DYSLEXIA

Dyslexia occurs across a range of intellectual abilities, and is apparent in difficulties with language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation. Its characteristic features are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed.

Where people who have dyslexia struggle in these areas, it’s quite common that they exhibit strengths in other areas, such as problem solving, creativity, interactive and oral skills or design. Such is the case of Daniel Britton.

In his work, “Dyslexia”, Daniel has attempted to give the world a glimpse of what is seen through the eyes of a dyslexic person. He has created a typeface removing about 40 percent of each letter, including its key characteristic like, for example, the cross bar in the letter “A”. It’s not actually how a dyslexic person sees letters but the time that you need to try to figure out the “hidden message” gives you an idea of the effort required to read and write.

“What this typeface does is break down the reading time of a non-dyslexic person down to the speed of a dyslexic to recreate the frustration and embarrassment of reading everyday text and then in turn to create a better understanding of the condition”, according his author.

Daniel considers that dyslexia is misunderstood by society and extremely miscommunicated. This condition tends to be resistant to conventional teaching methods, but its effect can be mitigated by appropriately specific intervention, including the application of information technology and supportive counselling.

That’s why Daniel calls for better learning conditions for students with dyslexia to enable them to “excel in the same way that every person can” and to create an understanding and a sense of empathy between non-dyslexics and dyslexics.

More people have joined the effort to make dyslexia better known to the world, like Richard Branson. The founder of Virgin Group discovered he had dyslexia in his early twenties, several years after starting his first business. Now, from his website, Branson encourages some people with this problem to use it as a positive rather than a negative.

He recently received a letter from Honor Smith who also has dyslexia, thanking him for his videos on dyslexia and he replied offering advice and encouragement about having dyslexia. As he said on his website: “I see my condition as a gift, not a disability. It has helped me learn the art of delegation, focus my skills and work with incredible people”.

Today dyslexia affects roughly 10 percent of the world population, who struggle every day with social and educational barriers. Thanks to people like Daniel or Richard these barriers are diminishing all the time.

DYSLEXIA

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