Dyslexia: Disability or Difference?

Research in neuroscience only confirms what I witness every day in the classroom: No two students share the same brain print. Each one learns differently, managing his or her own unique network of cognitive abilities and challenges to access information, make meaning, and express ideas. My students' interests, exposures, skills, and difficulties combine in complex ways to define their school experience. Even my "strugglers" struggle in unique ways.

A condition like dyslexia varies in the way that it impacts students because of the diverse intellectual strengths they are able to deploy to compensate for, and work around, their challenges. In fact, many of my dyslexic students, some of whom are among my deepest and most creative thinkers, ultimately manage to leverage their intellectual abilities to become community and scholastic leaders. Likewise, in the world beyond school, one doesn't need to look far to find high-profile dyslexics who left their academic struggles behind to become leaders in their chosen professional fields.