The Dyslexia
Well apart from being a real pain to spell (honestly it wasn’t a dyslexic that named it) it is a learning difficulty… Quick run for the hills dyslexics have a learning disability!
Yes we do but what is it? Well Wikipedia describes it as:
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read,[1] and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid naming.[2][3]
Dyslexia is distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction.[4][5] It is believed that dyslexia can affect between 5 and 10 percent of a given population although there have been no studies to indicate an accurate percentage.
Okay so that’s interesting and doesn’t really explain what it is… All I can tell you is about my own brand, you see everyone has their own variations… Some can read but not write, some can write but not read, and some can’t make sense of any sequence. I unfortunately fall into the latter as well as a smattering of the second…
Confused? I am. But then I’m allowed to be as I have a piece of paper telling me that I can be. Which of course is a whole other problem, but first my dyslexia – Kate’s Brand.
When I was tested I was found to have the IQ of 123 (an easy number to remember…) and yet I can only arrange a story or sequence of pictures in the right order to an age of eight years. (It’s a problem when writing stories…!) My reading is fine but I have the spelling of a fourteen year old. I add up comparable to a ten year old and my vocabulary is poor. In general knowledge I scored low with a top age range of nine. Well you get the idea… I could go on about arithmetic and symbols but I guess you can see how it works, and how everyone’s dyslexia is different.
So the next time someone says, “I’m dyslexic”, nod and then don’t assume they can’t read… It could be a variety of factors that make up dyslexia, some of which are instantly obvious, and some hide and are only a problem to the person on the receiving end.
Why then become a writer? Well creativity is one huge advantage… Us dyslexics are some of the most creative people on the planet and although we have issues they are all surmountable. So if you have dyslexia do not let it hold you back and never use it as an excuse. Just think that dyslexia certificate puts you on par with Lewis Carroll, Bill Gates, Cher, Charles Dickens, Zoe Wanamaker, Agatha Cristie, Albert Einstein, Danny Glover, Hans Christian Anderson, Leonardo di Vinci… do I need to go on? (Yes? Well just follow this link.) What I can tell you is that the more you practice the better you become, and it does get easier… honest. 🙂
The Autism
I have it and for the moment that is all I am willing to disclose. I’ll add to this but so far I am still getting my head around what this means for me.
The Dyspraxia
Again I have it and it is entwined with the two above… I will explain later – give me a moment to try to understand it myself.
Kate Murray - Cleaver 
My Husband is dyslexic and it went undiagnosed through all of Primary and High School, because he always dealt with computers no one really picked it up after either. When he and I started seeing each other he would give me card for different things (birthday, anniversary etc.) and I started noticing how atrocious his spelling was. After about a year of texting, emailing, getting cards etc. I started to notice patterns, he would have most difficulty with words with a lot of vowels in them, or ones with the same consonants multiple times and for some reason words with “eve” in it – for example ‘seven’ always seemed to be ‘sveen’.
I spoke to him and said I thought he might have dyslexia, he rejected it for awhile until he got high up at the place he was working which meant he was sending professional emails to head honchos overseas. His boss started commenting on his email mistakes. He got himself tested and he does have dyslexia, we worked out a system to help him improve his reading and spelling and as the years have gone on he has improved vastly and he is so much happier. He actually read a novel for the first time since being forced to in high school, how awesome is that?!
That is brilliant. I’m glad he is diagnosed now and it is a shame that it wasn’t caught earlier. Try audible books as well – I am very addicted and have been known to disappear for quite a while just listening to a story. 🙂
He’s not really a book lover (which I think is from not being able to read when he was younger) he is more of a gamer and computer genius, but it has helped him so much with things like coding.
I can imagine. When I was a kid the big craze was to type out a mass of code in order to make a game. They were simple games but I was never able to complete them. There was always a mistake. since then I have stayed away from code… 🙂
Yup, exactly. His sister has dyslexia and was diagnosed in school (hers was very bad) so I don’t know why they didn’t check the other three siblings. I am really glad he listened to me though because it must have been holding him back, since we have addressed it he just moved up and up in that company and when it was moved overseas he went to another company and has gone from strength to strength there. 🙂 He is now able to pick up others boding mistakes when reading through code which he could never do before because he couldn’t process what he was reading properly to find the error. Very proud of all the hard work he has done 🙂
That is brilliant. It is always good to know that with the right coping strategies there is no need for dyslexia to be a disability… 😀
i just have to tell you, i get so frustrated reading most blogs since so few care about grammar or bother to proof read or edit before they publish, even the “professional” web pages for magazines and newspapers, but your blog is so well written and with such attention to detail…i appreciated it before even knowing you were dyslexic, so double kudos to you for being the cream that rises to the top.
Thank you. I do try with the grammar, although I have missed a few things. Thank you for your kind words, they really bought a smile to my face.