brain, instead of the left side, where neurotypical people think.
Ryan Gosling has accumulated praise for movies like The Notebook, La La Land, and Barbie. However, behind this fame, his life's story was full of bravery. The Hollywood hunk faced dyslexia and Adhd as a kid. School was difficult, and bullying made it worse.
Actress Jennifer Aniston has publicly shared that she was diagnosed with dyslexia in her 20s, a diagnosis that explained lifelong struggles with reading, writing, and retaining information, leading her to believe she wasn't smart until discovering the learning disorder. She discovered this during an eye exam, where she realized her eyes jumped words when reading, and the diagnosis helped her understand past difficulties, transforming her self-perception.
Sir Richard Branson, head of Virgin, who made his first million by the age of 18 after founding a record label, is a classic example of the successful dyslexic. Branson, a billionaire, admits he did not understand the difference between net and gross profit until it was explained to him three years ago.