Understanding

Years ago, in the forties and fifties, nobody had heard of dyslexia they hadn’t even heard the word.

Children who were slow to learn, or couldn’t learn, people said they were slow, or they were thick or stupid. The children themselves didn’t have any interest in schoolwork or learning, because they just thought they couldn’t learn. They couldn’t make head nor tail of what the words or the letters meant.

These children, or maybe adults, were not given any encouragement. They were just ignored. Whereas the people who seemed bright were given all the encouragement and help they needed. And yet some of these people were very good artists or good with their hands in cooking, needlework or woodwork, and some loved history or geography, or even sports. Just imagine what these people could have achieved if they had been encouraged or helped, we might have had even more brilliant scientists, sportsmen or women, chefs, dressmakers, poets, authors, carpenters and explorers.

But now people understand about dyslexia and dyscalculia. These two do not go hand in hand, some people have dyslexia but do not have dyscalculia. We have some brilliant scientists who have dyscalculia and some brilliant actors who have dyslexia; and I’m sure there are many others in different fields of work who have either or both dyslexia and dyscalculia, but this shouldn’t hold anybody back. Thank goodness somebody found out what these two things were. There isn’t anything wrong with having either or both, in some ways it helps because if you know you have one or the other, or even both, you just work harder to overcome them. Teachers now look for such things in children when they first start school, so these children are no longer called thick or stupid. The teachers address these problems from the very start and they put more effort into helping the children with either or both.

The best part about it is the children of today, and of course some adults, can lead a perfectly normal life without any hindrance.

Whether they have dyslexia or dyscalculia, or both.

By Rita Joel